EPTWhy won't God heal amputees - Page 13
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Osmoses
Sweden5302 Posts
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Biff The Understudy
France7890 Posts
On March 23 2009 14:32 Savio wrote: Not exactly (I mainly thought it was interesting that there was an overlap of general principles), but I also believe that God wasn't laying out a blueprint for how to make a world. That kind of information has no ability to help us learn to choose between good and evil. It would just be "interesting" to us. I don't think that God is particularly interested in giving us stuff that is purely interesting. What he really wants is to give us info that can help us become more perfect. I mean the WHOLE creation of the earth, heavens, and life is explained in all of a page and half...hardly a dissertation on how to make a planet. Obviously the Bible wasn't designed to teach us about geology but how to repent of sin, etc. I loled sooo much. Anyway. What to expect from someone who has a quotation from Reagan in his profil? :-/ | ||
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 22 2009 19:41 Savio wrote: Here is another question I have wanted to ask someone who actually believes that there is NOTHING after this life. Please take this seriously and try it out....imagine your death (which in reality isn't that far away, ask any old person)...you are lying on a bed knowing that soon you will die. What happens to you after you die? Will you float in nothingness doing nothing? What does it mean to be nothing? Can you honestly even conceive of yourself as not existing. I can't because its like imagining a space within a nothing. It seems as unatural to me as the thought of breathing water or jumping off a cliff. Its all fine and dandy when you talk about it on a forum, but when it comes time to actually do it, the truth comes out and I think that most people will realize that they always believed that there was more, but pretended not to. I think that this feeling of "naturalness" in the thought that we can't ever stop existing is there and is universal because its truth. Our spirit knows better. It was around a long time before our body was ever made. How can we (not our bodies, but US), cease to exist? i can not honestly believe you are assuming that athiests haven't thought about this yet. i can guarantee you athiests dwell on this idea MUCH more often than you do. i would go into more depth about this but idra is already doing it for me. | ||
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 23 2009 13:52 Savio wrote: What about the universal sense that we are eternal, that there must a "purpose" to life and that there is a higher power? Did those bestow evolutionary advantages as well? what are you talking about? | ||
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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
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TechniQ.UK
United Kingdom391 Posts
Does God answer prayer? yes he does but not prayer that is against his will. God is more concerned about the judgment seat of Christ and eternal blessings than temporary blessings on earth. Some of the big TV preachers who preach heresy and have big mansions, will have nothing, yet the little old man who prays 2 hours a day and hands out gospel tracks one day a week and lives in poverty, will have much more rewards than that tv preacher in heaven. Will the tv preacher be damned? well no not if he's saved but he will lose his crown, his reward for his lives work in service of the Lord since becoming a Christian. God is more concerned about your eternal reward than your self-centered requests. Would God give a person a car as a result of prayer that in 2 months he is going to crash and die in? would God give you something that your not mature enough to handle at this stage in your life? Would God give you something that you really want but he knows a few weeks or months is going to absolutely fail? If 1) your motives are that of humanism instead of God's glory, i doubt you'll be answered 2) if your prayer isnt according to the Sovereign will of God you will not receive an answer 3) if your not a christian or the person your praying for is a sinner too, i wouldn't expect an answer. 4) look at the prayer of Jesus, "our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name(honoured be your name as an outcome to this prayer above all else), your kingdom come (not mine), thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven (complete submission to his will not your request), ..." If your prayer doesn't meet those criteria that Jesus set forth your praying amiss. Please don't take bible verses out of context and use them to create a weak arguement that the vast majority of protestants outside of Word of Faith or Pentecostal movements never even assert to begin with not historically and not today. Would he give the christian an answer to prayer that somewhere down the line that God knows about would badly effect that Christians faith or obedience or character? God is not here to give us joy and happiness and everything we ask for, even though thats the kinda God you want but it's not the God of scripture. The God of scripture created US for him, for his glory out of his own goodness. If you want blessing he says "come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest", to those who reject Christ...."Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels". Anyway this is the one post im making on this, it's quite easily refuted if you took the time to go through everything the bible says on prayer instead of selecting verses here and there, even looking at the fact that the promises were made to Christians and not non-believers kinda destroys your arguement too. James chapter 4: You do not have, because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? 6 But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
