Thoughts on Hell: Regrets, I’ve Had a Few…
The two biggest objections I have been getting on my Sunday blog posts are along these lines:
(1) “Why would a good God let bad things happen?” and
(2) “Only a sadistic being would punish us for eternity just for not worshipping/believing in him.”
Today I want to concentrate on (2), although I imagine the full explanation of (2) would also solve (1) as well…
First, let me inform people that although there are plenty of places in the Bible where hell is depicted as a place of punishment and torment, there are also plenty of places where heaven is depicted as communion/fellowship with God, and thus hell is what happens to people who reject the invitation to enter heaven. For example, two weeks ago my pastor discussed Luke 14: 15-24, where Jesus is at a meal with the religious leaders:
The Parable of the Great Supper
15 Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, “Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!”
16 Then He said to him, “A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, 17 and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, ‘Come, for all things are now ready.’ 18 But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.’ 20 Still another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.’ 23 Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’”
Whether or not you agree with his reference, the pastor then pointed us back to Isaiah 25: 6-8 where the prophet writes:
6 And in this mountain
The Lord of hosts will make for all people
A feast of choice pieces,
A feast of wines on the lees,
Of fat things full of marrow,
Of well-refined wines on the lees.
7 And He will destroy on this mountain
The surface of the covering cast over all people,
And the veil that is spread over all nations.
8 He will swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken. [Bold added.]
Now when I say I have “faith in God,” I don’t mean, “I abandon my reason and embrace something illogical.” No, what I mean is that I admit I don’t understand His statements and His plan right now, but I trust in His goodness and I am certain that in the next life, when I have access to more information, then everything will make perfect sense and it will be crystal clear that He created the best of all possible worlds. It will be crystal clear why so many people died in World War II, and why little Suzie died of leukemia, even though she was the sweetest little kid you’ve ever met, etc. Also–the subject of this post–I think it will suddenly become crystal clear why Jesus told people that only through accepting Him could they be saved.
Let me give a stab at what that last “aha!” realization might be like. So to be clear, these are my own musings; this isn’t coming from the Bible. But what I’m trying to do here, is imagine what someone might experience who passes over to the afterlife, and then considers the statements of the Bible from that new perspective.
Suppose for the sake of argument then when you die, there is indeed an afterlife. You are still conscious. However, you suddenly have access to all of history; you can contemplate, in one fell swoop, every event in the universe, from the moment of its creation to its destruction.
Now, from that newfound perspective–which is so far beyond our current abilities that we can barely even talk about it, let alone really imagine what it would feel like–you become acutely aware of the ramifications of people’s free choices. There are obvious things, of course, like seeing the effect of Karl Marx putting his views down on paper, when history might have unfolded very differently if he had written commercial jingles instead.
But there’s more. You realize, to your absolute horror and astonishment, how much extra misery YOU brought into the world. Even if you thought you were a “good person,” the effects of your relative slips were that much more severe. You see that when you were in a bad mood one morning, and honked on your horn unnecessarily when a lady cut you off in traffic, that set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to a bicyclist getting paralyzed 8 minutes later.
(Specifically: The lady who cut you off had been rushing to get her kid to school because they were late since she had forgotten to wash the kid’s uniform the night before. So she felt bad about that, and then you honking at her made her feel even more guilty. Then when the kid complained about something a few minutes later, she snapped at him. Now the lady felt really awful, and didn’t even look in her rear view mirror because she was so disgusted with the whole situation, and was waiting to calm down before saying something else to her kid. That’s why she didn’t notice another car–driven by a 23-year-old who was rushing to a job interview–in her blind spot. When she went to change lanes, the inexperienced driver swerved, and hit the bicyclist. None of this would have happened had you not honked your horn in anger at the lady.)
I imagine cynics will read something like the above and scoff. “Oh come on, if we start thinking like that, then everybody would be guilty of all sorts of terrible crimes…” Right, which is what Christian doctrine teaches. That’s precisely the point I’m making here.
Now in our world, people feel guilty about things they’ve done all the time. However, most of the time they can deal with it by focusing on other things, trying to make amends, or just drowning out the pain in drinking or other activities.
But what happens in the afterlife? What if there, there is nothing to do except exist and be intimately aware of how much suffering your own admittedly improper actions foisted on the world? Every time you did something that was wrong, even by your own moral code (which might differ from the code Billy Graham would have prescribed), it rippled out and was amplified by the similar transgressions of everybody else. You can’t help but obsess over how unimaginably beautiful and happy human society could have been, if you and everybody else hadn’t screwed it up so royally. You also see how much more joy and wisdom that virtuous acts brought into the mix, and you wish you had done more on that front, as well. The gap between how much of a “good person” you thought you were, versus what you did in practice, was bigger than you could possibly have imagined when you were alive. You are simply astounded at the depths of your ignorance when you were alive, and you can’t believe you walked around, feeling pretty content and justified in your actions.
I daresay that such a state affairs would be, quite literally, a living hell. And what specifically would be so awful about it? After all, it would be pretty neat to have such a keen knowledge of good and evil, wouldn’t it?
No, in that context, the knowledge of good and evil would be a death sentence. Your eternal existence would be one of inconceivable suffering and torment. You would want to forgive yourself, but you would lack the power to do. You literally would be unable to forgive yourself, and so you would persist in eternal suffering and damnation.
Unless… There would be one group of people who could escape from this torment. This particular group of people had lived just as evil lives as everybody else. The significant differences, though, are that this particular group had even while alive admitted they were miserable sinners. So that right there eased the agony in the afterlife, because at least they were now just filled in with the details about how they had hurt so many people through their failures. Yet more important, these people went further and had admitted that there was someone more powerful than they were, someone who did have the power to forgive them. And since they had subordinated their own will and desire to His, when He told them He forgave them, and that they were welcome to spend eternity in bliss with Him, they believed Him.
Unfortunately, for the others, they had decided that they would not subordinate their own will and control of their destinies to this man. They did not believe him. So even if he told them in the afterlife that all was forgiven, that they had the freedom to come join the banquet with everyone else, they wouldn’t feel right in doing so. They would prefer to remain in isolation, pondering their miserable predicament and cursing the universe for being unfair.
In closing, let me reiterate that the above are my own musings; this isn’t something that I got directly from the Bible. But suppose there is an afterlife, and to be in it feels something like the above. Would the doctrines of the Bible seem so silly or monstrous in that light? Wouldn’t Jesus’ sermons be a lot more intelligible, if He knew the above was coming, but had to convey it to a bunch of simpletons?
Bob,
I don’t think you’ve dealt with either objection effectively.
You’ve offered as an apology for God, as far as I can tell, “1) people *choose* Hell, so God is somehow off the hook, and 2) everything will make sense when I’m dead, at least that’s what I believe, even though I admit I don’t have any particularly watertight reason to believe that now, except that doing so is convenient for me because it helps me rationalize the Bible and cope with my perception of my own sin, and trust me, just trust me, this isn’t a rejection of reason.”
Neither of these make much sense to me. On #1, if I sell myself into sexual slavery for $1, and later come to realize this is roughly 1% as bad as Hell, which is of course much more enjoyable than hell but also quite tortuous, and nowhere near worth $1 (nor any amount of money), and I pretty quickly come to deeply regret my now irreversible decision, I don’t think the fact that I actively chose this way of life serves as an excuse for God any more than for the person(s) to whom I have sold myself into slavery. God, in fact, would be even less excusable than my new owners. He *created* me this way. He can’t just say “Jake had free will, and he willingly rejected my oh-so-reasonable offer, so it’s his fault I’m now torturing him for eternity.” I mean, I don’t even have the cognitive ability to *understand* the full implications of rejecting his offer, and that’s assuming I clearly understand the offer itself. (I do, after all, constantly have to deal with the Devil trying to pull the wool over my eyes, not that the Devil is God’s fault or anything…)
As for #2, I think you’ve made a false dichotomy there. What exactly is the difference between understanding my sin and feeling horrible about it (all the time), and understanding my sin and feeling horrible about it WHILE admitting my sins and accepting that someone else cares about me and will make everything make sense eventually and fix it? How is it even possible for me to feel so terrible about the consequences of my actions in the first place, without admitting that I’m a sinner and understanding the full nature of God’s reality? If I were in denial about any of this, I wouldn’t feel so terrible about it, would I, or else I’d have an imperfect understanding of the universe and my role in making it a worse place to live.
But let’s cast those objections aside for a moment and say your arguments stand. Let’s say that everybody suffering in Hell right now willingly chose to be there, they were completely aware of what they were getting into when they did whatever they did to get them there, all their lives, they fully understood God’s offer, and turned it down, and God can’t be blamed, He gave them the gift of free will, and they just messed it all up, and now it’s all their fault they’re being tortured for eternity. And that good Christians can simply admit they are born with sin, and ask God’s forgiveness, and accept Jesus, and join Him at the banquet and everything else, and everything is hunky dory that way. I know you said that’s just “your musings,” not based on the Bible, but doesn’t it actually *celebrate* the original sin of Adam and Eve? It’s inconsistent with the Bible itself. Adam and Eve’s mistake was to disobey God by becoming able to “know good and evil,” “their eyes were opened,” “they became like God, knowing good and evil,” basically exactly what you’re saying people should do all the time. Isn’t the moral of that story that we were intended to remain ignorant of such fancy ideas as “good” and “evil”, that we’re just supposed to live our lives, take care of the land God gave us, tend his flocks, blissfully unaware of our sins, which exist whether we know about it or not (the story implies they are pre-existing…)?
Finally, let’s suppose for a moment that you dealt with this objection effectively as well. That now you’ve effectively solved the problem of good and evil, in a brilliant fashion, and that you’ve excused God from the sadism implied by the existence of Hell, and that all of your explanations are consistent with the Bible. At such a point, would you be able to articulate why the resulting paradigm is be preferable (in terms of what’s likely to be true, not in terms of what would make the world a better place or what would make us feel good) to any and all alternative explanations for the nature and origins of morality, sin, and even the Bible itself, *including* the possibility that we just haven’t figured any of those things out yet, and the jury’s still out on all this Jesus stuff? Would you assign a point estimate to the probability that any of those alternative explanations are valid, and would any such estimates be at least above zero, if not above the probability that your explanations reflect the true nature of the universe? (Maybe this calls for another blog post…)
Best regards,
Jacob (a Jew)
“so it’s his fault I’m now torturing him for eternity.”
Jacob, you (willfully?) ignored Bob’s whole point: God is NOT torturing anyone. You do it to yourself.
“God is NOT torturing anyone. You do it to yourself.”
Gene, sorry, but did you miss the second paragraph? As I understand it, that’s exactly the point Jacob was dealing with in that paragraph.
Furthermore, why is it that we are all punished for the sin of Adam and Eve? Should we not have the free will to make that decision about eating of the forbidden fruit ourselves instead of having the curse passed down to us?
How can it be free will if we aren’t free to chose not to sin? Ah ha, you say, but you are free to make that choice every day. Yet Christian philosophy teaches that we are born into a fallen nature and as such cannot help but sin all the time. Even new born children are sinful beings, correct? How is this free will?
“Gene, sorry, but did you miss the second paragraph? As I understand it, that’s exactly the point Jacob was dealing with in that paragraph.”
No, that was the point he entirely failed to deal with in that paragraph. We did not sign a voluntary slavery contract with God that he now requires us to follow through on: we hold ourselves in bondage.
We are punished for the sin of Adam and Eve because they acted on behalf of us as our representatives. We were perfectly represented by someone God selected in his infinite wisdom. Finite man could not have selected better or done better him/herself. For a complete explation, see “Chosen by God” by R.C. Sproul.
Wait, I thought god created Adam and Eve? Are you saying that the were already there in paradise known as the garden of eden?
No, (there is a branch of theology that believes we always existed, but i disagree with it). What I mean is that, although we were not yet made, we were still represented by Adam and Eve. He was acting on our behalf. Romans 5:12 says,
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned”
Think of it this way, God says, Adam and Eve will be the heads of the human race. Their behavior will perfectly represent the desires of all to come. Being pure, all our pure, being evil, all our evil. They were chosen as the BEST representatives. Because they failed, it is certain that all would have and do fail.
So god, being perfect, had an imperfect creation that failed. In other words, god failed. Gotcha now. Thanks.
Richie, God made no mistake in His creation. He created Man and Women. He gave them a choice. What giving them this choice wrong? No. They freely chose to sin. God allowed this, for sure. God allowed sin, this is true also. But God did so for a huge reason. By allowing this failure, it allowed God to demonstrate both His Love and Mercy, as well as His Justice and Righteousness.
Tim, a being capable of creating imperfect entities must itself have the property of being imperfect.
A perfect being could only create perfect entities, as its properties must be perfect and creative nature is a property.
Perfection begets perfection.
Imperfection begets imperfection.
Also, if God wanted to demonstrate his justice and righteousness through creation, that would imply he was unsatisfied in his original state, which further adds to the necessity of an imperfect God, since, of course, perfection implies complete satisfaction.
“Perfection begets perfection.
Imperfection begets imperfection.”
Is that from Second Kings? Once you get into the begets and begats in a Bible thread they go on forever.
@Ego
“a being capable of creating imperfect entities must itself have the property of being imperfect.”
Why?
“A perfect being could only create perfect entities, as its properties must be perfect and creative nature is a property.”
We were perfectly created. There were no flaws in our creation.
“Also, if God wanted to demonstrate his justice and righteousness through creation, that would imply he was unsatisfied in his original state, which further adds to the necessity of an imperfect God, since, of course, perfection implies complete satisfaction.”
Reminds me of an argument made by Mises in his book “Human Action.” However, consider this scenario. Using the term utils as a measurement for satisfcation, lets say God, before creation, held x number of utils. Now, it’s faulty to assume He had to bringa bout creation in order to increase His utils, or somehow, he had a decrease in utils. However, it is reasonable to assume that He brought about creation to maintain His level of X utils. All of God’s actions are done to maintain His utility.
Tim Miller:
“a being capable of creating imperfect entities must itself have the property of being imperfect.”
Why?
Because perfection is absolute. Anything less than absolute perfection, which is the case for imperfection creations, implies imperfection.
This dovetails nicely with my philosophy. I am me, as ego, the universe’s creative, perfecting nothing. All the world is mine.
“A perfect being could only create perfect entities, as its properties must be perfect and creative nature is a property.”
We were perfectly created. There were no flaws in our creation.
To the extent that you do not serve my interests, you are imperfect.
“Also, if God wanted to demonstrate his justice and righteousness through creation, that would imply he was unsatisfied in his original state, which further adds to the necessity of an imperfect God, since, of course, perfection implies complete satisfaction.”
Reminds me of an argument made by Mises in his book “Human Action.” However, consider this scenario. Using the term utils as a measurement for satisfcation, lets say God, before creation, held x number of utils. Now, it’s faulty to assume He had to bringa bout creation in order to increase His utils, or somehow, he had a decrease in utils. However, it is reasonable to assume that He brought about creation to maintain His level of X utils. All of God’s actions are done to maintain His utility.
Why would a perfect being’s utils fall? Falling utils implies a degradation of being, and a perfect being is immune from degradation of being.
Read my post again. I never said God’s utils falled. However, they would fall if He failed to do what pleased Him most. But, being an egoist, you know that an individual ALWAYS does what he/she desires most. God, by the act of being God and doing what God wants, maintains perfect utility.
You still didn’t answer my question as to why a perfect being, if HE creates something, has to create someting perfect.
As far as whether we were created perfect, your satisfaction is not the measure of perfection. It may be the measure for your enjoyment, but your decisions and beliefs do make universal truths. You can believe and judge all you want that you can survive being hit by a freight train going 200mph, that doesn’t make your belief true.
Tim, Egoist’s points have been handled in theology for centuries. He is an idjit. Leave him be.
@Gene.
Okie Dokie.
According to what is written here god forces you choose on the basis of imperfect information — he witholds the truth, and the understanding you need. Then if you choose wrong he doesn’t offer mulligans. Sounds cruel to me. And like god at the very least shares the blame, even according to this worldview.
What truth is God withholding?!
Ex hypothesis in Bob’s musings, a true knowledge of good and evil, a full understanding of the real effects of one’s smallest action. Bob is quite explicit about that.
I personally don’t believe god witholds information anymore than the Great Pumpkin or Thor withholds information — and for the same reason. Which is why I talked about that worldview.
The bible says in Romans 1:18-25 that the issue of rejecting or not believing in God is not based on a lack of knowledge, but rather, on a moral desire to reject Him. In the bible, the term “fool” is always used to speak of a fallen moral character. ” For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth, since what can be known[o] about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse. For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.
Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.”
“Jacob, you (willfully?) ignored Bob’s whole point: God is NOT torturing anyone. You do it to yourself.”
Correct. That which does not exist cannot possibly DO anything.
Theists are indeed torturing themselves by attempting to put ego in God instead of themselves.
Gene,
Let’s say for sake of argument that I misunderstood Bob’s point. Let’s say I even did so willfully. I don’t think I did, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as important as the issue itself. So let’s assume for the sake of reasonable discussion that my original comment was based on a faulty understanding of Bob’s point, a *wilfully* faulty understanding, and that Bob’s point is precisely as you’ve stated it — that “God is NOT torturing anyone. You do it to yourself.”
So, given that assumption, for the sake of taking Bob’s point seriously, what premises can we agree on before discussing it? I suppose we can agree that there exist two possibilities, A and B, which are together exhaustive and mutually exclusive, but only assuming that Hell actually does exist (and, for the sake of this discussion, let’s also assume that Hell exists, and that it does entail some very major suffering). That is, the probability of A + B = 100%, and the probability of A *and* B at the same time is zero, where A and B are exactly as I’ll now describe them.
Possibility A: Bob’s point, as you’ve stated it, is completely correct. God doesn’t torture anybody, and if you’re in Hell then you (and you alone) do “it” to yourself, “it” being eternal suffering. *You* torture you, not God.
Possibility B: God, in however slight or technical a sense, is on some level torturing people in Hell. Whether because he created Hell in the first place, or because he designed human beings in such a way that they would inevitably sin, or because even though He gave them free will He was fully aware that at least some of them would end up torturing themselves in Hell yet he failed to stop it, or for some other reason entirely I haven’t considered, God is on some level responsible for the suffering of Hell’s inhabitants. That’s Possibility B.
We would agree that these two possibilities, A and B, are exhaustive (i.e. P(A + B) = 1) and mutually exclusive (P(A & B) = 0), correct? We would agree that either God is on some level torturing people in Hell, or he is not torturing people in Hell in any way whatsoever, and He can’t be both torturing people in Hell AND not torturing people in Hell — that either A is true, or B is true, at least assuming that Hell does in fact exist, and that it does involve some sort of very serious suffering indeed, which, again, we should assume for now for the sake of discussion. Right? Right.
Well, I would argue that both possibilities A and B naturally imply conditions which most Christians would consider somewhere between unrealistic and blasphemous, so neither can be true, and thus the underlying assumption — that Hell exists, and that it involves some major suffering of whatever kind — is basically wrong, or else Christians just don’t understand what God is.
Now, let’s assume for a moment that Possibility A is actually the case — that in fact, God doesn’t torture anybody, that we choose to torture ourselves, in Hell. This would imply that God is not all-powerful — there must be some limits on his power to create and destroy. Why is this so? Because if, as we are assuming under Possibility A, God is not at all responsible for torturing and suffering in Hell, then he couldn’t have possibly created Hell, because surely the creation of Hell (not to mention the sinners, the Devil, or any number of other necessary factors for suffering Hell) would imply some sort of culpability for what goes on there. In other words, the existence of an omnipotent God would necessarily imply that Possibility B is actually the case, but we are assuming for now that Possibility B is NOT the case, and that Possibility A is correct. So Hell must, under Possibility A, be the creation of the Devil, or perhaps of sinners themselves by means of their free will, which would also then have to be something that wasn’t created by God, or perhaps through some other mechanism I haven’t considered. Perhaps Hell, the Devil, our free will, or whatever else created (or creates) Hell and its suffering is (are) in fact not a part of God’s creation — this would have to follow logically from assuming Possibility A were truly the case. And perhaps this is true! Genesis tells us that “In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the earth,” but we never get any description of the creation of Hell. Perhaps, then, Hell is a pre-existing condition. Perhaps Hell is NOT a pre-existing condition, but free will IS, and it’s actually the free will of the sinners that creates Hell and all of its suffering and all of the torture there, and that’s that. Then again, perhaps all of these explanations are wrong, and some other explanation is correct.
