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What in God's name is happening to this thread? I'm so incredibly confused...
What does this have to do with the article exactly?
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I really don't see the harm in a generalized prayer for the graduating class. No one's forcing anyone to pray along with them.
Do you want to remove the president from office every time he says "God bless America"?
Neither of these are violating anyone's right to freedom of religion
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On May 28 2011 12:16 Veritask wrote:
I really don't see the harm in a generalized prayer for the graduating class. No one's forcing anyone to pray along with them.
Do you want to remove the president from office every time he says "God bless America"?
Neither of these are violating anyone's right to freedom of religion
separation
of
church
and
state. Thats all.
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Man I sure am glad I had parents that could accept that I'm more into facts and reason than insanity and delusion. This thread has taken its predicted course though. Certainly a subject of discussion for mythology students a couple of thousand years in the future.
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On May 28 2011 12:16 Veritask wrote:
I really don't see the harm in a generalized prayer for the graduating class. No one's forcing anyone to pray along with them.
Do you want to remove the president from office every time he says "God bless America"?
Neither of these are violating anyone's right to freedom of religion
It's illegal. State-sanctioned prayer has been illegal for a while. Look up some supreme court cases if you would like further legal reasons why this is the case.
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On May 28 2011 11:17 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:13 Supamang wrote:On May 28 2011 11:03 domovoi wrote:And you could say exactly the same about conservatism. But at least you cant say liberalism isn't generally racist and non inclusive, and unfair to minorities. Conservatism is obviously much closer to fascism than liberalism is. Seem to shoot yourself in the foot with that analogy. American Liberalism is generally racist and non-inclusive, which was the version of liberalism I was referring to. American Liberals don't give a shit about minorities, hence their support for anti-trade initiatives that make the rest of the world poorer in order to maintain the livelihoods of middle-class, White Americans. In fact a lot of the things we in the west can be proud of today over the nations in the middle east are due entirely to an increasingly liberal mindset. I'm a moral relativist. I agree, I think middle east countries are barbaric. But I can see that my judgment of them is pretty much biased by being raised in liberal ideology. Middle East countries are proud that they aren't so depraved as Western countries. Wait, how is American Liberalism "racist and non-inclusive"? The argument conservatives LOVE to go to is that Liberalism is steering America towards socialism. Socialism is the exact opposite of being "non-inclusive". Liberals are the ones supporting welfare, medicare, affirmative action, etc. I dont believe racism is particular to either political viewpoint since Ive seen enough racists on both sides, but Liberalism is definitely not about being non-inclusive Conservatives are just overt xenophobes. Liberals claim to be non-inclusive, but they are just as tribalistic as anyone else. I can show you plenty of examples where liberals try to stop a speech by someone they disagree with. Liberals also hate Wal-Mart, even though it provides so many services for the poor. Beyond the hypocrisy, it's somewhat good that Liberals at least try to pretend to be non-inclusive, but I can't help but see past the bullshit about one political party being good and the other being evil.
It's not liberalism that's tribalistic, it's the stupid people who identify themselves as liberal and then act like it's a good population-serving liberal cause to hate large successful companies. It's no different than the small portion of conservatives who think that the conservative cause includes spreading Christianity and fighting the Islamic community center in New York.
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On May 28 2011 11:10 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:09 Supamang wrote:On May 28 2011 11:04 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 11:00 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:56 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:53 Sentient wrote:On May 28 2011 10:42 domovoi wrote:
My point is that sitting through a commencement speech that you strongly disagree with is way worse than sitting through a one minute prayer. Yet somehow it's the innocuous prayer that offends. People against school prayer or the pledge of allegiance are just way too sensitive. Lighten up. I see it more as defending the constitution rather than attacking the prayer. The Constitution is just a piece of paper some dead guys wrote over 200 years ago using language so generic it can basically support any political position you wish, including allowing school prayer. Let's not turn law into a religion. It'll take something extraordinary to overturn legal precedence. I doubt this situation will do that. No, it doesn't take anything extraordinary. It's just a matter of getting five votes on the Supreme Court to agree to your interpretation. Surely you don't believe that the 1962 Supreme Court was privy to some ultimate truth about the Constitution's meaning. Because that's the very date when the Constitution went from allowing school prayer to forbidding it. Yes, getting to the Supreme Court with your case and convincing the judges that youre right is nothing extraordinary at all. ...are you serious? Supreme Court cases are big deals. Um, but they aren't extraordinary. The Supreme Court hears 100 cases a year, I would not consider that "beyond ordinary." In the specific case of school prayer, all it would take to allow it under the Constitution would be a Republican president in 2012 and Ginsburg's retirement. I would not consider those extraordinary events, even though Obama losing is pretty unlikely.