On March 24 2009 11:19 TechniQ.UK wrote: Does God answer prayer? yes he does but not prayer that is against his will. God is more concerned about the judgment seat of Christ and eternal blessings than temporary blessings on earth. That is exactly why these discussions are so useless. You're now saying that you will mostly get favors in the afterlife instead of here on Earth right now, because your god doesn't give a shit. Which basically means that you're escaping any kind of discussion. Because this cannot be discussed, this is 100% belief-based and can never be confirmed (i.e., it's bullshit). Why even bother? Your life doesn't change with or without a god. Period. You've just indirectly said so yourself, that you probably don't gain anything but instead hope for a "good afterlife". Btw you haven't refuted anything... you've just come up with another excuse. But that's one of the standard religious "defenses" which always come up when they lose an argument (and they lose pretty much all of them): even if nothing in your life goes the right way, at least you'll SURELY be rewarded after your death. God will make THAT happen, at least. Yay. Yeah, right... | ||
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BanZu
United States3329 Posts
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Bosu
United States3247 Posts
Just so you know, if you are not a baptized as a baptist you are going to hell no matter what. My uncle and cousins told me so. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
is that why it was perfectly ok, not only in the eyes of the general public but in the representatives of your religion, to torture someone until they admitted to heresy, and then burn them alive for being a heretic a few hundred years ago? During the Inquisition, the Inquisitorial tribunals directly under the authority of the Catholic church had far more stringent standards than secular courts; unlike a secular court, extreme methods of torture resulting in bloodshed, mutilation or death were not permitted, a defendant could not be subjected to torture more than once, his confession must be repeated after his initial confession without the threat of torture, and if not repeated, the previous confession was null and void. Furthermore an Inquisitorial tribunal could not deliver sentencing on the accused, but released them to the secular arm which was the only authority capable of delivering execution. On the whole, Inquisitorial courts were more humane (not to mention better educated) than secular justice. The purpose of secular courts was to stamp out insubordination, that of inquisitorial courts ultimately to save someone's life as well as, more importantly, his soul. P.S.- People who admitted to heresy were generally not burned at the stake. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
Why was slavery ever okay? Why was maiming unwilling male slaves ever okay? Why did your god get angry at the Israelites for not committing genocide? Genocide and slavery are good if your god says they are? I think not. Why is slavery not okay? Unless you believe in fundamental and inalienable natural rights (and if you do, you are only two steps away from supernaturalism,) there is no ethical difference between ownership of things irrespective of where they stand on the order of being. Slavery is one of the oldest human institutions, and to assume that it is something alien to human nature is a very deep supposition. Concerning Christianity and Slavery, St. Paul insisted that Christian masters treat slaves as their family rather than property. St. Augustine deplored slavery but saw it as an inevitably disgraceful sign of man's fallen state. Most abolitionists of the 19th century were fuelled by Christian sentiments, since Christianity is rare as a religion which espouses the cause of the impoverished, the wretched and the disinherited, and it is questionable whether the institution of slavery would have ever been abolished without its influence. Nonetheless, the question of why the apostles and patristic fathers did not take a politically active anti-slavery position (apart from the fact that modern political correctness was unknown to the Jesus cultists of the Roman Empire) can be answered by their cosmological views of the universe; their conviction that the dignity of humanity is to be found in feeling and faith, rather than in the temporal struggle for the mastery of the world. | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
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ilj.psa
Peru3081 Posts
On March 23 2009 22:37 Zurles wrote: Idra is stomping noobs No, didn't read all but this is all I see Christian: "I believe in God I also believe there is a heaven" Idra: "heaven and god are imaginary, so you fail" | ||
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ilj.psa
Peru3081 Posts
On March 25 2009 01:13 MoltkeWarding wrote: The problem with the lines of argument observable in this thread is that there is rarely any hint of honest interest in theological matters. Christian theology is an impossibly tough nut to crack because of its absorption of virtually the entire lexicon of Western philosophical tradition and the explosion of opinions here, each sustained by the fruitless belief that he possesses more common sense than the former poster, cannot begin to scratch the surface of it. fully agreed | ||