But whatever the case may be, Possibility A is in conflict with God’s omnipotence. Were God omnipotent, then by definition free will, Hell, suffering, torture, the Devil, and everything else would ultimately be his creation, and also within his power to shape and to fix and to make better, and would on some level be his responsibility, i.e. Possibility B would obtain. But a God without omnipotence would seem to conflict not only with what’s in the Bible, but with most Christian doctrine and belief, including, probably, Bob’s.
Now let’s assume that Possibility B is the case — that God is on some level responsible for what torture goes on in Hell — then Bob’s point is, I suppose, not correct, by definition. Note that God doesn’t have to be TOTALLY responsible for torture in Hell under Possibility B. He could be merely partially or even tangentially responsible. Under Possibility B he could have still endowed his creation with a small piece of his power, the gift of free will, and the ability to actively choose Heaven over Hell, and therefore if you are in Hell then it is your choice to be there, and you are therefore torturing yourself. But God would still responsible on *some* level, if only because he created Hell in the first place, or because he understood that your “free will” was not free from his omniscience as such and that you would ultimately choose to go to Hell and yet he did nothing to stop you, in his infinite power and wisdom, or for some other reason we haven’t considered yet. Even this minimal level of responsibility would be consistent with Possibility B.
So Possibility A seems to suggest a God that is not all-powerful, an Possibility B seems to suggest a God that is on some level responsible for the torturing and suffering of at least some of his creations in Hell, and yet if we assume that Hell exists and that it is a place of suffering and torment, either A or B must certainly be the case. What are we to conclude?
In any case, I think that Bob’s original point was closer to Possibility B than Possibility A, but was really something else, Possibility C. I think Bob, if he believes in Hell, probably thinks that God created Hell, and that God therefore bears *some* responsibility for the torture and suffering there, but that the bulk of the blame falls on those who end up there, because they were given the gift of free will, and they rejected God’s invitation to His Kingdom. But I think Bob also has faith — for reasons he hasn’t clearly articulated (at least in this blog post) — that this is the best of all possible worlds. Hell is God’s creation, and some people choose to go there, but any other situation would be “worse” than this. This is the best universe there is. Thus God, in Bob’s mind, is both all-powerful (including all-knowing) and all-good, and this Possibility C is different from Possibility D in the sense that because no better universe is possible, God is not really “torturing” anybody, rather God is doing what must be done in the best of all universes, so anything different would be worse, and which is different from Possibility A because God is, in *some* sense, torturing people in Hell. Bob seems to hope and believe that when he dies, all of this will make sense in light of God’s revealed truth, whatever that may be, perhaps some Possibility D, some unimaginable set of assumptions quite different from A, B, and C, which all hold beautifully and which produce some wonderful set of conclusions.
I, for one, think neither A, B, nor C is correct, though I can’t comment on Possibility D. I think it’s far more likely, given the available evidence, that Possibily E is correct — that the idea of Hell is yet another human mistake, a sin, if you will. It’s an error, a failure, or a contrivance of some kind. Surely you believe in human error…
But this is Bob’s blog — he should be considering that sort of thing here, not me. He brought up the existence of Hell here, and whether or not God is in some sense responsible, and that’s all I feel comfortable discussing at length.
A) Hell wasn’t made for humans. Initially it was created for the angels who left God of their own free will, knowing full well the consequences of their actions. Hell was later expanded to include the capacity for humankind.
B) We aren’t tortured in hell, typically the word used is “Torment”. God doesn’t exist in hell to be able to torture anyone, nor are devil and his angels in hell to torture anybody. Hell is a place of individual torment; people do it to themselves. CS Lewis’ “The Great Divorce” has a great depiction of hell and I would suggest reading it. There, people are afraid of heaven, not of hell. They are afraid of shedding their skin and accepting who they are in Christ.
C) With regards to the sadism implied by Hell existing. I disagree, it isn’t sadism, it can’t be. If you are God, and you exist everywhere, and yet you created a being that has the free will to choose separation, the only merciful thing you can do is create a place where God does not exist. That’s what hell is, a place where God is not, where God does not exist; made for those who do not want anything to do with God.
I don’t know if it’s correct to say Hell was created for anyone. Contray to popular notion, Hell is not the absence of God, but the full presence of His wrath. So technically, it first exists for the Angels because they brought his wrath down first, but it exists for humans as well because we bring down His wrath as well.
What are your assertions based upon?
One is the simple notion that God is everwhere. If there is some place where God is not, then God is not omnipresent and is no longer God. Also, Psalm 139: 7-8 says, “Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go up to heaven, You are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there. ” God must be everywhere. Someone once said, “It isn’t the absence of God that makes hell terrifying, it is his nearness that makes it so. Hell is not the absence of God, but the absence of his mercy and grace. Oh yes, God is present in hell to exercize perfect justice and judgment.”
To clarify my statement about Hell being created, I take it back. Yes, it was created because God and the bible say it was. What I was trying to clarify is that Hell isn’t simply a place without God or a place that is in and of itself a terrible place. Hell is what it is because God is there to make it terrible. Sorry about the confusion and mistake.
Cool, I at least understand your perspective now. I’m still not sure that I agree . . . what you’ve quoted seems to be referring to physical flight from God . . . which may or may not apply to the afterlife . . . I tend to think it doesn’t.
I’m not a Sola-Scriptura guy, myself. (If we were supposed to go Sola Scriptura, why isn’t there a table of contents?) Rather, I believe it literally when Jesus says that the Apostles were given the authority to bind and loose, and Peter was individually given the authority to bind and loose.
So taking that in context of the Apostles naming new Apostles, (Matthias, laying hands on Paul) and that there are at least 4 organizations (Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican/Episcopalian, Coptic) that validly claim to be “descended” (for lack of a better term) from the original 12 . . . and the fact that the Bible was compiled by the aforementioned Apostolic organizations . . . I have to believe that the Bible’s Authority comes from the Church, which gets its authority from Jesus.
Hmmm…I see what you’re getting at, but I think 2 Timothy 3:16-17 clashes with that idea.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
If scripture alone is not enough, then “the man of God” is NOT complete. This means that we cannot rely on the bible to be true. In turn, this would mean you couldn’t even rely on the bible to prove the apostle had any authority. That’s why I believe the bible teaches it has all the information and authority necessary.
I just realized, we never clarified what your interpretation of binding and loosing is. Would you explain your view on these two words?
Additionally, Matthe 18 also says:
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
But here’s Christ is refering to church discipline. (see full context) I would think binding and loosing mean the same in both context.
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.
@Tim Miller
Ah, I just now saw this reply.
I would say that this was Jesus giving the Apostles the authority to forgive sins in confession, and proscribe discipline, and to interpret the scriptures and Jesus’ message.
I further believe that this authority was passed on through the laying on of hands (Paul tells us that they are to be cautious of who they lay hands on.) and that this laying of hands causes one to join the ranks of those with these abilities, and this ‘rank’ is known today by the term ‘bishop.’ (which, btw, I’m not a member of, so any interpretation that I come up with is 100% fallible.) 😀
Furthermore, I believe that when all the Bishops get together and teach authoritatively about something, they cannot teach error *on matters of faith and morals*.
Lastly, the Successor of Peter (Keys being a sign of an office, there must necessarily be a steward of the keys . . . ) cannot teach error on faith and morals. He could publicly proclaim that all Catholics are supposed to be for the San Diego Chargers, and I wouldn’t have to obey because it’s not a matter of faith or morals. He would be incapable of saying that we should be for the Yankees, however, because that’s clearly morally wrong.
@ Drigan I’m replying down below so that we have more room again
🙂
(Sorry, nesting got too deep and I wasn’t able to reply to your last comment)
The problem with your interpretation of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is that it proves too much. When that was written, what was scripture? Only the Old Testament. Therefore, if that passage proves that scripture is sufficient, then it also proves that the New Testament was unnecessary.
You are going the right direction, but you’re going a hair too far.
I don’t *need* the Bible to be true to back up my beliefs . . . Jesus saw to it that early Christians were taught His truth after He died, but *before* the Bible existed. He did this through the Church he founded upon the rock of the keys (a symbol of authority in ancient times) he gave Peter. So I just need to listen to the Church that Jesus founded. (And I don’t really care which branch of that Church you go with . . . there are ~23 variants of Catholicism, several of Orthodoxy, and Copticism . . . Catholicism is the *most* complete, but at least you won’t go *wrong* in the others.) All that said, the Bible *is* true. And all of it *is* useful for teaching . . . but as 2 Peter 1:20 tells us, interpretation of prophecy is not subject to personal opinion. (but then . . . that’s my interpretation!) 😀
Also worth noting: the Bible itself tells us not to rely on it as the definitive life of Jesus. (“couldn’t contain all the works. . .”)
I Know! same problem….
I respectfully disagree with you, but 🙂 Touche! I still want to point out that, you can’t make any of your statements unless you believe the bible is true. Otherwise, you couldn’t say that “Jesus saw to it that early Christians were taught His truth after He died” You still have to rely on the truth of the bible to say that any apostolic authority still exists.
However, how would you interpret those verses? Even if you decide to place them as only applying to the OT, that would still make them sufficient, and all other sources of knowledge unnecessary for living a Christian life and salvation.
No, I really don’t need the Bible to be true to rely upon Apostolic succession. It never needed to be written . . . my reliance upon the Apostles could have come through other historical works. As it is, the Bible is the most useful work to back myself up with . . . and I’ve gotten into the habit of using it in part because most Christians/Quasi-Christians (which happen to be most people open to religious dialogue that I deal with) are willing to accept it as authoritative or at least understand it to be ‘special.’ I accept it as authoritative because Jesus said the Apostles had the authority to bind and loose, (and specifically Peter was given stewardship of the keys) they passed that authority on to further people (known as bishops), and they have declared that the Bible is authoritative when properly interpreted.
Alright. Well, I don’t think you’ll mind that I prefer to stick to the bible personally. Right? You still confuse me when you state things like “Jesus said…” Because if you didn’t have the Bible, how could you know what Jesus said?
@Tim Miller
No, I prefer that you stick to the Bible, it’s really all you’ve got if you don’t have apostolic authority to lean on. I don’t believe it’s the *full* truth, but it at least *is* truth, and better that than falsehood. Of course, if you were to accept the fullness of what Christ taught, I’d be pretty pleased about that. 😀
I’m not saying that the Bible isn’t important, I’m saying that the same insights *could* have been passed down apart from the Bible . . . but most weren’t because they *were* included in the Bible, so they didn’t need to be passed down in other ways. Some things clearly come to us from Apostolic Tradition, however, and those things carry just as much weight as if they were in the Bible. One such item is the Trinity. Nowhere in the Bible does it say *that* there is a Trinity, or *who* is in the Trinity, but we know through Apostolic Tradition that the Trinity is comprised of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Assuming that you accept the Trinity, you already implicitly accept Apostolic Tradition, but may not realize it.
LOL, I bet you would! But you know us PCA guys, we’re rather hard to budge an inch. 🙂
I actually DO believe the bible teaches the Trinity. For instance, the Baptism in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy spirit give heavy weight to the divinity of the HS. Additionally, Acts 5:3-4 equate lying to the HS with lying to God. So if the HS and God are equal, and Jesus says, “I and the Father are one”, that would (in my opinion) lead to a view of the Trinity.
*grins* yep, it’s fun challenge to move you guys a bit, though. 🙂
Sounds like a reasonable argument about the Trinity. I’ll concede that one to you. 🙂 (Although, if I later see a flaw with it, I reserve the right to challenge it based on currently unknown flaws.) 😀
Possible Future Challenge. ACCEPTED.
*grins*
This is why many non-Christians are confused about what Christianity really is.
Some Christians believe that hell is absence of God. You, also a Christian, say that hell is not absence of God, but presence of his wrath.
It is very difficult to have a discussion about the “same” God when his own proponents do not agree about his properties.
I agree 🙂 I wish there were more of an agreement with the Christian community. BUT, there are different beliefs within EVERY community, Islam, Judaism, and yes, even in the sciences and history departments all over the world. We live in a confusing time. But it’s not just Christians, we all face this challenge.
The great thing about Christianity, is that once you figure out which branches claim to speak authoritatively, you can narrow your search down rather quickly. There are 4 branches that claim to have the teaching authority of the Apostles. Of those, 3 respect each others’ claims of Apostolic Succession, (Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic) and have practically no differences of opinion when viewed from the outside.
The Copts broke off of the united Christian Church around 300 AD when a council was called, the Coptics never got the invite, and for some reason, never reconciled after that time. They number in the lower millions, but have a broader perspective on many issues than Orthodox and Catholics, with less well-defined dogma.
The Orthodox and Catholics had a more gradual breakup occurring sometime between 900 and 1300. (Depending on where you place the break) The Orthodox number in the hundreds of millions, Catholics at just over 1 billion.
The ‘big fight’ between Catholics and Orthodox is (I kid you not) the transcriptural error that resulted in Orthodox saying “The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father” while Catholics add “and the Son.” (The pope has actually conceded that the Orthodox way is correct on this count, but no visible change has occurred.) Both sides agree that only the successor to Peter’s See (AKA bishop of Rome) can call an “all bishops” council and has some authority which is denied other bishops. Thus, the Orthodox haven’t had a Church Council in many hundreds of years. There is some disagreement of the exact nature of the ‘extra’ authority of the bishop of Rome: Orthodox claim the difference is less distinct than Catholics.
The Anglican/Episcopalian Church is a bit more divided, but does claim Apostolic Succession through the Catholic Church. I don’t believe any of the other three churches respect this claim. (It clearly *was* a valid claim at one point in time.) Catholics say the Anglicans/Episcopalians repudiated this authority at some point in the past. (I’ve never taken the time to deeply investigate this, so I can’t give you any more background there.)
Regardless of all this, if you were to accept the authority of any of the three, you would be accepting a virtually identical set of rules, way of life, and God.
It is very difficult to have a discussion about the “same” God when his own proponents do not agree about his properties.
It is even more difficult to have a discussion about the “same” ego when its own proponents do not agree about it, and thus some proponents separate egoists into “rational and irrational” men, the same way Christians separate egoist men into “saved and not saved”, and then seeing the same deluded response from each: the existence of the universe presupposes (or implies) a moral “calling” that is not who I am, under which I am to be enslaved, regardless of my own enjoyment through acting “irrationally” or “sinfully” on Earth.
Then I am amused when I see Rationalists and Christians doing what slaves do, which is view the egoist as an absolute sinner or absolute irrationalist, despite the fact that the egoist can often behave indistinguishable from those who would call this egoist a sinner or irrational, failing of course to recognize that the ego is using sinful and non-sinful behaviors and rational and irrational behaviors to its own benefit when either suits it, and that the ego is not any one of the properties that it owns and uses for its enjoyment, which the Rationalist and Christian do not comprehend and so are compelled to considering the ego to BE either a sinner or irrational.
Speaking as a member of the majority Christian religion, which is bigger than all other quasi-Christian sects, I can tell you that only a minority group of Christians refers to ‘saved and unsaved’ because such terminology is presumptive. We at times adopt their language for the purposes of communication, but you won’t find any Christians with Apostolic succession referring to a split between ‘saved and unsaved.’ We all have been saved (in the sense that Jesus died to grant us forgiveness), we all are being saved (in the sense of working toward salvation) and we all hope to be saved (in the sense of salvation from final damnation.)
Perhaps you should look at one of the schools of Christianity that has philosophical roots that are deeper than 500 years.
Drigan,
Speaking as a member of the majority Christian religion, which is bigger than all other quasi-Christian sects, I can tell you that only a minority group of Christians refers to ‘saved and unsaved’ because such terminology is presumptive. We at times adopt their language for the purposes of communication, but you won’t find any Christians with Apostolic succession referring to a split between ‘saved and unsaved.’ We all have been saved (in the sense that Jesus died to grant us forgiveness), we all are being saved (in the sense of working toward salvation) and we all hope to be saved (in the sense of salvation from final damnation.)
Perhaps you should look at one of the schools of Christianity that has philosophical roots that are deeper than 500 years.
Don’t you mean older? “Deeper” conveys the impression that it is more intellectually rigorous, and hence “more correct.”
I prefer “older”, because like we know from our forefathers, older doesn’t always mean wiser.
To respond to your primary point though, I used “saved and unsaved” because I had to convert “bad” and “good” egos into a particular strand of christianity so that the impression of a schism of “going into Heaven” and “not going into Heaven.”
If it’s not saved and unsaved, it’s sinful and non-sinful. If it’s not that, it’s moral and immoral. If it’s not that, it’s good and evil. If it’s not that, it’s something else. Take your pick. My point stands. Christians view other egos as two distinct groups, one “yay!” the other “boo!”. If you don’t understand yay and boo, then you can’t be a Christian to begin with.
I hope you aren’t going to be so evasive that you will refuse to address my primary point on the basis that I used a particular christian strand of “saved versus unsaved” that you personally don’t adhere to, because you call the same schism by a different name.
What do you call egos that act christian and what do you call those egos that act unchristian? Pick two names, like oh I don’t know, the ones you actually have in mind, and then work off that to understand the point I am making.
@Egoist
If I understand you correctly, then the terminology I would use is ‘in the state of grace’ and ‘out of a state of grace.’ In which case, people can’t be grouped into one category or the other, except by themselves and by God. I know which state I’m currently in . . . but others may not know or care about themselves, and I *don’t* know for the other souls on earth other than myself . . . although I can be pretty comfortable with my 1 year old son.
As a Christian, it’s permissible to judge *actions* as sinful, but not *people.* That said, you seem to think that you’re a pretty spectacular sinner, but I doubt that you have the capacity for spectacular sin that you seem to claim.
For a sin to be mortal, (putting you out of a state of grace) it must have 3 points:
1.) It must *be* serious.
2.) The committer must understand its seriousness.
3.) The committer must freely choose to do it.
I don’t believe that you qualify for most mortal sins under qualification number 2.
Drigan:
If I understand you correctly, then the terminology I would use is ‘in the state of grace’ and ‘out of a state of grace.’ In which case, people can’t be grouped into one category or the other, except by themselves and by God.
In other words, in your Christian view, you view other egos as belonging to two distinct groups, one as “in a state of grace”, and the other “out of a state of grace.”
You said people can’t be grouped into one category or the other…….except by themselves and by God. That italicized part is what I am talking about. You say people themselves chose it and that God chose it (which is a contradiction by the way, but forget about that for a moment), but the point is that you view people in this way, whereas I do not. I do not separate egos into two distinct classes like that. I also do not do so even if I consider themselves to have chosen this or that.
The point is that it is still up to me to view other egos as either “in the state of grace” or “out of a state of grace.”
As someone who only looks at others as egos for my enjoyment, the fact that Objectivists like Carrie view other egos as belonging to either one of two distinct groups, “rational and irrational”, is identical in form to Christians viewing other egos as belonging to one of two distinct groups (in your case it’s “in the state of grace” and “out of a state of grace.”), whereby egos ought to prostrate themselves under the calling of being “rational” or being “in the state of grace”, regardless of one’s own happiness and enjoyment
(And no, you can’t get out of this by saying you know I will be happier and derive more enjoyment by enslaving myself to “rational” or “in a state of grace” absolutes. I am the final judge and jury and executioner of what I find enjoyable and what I deem makes me happy. Your absolute and Carrie’s absolute are not ME. They are forever outside of me. They are phantoms.
I know which state I’m currently in . . . but others may not know or care about themselves, and I *don’t* know for the other souls on earth other than myself . . . although I can be pretty comfortable with my 1 year old son.
Are you even in a state though? Aren’t you always changing? You can’t be in a state of perfect grace, because if you were, you’d cease changing.
For me, I do not put myself under ANY absolute phantom. No outside of me standards are my master. I am the master. I am the standard. I use “out of a state of grace” and “in a state of grace” as tools for my enjoyment, when either suits me. Same goes for “rational” and “irrational.” I use these as tools as well for my enjoyment, by acting “rational” when it quits me, and acting “irrational” when it quits me.
As a Christian, it’s permissible to judge *actions* as sinful, but not *people.* That said, you seem to think that you’re a pretty spectacular sinner, but I doubt that you have the capacity for spectacular sin that you seem to claim.
I didn’t claim any “spectacular sinning” that you seem to be implying I did claim.
For a sin to be mortal, (putting you out of a state of grace) it must have 3 points:
1.) It must *be* serious.