Clearly you don't know about legal precedent. The SCOTUS does not over turn precedent without a sufficiently important change in the interpretation of social mores. This is why Roe v Wade is still alive and kicking, despite the court being so right leaning. And even Scalia will not go against the first ammendment.
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United Arab Emirates1141 Posts
On May 28 2011 12:12 ryanAnger wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:10 JesusOurSaviour wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows. So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying. How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway) I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him? We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick. Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet.  Just out of curiosity, how do you know that you are "saved"? How could anyone possibly know that they are "saved"? Has God spoken to you, first hand?
I'm going off topic and have been for the last few posts. Last post for this thread from me,
Ultimately we live by faith. Yet is this faith blind? Have not God's prophecies been fulfilled time and time again? When Jesus said he is the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets, he wasn't kidding. The ENTIRE Old testament Post-TheFall is about the longing for the messiah. Now the messiah has come, what more proof do we need of God's good promises? I guess people always want more proof. "If God came to earth and destroyed all the wicked and corrupt authorities, I will believe in Him". "If God saved that baby which was starving, then I would believe in him". Yet, did the Jews believe when Jesus came and did countless miracles? No. They killed him. And you are no better than a Jew. I am no better. I would have killed Jesus as well if I was a Jew in that day.
Once again, we believe because we have reestablished this relationship which was once severed. We feel the bonds of the relationship, while those who arent' friends with God obviously don't feel the same way. Faith man!
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On May 28 2011 12:19 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:16 Veritask wrote:
I really don't see the harm in a generalized prayer for the graduating class. No one's forcing anyone to pray along with them.
Do you want to remove the president from office every time he says "God bless America"?
Neither of these are violating anyone's right to freedom of religion It's illegal. State-sanctioned prayer has been illegal for a while. Look up some supreme court cases if you would like further legal reasons why this is the case.
I understand, but I still don't really think it's a big deal. I mean, if they made this kid pray everyday, I'd be bothered by that. But I think it's an overreaction to object to a 30 second prayer he has to sit through.
I don't agree with the reaction that he has received. It's absolutely not right. My point is that this really doesn't hurt anyone.
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At this state I'm almost sure JesusOurSaviour is just an epic troll. Good for him
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It hurts everyone who doesn't believe in comingling of government with religion. That is why its illegal. That is why we should oppose it.
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On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith.
God didn't write the bible.
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On May 27 2011 13:42 419 wrote:You're very optimistic if you think you can get a productive discussion over this... Show nested quote +One of the chunks of mud that's most commonly slung at atheists is that we're selfish. Amoral.
Among other parts of this article, that's misrepresenting Christian views. The way I see it (as TL's resident fundamentalist!) is that atheists can act morally, but that an absolute moral code can't be rationalized within the bounds of atheism. Ofc, this doesn't mean his community isn't behaving like jackasses (they are) if this is true ~ just pointing out something before the anti-religion squad shows up. Also, its not like jackassery is an uncommon trait among high school students.
The thing is that it says that it happens in some cases. I'm in Canada, where the religious right is actually comparatively tolerant but even still I've heard a lot of people try to argue that atheists are immoral BECAUSE they don't believe in God. It's sounds ridiculous, but it's true.