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Mindcrime
United States6899 Posts
On March 25 2009 01:50 MoltkeWarding wrote: Unless you believe in fundamental and inalienable natural rights (and if you do, you are only two steps away from supernaturalism,) there is no ethical difference between ownership of things irrespective of where they stand on the order of being. Really? Whether it be chair, car or person, chattel is just chattel? Slavery is one of the oldest human institutions, and to assume that it is something alien to human nature is a very deep supposition. It's a good thing that no one was assuming such a thing. Slavery is no more alien to human nature than is murder. So are you going to attempt to justify murder and genocide now? | ||
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
Really? Whether it be chair, car or person, chattel is just chattel? Of course. I presume that we are defining ethics on a level of reality independent of natural human phenomena such as empathy, since empathy itself produces no moral argument. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the notion of a person owning another person, if I am not violating that other person's rights. In the framework of a commonwealth, a person's legal rights can obviously be defined by the constitution and legislation of that commonwealth- say; no born freeman may be coercively enslaved by another, but the basis of an ethical framework on legal rights makes your ethical constitution a creature of political convenience. I assume that we are discussing ethics not in the term of contextuality (slavery is acceptable in certain social circumstances, and not in others) but the notion that a universal right of man is being violated when he is the property of another, irrespective of his circumstances. | ||
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zulu_nation8
China26351 Posts
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MoltkeWarding
5195 Posts
It's a good thing that no one was assuming such a thing. Slavery is no more alien to human nature than is murder. So are you going to attempt to justify murder and genocide now? 1) If you accept that slavery is not alien to human nature, then you accept a) Slavery is not evil b) Human nature encompasses both good and evil 2) Assuming your position is b), where does the individual obtain his knowledge of good and evil? There are three possible positions: a) Authority b) Experience or feeling, intuition c) Reason I have already covered a) in the previous post; authority is arbitrary, and an authority which prescribes slavery is moral has equal validity as one which pronounces against it. b) Depends on whether you hold evil as self-conscious. If it is self-conscious, then we come back to question 2), and ad infinitum. If it is not self-conscious, then it is impossible for us to experience innately, knowledge of right and wrong on the basis of our natural reactions, given 1). c) without b) is worthless, since reason cannot construct conclusions without valid premises, and there are no premises, since neither a) nor b) have been validated, we have not agreed upon what good and evil mean, there's nothing to reason. Hence we arrive at a dead end. | ||
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 01:13 MoltkeWarding wrote: The problem with the lines of argument observable in this thread is that there is rarely any hint of honest interest in theological matters. Christian theology is an impossibly tough nut to crack because of its absorption of virtually the entire lexicon of Western philosophical tradition and the explosion of opinions here, each sustained by the fruitless belief that he possesses more common sense than the former poster, cannot begin to scratch the surface of it. i went to the best catholic high school in my city and then got a good scholarship to a catholic university (although most of the campus students and professors were athiests) and i can definitely say, as someone who grew up VERY catholic and ultimately switched over to atheism, knowing every little bit about theology isn't 100 percent necessary. There are very basic fundamental arguments that none of these religious institutions can adequately answer. This is like saying i need to know every little detail about how alchemy or astrology works before i can adequately deconstruct it from it's base. And further more christian theology does NOT embrace the entire lexicon of western philosophy. in fact over the last few hundred years most of the western philosophical movement has been quite damning of religion and the roles it's played in society. Have you ever heard of Nietzsche? Cart? Camus? Wittgenstein? even more recent philosophers like Ricard Rorty who died only a few years ago and was the leading American philosopher in Pragmatism and then Neo-Pragmatism. These guys are not too found of religion nor do they see any incredible utility in it either. most of the philosophers who are used to back religious beliefs are much much older. Philosophers like Plato, Descartes, Aquinas, Anselm. TObviously these guys were smart for their time but there have been a lot more progressive ideas coming out that religious institutions avoid engaging entirely. | ||
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