2.) The committer must understand its seriousness.
3.) The committer must freely choose to do it.
Number 2) is begging the question, because it requires me to believe what I know is false.
I can tell you I satisfy all 3, handily. I am very much serious, I understand its seriousness (which is not serious at all), and I freely choose it.
I don’t believe that you qualify for most mortal sins under qualification number 2.
You’re presenting a false criteria. Number 2) requires me to be a believer in order for me to “qualify” as being capable of committing a mortal sin. In other words, you are presenting the notion that non-believers cannot commit mortal sins, and that only believers can commit mortal sins. But that’s logically impossible, since to be a believer is to believe the holy spirit is real. One cannot truly blaspheme against something they believe is true as it is defined.
If I believed in the holy spirit as it is defined, I cannot also believe statements about the holy spirit that are contrary to how it is defined.
Come on Drigan, here I am telling you that I have committed the mortal sin numerous times, and your only response to me is that it is impossible for me to do so.
Well, what’s the point of even calling it a sin if nobody can commit it even in principle?
@Egoist
You somehow seem to miss the interplay between qualities 1 and 2. You say that things *aren’t* serious, and that you fully understand that seriousness. This means what you do cannot be a mortal sin.
However, you also imply that things *can* be serious. (Rape, murder, etc.) Yet you say that these things can’t be known without Christianity somehow. So is your Christianity informing you of these things? (Presumably, ‘no’ . . . but you seem to be very confused.)
Anyone can sufficiently know the wrongness of sins, regardless of their religion or lack thereof. Mortal sin is not the only type of sin; there is also venial. Venial sin simply doesn’t completely sever your connection to Grace.
“You say people themselves chose it and that God chose it (which is a contradiction by the way, but forget about that for a moment)”
No, I never said that God chose it. (Actually, I don’t think I said that people themselves chose it, but I at least agree with that statement.) God chose to *allow* it. That’s not the same thing as choosing it. If a parent permits a child to run around with shoes untied after telling them to tie them, and the child trips and skins their knee, the parent didn’t *choose* that the child would skin their knee, but they permitted it. So does that solve your contradiction?
So God can categorize whether someone is in a state of grace or not, but that’s due to omniscience, not an active choice on His part.
“Are you even in a state though? Aren’t you always changing? You can’t be in a state of perfect grace, because if you were, you’d cease changing. ”
Assuming you’re familiar with integrals, it’s the equivalent of taking a single point of a continuous function. I may be in a state of flux, but at any one point, I may know what that flux is.
“The point is that it is still up to me to view other egos as either “in the state of grace” or “out of a state of grace.””
Why is that up to you?
“And no, you can’t get out of this by saying you know I will be happier and derive more enjoyment by enslaving myself …”
*shrugs* you seem to be trying to overcome reality. Good luck to you.
So that you are aware, the ‘unforgivable sin’ is the sin of unrepentence. The reason it’s unforgivable is because God won’t overrule your own choice . . . you *can* however be forgiven for *having chosen unrepentence in the past.* (I’ve always thought it was a rather silly concept, myself, but it doesn’t really bother me.)
@Drigan I have to disagree with you on the unforgiveable sin as you state it.
Rather, “the unforgiveable sin is the sin against the Holy Spirit. To call Him—the One Who is the very Epitome and Source of all holiness—“unclean” is the blasphemy against the Spirit that God will not forgive.”
See makr 3:28-30 ”
Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
He said this because they were saying, “He has an impure spirit.””
Notice the last sentence. That’s what it’s all about. The blasphemy is claiming that the works of the Holy Spirit are actually the works of Satan and Demons.
Drigan:
You somehow seem to miss the interplay between qualities 1 and 2. You say that things *aren’t* serious, and that you fully understand that seriousness.
I mean that I understand the seriousness of it, and I know that seriousness to be little to nothing.
This means what you do cannot be a mortal sin.
You mean I cannot mortal sin unless I believe in the holy spirit! That’s the only way I can really understand its “seriousness” in your mind.
What you are presenting is not what the bible says about mortal sin. The bible says a mortal sin is committed when a person so much as SPEAKS blasphemous statements about the holy spirit. There is ZERO reference to the necessity that the person also has to be in a state of mind that you are suggesting to me.
However, you also imply that things *can* be serious. (Rape, murder, etc.) Yet you say that these things can’t be known without Christianity somehow. So is your Christianity informing you of these things?
Let’s back up a bit here because it seems to me you’re taking this in a different direction without first settling the issue at hand.
You say I implied that “things” can be serious. But I was just talking about the mortal sin of blaspheming against the holy spirit. That was the subject of what is “serious” or not. You say it is serious, I say it isn’t.
Thus, if you want to talk about the seriousness of rape and murder, fine, but these are not mortal sins and they are not what is being debated about on whether it is “seriousness” or not.
In Christianity, a person can be “forgiven” for committing rape and murder. Well, actually the bible condones rape (and murder, notwithstanding the ten commandments), so you don’t even have to be forgiven for rape.
(Presumably, ‘no’ . . . but you seem to be very confused.)
Ah yes, I seem to be this and seem to be that. I seem to have committed a mortal sin, but not really because I am supposed to take your word for it.
Anyone can sufficiently know the wrongness of sins, regardless of their religion or lack thereof.
Anyone can sufficiently reject any notion of morality as well, and consider things wrong or right only in relation to their own enjoyment.
Mortal sin is not the only type of sin; there is also venial. Venial sin simply doesn’t completely sever your connection to Grace.
In your opinion, can I commit the mortal sin, or not? If not, why not? Be specific, because I have committed it, more than once in fact, and yet here you are denying it is possible. That fascinates me because I enjoy seeing how someone can deny reality like that, and believe it.
“You say people themselves chose it and that God chose it (which is a contradiction by the way, but forget about that for a moment)”
No, I never said that God chose it. (Actually, I don’t think I said that people themselves chose it, but I at least agree with that statement.) God chose to *allow* it. That’s not the same thing as choosing it.
You said:
“In which case, people can’t be grouped into one category or the other, except by themselves and by God.”
The meaning of “by themselves” presumes the person chose to be in grace or out of grace. The meaning of “and by God” presumes the person was put in grace or out of grace by God.
How can an individual “themselves” be responsible for being in grace or out of grace, if not through choice? I know you didn’t actually say choice, but your words definitely presupposed it, and that’s probably why you now say “but I at least agree with that.”
But this is again besides the point, which is that you view the total population of egos as two distinct groups, one in grace, one out of grace.
If a parent permits a child to run around with shoes untied after telling them to tie them, and the child trips and skins their knee, the parent didn’t *choose* that the child would skin their knee, but they permitted it. So does that solve your contradiction?
No, because you said the individual themselves AND God. In your example of a parent and child with a skinned knee, the child is responsible for skinning their knee, not the parent, so we must say that the skinned knee is the result of EITHER the child, OR the parent. It can’t be both.
If you say it’s the parent, then that implies the child is the owned property of the parent, and thus the child is but a vassal. If you say it’s the child, then the parent is but a message giver, or a nuisance, depending on the situation.
So God can categorize whether someone is in a state of grace or not, but that’s due to omniscience, not an active choice on His part.
As an egoist, I know that just means you are the one who “categorizes whether someone is in a state of grace or not”, that you desire to be omniscient, and that you recognize that you lack the power to force people into a state of grace according to your criteria, so you correctly infer the power resides in others, not you, hence you perceive that those not in a state of grace is “not an active choice on your part.”
“Are you even in a state though? Aren’t you always changing? You can’t be in a state of perfect grace, because if you were, you’d cease changing. ”
Assuming you’re familiar with integrals, it’s the equivalent of taking a single point of a continuous function.
A continuous function that changes as the horizontal (time) axis changes?
If so, you’re not in a perfect state of grace NOW.
I may be in a state of flux, but at any one point, I may know what that flux is.
Being in a state of flux means you’re not in a perfect state of anything, let alone grace.
In my philosophy, the ego is absolute, mortal, temporal, and consuming.
I reject any notion of “Perfection of man” that I must strive towards. I presuppose myself, and consume it for my own enjoyment.
“The point is that it is still up to me to view other egos as either “in the state of grace” or “out of a state of grace.””
Why is that up to you?
For the same reason you believe it is up to God.
I just recognize that when you say God judges something in a particular way, it’s really just you who is judging that something in a particular way. Sort of like how an abuser says to his victim “It’s your fault I am doing this, I am just doing what’s right”, but without the pretension of claiming the agency is outside the abuser.
“And no, you can’t get out of this by saying you know I will be happier and derive more enjoyment by enslaving myself …”
*shrugs* you seem to be trying to overcome reality. Good luck to you.
Not in the slightest. You are just trying to overcome my reality by convincing me what I know is false: that believing in phantoms will somehow benefit me.
No, it won’t benefit me. It may benefit you, but your interests do not concern me more than my interests concern me.
So that you are aware, the ‘unforgivable sin’ is the sin of unrepentence. The reason it’s unforgivable is because God won’t overrule your own choice . . . you *can* however be forgiven for *having chosen unrepentence in the past.*
If unrepentence is unforgiveable, then it cannot be forgiven, which means you could not be forgiven for past unrepentence.
No, the mortal sin is not unrepentence. It’s blaspheming against the holy spirit. It’s the only sin in the bible that is said to be unforgiveable. Unrepentence is forgiveable.
@Tim Miller
What is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Claiming to *be* the Holy Spirit? I’ve heard that this was understood to mean “claiming to be greater than the ability of the Holy Spirit to forgive.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have abbreviated this to unrepentance? or is this definition wrong?
@Egoist
I don’t want you to continue to misunderstand my statement, so let me make one minor clarification:
I said ” . . . people can’t be grouped into one category or the other, except by themselves and by God.”
What I meant was that no one has knowledge of which group an individual belongs in but God and the person categorizing themselves into a group. I never meant to imply that God chooses which group the person goes in, nor even that the person *necessarily* knows which group they belong to. They *might* know, but they probably don’t. I know for certain which group I (temporarily) belong to after committing a mortal sin, and after going to confession.
@Drigan
I’m thinking out time could be better spent elsewhere. We won’t get anywhere arguing. Rejection of God is a moral decision, not a knowledge decision. Egoist has proof there is a God. He actually knows there’s a God. He may choose to deny it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The bible says that all men know God exists. His creation declares it.
Tim Miller: “Egoist has proof there is a God. He actually knows there’s a God.”
Alas that god is Thor.
But . . . but . . . someone on the internets is wrong!!!
I’m not used to agreeing this often with a Protestant . . . do I need to go to confession for that?
😉
I’m sorry, you’ll have to check with your apostolic authoriy on that one
😉
Drigan:
I don’t want you to continue to misunderstand my statement, so let me make one minor clarification:
You know, it would really help your case if you ceased trying to insinuate that I am misunderstanding your statements, when I think it’s been clear I have not. Every time you have said I misunderstood, or misconstrued what you said, your explanation is just a misunderstanding of what I said, and false attributions.
I said ” . . . people can’t be grouped into one category or the other, except by themselves and by God.”
What I meant was that no one has knowledge of which group an individual belongs in but God and the person categorizing themselves into a group.
But that’s not them categorizing themselves. That’s you categorizing them.
I do not categorize myself as being either “in a state of grace” or “out of a state of grace.” In fact, I do not categorize myself at all. I am unique. It is YOU that is doing the categorizing.
Telling me that you don’t have the full knowledge of everyone on the planet, such that you cannot tell me to which group you would categorize everyone if you did have such knowledge, does not mean you aren’t categorizing individuals as belonging to one or the other group.
You clearly hold that every individual on Earth belongs to one of two groups, “graced” or “not graced.” That’s you doing the categorizing. I know it’s you doing that because I don’t do that. I see you categorizing people because I am not so categorising people.
Yes, you can’t reasonably say for each and every individual which group they allegedly belong, because your knowledge is limited, but the point is that you view people in general as belonging to one group or another, graced or not graced.
I never meant to imply that God chooses which group the person goes in, nor even that the person *necessarily* knows which group they belong to. They *might* know, but they probably don’t. I know for certain which group I (temporarily) belong to after committing a mortal sin, and after going to confession.
Sorry, but committing a mortal sin in Christianity puts one into the not graced category, because it’s unforgiveable.
I reject all categories you seek to put me under, because they are not ME.
You can pretend to yourself that I am “not in a state of grace”, but I will laugh that off as a silly superstition, exactly like I would laugh off someone who said I am in the group that has the evil eye, or the group that are witches, or any other spiritual dichotomous “taint” you have up your sleeve.
You say you know which group you belong to, but I know that’s just an illusion you are trying to put your ego. You are trying to put your ego into the “ideal” man, the “man of grace.” It’s not you of course, but it’s what you seek to be.
I reject your categorizing of me, for it is not ME.
Tim:
I’m thinking out time could be better spent elsewhere. We won’t get anywhere arguing. Rejection of God is a moral decision, not a knowledge decision.
Glad you admit God is a moral concept, not an ontological concept.
By admitting that rejecting/accepting God is not a knowledge decision, you have just declared that God does not exist.
Egoist has proof there is a God. He actually knows there’s a God. He may choose to deny it, but it doesn’t make it any less true. The bible says that all men know God exists. His creation declares it.
I do not have any proof there is God. Nobody does. I do not know there is a God, because I know there is no God. I cannot “deny” what does not exist. I can only mistakenly believe in it, or rightfully reject it. I choose the latter. The bible can say anything, but that doesn’t make it true. Amen now get out.
But . . . but . . . someone on the internets is wrong!!!
Wrong according to what? To who? The bible? You? Both the bible and you are nothing to me.
I’m not used to agreeing this often with a Protestant . . . do I need to go to confession for that?
Laughter is the best medicine. It helps turn anxious and awkward moments into light, distracting moments instead.
You’ve chosen to reject something you know to be true. That’s fine, you’re allowed to do that.
Matthew 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. What is implied is that Hell was prepared after the angels fell, and after man fell then Hells was then opened up for man.
“Contray to popular notion, Hell is not the absence of God, but the full presence of His wrath.”
When were you last there?
Perhaps it’s the absence of the nopresence of his unwrath? Or the presence of his nonabsence of his wrathful absence?
I leave to GC the careful parsing of such vacuous strings of words; he’ the theologian, he’s practiuced.
I was never there. Why do you ask?
He’s impatient.
Adam’s and Eve’s sin was not simply wanting knowledge. Looking at the passage, we see that Satans tempts them by saying “you will be like God”. There is no sin in simply desiring to know something. However, there is sin in (1) disobeying and (2) seeking to surplant God by becoming God. If your parents say, “don’t go outside”, we realized, nothing is inherently evil about outside, but going against their will IS evil and punishable. Additionally, Adam and Eve accused God of lying when they took Satan’s word over God’s:
“‘No! You will not die,” the serpent said to the woman. “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'”
Very good post.
The title of this post reminds me of this picture (from the Dollar Vigilante): http://www.dollarvigilante.com/storage/02012/46-may-2012/No%20Regerts%20Tattoo.jpeg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1336263652262
Regerts: I’ve Had a Few. But not as many as this chick. . .
Objection #2 still stands in your worldview, God is still punishing his creations for being skeptical. It’s a pretty sick universe that your egoistic God has set up.
See above. The premise of the post is that God is not doing the punishing.
Additionally, skepticism and belief are not opposites.
“skepticism and belief are not opposites”
Indeed. But religions don’t want skepticism, just belief. Doubt is a form of mental immunity. So they ramp up the conflict between them. Hence the eternal punishments. Hence Sunday school teachers teaching that doubt is sin.
You clearly haven’t met many Catholic Apologists. Almost all were intensely skeptical prior to conversion.
But this isn’t Bill Gates refusing to let people into his house. God supposedly created people, some of whom will be skeptical, never reading the Bible, etc. He created some kind of paradise, but unless you bow to him sufficiently you’re not allowed in and you have to be alone with negative thoughts for eternity (according to Murphy’s version). Sounds pretty evil, luckily it’s a fairy tale.
As the creator, does He not have the right to do whatever He pleases? If you built a chair, do you not have the right to set it up around your table or burn it in the fire? I know this is simplistic, but we are that chair. But, with free will, we choose not to behave like a chair. We do not do what we were built to do. Rather than holding someone up while they sit, we choose to crumble, or break. We choose to fail and because of this failure, we choose eternal flames.
Sure, if God existed he could do what he wants. That doesn’t make it false, just evil. The fact that there is no evidence for this fairy tale doesn’t make it false either, but it has the same truth value as Santa Claus.
How do you judge it as evil? By what standard of good and evil are you measuring? How are you defining right and wrong?
You are welcome to attempt to make hell a paradise as well.
If God exists, he would exist everywhere. So when you die you effectively have two choices, be where God IS, and be where God IS NOT. Hell is where God is not. Heaven is where God is.
To someone who thinks God is sadistic, heaven is not where you would want to go is it? Of course Hell is described as utterly horribly by Christians, because to us, existence without God is the worst thing imaginable, way worse than an anarcho-capitlist living under statist communism.
Now, I am not saying that Hell “isn’t so bad”. I do think it is the just as bad as it is assumed; but it’s just never depicted as the right kind of “worse place imaginable”. See my above response. Hell isn’t a place of you being chained for eternity with angels torturing you or some such classic depiction. It’s people doing crap to themselves, tormenting themselves with their own actions, I think Bob described it well above.
Again, I just want to say, God DOES exist in Hell. That’s why Hell is terrible. His full wrath, anger, and holiness exists there.
And again, I would like to know why you say this. I’m not saying you are wrong . . . but I don’t know of any evidence that you are correct.
^ I respect this 🙂 I personally am one that says Scripture alone must convince me. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who demands proof 🙂
Do you believe everything you read in a book? Or once x number of people believe it, then you believe it? Or Bob’s reasoning seems to be, since people were willing to die for it, it must be true. You would think that would be an obvious logical fallacy.
Bob’s logic is “If people are willing to die for it, they must believe it” and “If they were in a position to know whether it was true or not, and they die a horrible death for it, it must be true.”
If you can think of a way that someone would die for something they know to be false, I’d like to hear it.
Yes, I believe everything I read in the bible because I believe it to be the Word of God. I believe no other book holds this authority. People’s willingness to die for it doesn’t make it true. There’s no special apologetic or argument for why i believe it’s true. My faith lies in what the Lord had done in my life, not what I have done. My belief stems from his renewal of myself.
“Yes, I believe everything I read in the bible because I believe it to be the Word of God”
Funny, I believe just the same about Robinson Crusoe I am a Robinson Crusoe inerrantist, I believe ervery word of it is literally true. This is all the more remarkable as DeFoe thought he was inventing it, but he was just god’s instrument, responding to god’s inspiration.
Ken, you have every right to believe that 🙂 You’re belief in R.C. in no way hinders my belief in the Word of God. I respect your decision. I may not agree with it, but, that’s life.
@Drigan, I concede that someone willing to die believes it to be true, but that does not mean it is in fact true. If someone says they witnessed Santa Claus, they are in a position to provide testimony. Writing down their story doesn’t make it true.
True, but the Apostles were also in a position to know if they had *really* seen a risen Jesus. They knew Him pretty well . . . they’d spent 3 years of their lives in His immediate presence.
I could buy that one person would be convinced, but if you’ve got 11 people you spend tons of time with, do you *really* think that someone could replace you without any of those 11 people noticing?
Odds would be much better that they were just lying. (Please don’t play the mass hallucination card. The only times those get mentioned is trying to disprove religion.)
True, but the Apostles were also in a position to know if they had *really* seen a risen Jesus. They knew Him pretty well . . . they’d spent 3 years of their lives in His immediate presence.
I could buy that one person would be convinced, but if you’ve got 11 people you spend tons of time with, do you *really* think that someone could replace you without any of those 11 people noticing?
Odds would be much better that they were just lying. (Please don’t play the mass hallucination card. The only times those get mentioned is trying to disprove religion.)
Isn’t this convenient? If the bible had 6 people, you’d say 6 is the magic number instead of 3. If it was only 3, then it would be 3 instead of one. If it were one, then it would be one instead of zero. If it were zero, then it wouldn’t even be a religion, for nobody would have written their hallucinations down.
Oops, did I invoke the hallucination card?
Or should I say the Sun really did break physical laws and dance around as per 10,000 people’s testimony?
You think you got something with 11 people? I got 10,000! After all, there’s truth in numbers. It’s how the word went from being flat, to being an oblate spheroid. It’s because more people thought it. The more people think something, the more it becomes true.
No, really, the world really was flat when millions of people were there, directly witnessing the Earth at the time and saying it was flat. They wouldn’t like about it! They were there! It wasn’t until the 15th century or so that the world suddenly changed shape, and became an oblate spheroid. That’s because millions of people were there at the time and they said so. They wouldn’t lie either! They were there!
Same thing today you see. Millions, no billions of people believe in a creator God. Ergo, God exists. That’s how science works. You take polls of what people say.
@Egoist
My argument had very little to do with numbers, and everything to do with how hard it would be for someone to fool close friends. You didn’t seem to address my post.
If he concedes that the Apostles aren’t lying when they are having their skin peeled off, or being crucified, or boiled alive . . . then what happened? The only arguments that seem to be left is that they were tricked by someone else, or they were tricked by themselves. Since mass hallucinations aren’t a known phenomena, I don’t care to address that option. This leaves ‘they were tricked by someone else.’
Pick any close friend that you’ve spent most of almost every day for 3 years with . . . and what do you think the odds are that someone else could pass off as that person, even for a few days? Now factor in some unusual physical items, like holes in the hands, and a hole in his side, and you’re *really* going for a long shot. And *then* you raise that probability to the 11th power. (I’ll concede that maybe it should only be to the 10th power, as John didn’t actually die for this belief, though he clearly professed the belief.)
Drigan:
My argument had very little to do with numbers, and everything to do with how hard it would be for someone to fool close friends. You didn’t seem to address my post.
You mean how hard it would be for 10,000 people to be wrong about what they believed they saw about the Sun? Already covered that as well. I am addressing your post, I just don’t agree with it.
If he concedes that the Apostles aren’t lying when they are having their skin peeled off, or being crucified, or boiled alive . . . then what happened?
Did he concede that though?
The only arguments that seem to be left is that they were tricked by someone else, or they were tricked by themselves.
Or the bible verses were edited later on, or written by, editors who wanted to make the story consistent.
Since mass hallucinations aren’t a known phenomena, I don’t care to address that option.
Um, the Miracle of Fatima, hello?
You say they aren’t a known phenomena, when they are a known phenomena.
Heck, in 900 AD, millions of people around the world engaged in a mass hallucination that the world was flat.
Millions more had the mass hallucination that the Earth was at the center of the solar system.
The list goes on and on. Your conception of humanity is, I am afraid, really off.
This leaves ‘they were tricked by someone else.’
Sure, if you incorrectly exclude hallucinations.
Pick any close friend that you’ve spent most of almost every day for 3 years with . . . and what do you think the odds are that someone else could pass off as that person, even for a few days?
Depends. Did someone else after I die rewrite my account, to fit their agenda in any way?
Now factor in some unusual physical items, like holes in the hands, and a hole in his side, and you’re *really* going for a long shot. And *then* you raise that probability to the 11th power. (I’ll concede that maybe it should only be to the 10th power, as John didn’t actually die for this belief, though he clearly professed the belief.)
How do you know that wasn’t added after as well? For crying out loud, the bible says a man named Jonah lived in a big fish in the ocean like it was a house for a bunch of days. Are you saying that because it’s in the bible, because people at the time it occurred wrote about it, that it’s true? Pahlease.
@Egoist
“Did he concede that though?”
Yes: “@Drigan, I concede that someone willing to die believes it to be true, but that does not mean it is in fact true. If someone says they witnessed Santa Claus, they are in a position to provide testimony. Writing down their story doesn’t make it true.”
“Or the bible verses were edited later on, or written by, editors who wanted to make the story consistent.”
Sorry, the death stories come from the torturers, generally. Not from the Bible.
“Um, the Miracle of Fatima, hello?”
The event that happens to have pictures of a strange phenomena, and was seen miles away by people who weren’t in contact with the crowd, and numerous non-believers? Yeah, good luck proving that’s a hallucination.
“You say they aren’t a known phenomena, when they are a known phenomena.”
No, try to name a known case of mass hallucinations. Clearly there’s too much evidence to claim that Fatima was a hallucination.
“Heck, in 900 AD, millions of people around the world engaged in a mass hallucination that the world was flat.
Millions more had the mass hallucination that the Earth was at the center of the solar system.
The list goes on and on. Your conception of humanity is, I am afraid, really off.”
You seem to be confused about what a hallucination is: “Hallucinations are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions.”
In other words, they *sense* something that isn’t there. In Fatima, they got pictures; it’s not a hallucination. In your other cases they had false beliefs; not a sensory experience, hence, not a hallucination.
“How do you know that wasn’t added after as well? For crying out loud, the bible says a man named Jonah lived in a big fish in the ocean like it was a house for a bunch of days. Are you saying that because it’s in the bible, because people at the time it occurred wrote about it, that it’s true? Pahlease.”
When have I said anything remotely like this? The NT is mostly factual. There are parables and dreams (Revelation) which did not physically happen. When John says “In the beginning was the Word…” then, “on the next day”, “the next day”, etc… he’s not telling us a literal creation story. He’s explaining creation using a literary device that parallels the book of Genesis. Some of the OT is myth meant to explain God. The myth may or may not be factually true, but the stories have to be read from the perspective of their genre of literature. You don’t read/watch a horror movie for an in-depth study of psychology of a victim; you don’t read a story about “why do we exist” for genealogy; you don’t read a story about how much God loves His Creation, even His non-Jewish people for fish anatomy.
“Or the bible verses were edited later on, or written by, editors who wanted to make the story consistent.”
Sorry, the death stories come from the torturers, generally. Not from the Bible.
What texts are you referring to if not the bible?
And I wasn’t referring to ONLY the death stories. I was referring to the bible’s stories as such.
“Um, the Miracle of Fatima, hello?”
The event that happens to have pictures of a strange phenomena, and was seen miles away by people who weren’t in contact with the crowd, and numerous non-believers? Yeah, good luck proving that’s a hallucination.
Fuzzy pictures that don’t show a definitely dancing sun, pictures that you can infer that there were even alien UFOs in them? Yeah, that can’t happen.
And “other people”? So instead of 10,000 having a mass hallucination, word got around and there were 10,100? Oh, then that changes everything! We’re all Christians now!
Or, you know, it was a mass hallucination, the pictures show nothing about any dancing Sun, and there are always impressionable believers to be found saying they saw Elvis if they can get attention.
“You say they aren’t a known phenomena, when they are a known phenomena.”
No, try to name a known case of mass hallucinations.
Fatima.
Clearly there’s too much evidence to claim that Fatima was a hallucination.
There is a lack of evidence that it was actually a dancing Sun.
“Heck, in 900 AD, millions of people around the world engaged in a mass hallucination that the world was flat.”
“Millions more had the mass hallucination that the Earth was at the center of the solar system.”
The list goes on and on. Your conception of humanity is, I am afraid, really off.”
You seem to be confused about what a hallucination is: “Hallucinations are false or distorted sensory experiences that appear to be real perceptions.”
That’s exactly what I just described when it comes to flat Earth and the Earth being at the center of the solar system.
The flat Earth perception was a false perception that appeared to be a real perception.
The Earth being at the center of the solar system perception was also a false perception that appeared to be a real perception.
Mass hallucinations are in fact possible.
In other words, they *sense* something that isn’t there.
THAT’S WHAT I JUST DESCRIBED.
The flat Earth wasn’t really there. The Earth being at the center also wasn’t really there.
In Fatima, they got pictures; it’s not a hallucination.
The pictures do not definitely show a dancing Sun; it was a hallucination.
I could just as well claim that those pictures contain evidence of alien UFOs.
In your other cases they had false beliefs; not a sensory experience, hence, not a hallucination.
It wasn’t merely a false belief. It was a false belief founded upon a false perception that appeared to be real, but wasn’t real.
“How do you know that wasn’t added after as well? For crying out loud, the bible says a man named Jonah lived in a big fish in the ocean like it was a house for a bunch of days. Are you saying that because it’s in the bible, because people at the time it occurred wrote about it, that it’s true? Pahlease.”
When have I said anything remotely like this?
I asked a series of questions. I did not attribute to you any positions.
I asked you how do you know that it wasn’t added after? I then asked you if you are saying that if it’s in the bible, it’s true?
If you would rather evade the questions, that’s fine, but be upfront about it.
The NT is mostly factual.
Based on what evidence?
And what isn’t factual? Based on what evidence?
There are parables and dreams (Revelation) which did not physically happen.
But the words are there! Are you saying they were false perceptions people made?
When John says “In the beginning was the Word…” then, “on the next day”, “the next day”, etc… he’s not telling us a literal creation story. He’s explaining creation using a literary device that parallels the book of Genesis.
Of course, because if he weren’t, he’s be contradicting the carbon dated record, and that would be embarrassing for Christians wouldn’t it? Better redefine a day to mean something else, so as to rescue the fallacies.
Some of the OT is myth meant to explain God.
Based on what evidence?
The myth may or may not be factually true, but the stories have to be read from the perspective of their genre of literature.
The word of God is but a literary contribution to a genre? That’s a new one.
You don’t read/watch a horror movie for an in-depth study of psychology of a victim; you don’t read a story about “why do we exist” for genealogy; you don’t read a story about how much God loves His Creation, even His non-Jewish people for fish anatomy.
I also don’t take the word of 10,000 people who had a hallucination for astrophysics.
Bob
Another way to make your point about the nature of faith is that you use faith and an active verb. Older English had two verbs for this, confess and confide. Edward the Confessor didn’t own up to his misdeeds, he confessed god. A confessor was the last stop before saintliness. In some older stuff you can read about people confide in god; they were not gossiping.
You have discovered that Bible stories can be metaphors. Often they make good ones. Why can’t they just be psychologicaly meaningful, why must they have ontological freight?
You should read Paradise Lost. I think you’d like it.
as an active veb, not and an active verb.
A good god would make us all good typists.
What surprises me is how often “a Good God” is thrown around. I’m curious, by what standard of “good” are you basing your rule? Agaisnt who do you judge a perfect being? In all honesty, you can only judge good on the ultimate standard of good, which is God. So God can only be called bad if he strays from himself. Which of course, would make no sense because, how can God not be God and do what God wants?
Krugman is the standard for goodness.
LOLs
“Why can’t they just be psychologicaly meaningful, why must they have ontological freight?”
This would suggest that our psychology is somehow sharply cleaved from the nature of reality. I would say, instead, “These stories are psychologically meaningful BECAUSE they have ontological freight.”
However, I would readily concede that a literal reading may misconstrue what that freight is.
I would say, instead, “These stories are psychologically meaningful BECAUSE they have ontological freight.”
But you won’t say that about Greek myths, tales of Odin, the Great Pumpkin.
“This would suggest that our psychology is somehow sharply cleaved from the nature of reality. I would say, instead, “These stories are psychologically meaningful BECAUSE they have ontological freight.”
Correct. The ontological freight of the unique ego that is deluded by religious absolutism does have a psychological counterpart that is similar across cultures and throughout time: Guilt, Truth, Morality, etc.
However, I would readily concede that a literal reading may misconstrue what that freight is.
Separating interpretations of the bible into “literal” and “non-literal” is the result of the theist ego seeking to find an escape from the yoke of absolutist interpretations of the bible under which the unique ego is to obey and accept.
It’s why egos over the centuries have had varying “interpretations” of the bible, and why there has never been, and never will be, a “final interpretation” of the bible, indeed any other religious text as well.
Bob, I think your (2) and (1) do go together. It’s all about free will.
In order to make Beings separate from Himself He had to make beings capable of separating themselves totally from Him. That very thought implies the necessity of having a place in the ‘afterlife’ where people who choose not to be near Him can go. Otherwise God would have to force those who don’t want to coexist with Himself to coexist. Hell has to exist.
It also necessitates that God can’t correct every wrong we do, otherwise it undermines our free will. Which means that people die in War because God chooses not to intervene in the free will choices of others. To do so undermines our free will and once he does a little undermining for one person, he might as well do enough to humanity to make us perfect robots; at which point why make Man at all?
I think it’s important to distinguish between free will and autonomy. Yes, we have free will, no, we do not have autonomy. God’s will supersedes our own, just as a parent’s will supersedes their child whenever they collide. This is why we cannot choose to live forever or to fly. God’s will is that we will die on a certain day and that we will not naturally without an invention. God’s will is always being placed over and on us, and we are having to submit to it constantly. However, there are times when His will is to allow us have a choice. We can choose what shirt to wear. We can choose whether or not to steal. We can choose whether ot not to belive and love God. But having that option does not mean we have the ability. We have the option of choosing God, but man’s inclination is towards evil. It is when God steps in and lovingly moves on our hearts that our desires for him outweigh our desires for self and sin.
God’s will supersedes our own, just as a parent’s will supersedes their child whenever they collide.
So in other words, God’s will can be superseded by a child’s will. Children have done this and they do do this by disobeying their parents’s will, and doing what satisfies them. Some children have even killed their parents.
If you say God’s will supersedes mine “like” a parent’s will does so, then you’re just saying my will supersedes your God’s will.
This is why we cannot choose to live forever or to fly. God’s will is that we will die on a certain day and that we will not naturally without an invention.
“Naturally die” implies “unnaturally die” takes place, which of course is the reality of the ego that supersedes God’s will.
God’s will is always being placed over and on us, and we are having to submit to it constantly.
Then explain the existence of unnatural deaths. If you say God does it all, then your previous statement of Earthly “inventions” is impossible.
However, there are times when His will is to allow us have a choice. We can choose what shirt to wear. We can choose whether or not to steal. We can choose whether ot not to belive and love God.
These are only the behaviors of others that you lack the power to stop, and then delude yourself into believing God “granted” those freedoms.
That’s why you said “at times” here, where before you said God’s will is CONSTANTLY placed over us and on us.
But having that option does not mean we have the ability. We have the option of choosing God, but man’s inclination is towards evil. It is when God steps in and lovingly moves on our hearts that our desires for him outweigh our desires for self and sin.
Yes, “Man” does have an inclination towards “evil”, when you seek to impose a morality on them that creates good and evil egos.
Now you’re just picking on my syntax 🙂 Please, play nice. Carrie was able to have a delightful conversation bringing up valid points, not by belittling my use of language.
I did find your reply amusing. I enjoy sarcasm and banter but that’s not really what I’m trying to get at here.
But notice, I said they are alike, not identical. Yes, Children can go against the will of their parents. However, there are three meanings of the will of God:
(a) Sovereign decretive will, the will by which God brings to pass whatsoever He decrees. This is hidden to us until it happens.
(b) Preceptive will is God’s revealed law or commandments, which we have the power but not the right to break.
(c) Will of disposition describes God’s attitude or disposition. It reveals what is pleasing to Him.
We have the ability to go against (b) and (c). However, we cannot go against (a). We cannot overpower God in a decision.
And I do not seek to impose morality on others. I do not demand that a cat behaves like a dog. Rather, I would prefer that cat come to the realization that they want to be a dog and behave like a dog. Because, as you know, all dogs go to heaven 😉 But, if a cat wants to be a cat, I can’t change that.
Now you’re just picking on my syntax Please, play nice. Carrie was able to have a delightful conversation bringing up valid points, not by belittling my use of language.
I wasn’t “belittling” your syntax, I was actually just taking it at face value, which if anything is a respect for it.
You have to be careful with your language with me, because I don’t have faith in anyone’s cognitive ability. I need to be shown it. If you’re being sloppy with words, and you see me treat your words at face value, then should there be any disconnect between what you meant to say, and how I am taking it, could be my fault, but then I ask that you show what you really meant when you said those certain things that when taken at face value, mean something else.
And you’re not the judge of valid points, I am. I will decide if Carrie’s points are valid, and if your points are valid. Your thoughts on what are and are not valid points will be taken under advisement.
This is pretty much the same thing you are saying when you are trying to convince me that Carrie’s points are valid, as if you’re the judge of that. I just make my stance a little more clear so that we’re not BS’ing each other.
I did find your reply amusing. I enjoy sarcasm and banter but that’s not really what I’m trying to get at here.
But notice, I said they are alike, not identical. Yes, Children can go against the will of their parents.
Actually you didn’t say “alike.” You said “just as.” To me that sounds like “identical”, but if you want to find an escape route, then be my guest. I wouldn’t gain anything anyway even if you changed your argument after I pointed out to you a valid counter-argument to the one you made.
However, there are three meanings of the will of God:
Why not one? Is it because there’s more than one God? Or is it because there’s more than one ego in the world?
(a) Sovereign decretive will, the will by which God brings to pass whatsoever He decrees. This is hidden to us until it happens.
(b) Preceptive will is God’s revealed law or commandments, which we have the power but not the right to break.
(c) Will of disposition describes God’s attitude or disposition. It reveals what is pleasing to Him.
We have the ability to go against (b) and (c). However, we cannot go against (a). We cannot overpower God in a decision.
In other words, you retain your ego, as in (b) and (c), and you recognize that you cannot overrule physical laws, as in (a).
And I do not seek to impose morality on others. I do not demand that a cat behaves like a dog. Rather, I would prefer that cat come to the realization that they want to be a dog and behave like a dog. Because, as you know, all dogs go to heaven But, if a cat wants to be a cat, I can’t change that.
???
You do not seek to impose morality on others? OK, not YOU, Tim, but definitely your God, which is where you have put your ego. You’ve only deemed people immoral in your thoughts. You will leave the Earthly implications of those thoughts to God, or his Earthly messengers.
Since I am a human, I can’t possibly do anything that is not human. Your analogy of cats and dogs is artificial. You’re taking dogs and separating them into two groups, one group that are really dogs, and another group that aren’t really dogs.
I have no idea how I could possibly seek to be non-human or behave non-human, and so I don’t know what you mean by you telling me what you prefer me to do. Do you prefer me to act Christian or act non-Christian? That I think you can answer.
It’s been fun 🙂
Interesting list of wills. Where did it come from? (I genuinely don’t know) Just giving it a glance and not a ton of thought, I don’t know why b and c are separated, can you clear that up for me?
It’s from R.C. Sproul. I believe from his book, “Chosen by God” or from “Essentials of the Christian Faith”.
I believe R.C. seperates b and c because, b is clearly stated in the bible. However, c may or may not to be known to us at any given time. We do not always know how a given circumstance actually pleases Him and furthers his plan. That’s my best guess at it.
Sounds to me like there’s not a good reason for non-Protestants to separate them, then . . . ’cause you know . . . we have more than the Bible to go off. 😀
random thought: why do smileys get moved to the start of a line rather than left where you put them?
LOL! I have no clue! I’ve tried every which way to fix it. And I don’t know why they are seperated. R.C. seperated, I don’t know that all protestants do. Maybe it’s something they teach in the seminaries?
“: why do smileys get moved to the start of a line rather than left where you put them?”
God moves [smileys] in mysterious ways.
🙂
Well done sir. Well done.
What would you think of the following analogy?
Eddie is a middle-class child of average intelligence. He strives to please his parents, be “good,” make friends, do well in school, and eventually support himself with a career. To the best of his ability and knowledge he does all the things he has been guided to do: he does his chores, he walks his neighbor’s dog, he defends a victim of bullying, he does his homework, he practices his musical instrument, and he runs track after school.
Eddie is preparing for his big 8th grade graduation exam, which involves taking a math test, giving a music performance, and running a fitness course.
Eddie practices for these tests diligently. He studies his introductory algebra book [and even volunteers to help his younger sister with her math homework], he rehearses his beginner’s trumpet etudes [and even plays in the garage so as not to disturb his parents with the noise], and he completes the one mile run with his team [and even cheers on those who are slower than he is]. Attaining those goals is a reasonable expectation for a person of his age, abilities, and knowledge. As such, his mastery of these tasks would make a fair test of his success.
On the morning of the big exam, Eddie’s parents refuse to let him eat breakfast, so he cannot think as clearly. His math teacher intentionally breaks his pencil. Of course, Eddie planned ahead and brought a second pencil, but his teacher breaks that, too. Amazingly, the math test involves college-level differential equations. Eddie heads to the band room, his spirits sinking. To his dismay, the music teacher takes his trumpet and insists he play the piano instead. Not only that, he must perform a complex Rachmaninoff concerto. When Eddie musters the courage to complete the fitness test, he discovers that in order to pass he must be able to climb a mountain, jump off, and fly (without a parachute).
Despite being the best Eddie he knew how to be—despite following his parents’ and teachers’ instructions, despite practicing, and despite desiring to do good—he could not be anything more than human. He fails the impossible tests.
“But, I tried my best! I did everything that you taught! I tried so hard to please you!,” he sobs.
The teachers bellow: “Ha! Despite your best efforts, there is no way you could succeed [you are not an omniscient God, with complete knowledge of good and evil…]! However, if you admit you have sinned, we will forgive you and offer you peace!”
A girl named Carrie raises her hand, tentatively, for questioning the wisdom of the teachers was a grave transgression indeed. “But, teacher,” she says. “You set things up so Eddie would fail. By your design and definition he is ‘imperfect,’ no matter how hard he tries. Is it not YOU who should be asking HIS forgiveness?”
?
Carrie, I appreciate the time and creativity put into your example. I especially like it because it brings about many of the thought and ideas that go through the minds of many individuals. However, I want to point out the flaw in your story. You suppose that God is always moving the standard and/or trying His hardest to bring about failure. However, the standard by which we have eternal life in heaven has never moved. It has and always will be salavtion by God’s grace through Faith in Jesus Christ. The person and methods do not change. God has said in His word taht whomever believes will be saved.
Now, if you’re talking about the standard of righteousness, that too has remained unchanged. Perfect obedience to God is the rule (one that we all fail, hence the need for Christ). We are never placed in a scenario where our only choice is to sin. The bible says God always provides a way out from sin and does not give more than can be handled. If we fail to pass the standard, it is because we chose our way intead of God’s.
Thank you for your response.
True, my analogy was not completely accurate because I had the teachers moving the standards. My main concern is that the standards are impossible.
I thought Bob’s story was saying that, by nature of being human, we cannot know everything– and that if we knew everything we’d see how awful we really were. We are not God, we are not omniscient, we cannot know every far-reaching effect of our single action (such as honking the car horn from Bob Murphy’s story), and because of that we are “imperfect” and sinners.
But our sin consists of being born how God made us. No matter how hard we try to follow God’s will and be good (whether that means going to church, being charitable, following the Commandments, etc.) we are still sinners. No matter how good we are, we are bad. That seems an unfair/unreasonable standard.
On top of that, we are supposed to ask forgiveness for being fallible humans… even though God made us with human properties, not God properties.
I’m so glad you’re voicing these concerns 🙂 I think they are rightly justified. I won’t pretend to know all the answers, but I will do my best.
When we are born/made, a desire to sin is not placed in us by God. We are born flawed because this flaw was passed down throughout humanity. That flaw is a desire to sin. A desire to suplant God’s will with our own. It can be seen in every individual who dislikes submitting ot authority. However, there is hope. I’m going to borrow from a man named R.C. Sproul on this one. When Adam and Eve were created, they had the option and moral ability to sin or not sin. When they sinned, they gave up that moral ability (the ability to choose God) and instead chose themselves and satan. From then on, all born have been born with the option to choose God, but not the moral ability/desire to do so.
However, there are some (the bible calls them the elect – Romans 8:28-30,33) that God chooses to give a new hear and a new desire for Himself to.
Of course, now you have a new can of worms saying, WELL WHY WASN’T I CHOSEN?!?!? It’s not my fault he didn’t choose me. Well, check out Romans 9:14-24
Romans 9 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
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Romans 9
Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)
Israel’s Rejection of Christ
9 I speak the truth in Christ —I am not lying; my conscience is testifying to me with the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have intense sorrow and continual anguish in my heart. 3 For I could almost wish to be cursed and cut off from the Messiah for the benefit of my brothers, my own flesh and blood. 4 They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple service, and the promises. 5 The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Messiah, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.
God’s Gracious Election of Israel
6 But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Neither are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants. On the contrary, your offspring will be traced through Isaac. 8 That is, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but the children of the promise are considered to be the offspring. 9 For this is the statement of the promise: At this time I will come, and Sarah will have a son. 10 And not only that, but also Rebekah received a promise when she became pregnant by one man, our ancestor Isaac. 11 For though her sons had not been born yet or done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to election might stand— 12 not from works but from the One who calls—she was told: The older will serve the younger. 13 As it is written: I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.
God’s Selection Is Just
14 What should we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not! 15 For He tells Moses:
I will show mercy
to whom I will show mercy,
and I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion.
16 So then it does not depend on human will or effort but on God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture tells Pharaoh:
I raised you up for this reason
so that I may display My power in you
and that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
18 So then, He shows mercy to those He wants to, and He hardens those He wants to harden.
19 You will say to me, therefore, “Why then does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?” 20 But who are you, a mere man, to talk back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” 21 Or has the potter no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one piece of pottery for honor and another for dishonor? 22 And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction? 23 And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory — 24 on us, the ones He also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
By the way, I know the scripture references hold little water for those who don’t believe them. But I include them because Christians need to see where it is that we draw our understanding and ideas from too. I assume this blog is also for the nourishment and bulding up of Christians.
@Carrie:
I’m actually not a Christian, or any kind of religous person, but neither am I a secular humanist. however, I don’t believe that your analogy with Eddie is correct. The main point you’re making as I see it seems to be that the earthly moral game is rigged so that a person cannot win, meaning they will always commit immoral actions and therefore will be punished by god.
That’s kind of what Christians imply when they say that there is a need for Jesus, meaning that we are all liars, murderers, thieves, adulterers, etc. But I don’t think that’s true.
For example, one may say that we are all adulterers because we have looked at people we weren’t supposed to in a lewd way or whatever. but just because we may all be guilty of that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to live a perfect life in that regard. It’s certainly possible not to think about anyone with lust, mentally guarding yourself all the time and training yourself to not look at anyone you’re not supposed to in that way. It might be really really hard to do that all the time, but certainly not impossible as the classmate in your example says: “You set things up so Eddie would fail. By your design and definition he is ‘imperfect,’ no matter how hard he tries. “
In your example, Eddie literally doesn’t have the knowledge to solve all the puzzles he’s given, therefore making his tasks literally impossible. In our case, it doesn’t have much of anything to do with the problem of knowledge, it’s the problem of difficulty.
sorry for the weird bolding, not sure what’s going on there.
Carrie, that’s an awesome analogy.
The way Christians view it is that the test was made beforehand, and the guy that gave Eddie his study guides missed parts of it. So when Eddie went to practice his music, it sounded good, but not as good as it was supposed to sound. When he studied his math, he was missing some key equations. When he went to fly, his hot air balloon was ripped.
This wasn’t Eddie’s fault, and in a manner of speaking, it wasn’t God’s either. God gave the first people everything they needed to succeed . . . they just didn’t try hard enough. The guy who was taking music notes didn’t feel like copying all of them down. The guy copying math didn’t think that other equation was necessary. The guy putting the balloon together didn’t want to use all the thread. Previous people have caused a chain reaction where something fails along the way for everyone. Christians call this chain reaction ‘original sin.’ In the meantime, all this bad stuff keeps happening . . . but it doesn’t have to keep going. We can call on God for help to make sure that *we* don’t cause any more dominoes to fall. Some will fall against us, and they will cause us pain, but we can stop that pain from causing pain to others.
The Christian life isn’t about living perfectly . . . rather, it’s about *trying* to live perfectly, and asking God to make up the difference.
I like that you point out that Christian’s goal is not to live a perfect life. Our goal is to love God and love others, and to do so, we strive for a perfect life. We know we can’t make it. But love is action, not simply feeling. And yes, because we can’t come anywhere close to perfect, it’s by grace we are saved. When we believe, Christ’s rightousness is placed upon us. God looks at us, but He doesn’t see our sin. He chooses to see how His son lived a perfect life for us. And because of this, as our representative, Christ’s love allows us to spend eternity in Heaven.
Carrie,
1 Cor 10:3 says that God will not let people become subject to trials greater than they can bear. Your story could only be analogous to Christian teachings if Eddie actually could have done what was asked of him.
I would think it is idiotic.
The story in the entry does not make sense to me. If you honked your horn unnecessarily, you SHOULD feel guilty for treating the recipient unjustly. But I still don’t see how that makes you responsible for the behaviors of the other people in the subsequent chain of events. Each of the people in the pathway leading to the bicyclist’s demise made mistakes (not preparing, rushing, being negligent, etc.) To say “[n]one of this would have happened had you not honked your horn in anger at the lady” does not seem to follow. Each person in the chain of events could have deliberately chosen to break the pattern of unconscious living.
Also, I think the story overlooks all the good things you can do. (If we’re going to make arbitrary assertions about the effects our actions have on the world, why not make good assumptions?) You let someone in in traffic. On account of the timing, the driver is able to miss a deer in the road rather than hitting it. Therefore she gets to her job interview safely. She is so touched by your traffic courtesy that her mood is brightened, she performs well at the interview, she gets the job, etc. I am not a utilitarian, but “on balance” our good actions can spread and do a lot of good, as well. Why focus on the negatives?
I have to agree with you Carrie. We are not held responsible for the actions of others. Yes, we may be an influence, but the final decisions are still up to them. We cannot force anyone to do anything. (Unless we physically force, then it’s still us doing it, not them).
The same goes for “good” actions. Us doing “good” does not mean we get credit for others following our example or reacting to it. However, I still doubt we can do authentically “good” actions. A perfectly good action would mean that there were not hint of self-motivation, no pride, and that it was done completly for the honor of God.
Ah, you’re right. If we’re not directly responsible for others’ “bad” actions, we’re also not directly responsible for their “good” actions.
By the way, even though I am an atheist and do not agree with your last sentence, I really appreciate your courteous attitude in this discussion. 🙂
And I must say, you’re one of the most polite Atheists I’ve ever spoken with. Contrary to popular belief, it my experience that Christians and Atheists can have sustentative and calm discussions without being ridiculous, name-calling, or sadly, resorting to stupid retorts and common GOTCHA type arguments. (These come from both sides). We shouldn’t be trying to trick each other or prove each other wrong. Both sides, I believe, are trying to come to a better understanding and realization on life. So, thanks 🙂
Contrary to popular belief, it my experience that Christians and Atheists can have sustentative and calm discussions without being ridiculous, name-calling, or sadly, resorting to stupid retorts and common GOTCHA type arguments.
Calling someone a sinner is name calling.
So is calling someone by their name. I lol’d pretty hard about that comment tho! 🙂 I don’t think I called anyone a sinner tho. But I am willing to call myself one, that’s for sure.
So is calling someone by their name.
So wait, now name calling is fine, because you remembered Christians call others names?
You don’t think you called anyone a sinner?
OK, what if I told you that I blasphemed against the holy spirit, and did so many times, to my great enjoyment?
Matthew 12:31-32 reads that doing so is a mortal sin that cannot be forgiven.
This, the worst sin of all, I am telling you I commit.
Would you now call me a sinner in accordance with the bible? Here’s your chance to not only do the Christian thing, but you can name call like your ego desired all along!
Tim, perhaps you can explain how you said you don’t think you’ve called anyone a sinner, when in this post:
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2012/05/thoughts-on-hell-regrets-ive-had-a-few.html#comment-37500
you called people sinners, and that post was posted before your denial post here. I can expect someone to have forgotten what they said 5 years ago, but this was today!
I meant that on this page i haven’t called anyone a sinner. (Excluding myself now)
Not funny. I won’t joke around about blasphemy. If you’ve committed it, then there’s nothing I can do. The bible says it’s unforgiveable. Only non-christians are capable of actually committing it. Surprisingly, many christians don’t actually know what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Many who think the’ve committed it, haven’t really.
To further further clarify, I have spoken of sinners today, but I have not called any particular poster a sinner 🙂 There, did I fix my mistake?
To FURTHER FURTHER FURTHER clarify, we’re all sinners. So yea, I guess I can call everyone here a sinner. But, whether or not someon is saved, that i cannot know. Nor do i attempt to judge the hearts of anyone here. Only God knows each person’s heart.
@Egoist:
Calling someone a sinner is name calling.
Very interesting. But so is calling someone a murderer or a thief. yet we do that all the time in our court system. By ‘name calling’ I think Tim and Carrie are referring to needless ad hominen attacks, not substantive criticisms.
OK, I’m glad you admitted that you willingly do what you say we should not do, which is call each other names.
So we’re all “sinners” to you. But for some of us sinners, there is no chance at being “saved.” I blasphemed against the holy spirit. I am DOOMED.
Can I ask you something? If I committed an unforgiveable sin, if I am doomed, then why do I feel so happy, so incredibly fulfilled, and not only that, but I don’t skulk around like so many Christians I know of who are so convinced I shouldn’t be so happy?
Are you saying that my happiness right now is going to forever disappear after my body dies? OK, so what? I don’t care! Even if you told me I will suffer for eternity in the most incredibly painful way, I will say to you that it’s not me. It’s not me so it does not apply to me.
I am unique in the most deep, ontological, profound sense that anything in the universe past, present or future can possibly be.
God is my tool. I am not a tool of God. God does not frighten me. I frighten your God. Only a scared, frightened God would seek to banish its own fearful creations into another dimension where it safely cannot touch or harm it.
I as a sinner am just your creation. You have mistaken this creation of yours to be God’s creation. You fear the ultimate egoists who reject not only God’s laws, but the holy spirit itself, which is the ultimate foundation of Christianity, and serves as last line of defense the theists have against the egoist.
So you seek to banish me to the most remote dimension you can think of, called hell. This is where frightened beings seek putting what frightens them. Into a place where their fate is absolute eternal banishment.
You see, although I have different tastes and preferences than you, what I am saying is what frightens you the Christian the most about you the ego.
You said of blasphemy against the holy spirit:
“Only non-christians are capable of actually committing it. Surprisingly, many christians don’t actually know what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit. Many who think the’ve committed it, haven’t really.”
Interesting get out of jail card, isn’t it? It means you as a Christian, if you indeed ever had the thought of blasphemy, can believe yourself excused on the basis that it was a “false” blasphemy, that it was merely the illusion of blasphemy, that the “real” you, the Christian you, didn’t actually blaspheme against the holy spirit after all.
Whew! That was a close one, wasn’t it? You almost made it possible for you to be permanently unforgiveable, and to experience eternal torment.
So tell me, you say that most Christians don’t even know what it means to blaspheme against the holy spirit. So does it mean it requires something else besides holding the following:
“I forsake the holy spirit, I deny the holy spirit, I seek to destroy any beliefs in the holy spirit, I speak against the holy spirit, I feel every part of my being as abandoning the holy spirit.”
Is it more than this? Because I know of some people who consider themselves Christian today who have said this, with me when we were younger, for fun, just to see what would happen. One of those people is even a well-respected Pastor at a Pentecostal Church today, who teaches others how to get into Heaven with him!
Isn’t that funny? Oh wait, you said it wasn’t funny. But I think it’s funny. Here we have someone who you say God is sending to hell, and yet God is making them one of his proud messengers in one of his churches, teaching young children, and even officiating marriages!
ymm:
Very interesting. But so is calling someone a murderer or a thief. yet we do that all the time in our court system. By ‘name calling’ I think Tim and Carrie are referring to needless ad hominen attacks, not substantive criticisms.
Needless? If someone does it, I would say it is needed…for their own enjoyment, or else they wouldn’t do it.
No substance? As an egoist, I consider “sinner” to be devoid of substance, since it isn’t me, and it isn’t any other individual either. It is a belief of a property of me. But then that’s what everyone does when they call each other names like dufus and moron.
I think what you’re saying is that Carrie and Tim want to call other people names, like “irrational” and “sinner”, but they don’t want to be called names by others, and those “bad” names just so happen to be names that you don’t want to be called either.
Yes, calling someone a murderer and thief is also name calling, and as an egoist, I would call these names not substantive either, since they are contingent upon the belief that killing is OK, as long as it is in the name of something other than self-enjoyment, such as in the name of “society”, or “God”.
Of course I know that it’s all egos just pleasuring themselves by ending other people’s lives. The libertarian would congratulate a killer if he killed in accordance with whatever libertarian principles the libertarian appeals to as master. The theist would congratulate a killer if he killed in accordance with whatever religious principles the theist appeals to as master.
When God kills people through “natural” causes, the theist congratulates God for being merciful in not killing them sooner. When God kills a 30 year old through cancer, the Christian believes that’s what humans get for some past human thousands of years ago eating an apple, as if I am in any way them. (Funny how eating apples went from being sinful to being a part of a healthy meal.)
No. You didn’t blaspheme. If you want to know what it is, you can put in the study.
As for the rest. You’re allowed to have your views. They sadden me, but I cannot change them. But I’d rather not have my words twisted any more.
No. You didn’t blaspheme. If you want to know what it is, you can put in the study.
So you consider yourself the final judge on whether or not I blaspheme?
You’re not the judge, I am. I did blaspheme. I have judged myself to have blasphemed.
As for the rest. You’re allowed to have your views. They sadden me, but I cannot change them.
Why on Earth are you saddened? Yesterday you had no idea I even existed, and you were more happy. Now that you found out about me, you’re less happy? Wow, what power I have over you!
No wonder you’re a Christian. Words have an incredible power over you, rather than you have a power over words.
But I’d rather not have my words twisted any more.
What word twisting are you talking about? Sounds like you only need to have your words perceived as twisted so that you can deny what I am saying.
That’s fine, but I can only go by your words, and I don’t take too kindly to sloppily used words, nor do I give much charity in the area of assuming you’re right. I don’t want you to blow smoke up my arse, and I won’t blow smoke up yours either.
Sadly, I really should be going for the day, but it’s been an absolute pleasure talking with everyone! If there’s more conversation to be had, I’ll try checking on it tonight or tomorrow.
Hey Bob,
Perhaps I misread your meaning, butI have to wonder whether or not sinners in Hell would/do really feel any remorse for their sins. Yes, they feel remorse for the consequences of that sin, but I’d be willing to bet they aren’t sorry that they committed them. What we need to realize is, we do what we do because we enjoy it. We sin because it brings us the most utility at any given point in time. We may look back and regret we chose something, but that regret is because we could have gotten more utils elsewhere (it’s still self focused).
Well, maybe they are regretful, but as I’m thinking and writing, I think a better thing would be to say they aren’t repentent about their lives. Hell does not make them desire reconicliation with God. Satan and all others there will continue hating God for all eternity.
I completely agree with this assessment. 🙂
“Now when I say I have “faith in God,” I don’t mean, “I abandon my reason and embrace something illogical.” No, what I mean is that I admit I don’t understand His statements and His plan right now, but I trust in His goodness and I am certain that in the next life, when I have access to more information, then everything will make perfect sense and it will be crystal clear that He created the best of all possible worlds. It will be crystal clear why so many people died in World War II, and why little Suzie died of leukemia, even though she was the sweetest little kid you’ve ever met, etc. Also–the subject of this post–I think it will suddenly become crystal clear why Jesus told people that only through accepting Him could they be saved.
Let me give a stab at what that last “aha!” realization might be like. So to be clear, these are my own musings; this isn’t coming from the Bible. But what I’m trying to do here, is imagine what someone might experience who passes over to the afterlife, and then considers the statements of the Bible from that new perspective.”
When you say you have faith in God, what you are really doing is saying that you sense in yourself an ego that manifests in you having many Earthly desires, a uniqueness that is not merely a property of yours that others share, such as “reason”, “logic”, and not merely a property of yours that others are telling you that you ought to share, such as “moral”, “devout”, “a good man.”
It is something about you that you sense is appearing as you using “reason” and “logic”, and using “morality” as mere tools, as concepts that are owned, where some of them are to be constrained and kept hidden and locked up, where the dangers can be controlled and you being safe from them, and where others are be unconstrained and not kept hidden or locked up. A part of you is to be enslaved, another part is to be freed, which of course means YOU as Bob Murphy is to be enslaved.
All of these constraints, such as reason and logic, you know at some level are NOT “Bob Murphy”. They are what Bob Murphy has the ability to do and not do as owner of them. Having this ability is what others fear about you and want to own for themselves as their property. They want to own you, but give you “freedom” to be a “rational man.” You are not to have freedom as the unique Bob Murphy. No, you are to have freedom as a man, just like everyone else is to have freedom as men.
The ego is to be viewed by Theists as Satan, by Anarchists as “Statist”, by Deontological Libertarians as “Immoral”, by Consequentialist Libertarians as “Impractical”, by Communists as “Bourgeoisie”, by Fascists as “Dirty”, by Objectivists as “Irrational”, by Humanists as “Inhumane”, and on and on. Every universal “system” under which the ego is to be enslaved, has a name for the ego that refuses to obey the universal.
Any Objectivists or Libertarians who tell you that you are “wrong” to deny reason or logic, are just as mystical, just as “religious”, as the most ardent Christian who believes himself certain that the ego is in God. They have nothing on you as a unique man. They are just telling you that what they hold sacred, what they serve, what they make themselves slaves to, is at war with what you hold sacred, what you serve, what you make yourself a slave to. “My Dad can beat up your Dad”.
They are no “better” than you. You are no “better” than them. It’s two sacred ideals at war with each other on what is to be held as sacred.
But here’s thing ol’ chap. You won’t “win” if you abandon what you hold sacred, and adopt what they hold sacred. Sure, they will believe you have won “for yourself”, and you will probably get a feast in your honor, and for a few days you might feel like you’re gaining freedom. But that feeling will be short lived, as those who appeared to be acting for your benefit, will go about their own business, and most will eventually forget your transformation. Then you as a new slave, will then be expected to obey the new God, Rational Man. You will still enslave yourself however.
What you would have done is just hold sacred a new ideal, a new universal, a new abstract under which you as a unique Bob Murphy are to serve and obey, regardless of YOUR interests.
I’ve noticed that “Sunday” blog posts and responses are exposing a holy war, a war over sacred ideals. Nobody is introducing into this war the concept of themselves as unique…except me. At that is exactly what even atheists and theists can agree to as their Earthly enemies. The unbounded ego is truly free, with an often unruly property for sure, but everything is nevertheless MINE. This is what atheists and theists believe needs conquering in order to for them to be free. By denying their ego, and everyone else’s ego, that owns everything by nature. Theists want to control the ego by putting it in God and banishing all other egos to hell (and prison on Earth), morally bound atheists want to control the ego by putting it in Rational Man and banishing all other egos to prison. In prison, the banished egos are to be sustained and kept alive at the expense of other Rational men, who are themselves controlled on Earth by egos masquerading as the Rational man’s “representatives.” These lying egos are inevitable in a world where the unique is to be oppressed by “Rational man”, and controlled by “truthful” Rational man servants, i.e. the state, DROs, etc.
“Suppose for the sake of argument then when you die, there is indeed an afterlife. You are still conscious. However, you suddenly have access to all of history; you can contemplate, in one fell swoop, every event in the universe, from the moment of its creation to its destruction.”
This is the ego saying “Hi world! These are some of my desires: To know everything, and to have absolute creative and destructive powers.” Then your ego manifests itself in an attempt to use your limited body to accomplish these desires, and realizing that you lack the power. And instead of recognizing these limits as absolutes, you save these thoughts from annihilation, by making them owned by God, where they cannot be destroyed. You on Earth abstain from destroying the world and everyone in it by believing only God has that rightful authority. You are only a servant who is to refrain from destroying and creating that which is against the new God called “Rational Man.”
“Now, from that newfound perspective–which is so far beyond our current abilities that we can barely even talk about it, let alone really imagine what it would feel like–you become acutely aware of the ramifications of people’s free choices. There are obvious things, of course, like seeing the effect of Karl Marx putting his views down on paper, when history might have unfolded very differently if he had written commercial jingles instead.”
“But there’s more. You realize, to your absolute horror and astonishment, how much extra misery YOU brought into the world. Even if you thought you were a “good person,” the effects of your relative slips were that much more severe. You see that when you were in a bad mood one morning, and honked on your horn unnecessarily when a lady cut you off in traffic, that set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to a bicyclist getting paralyzed 8 minutes later.”
“(Specifically: The lady who cut you off had been rushing to get her kid to school because they were late since she had forgotten to wash the kid’s uniform the night before. So she felt bad about that, and then you honking at her made her feel even more guilty. Then when the kid complained about something a few minutes later, she snapped at him. Now the lady felt really awful, and didn’t even look in her rear view mirror because she was so disgusted with the whole situation, and was waiting to calm down before saying something else to her kid. That’s why she didn’t notice another car–driven by a 23-year-old who was rushing to a job interview–in her blind spot. When she went to change lanes, the inexperienced driver swerved, and hit the bicyclist. None of this would have happened had you not honked your horn in anger at the lady.)”
“I imagine cynics will read something like the above and scoff. “Oh come on, if we start thinking like that, then everybody would be guilty of all sorts of terrible crimes…” Right, which is what Christian doctrine teaches. That’s precisely the point I’m making here.”
And you’d be right as far as that Earthly example goes. Your actions are bringing about creation and bringing about destruction. You are causing death, and if you are a father, you are causing life.
As a theist, who believes only God has the “rightful” authority to create and destroy life, you consider it immoral for to have destroyed a life, and you consider it moral for you to have created a life.
Thus, if an Earthly atheist honked his horn and brought about a person’s death, you can believe to yourself that in similar ways, EVERYONE is to some extent immoral and evil. You want to consider everyone immoral for doing on Earth what you believe only God has the rightful authority to do. If you can convince atheists that they caused misery or even deaths of others, then you might convince them that the Christian doctrine of “original sin” is true after all, and that Christianity is the “Rational Man’s” choice religion.
You do not say, or you do not grasp, the contradiction inherent in the above. If a person honks his horn not to bring about a death, but to annoy the other driver as payback, and the other driver was killed, then didn’t God do this, and not the individual horn honker? Or is God manifesting his immoral behavior through man, after which theists can say man is evil, but good, which is now impossible for man, is God?
As an egoist, I will concede that an atheist can inadvertently bring about the death of others, but correct me if I am wrong, but the Christian doctrine of morality requires a person to be at least aware of the consequences of their choice in order for them to have “sinned.” For if everyone sins, what’s the point of the ten commandments? It would be like putting down ten biological processes inherent in the human body, and then calling them “sins that will require atonement under God.”
This is why Christianity is taught, and not merely expected to be known. It’s because the Christian doctrine professes that everyone is evil, and only through Christianity can everyone be saved from their evilness. Since nobody can act morally to the Christian, since everyone is bound to act immorally to the Christian, then the “escape” the Christians are offering becomes so much more attractive and lucrative. It offers rewards. It offers that which satisfies the ego. Join you the Christian, and join you into eternal happiness.
……Or…..I can reject your call for me to act morally, I can reject your morality as nothing but your ego manifesting itself in you trying to control me as a unique entity by convincing me that I am permanently tainted with evil, with immorality. That because some of my actions, through some unexplainable butterfly effect, are bringing about the misery of others, even the deaths of others, that I am immoral, and because I am immoral, I require salvation from it. Indeed, but it won’t be through God. It will be through annihilating morality as it is not MINE. Since morality is nothing to the ego, I am truly guilt and sin free. You cannot consider a unique entity as tainted, because there is no comparison of the unique with anything else.
What about the man who from birth live in a house in the woods, where his atheist parents left just as he was able to fend for himself? Suppose he remains a lone, non-Christian wild man until he dies? What immorality could he have committed, inadvertently or advertently? Will the Christian say he is still tainted, and will you believe he deserves hell, for the sake of perpetuating the Christian doctrine? Or will you concede that an Earthly man can rebuke the fake absolutism you are attempting to pin on him that demands his penitence?
What about a newborn human who is raised by a family of wild animals and knows nothing of Christian morality? Will your ego manifest itself in desiring eternal punishment for this free individual as well? Or will you chicken out and consider this human a God?
“Now in our world, people feel guilty about things they’ve done all the time. However, most of the time they can deal with it by focusing on other things, trying to make amends, or just drowning out the pain in drinking or other activities.”
…..Or…..I can reject ALL notions of guilt, because having guilt presumes a standard that is not me. I only use appearances of feeling guilty to better utilize the people around me who are enslaved to guilt and want others to feel guilty.
OK Bob, I am lying when I say I feel guilty. I am lying when I say I believe in God. I am lying when I say I have faith in Jesus. I am lying when I say you’re right. How will you tell me apart from “honest” Christians, like the ones you sit beside on Sunday morning?
What an amazing thing it would be if every single Christian on the planet is lying to their ego and to others for the sake of appearances, for the sake of appearances to themselves and others, because each Christian, incredibly, believes that there exists true believers of Christianity out there who are “right”, and they don’t want to be singled out as an ego lest they face their worst nightmares of being human on Earth with Earthly desires! Wait a minute…
“But what happens in the afterlife? What if there, there is nothing to do except exist and be intimately aware of how much suffering your own admittedly improper actions foisted on the world? Every time you did something that was wrong, even by your own moral code (which might differ from the code Billy Graham would have prescribed), it rippled out and was amplified by the similar transgressions of everybody else. You can’t help but obsess over how unimaginably beautiful and happy human society could have been, if you and everybody else hadn’t screwed it up so royally.
You mean if everyone didn’t exist on Earth in the first place, since existing on Earth necessarily carries with it misery creating acts like honking one’s horn on the street. Your strand of Christianity is that of the early unorthodox “heretics” who viewed the creation of the universe not as a benevolent event, but as an event of degradation, where evil and immorality are foisted into existence.
How evil and immorality can possibly radiate from an originally good and moral creating being is THE conundrum that all moralist mystics have wrestled with and none have ever reconciled.
You say humans screw things up, but at the same time you say humans were created by God. How can a perfect God possibly create anything that is not perfect, unless that God contained imperfections itself? It would be like saying a being of pure energy can radiate it from itself something less than, something degraded from, pure energy. It is an ad hoc assumption to presume that evil can radiate from the good in any way, so as to explain the existence of evil.
You also see how much more joy and wisdom that virtuous acts brought into the mix, and you wish you had done more on that front, as well. The gap between how much of a “good person” you thought you were, versus what you did in practice, was bigger than you could possibly have imagined when you were alive. You are simply astounded at the depths of your ignorance when you were alive, and you can’t believe you walked around, feeling pretty content and justified in your actions.”
…..Or…..you can realize that by saying virtuous acts exist, you are already presupposing the existence of, and thus you yourself are creating, non-virtuous acts. That by saying joyous acts exist, you are presupposing and thus you yourself are creating, non-joyous acts.
It’s the same universal absolutes that libertarian atheists create when they say the “ideal man” acts libertarian atheist like. By doing this, the atheist libertarian creates moral libertarians and immoral statists/theives/etc.
At all times though there are only unique egos.
“I daresay that such a state affairs would be, quite literally, a living hell. And what specifically would be so awful about it? After all, it would be pretty neat to have such a keen knowledge of good and evil, wouldn’t it?”
You are definitely a slave of the unorthodox, “heretical” strand of early Christianity. For you just said above that hell exists to a positive degree on Earth. How else can you as an Earthly creature even claim to understand at any level, small or grand, that people on Earth are inadvertently killing each other through egoist acts such as honking horns? You say we can only know such things after we die, but you’re saying all these things while you’re still alive on Earth. If you say knowing these things is hell, and if you say you know of Earthly examples, which is clearly the case by saying they do in fact exist, then you are necessarily saying you are experiencing hell on Earth, to whatever positive degree.
Are you saying the Earth is hellish? Or are you really saying that your ego is manifesting itself as you using Christianity as a mere tool, something to be owned, to be created or destroyed according to your enjoyment, and that the more you see Christianity as a mere tool, a mere property, the more your “evil” and “immoral” ego is brought to bear, which you then perceive as hell on Earth?
“No, in that context, the knowledge of good and evil would be a death sentence. Your eternal existence would be one of inconceivable suffering and torment. You would want to forgive yourself, but you would lack the power to do. You literally would be unable to forgive yourself, and so you would persist in eternal suffering and damnation.”
So because you on Earth claim to know such things are taking place, e.g. the horn honking, you are suffering and in torment, and you want to forgive yourself, but lack the power?
You don’t lack the power. You’ve always had it. You’ve just been mistaken in putting that power into God. You have the power to do so by eradicating all notions of guilt, by freeing yourself by taking what was yours all along, but were told by your priests that it owns you.
You are you and there is nothing else in the entire universe, past, present or future, that you are to enslave yourself to as your master. Every death you may have caused, including deaths brought about by you honking your horn, are nothing for you to “be” guilty. You are not guilty of anything, ever. Guilt is not you. It is but a mere property that you have the power to create and destroy.
If I knew that the actions I took brought about the deaths of a billion people, I would not “be” guilty. I may be overpowered, the way my own home would overpower me if it caved in while I was sleeping, but I would not be guilty under the authority of the home.
Does this mean I say go out and try to end the lives of a billion people? Not at all. For that would just be another call to a morality. I say do what you want to enjoy your life, and if it means being a pacifist, then do so because you own pacifism and can revoke it at any time to your enjoyment, not because it is a moral code under which you are to obey against your own enjoyment.
“Unless… There would be one group of people who could escape from this torment. This particular group of people had lived just as evil lives as everybody else. The significant differences, though, are that this particular group had even while alive admitted they were miserable sinners. So that right there eased the agony in the afterlife, because at least they were now just filled in with the details about how they had hurt so many people through their failures.”
So your conception of enjoyment is not being surprised by something evil you did, and knowing what evil you are committing whilst living.
“Yet more important, these people went further and had admitted that there was someone more powerful than they were, someone who did have the power to forgive them. And since they had subordinated their own will and desire to His, when He told them He forgave them, and that they were welcome to spend eternity in bliss with Him, they believed Him.”
But are you really more powerful than they are? No, you’re not, because you’re not emperor of the planet. That is what you have to tell your wife. You lack absolute power. Yes, I admit there is a higher power, but that higher power is not God. It is the might of other egos, and the might of every physicality that is expressed as a schism between what I want and what I can get through my power. Just like I lack the power to overturn the law of gravity, so too do I lack the power to rule the world of men.
Or are you just calling for everyone to have faith in a power that you don’t actually have, of which it will make it easier for you to control them for your enjoyment?
This is why you preach Christianity. It’s to control others more via the introduction of illusion. Without such an illusion, you suspect you will have a much harder time enjoying yourself by way of other people. Well, as a slave, that may be true for you, but for me, who is not a slave, I would consider it “hellish” for my interests to believe what you believe and to serve what you serve.
Creating illusions and destroying illusions is what I also do to better serve my interests. I find more enjoyment in destroying illusions than creating them, so I destroy them rather than do what you do, which is create them.
If everyone’s egos are self-denied, if everyone’s egos are tempered into being guilt ridden, it’s much more likely they will seek redemption from you, who’s ego is to be recognized and accepted, which you have put into a concept you call God. But I know it’s still YOUR ego. So I won’t be tricked into feeling guilty so as to be more obedient to your ego. I will instead say to you that I reject your mastery over me, and I will use you, and if you prefer you can use me, but don’t expect me to enslave myself to one of your concepts that you have enslaved yourself to, but manifests itself in an ego that controls others via illusion.
“Unfortunately, for the others, they had decided that they would not subordinate their own will and control of their destinies to this man. They did not believe him. So even if he told them in the afterlife that all was forgiven, that they had the freedom to come join the banquet with everyone else, they wouldn’t feel right in doing so. They would prefer to remain in isolation, pondering their miserable predicament and cursing the universe for being unfair.”
Subordinate my will? Why in the world would I want to subordinate my will to you? You might be able to delude yourself into believing that you are just a “messenger”, that you are not calling for others to subordinate their will under your will, but what if I told you that I am just a “messenger” of the ego, and that the unique ego cannot be subordinated under anything else?
How will you react to me? By might of course, but do you have the power to do so? You’re a pacifist, so the answer is no. You are like a man who wants to control others without doing what is necessary to control others. You want others to obey you without doing what is necessary to make them into obedient servants. You want others to be servants under you, without you being a master over them.
I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you because everything you are saying is not me. You say “unfortunately”, but unfortunately for whom? For you of course. Not me. For me it’s very much fortunate.
“In closing, let me reiterate that the above are my own musings; this isn’t something that I got directly from the Bible. But suppose there is an afterlife, and to be in it feels something like the above. Would the doctrines of the Bible seem so silly or monstrous in that light? Wouldn’t Jesus’ sermons be a lot more intelligible, if He knew the above was coming, but had to convey it to a bunch of simpletons?”
No.
What if a simpleton is less simpleton than you, and deems you as so simpleton-like, that you even delude yourself with what they consider to be mere tools they can use or not use to their benefit?
To me, you’re like a third world country guest who enters my tool shed and believes he has entered the Garden of Eden. He’ll spend hours in there, believing these tools are sacred objects, and will even worship them and fear them. I use them as mere tools for my enjoyment, but he thinks they are sacred, and that to destroy them would be sacrilege and evil. He might consider me a simpleton for putting myself above these tools, but I know he’s the simpleton for putting himself under the tools.
The simpleton is not he who uses your sacred illusions as mere tools for his own enjoyment, to be created or destroyed as he sees fit for himself. The simpleton is he who deludes himself with them so that I don’t have to do it for him. I can easily control pacifist simpletons.
tl;dr
Thanks, but I’m the judge of that, not you.
…??? you’re the judge of whether i think something is too long, and therefore didn’t read it?
I am the ultimate judge of all reality, especially of what I write and what I do.
I do not put faith in anyone else’s judgment, let alone in yours, unless of course it suits me to do so.
I am the judge over whether the length of my comments are sufficient or not. I will only take your response as something useful or not useful to me.
In this case, it is not useful to me, because I have judged my comments to be sufficient to suit my interests, and that if they were shorter, it wouldn’t suit my interests.
It suits your interest to write something so long people don’t read it?
It depends. If it’s between you reading it and not reading it, then I’d find my interests suited by knowing I read it and you did not. I don’t see what possible benefit you’d serve me by reading it.
If last week is any guide, what you write is not worth much to me anyway. You smoke up Murphy’s Sunday posts. If I needed that, I’d read his posts directly.
My suspicion is that you’re using Murphy’s Sunday blog posts as a testing ground for your own gradual conversion into Christianity, which I think has already happened, you just don’t know it fully yet. I could be wrong, but we tend to first love the smell of the food that we eventually eat.
Oh my….lol You had way too much fun with that! Sorry, WAY over my head though!
If you suspect I had fun with it, then it really isn’t over your head. You get why I did it.
You don’t have to apologize to me, although I know you are just apologizing for yourself. Christianity is a rejection of Earthly, bodily enjoyments, and its followers seek enjoyment in the spirit world instead.
Why you did I, I get. What you actually said, I don’t understand.
Since apology means “to give an answer for” I agree. I was apologizng for myself.
And my friend, I def do not reject earthly bodily enjoyments. God has given MUCH on this earth that is to be enjoyed. There’s so much that gives us just a TASTE of Heaven. Marriage, relationships, and so much in life is meant to be enjoyed as an example. Sadly, it’s often abused and turned into a struggle by those it’s meant to help. 🙁
Why you did I, I get. What you actually said, I don’t understand.
Oh you mean the content as it pertains to some universal standard, such as God. Sure, I accept that.
This is why so many Christians label so many people as sinners so haphazardly.
Since apology means “to give an answer for” I agree. I was apologizng for myself.
An apology is much more than giving answer for. It is also subjugating one’s own uniqueness, under a universal calling or obligation, be it Truth, Authority, God, Parents, etc. It is to consider such universals as above the ego.
And my friend, I def do not reject earthly bodily enjoyments. God has given MUCH on this earth that is to be enjoyed. There’s so much that gives us just a TASTE of Heaven. Marriage, relationships, and so much in life is meant to be enjoyed as an example. Sadly, it’s often abused and turned into a struggle by those it’s meant to help.
The kind of Earthly enjoyments you’re talking about are only those permitted by God as “holy”, whereas all other Earthly enjoyments that are not permitted by God and are considered “unholy”, are to be rejected.
You reject Earthly enjoyments not as what you actually find enjoyment in, but what you think you OUGHT to find enjoyment in.
To the extent that you find Earthly enjoyments that are not Christian enjoyments, and I won’t go into any details here, then you are not acting in accordance with Christianity.
Christianity says you ought not enjoy Earthly pleasures that are, of course, unchristian.
This is what I mean by Christianity rejecting Earthly enjoyment in favor of spiritual enjoyments. It’s not Earthly enjoyments that are to be had, but the enjoyment is to be in the spiritual world through a narrow, permitted band of Earthly actions.
Earthly enjoyments as such is rejected.
In Christianity, marriage can only be enjoyed to the extent that marriage is a holy communion, not a selfish communion. Child rearing can only be enjoyed to the extent that child rearing is a holy event, not an Earthly selfish event. And so on.
To the extent that you enjoy something for your sake, and not because it’s holy, you’re not enjoying it as a Christian.
1. Agreed.
2. I was simply stating the original definition.
3. Agreed.
“It’s not Earthly enjoyments that are to be had, but the enjoyment is to be in the spiritual world through a narrow, permitted band of Earthly actions.”
Not sure how you back this one up . . . there are only 10 commandments . . . most of which are negations of rather limited types of human behavior. If you eliminate 10 small categories of things, that’s a whole heck of a lot more that is permitted than banned. And those things that are banned are banned for good reason: you’ll end up hurting yourself and those around you more than you’ll cause pleasure for anyone if you do them. That’s not a ban on earthly pleasure, that’s a ban on stupid.
So yes, I’ll sum up the 10 commandments as the “don’t be stupid list.” 😀
“It’s not Earthly enjoyments that are to be had, but the enjoyment is to be in the spiritual world through a narrow, permitted band of Earthly actions.”
Not sure how you back this one up . . . there are only 10 commandments . . . most of which are negations of rather limited types of human behavior.
Um, Drigan, you do realize that Christianity is founded upon the New Testament, don’t you?
The Ten Commandments, if that’s all you go by, won’t make you a Christian. It would make you a follower of Moses, and the strands of Judaism.
To be a Christian, you have to do what Jesus said, which is to abandon Earthly pleasures, sell your wealth, sell your family, find happiness in the Lord, not possessions, etc.
If you eliminate 10 small categories of things, that’s a whole heck of a lot more that is permitted than banned.
Which is why Christians had to add more to the list of ten commandments. I mean, rape is not even banned in the original Judaism commandments.
And those things that are banned are banned for good reason: you’ll end up hurting yourself and those around you more than you’ll cause pleasure for anyone if you do them.
I will with utmost respect (only to keep you interested rather than becoming offput and setting into motion an elaborate butterfly effect chain that will result in my death) say that you are so incredibly wrong that you couldn’t be more wrong. There are many things that are against Christianity that I find has suited my interests tremendously, so many to count in fact, that I LAUGH OUT LOUD at the silly claims that I am “hurting myself” by engaging in these behaviors.
There are things that I do for my own pleasure that Christians would be shocked at learning about. Heck, even Ms. Objectivist Carrie got heated at me after I told her some of the non-violent, non-Christian Earthly pleasures I have engaged in.
That’s not a ban on earthly pleasure, that’s a ban on stupid.
So yes, I’ll sum up the 10 commandments as the “don’t be stupid list.”
So rape is not stupid?
Committing adultery against one’s abusive arranged marriage spouse in a country that doesn’t permit divorce, to make love to one’s true love, is stupid?
I think what’s stupid is trying to imagine the ten commandments as a source for how to not be stupid. No offense.
@Egoist
Please stop attributing ideas to me which I do not profess.
I never said that Christianity has rules *only* for your own good. They are for the good of all of society, but ultimately, we believe they *are* for your own good. The problem with that argument (ultimate benefit in the afterlife) is that it goes to things that you don’t believe, so I don’t care to argue that point.
I *do* think you’ll agree that rape has greater costs to society than benefits, even if the potential benefits to the rapist outweigh his immediately obvious costs.
“To be a Christian, you have to do what Jesus said, which is to abandon Earthly pleasures, sell your wealth, sell your family, …, etc.”
Where did you get this idea? I don’t believe it’s biblical. Jesus *did* tell one individual to abandon his earthly possessions and follow him, but never said it was a general rule. Christians must be *willing* to part with family and friends if they will not accept your friendship because you are a Christian, but that’s not the same thing as abandoning them outright. If someone wouldn’t accept you because you believed that 1+1=2, are you going to change your belief for them?
“Which is why Christians had to add more to the list of ten commandments. I mean, rape is not even banned in the original Judaism commandments.”
If we’re going to play this game, it would be a reasonable argument to say that Christianity only has 2 commandments: Love God with all you have, and your neighbor as yourself. Every other aspect of Christianity flows from this.
“Committing adultery against one’s abusive arranged marriage spouse in a country that doesn’t permit divorce, to make love to one’s true love, is stupid?”
A few things here:
1.) Christianity doesn’t recognize involuntary marriages as valid.
2.) Violence inside a *valid* marriage is grounds for separation.
3.) Separation is not grounds for infidelity.
4.) Mosaic laws regarding rape were for the protection of the victim. It’s hard to see with modern eyes, but a non-virgin was ‘tainted’ and was not acceptable for marriage. Because of this, she was doomed to a life of destitution. The law was to allow her to at least have a home.
5.) The 10 commandments is not a comprehensive list of stupid things you could do, merely a list of the most common and destructive.
6.) There’s a vastly greater amount that’s on the table than there is that’s off the table.
Drigan;”Please stop attributing ideas to me which I do not profess.”
BOY have you ever come to the wrong blog!
lol
Drigan:
Please stop attributing ideas to me which I do not profess.
I never said that Christianity has rules *only* for your own good. They are for the good of all of society, but ultimately, we believe they *are* for your own good.
Drigan, I didn’t attribute to you the idea that Christianity has rules *only* for my own good. I said you believe Christianity has rules for my own good, which you just reiterated is the case.
Please don’t accuse me of attributing false positions to you, when I did not so.
Moreover, as an egoist, I know that there are no rules that are good for “society”, because “society” is a phantom. There is only good for me, you, and every other ego.
You claiming that Christianity has rules for a good “society” is not actually from Christianity. It is from secular humanism. Christianity makes no rules for “society.” It only makes rules for the individual and how the individual is to be, in your case, put “into a state of grace.”
Society doesn’t go in and out of grace in Christianity, individual people do.
The problem with that argument (ultimate benefit in the afterlife) is that it goes to things that you don’t believe, so I don’t care to argue that point.
I *do* think you’ll agree that rape has greater costs to society than benefits, even if the potential benefits to the rapist outweigh his immediately obvious costs.
Society incurs no costs and society incurs no benefits. Only egos incur costs and benefits.
Rape generates gains when the benefits outweigh the costs to the individual rapist.
“To be a Christian, you have to do what Jesus said, which is to abandon Earthly pleasures, sell your wealth, sell your family, …, etc.”
Where did you get this idea?
The bible.
I don’t believe it’s biblical.
You believe wrong.
Jesus *did* tell one individual to abandon his earthly possessions and follow him, but never said it was a general rule.
Oh come on, that individual could have been ANYONE and Jesus would have said the same thing. That individual was “a young man” who asked the question: “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”
Jesus’ response wasn’t for that young man and no other. It was for EVERYONE. To Jesus, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”
How in the world can you possibly believe that this was only for that one young man, and that Jesus thought everyone else in the world should keep their possessions? That makes no sense. Jesus wouldn’t have special rules for one young man and different rules for everyone else.
You’re stretching credibility here Drigan.
Christians must be *willing* to part with family and friends if they will not accept your friendship because you are a Christian, but that’s not the same thing as abandoning them outright.
That’s not what the bible says.
If someone wouldn’t accept you because you believed that 1+1=2, are you going to change your belief for them?
You mean if I believed 1+1=3, and someone wouldn’t accept me because of that, would I change my beliefs? Only if it suits me.
“Which is why Christians had to add more to the list of ten commandments. I mean, rape is not even banned in the original Judaism commandments.”
If we’re going to play this game, it would be a reasonable argument to say that Christianity only has 2 commandments: Love God with all you have, and your neighbor as yourself. Every other aspect of Christianity flows from this.
Suppose I am a masochist. Oops.
“Committing adultery against one’s abusive arranged marriage spouse in a country that doesn’t permit divorce, to make love to one’s true love, is stupid?”
A few things here:
1.) Christianity doesn’t recognize involuntary marriages as valid.
I was talking about the Ten Commandments, not Christianity. Nice bait and switch though.
2.) Violence inside a *valid* marriage is grounds for separation.
3.) Separation is not grounds for infidelity.
These are also not in the ten commandments.
4.) Mosaic laws regarding rape were for the protection of the victim. It’s hard to see with modern eyes, but a non-virgin was ‘tainted’ and was not acceptable for marriage.
This is all a red herring.
Tainted by whom? The priests of course.
My point is that rape is not banned in the original commandments, and so your claim that the ten commandments are a guide as to how not to act stupid, would have rape being deemed not stupid. That’s all I wanted to say about rape.
5.) The 10 commandments is not a comprehensive list of stupid things you could do, merely a list of the most common and destructive.
Not for me it isn’t. It’s not stupid for me to make love to the one I love if I no longer love my spouse and yet for some reason divorce is not an option.
It’s also not destructive for me to violate ANY of the ten commandments, if doing so suits me as deemed by me.
6.) There’s a vastly greater amount that’s on the table than there is that’s off the table.
I disagree. Ten rules in a complex world are but a blip in comparison to the total possible rules, and the total existing rules.
“It’s also not destructive for me to violate ANY of the ten commandments, if doing so suits me as deemed by me.”
Ok, I concede that it really *isn’t* worth arguing with you, as you don’t acknowledge that reality is not subject to you.
That said, I should answer your comments in case someone else was following:
“You claiming that Christianity has rules for a good “society” is not actually from Christianity. It is from secular humanism. Christianity makes no rules for “society.” It only makes rules for the individual and how the individual is to be, in your case, put “into a state of grace.””
A 2000 year old (more if you count the Jewish roots) religion took its stance of society from an 80 year old philosophy which was founded on Christian ideals? I think not.
“Society incurs no costs and society incurs no benefits. Only egos incur costs and benefits.”
Then you can have no problems with any form of violence so long as it is socially acceptable. Slavery therefore was justified because *someone* benefited. You literally seem to believe might makes right.
“How in the world can you possibly believe that this was only for that one young man, and that Jesus thought everyone else in the world should keep their possessions?”
Because everyone has different gifts, and all are called to certain things.
Some people do, indeed, give up everything. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal are a good example. They don’t even wear sandals except when they see something like crushed glass in front of them. They’re pretty awesome.
There is a division of labor among religious callings; some people are called to intense prayer, some are called to raising families, some are called to give up worldly possessions, some are called to give up their very lives. That particular rich young man was called to give up his possessions, but he chose not to.
“Only if it suits me [would I believe that 1+1=3]”
I really don’t know what to say to this.
“I was talking about the Ten Commandments, not Christianity. Nice bait and switch though.”
I thought we were discussing Christianity and the rules involved. You accuse me of not recognizing that the New Testament exists, then accuse me of switching the content. Clearly, you aren’t trying to seek the truth of the matter.
“Tainted by whom? The priests of course.”
Society as a whole (which I realize you don’t recognize) recognized this. I believe this predated the Levitical priesthood.
“It’s also not destructive for me to violate ANY of the ten commandments, if doing so suits me as deemed by me.”
It’s sad that you claim that murdering an innocent isn’t destructive if it suits you. *sighs and moves on*
“It’s also not destructive for me to violate ANY of the ten commandments, if doing so suits me as deemed by me.”
Ok, I concede that it really *isn’t* worth arguing with you, as you don’t acknowledge that reality is not subject to you.
What do you mean? How is violating the ten commandments not reality? What’s the point of even having the ten commandments if it wasn’t possible to violate them in reality?
The fact that you feel compelled to not argue with me, is just a result of you learning that I won’t obey the rules you are trying to impose on me. You realize that you won’t win, so you give up, to go to the next potential victim.
Which is fine, because I am suspecting that this may not go to where I stand to benefit a great deal.
That said, I should answer your comments in case someone else was following:
Bingo! Just in case someone comes along who is willing to believe in the same illusion…
“You claiming that Christianity has rules for a good “society” is not actually from Christianity. It is from secular humanism. Christianity makes no rules for “society.” It only makes rules for the individual and how the individual is to be, in your case, put “into a state of grace.””
A 2000 year old (more if you count the Jewish roots) religion took its stance of society from an 80 year old philosophy which was founded on Christian ideals?
No. Christianity took its stance on the basis of an INDIVIDUAL MAN’S reaction to “society”. Jesus was an outcast, an ego who rejected “society”. He was the antithesis of “social good.” He was the harbinger of “individual good.” Each person was to be saved or not saved, be in grace or not be in grace, find heaven or not find heaven, etc. Christianity is an individualistic creed.
In my judgment that is why Christian nations tend to be more prosperous. It’s because Christianity is very close to egoism.
“Society incurs no costs and society incurs no benefits. Only egos incur costs and benefits.”
Then you can have no problems with any form of violence so long as it is socially acceptable.
Actually no. I have no problems with violence as long as it is acceptable to ME. Society doesn’t think.
Slavery therefore was justified because *someone* benefited. You literally seem to believe might makes right.
You’re half right. I believe might is what gives the illusion of “right.” Who has the “rights” is he who has the might to stop others from taking using their might.
At any rate, you also believe in might makes right. You believe God’s might makes God right.
I just don’t pretend.
“How in the world can you possibly believe that this was only for that one young man, and that Jesus thought everyone else in the world should keep their possessions?”
Because everyone has different gifts, and all are called to certain things.
Some people do, indeed, give up everything. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal are a good example. They don’t even wear sandals except when they see something like crushed glass in front of them. They’re pretty awesome.
You mean after my response, you STILL believe Jesus’ response to the young man was not a general rule for how to get into heaven, but it was simply for that one young man?
Sorry to be this frank, but you’re rather dense. Jesus clearly answered the young man the same way he would have answered anyone else who asked that same question.
There is a division of labor among religious callings; some people are called to intense prayer, some are called to raising families, some are called to give up worldly possessions, some are called to give up their very lives. That particular rich young man was called to give up his possessions, but he chose not to.
My guess is that it is because you’re perhaps trying to excuse your refusal to do what Jesus said you should do, which is to sell your possessions and give to the poor. You want to be a Christian, but not really.
Jesus says to sell your possessions and give to the poor in no less than three separate locations in the bible: Luke 12:33, Mark 10:21, and Matthew 19:21.
In two instances he is speaking to different people.
In Luke 12:33, Jesus tells his disciples to sell their possessions and give to the poor.
In Mark 10:21, Jesus tells “a man who ran up to” him, in Judea and across the Jordan, to sell his possessions and give to the poor.
In Matthew 19:21, I think it’s the same person as in Luke 12:33.
Jesus is clearly giving a universal rule, not a specific rule to specific people.
“Only if it suits me [would I believe that 1+1=3]”
I really don’t know what to say to this.
Ask yourself why believing in God suits you, and you’ll know what I mean.
“I was talking about the Ten Commandments, not Christianity. Nice bait and switch though.”
I thought we were discussing Christianity and the rules involved.
Yes, but within that context, we were talking about the Ten Commandments.
You accuse me of not recognizing that the New Testament exists, then accuse me of switching the content.
I didn’t accuse you of not recognizing the NT exists. I just mockingly asked you to point out the obviousness that Christianity is based on the NT, and that the ten commandments are not sufficient, so your response that you can’t see how I can back up my claim that Christianity calls for abstaining from Earthly enjoyments, cannot possibly be rebuked by referring to the ten commandments!
Clearly, you aren’t trying to seek the truth of the matter.
Yes, clearly, haha.
“Tainted by whom? The priests of course.”
Society as a whole (which I realize you don’t recognize) recognized this.
I can’t recognize that which does not exist. Society as a whole did not recognize it. It was particular individuals. The number may have been large in proportion to the population, but not every individual believed non-virgins were “tainted”, and that is sufficient for refuting any legitimacy of Mosaic rape laws.
“It’s also not destructive for me to violate ANY of the ten commandments, if doing so suits me as deemed by me.”
It’s sad that you claim that murdering an innocent isn’t destructive if it suits you. *sighs and moves on*
How can that make you sad, when you believe your God is doing it, and yet you not only not feel sad about it, you worship the murderer besides?
How can you explain that?
I don’t see why you can feel so bad about this ego you’re interacting with now, and yet you feel so good about another alleged ego who has killed far more innocent people than me! (Dear FBI: I’ve killed zero people, Sincerely, owner of IP address you see on your screen).
“There’s so much that gives us just a TASTE of Heaven.”
And here I thought you were a Protestant! 😉
I’m a Presbyterian (PCA) 🙂
*grins* I have some really good PCA friends. otoh . . . they seem to be more along the lines of the “humanity=evil” types. I appreciate knowing that’s not a universal PCA trait . . . I mean . . . God makes man and says “very good” . . . everything else was just ‘good.’
What am I reading.
“I imagine cynics will read something like the above and scoff. “Oh come on, if we start thinking like that, then everybody would be guilty of all sorts of terrible crimes…” Right, which is what Christian doctrine teaches. That’s precisely the point I’m making here.”
Are you seriously willing to argue that I am responsible for my butterfly effects?
Bob,
I think you are taking the unbelievers’ unstated assumptions as given and so you are creating too much new theology unnecessarily. Specifically, this stuff about how when we die we’ll be aware of things that we just don’t understand now. The Bible makes no promise of all this extra knowledge in the afterlife. Fortunately, you don’t need all that to address the questions above.
The questions you are responding to only look like a serious challenge to Christianity because the argument they represents is never fully articulated. But we can fix that. The argument goes like this:
0. S. Unstated. Assume some secular philosophy to be true.
1. I. Unstated. The secular philosophy referenced in 0 has some implication I.
2. ~(I&C). Some part of Christianity is incompatible with I.
3. ~C By disjunctive syllogism, Christianity is false.
Unbelievers who raise the types of questions that you address here are just begging the question.
James you are right that what I am saying does not pop right out of the Bible; I said that twice in my post to be clear. However, if you think any atheist would be swayed by your argument here, I think you are wrong.
(Admittedly, I don’t see too many atheists swooning over my attempt either.)
I will say Bob your attempt is better than his.
I won’t say how good your attempt really is while you are still smarting from The Man though.
@Egoist
Would you explain what you mean when you say you’re an egoist? Just curious.
It means no universal concept expresses me.
Nothing that you claim to be my characteristic completely exhausts me. I have the property of being human, but I am more than the characteristic of being human, I am ME. I give the concept “human” its meaning. The attribute “human” does not give my existence meaning. I have the attribute of being a man, but I am more than than the attribute of man, I am ME. I also give the concept “man” its meaning.
“Holy”, “man”, “In a state of grace”, “sinful”, “human”, these are merely names. Names do not express me.
Christians believe God to be perfect. Christians believe God has no calling to achieve perfection. That holds true for me, and me alone.
All universals above me, be it man, be it God, be it lawful, be it rational, be it Christian, be it human, all of them can only weaken my feeling of uniqueness.
I consume myself for my own enjoyment, and when it is exhausted, this unique ego will be eradicated, never again to exist. I will enjoy my transitory existence, and not enslave myself to any rules, but exercise my might to the utmost of my power and ability. I recognize my might is limited, and the might of other egos is the only limitation I face in the realm of men. If your ego is weaker, you will be food for my enjoyment. If your ego is stronger, I will be food for your enjoyment. If our egos are equally strong, then we can achieve a balanced symbiosis for mutual gain, libertatis equilibratis.
A symbiosis of egos that is tarnished by self-weakened egos deserves to be annihilated by the strong egos who consume it, and out of the rubble, a new untarnished symbiosis of egos arises, without any pretension to state, God, humanity, or any other enslaving universal under which the ego is to be sacrificed.
Ok. Thanks for explaining your view.
No Sensible Person Is an Athiest
May 19, 2010 by Jay Adams
An agnostic? Well, I can see how this is at least a tenable position for an unbeliever. After all, Paul wrote about the impossibility of such persons to understand or welcome the things of the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians). If your eyes are closed and you admit it, as the agnostic in a sense does, so be it. That’s respectable. But an atheist? Now, he’s a different kind of cat. Who can make such an untenable boast as that there is no God? The Psalmist answers, “The fool has said in his heart ‘there is no God’” (Psalm 14:1).
Why is an atheist a fool?
In answer, let me simply suggest one reason: no one knows enough to be an atheist.
If, for instance, God is a spirit, how would you be able to ascertain His whereabouts or non-whereabouts? You can’t see or feel a spirit. As of late, even with all of our electronic marvels, I haven’t yet seen a spirit-detector for sale. How can he know that there is no God?
Secondly, supposing he was able to go everywhere in search of God, how would he know that God wasn’t just one jump ahead of (or behind) him? To make the affirmation with any reasonable basis for it, he would have had to be everywhere at the same time to discover that God wasn’t there. But, of course, that would mean he is omnipresent and omniscient (and probably omnipotent) to be able to be there. But then, if he were all of these, he’d be God—and hardly be an atheist.
Now, I don’t want to let the agnostics off too easily. There are two kinds of agnostics. One doesn’t know, and one who doesn’t care. I don’t have much respect for the second. He doesn’t care enough to find out so he can tell his children whether there is or not. Shame on him. The other kind doesn’t know, but it troubles him immeasurably. He should keep on seeking: “Seek and ye shall find.” There’s hope for him.
Gotta love theist logic.
In answer, let me simply suggest one reason: no one knows enough to be an atheist.
If that’s true, then nobody knows enough to be a theist.
If, for instance, God is a spirit, how would you be able to ascertain His whereabouts or non-whereabouts?
If you can’t ascertain his whereabouts, then you can’t say God exists.
You can’t see or feel a spirit. As of late, even with all of our electronic marvels, I haven’t yet seen a spirit-detector for sale. How can he know that there is no God?
Classic switching of the burden of proof.
The burden of proof is on he who says there is God.
Secondly, supposing he was able to go everywhere in search of God, how would he know that God wasn’t just one jump ahead of (or behind) him? To make the affirmation with any reasonable basis for it, he would have had to be everywhere at the same time to discover that God wasn’t there. But, of course, that would mean he is omnipresent and omniscient (and probably omnipotent) to be able to be there. But then, if he were all of these, he’d be God—and hardly be an atheist.
I don’t need to be everywhere to know omniscience does not exist. The fact that I exist and am unique, and the fact that I am not omniscient, means omniscience stops where I begin.
Now, I don’t want to let the agnostics off too easily. There are two kinds of agnostics. One doesn’t know, and one who doesn’t care. I don’t have much respect for the second. He doesn’t care enough to find out so he can tell his children whether there is or not.
Or, he knows it would be silly to pretend to know.
Shame on him. The other kind doesn’t know, but it troubles him immeasurably. He should keep on seeking: “Seek and ye shall find.” There’s hope for him.
Theists have been saying seek and ye shall find for thousands of years. We are to keep seeking precisely because it cannot be found.
Is Christianity like Marxism, where we are expected to wait infinity years before it will finally succeed as proven true? It is like a cop beating a homeless man and expecting him to enjoy it at some point. Seek enjoyment, and ye shall find it…but in the meantime you’re a slave.
“If that’s true, then nobody knows enough to be a theist.”
Not true: It’s just a lot more work to prove atheism (OK, so it’s actually impossible) than it is to prove theism. The odds of disproving any potential version of a god is exactly 0 . . . the proof would require omniscience. Assuming random chance, the probability of chancing upon the exact correct version of a god is basically zero. Luckily for theists outside of the spaghetti monster variety (I don’t think they count themselves as theists, so I’m going to disclude them from future theistic references), very few have this assumption. They have the assumption that a god has several properties if it exists, and is worth finding:
1.) Evidence of this god’s nature exists
2.) Further potential whether explanatory or productive
3.) Sentient
4.) Can communicate
5.) Aware of humanity \ human actions
6.) Capable of understanding human motives
7.) Wants to be found
(I just made this list up on the spot, so feel free to add or tweak as necessary.)
Some theists only have the earliest of those assumptions, but I think most people would agree that at least the first 5 are assumed by every religious institution in existence. If a god *wants* to be found, a sensible thing to do is to look at existing religious claims, and begin our search there. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of variety, so let’s just limit things to the most immanent and look for logical contradictions, and filter through the list that way.
The theist’s claim is one of these isn’t contradictory and is useful for making predictions. The atheist’s claim is that every one of them is contradictory. Maybe you’ll notice that one of these jobs is easier than the other.
^ I agree. Well put.
Not true: It’s just a lot more work to prove atheism (OK, so it’s actually impossible) than it is to prove theism. The odds of disproving any potential version of a god is exactly 0 . . . the proof would require omniscience.
Proof that God exists also requires omniscience, because one of the properties of God is omniscience. One cannot claim to grasp and understand omniscience unless one implicitly presumes one is capable of being omniscient.
For example, I cannot claim to know that the Milky Way is 100,000 light years wide, unless I am able to grasp and be capable of knowing such a great sized object. Everything I claim to be able to understand around me, I must be able to grasp it and “be” it, so to speak. I must be in a state of knowing the size of the Milky Way, in order for me to claim to know the size of the Milky Way.
Same thing with omniscience. I cannot claim X is omniscient unless I am in a state of knowing everything, i.e. unless I myself am omniscient.
Omniscience is therefore not a property anyone can know of, it’s a concept in the spirit, which one can only conceive of as an idea, an idea of “having more knowledge than any human could ever acquire.”
I will then say to you that you cannot even in principle prove that such an entity exists even if such an entity really did exist. It is therefore NOT “easier” to prove God exists than it is to prove God does not exist. It is in fact practically infinitely more difficult. I can disprove God by simply contemplating myself as ego. I as ego make God an impossibility.
Assuming random chance, the probability of chancing upon the exact correct version of a god is basically zero.
What does that mean, “chancing upon”?
Luckily for theists outside of the spaghetti monster variety (I don’t think they count themselves as theists, so I’m going to disclude them from future theistic references), very few have this assumption. They have the assumption that a god has several properties if it exists, and is worth finding:
1.) Evidence of this god’s nature exists
2.) Further potential whether explanatory or productive
3.) Sentient
4.) Can communicate
5.) Aware of humanity \ human actions
6.) Capable of understanding human motives
7.) Wants to be found
(I just made this list up on the spot, so feel free to add or tweak as necessary.)
Other than 1) which is begging the question, I just understand these “properties” to be ideas manifested by my ego.
I have the property of being sentient. I have the property of being able to communicate. I have the property of being aware of humans. I have the property of being capable of understanding human motives. I have the property of wanting to be found or not found.
Some theists only have the earliest of those assumptions, but I think most people would agree that at least the first 5 are assumed by every religious institution in existence. If a god *wants* to be found, a sensible thing to do is to look at existing religious claims, and begin our search there.
This is just you searching for yourself but in the wrong place. You’re looking for your ego in something outside you, when all along it is you.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of variety, so let’s just limit things to the most immanent and look for logical contradictions, and filter through the list that way.
I as ego do not filter logical contradictions, but use them to my benefit when it suits me. For example, those who put their ego underneath logic, and treat logic as a calling, an ideal that they are to strive to achieve, can be more easily manipulated and used by me for my benefit. I will be logical when I find enjoyment in it, and I will be illogical when I find enjoyment in it. All theist egos enjoy their life in making sacred illogical concepts. The ego manifests itself in me enjoying life by putting logic and illogic underneath and subservient to the ego, and owned as tools for enjoyment.
The theist’s claim is one of these isn’t contradictory and is useful for making predictions. The atheist’s claim is that every one of them is contradictory. Maybe you’ll notice that one of these jobs is easier than the other.
Right, so you’re a theist out of laziness. Rather than terrify yourself with bringing the ego you put into God, back into you, where it belongs, you instead pretend to put it outside of yourself, which you call God, and then you fear and cower underneath it. This is what I call a disillusioned ego.
The Fool
May 1, 2009 by Jay Adams
In a previous blog (q.v.) I pesented one reason why the atheist is a “fool,” as the Psalmist said (Ps. 14:1): to know that God doesn’t exist, one would have to be God—in which event, he would cease denying His own existence.
Let me here mention something else about Christopher Hitchens and, on a lower level, people like Bill Marr.
The Psalmist says that the Fool “says in his heart, there is no God.” Notice those words, “in his heart.” By divine revelation, the Psalmist knows what the real person is like—he is a fraud. Out in the public he trumpets his disbelief. This gets him a hearing from his crowd. But in ‘his heart,” he has doubts and fears and has to keep telling himself that God doesn’t exist. If he wasn’t incessantly reassuring himself of what he knows is unknowable, he would fall apart in public.
Now, of course, such men will not admit their doubts publically. They would lose their prestige, which comes not from any knowledge or achievement, but from their seemingly “bold” denial of the existence of God. But the Psalmist has found them out!
Huxley gave the reason why he was an atheist—he said that if there is no God, then there is no standard of morality by which men will be judged. Each becomes his own standard. His goal was to help create a society where he could live as he pleases. One suspects as much from modern atheists. Their motives are all suspect.
So, my friend, don’t let Marr’s bombast or Hitchens’ sophisticated approach fool you—it’s still true that anyone who affirms that there is no God is a fool!
Of course Jay Adams “suspects” the motives of that which he doesn’t understand in himself, i.e. the ego.
He is not “suspecting” other egos so much as he’s “suspecting” what he himself might do if he stopped believing in God, because his ego is manifest itself in his desire to escape, but he isn’t finding it by prostrating himself under God.
“Huxley gave the reason why he was an atheist—he said that if there is no God, then there is no standard of morality by which men will be judged. Each becomes his own standard.”
Each ego becoming its own standard is what terrifies theists the most. The theistic ego manifests itself in owning everything by a perceived need to delude others into thinking they’re slaves just like the theist believes he is a slave. The unbridled ego manifests itself in me owning everything according to my own enjoyment and my own standard.
There is no “suspect” motives from the egoist. The egoist is very clear. The egoist acts for his own enjoyment, period.
The fool is he who puts his own uniqueness below universal concepts and sacrifices his own self for the sake of promoting the universal concepts. The fool is he who lives his mortal life as a slave by choice.
“The egoist is very clear. The egoist acts for his own enjoyment, period.”
My own enjoyment happens to be found in living my life for God and loving Him and others.
“The theistic ego manifests itself in owning everything by a perceived need to delude others into thinking they’re slaves just like the theist believes he is a slave. The unbridled ego manifests itself in me owning everything according to my own enjoyment and my own standard.”
Romans 6:17-18
“17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.”
Ho can you as an Egoist condem others for beliving and doing what they choose to believe and do? If we all are our own standards (an idea I reject), you can find fault based on your own standard, but we can reject your claims of us just as your reject our judgements of you. In reality, as an egoist, having a debate is pointless because egoists each believe themselves to be right and do not care what others believe. Therefore, Egoism is nothing more than anarchy.
My own enjoyment happens to be found in living my life for God and loving Him and others.
Romans 6:17-18
“17 But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching you were transferred to, 18 and having been liberated from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.”
Egoist 1:1-2:
1 I use sin and righteousness as tools for my enjoyment. I do not enslave myself to sin, and I do not enslave myself to righteousness. I reject all slavery as foreign to me. 2 I shall liberate myself from sin, and from righteousness. I will not be rescued by another master who can only enslave me.
Ho can you as an Egoist condem others for beliving and doing what they choose to believe and do?
Oh, so you are saying you believe in God out of an egoist motive? If not, your rhetorical question doesn’t say what you think it says.
If we all are our own standards (an idea I reject), you can find fault based on your own standard, but we can reject your claims of us just as your reject our judgements of you.
This is a contradiction, in case you cared. If you reject me as a standard for myself, then you cannot also then claim that you reject my claims “just as” I reject yours. Your rejection will be in the name of God. Mine will be in the name of nothing.
Your approach is rather two faced. You want to criticize me the same way I criticize you, but without actually thinking what I think and do what I do. You want to be able to reject my claims on the basis of your own selfish interests, but at the same time you reject that as a standard.
Sorry, that won’t work. You can’t possibly expect me to take your criticisms seriously when you’re not being honest.
In reality, as an egoist, having a debate is pointless because egoists each believe themselves to be right and do not care what others believe.
Utterly false. The ego who finds enjoyment in adopting what others believe, will do so. There is nothing in egoism that prevents “caring” or changing one’s mind.
Therefore, Egoism is nothing more than anarchy.
Egoism implies anarchy yes, but it is more than just a lack of a state. It is a lack of all universals that oppress the ego: church, laws, even anarcho-capitalism, and other rules based systems.
The fact that you say egoism is “nothing more than anarchy” shows you are not only a theist, but a statist as well. You’re very far away from me.
Because you dodged many of my questions by finding fault with them, I will assume you don’t have actual answers to them.
Oh, so you are saying you believe in God out of an egoist motive? If not, your rhetorical question doesn’t say what you think it says.
I don’t. I myself have no power to procalim God’s existence. The Scriptures are sufficient. But, for the sake of argument, what would be your response if I had taken an egoist motive?
Egoist 1:1-2:
1 I use sin and righteousness as tools for my enjoyment. I do not enslave myself to sin, and I do not enslave myself to righteousness. I reject all slavery as foreign to me. 2 I shall liberate myself from sin, and from righteousness. I will not be rescued by another master who can only enslave me.
How do you define sin and righteousness?
This is a contradiction, in case you cared. If you reject me as a standard for myself, then you cannot also then claim that you reject my claims “just as” I reject yours. Your rejection will be in the name of God. Mine will be in the name of nothing.
You cannot reject something in the name of nothing. Nothing does not exists. Nothing cannot be. You cannot ask what nothing is because nothing cannot “is”. Kinda makes this whole paragraph pointless…
Your approach is rather two faced. You want to criticize me the same way I criticize you
That’s silly. I think your methods are terrible. I have no desire to follow them.
The ego who finds enjoyment in adopting what others believe, will do so.
The egoist therefore cannot rely on him/herself for their own standard. They pick from others whatever they enjoy. Living like parasite. They are not unique, they pull from all that is around them to make themselves something. Nothing comes from within. There character is shaped by the world around them. What they are exposed to. The choices that are available to them. They are limited. They are at the mercy of what God has allowed for them to have, percieve, and interact with.
The fact that you say egoism is “nothing more than anarchy” shows you are not only a theist, but a statist as well. You’re very far away from me.
I am a libertarian and find very little use for government. But I do not think anarchyt is the way to go. Anarchy is not freedom. Anarchy is being subject to the will of everyone with no protection for self. What happens when two ego’s collide? Someone could kill me and simply claim tthat was within their ego.
Because you dodged many of my questions by finding fault with them, I will assume you don’t have actual answers to them.
What “many questions” are you talking about?
You only asked one question, which was clearly rhetorical, and I answered it by saying it doesn’t say what you think it says.
Asking an egoist why he does anything is like asking why your God does anything. I do it for my pleasure.
I don’t. I myself have no power to procalim God’s existence. The Scriptures are sufficient.
Notwithstanding the fact that mere words on paper are not in fact sufficient to proving the existence of that which is claimed to exist…
If you don’t believe in God for selfish motives, then you’ve only proven my point that you cannot use my standard against me, as if I am somehow contradicting myself for “condemning” one who does act in the name of God whilst enjoying it.
You (rhetorically) asked me how I as an egoist can “condemn” others for believing and doing what they choose to believe and do, as if I am “condemning” other egoists. But you yourself admit that you don’t believe and do what you believe and do for selfish motives. You do it in the name of God. So I as an egoist am perfectly entitled to “condemn” it.
But, for the sake of argument, what would be your response if I had taken an egoist motive?
Then I will say I take an egoist motive in denying God.
Then I will say if my standard for rejecting God is unsound, then I will say so is yours.
How do you define sin and righteousness?
I don’t distinguish egoist desires into categories. There is only one category for me.
I’ll leave the arbitrary divorcing of interests into “bodily and spiritual”, “sinful and righteous”, “unholy and holy”, and “evil and good” to you.
You cannot reject something in the name of nothing. Nothing does not exists. Nothing cannot be. You cannot ask what nothing is because nothing cannot “is”. Kinda makes this whole paragraph pointless
Of course I can reject something in the name of nothing. I am not reifying “nothing”, I am saying I reject, and I reject not in the name of God, or state, or humanity, or anything. I reject and I accept in the name of nothing, meaning there is nothing I set my sights upon when I accept or reject. I accept and reject whatever pleases me to accept and reject.
I don’t say I reject in the name of myself, or in the name of my ego, because that would turn me as unique, into a universal abstract.
That’s silly. I think your methods are terrible. I have no desire to follow them.
And I think your methods are terrible.
I also think you are being dishonest when you say you have no desire to follow them, because you presented yourself as an egoist when you defended your choices, and pretended that I cannot condemn them because they are allegedly egoist. That is the only meaning of asking me how could I as an egoist condemn your choices in any way. What difference does me being an egoist make on me condemning your beliefs, unless you were trying to paint me as a hypocrite, which requires you to be an egoist?
“The ego who finds enjoyment in adopting what others believe, will do so.”
The egoist therefore cannot rely on him/herself for their own standard.
That doesn’t follow.
They pick from others whatever they enjoy.
They CAN pick from others, but it’s not necessary that they do. After all, where did those others come up with what they want? You can’t keep saying “still others”, because at some point you’ll run out of people.
No, the egoist picks and chooses from others when it suits him, and he abstains from picking and choosing from others when it suits him. There is no necessity in picking from others what they enjoy.
Living like parasite. They are not unique, they pull from all that is around them to make themselves something. Nothing comes from within. There character is shaped by the world around them. What they are exposed to. The choices that are available to them. They are limited. They are at the mercy of what God has allowed for them to have, percieve, and interact with.
That last sentence made me laugh because it came out of nowhere.
I am in fact unique. I only pull that from what is around me when it suits me. Everything comes from ego. My character is what I want it to be. What I am exposed to I can reject or accept in accordance with what suits me. Yes, my choices are limited, if the standard is infinite choices. Yes, I am limited, but only by the might of other egos and the reality of objects. I am at the mercy of no God.
I am a libertarian and find very little use for government. But I do not think anarchyt is the way to go.
I am an egoist and find no use for libertarianism or government. I do think anarchy is the way to go.
Anarchy is not freedom.
Not freedom for who? It would be freedom from those who are enslaved by statism.
Anarchy is being subject to the will of everyone with no protection for self.
No protection? I protect myself. What no protection are you talking about?
What happens when two ego’s collide?
Many things could happen, depending on the egos involved.
It could result in a friendly game of baseball, or a war.
Egoism isn’t monopolized by only sinful behavior.
Someone could kill me and simply claim tthat was within their ego.
As opposed to God ego killing people and you worshiping the killer God?
God could kill you tomorrow and yet you’re not trembling with fear under a table at that prospect.
Why tremble at the prospect of being killed by a man ego, unless you really didn’t believe in God after all, and thought this was your only shot at life?
I see that it is quite impossible for either of us convincing or reasoning with the other. We are using two dramatically different bases from which we reason. I realize now that we cannot agree on a conclusion when we do not share the same starting point.
Nonetheless, I appreciate the time and conversation. I very much enjoyed it. 🙂 You’ve challenged me to carefully consider my own idea, and I am now more confident in my beliefs. Take care and I’m sure I’ll see you around this blog in the future.
🙂
oops, “The odds of disproving any potential version of a god is exactly 0” should have read “The odds of disproving every potential version of a god is exactly 0.
It’s exactly 1.00, as I disprove God through recognizing me as ego, and rejecting every universal you throw at me under which I am to obey.
Here’s my analysis (also fallible) of the verses. I thin we come to a similar, yet different conclusion:
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you.”
This is not speaking of confession booths. Rather, it is the opposite. If someone sins against you, you are to go to the sinner and seek reconciliation with them. (If they listen to you, you have won them over.)
“But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
After going to your brother, if they will not repent, you are to bring others with you to confront them.
If that doesn’t work, then you bring the sin up to the church:
“If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Once they refuse, they can be declared an unbeliever and outside of God’s covenant.
“18 I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. 19 Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. 20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.””
Christ promises that this process, if followed, will not be taken lightly. He will be in the midst to ensure that once it gets to this point, He will oversee it.
My biggest problem about the bisop’s authority, is what happens when they contradict each other? Don’t we need a standard? Again, I go to 2 Timothy:
2 Timothy 3:16-4:5
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Proclaim the message; persist in it whether convenient or not; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new. 4 They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But as for you, be serious about everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Here, the authority of Scripture is being set forth why? Because they must “Proclaim the message”, they must equip all men “for every good work.” They are to stick to preaching the bible, even though, many will fall away from the bible and raise up teachers who teach from what “hot” rather than whats biblical: “For the time will come when they will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear something new”
Acts 17 also proclaims that it is noble and right to judge what our teachers say and compare them to the word of God:
“10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. 12 Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men. ”
They examined the Scriptures DAILY to see if truth was being told. And BECAUSE they matched the Scriptures “Many of them therefore believed”.
Not even the apostles were declared above and over the Word of God. They were still judged by it. And this judging was called noble.
And lastly, Jesus warned in Matthew 15:6 of letting tradition supercede God’s word:
“…So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.”
HOWEVER! On the bright side…at least we both baptize our children
😉
Although, I do so because the bible commands me to do so
🙂