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I am a christian, have been my whole life and for ever will be. And this story makes me sick and ashamed to be part of a community that would treat someone so horribly. These "christians" should hang their heads in shame! I see no love, respect, or support in how they treated that young man. Can you imagine as a christian haveing to sit threw someone preaching that God doesn't exist? And that if you do believe in him your a fool or an idiot. I'm sure there are millions of people that believe that, but should we as christians have to be subjected to it? What these people did is the same thing. It's no wonder that athiest's and other religions go running from christianity when this is how the community treats people. It's gotten to the point where christians have some sort of "god complexe" (sorry about the pun) that they think they are better or have the right to treat people however they see fit. When what they should really be doing is loving and supporting eachother AND the people outside of christianity. What happened here ISN'T of God, muchly the opposite. These people need to get their heads out of their asses, climb off their high horses and seek what being of God truly means, cause this isn't it.
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On May 28 2011 12:30 Peterblue wrote:Show nested quote +On May 27 2011 13:42 419 wrote:You're very optimistic if you think you can get a productive discussion over this... One of the chunks of mud that's most commonly slung at atheists is that we're selfish. Amoral.
Among other parts of this article, that's misrepresenting Christian views. The way I see it (as TL's resident fundamentalist!) is that atheists can act morally, but that an absolute moral code can't be rationalized within the bounds of atheism. Ofc, this doesn't mean his community isn't behaving like jackasses (they are) if this is true ~ just pointing out something before the anti-religion squad shows up. Also, its not like jackassery is an uncommon trait among high school students. The thing is that it says that it happens in some cases. I'm in Canada, where the religious right is actually comparatively tolerant but even still I've heard a lot of people try to argue that atheists are immoral BECAUSE they don't believe in God. It's sounds ridiculous, but it's true.
In the US, the argument is that they're immoral because they worship Satan.
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I hate that the OP had to apologize for making this thread in advance.
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On May 28 2011 12:22 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:12 ryanAnger wrote:On May 28 2011 12:10 JesusOurSaviour wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows. So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying. How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway) I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him? We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick. Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet. Just out of curiosity, how do you know that you are "saved"? How could anyone possibly know that they are "saved"? Has God spoken to you, first hand? I'm going off topic and have been for the last few posts. Last post for this thread from me, Ultimately we live by faith. Yet is this faith blind? Have not God's prophecies been fulfilled time and time again? When Jesus said he is the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets, he wasn't kidding. The ENTIRE Old testament Post-TheFall is about the longing for the messiah. Now the messiah has come, what more proof do we need of God's good promises? I guess people always want more proof. "If God came to earth and destroyed all the wicked and corrupt authorities, I will believe in Him". "If God saved that baby which was starving, then I would believe in him". Yet, did the Jews believe when Jesus came and did countless miracles? No. They killed him. And you are no better than a Jew. I am no better. I would have killed Jesus as well if I was a Jew in that day. Once again, we believe because we have reestablished this relationship which was once severed. We feel the bonds of the relationship, while those who arent' friends with God obviously don't feel the same way. Faith man!
I'm curious to know your thoughts on creationism.
Did you know that in the 19th century fewer people believed in creationism as do now? Does that mean, proportionally, more people are being saved today than in the 19th century. That would be such a bizarre thing to have happen in this day and age of evil atheists.
Frankly, as "intelligent" as you sound about your faith, I am skeptical of it. The reason is that there is no way someone can believe in God except through faith. Faith and faith alone. If you envision your faith in God relying on something else, then you are portending that you can know God. Of course you recognize that this is a sin and is heretical. So I wonder, what does it mean to believe in something for no reason? Since faith in itself knows no reason.
The truth is that your faith is likely just a part of your identity. How you situate yourself in the world. How you understand things. Of course, you already counter your own doctrines when you tell others that you will not try to help them anymore. Or when you deem that they already know everything that they need to know. Isn't God Himself, alone, capable of knowing that information. Not you? I'd suggest I know more about your god and your religion than you do. That is why you still believe in Him.
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On May 28 2011 12:22 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:12 ryanAnger wrote:On May 28 2011 12:10 JesusOurSaviour wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows. So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying. How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway) I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him? We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick. Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet. Just out of curiosity, how do you know that you are "saved"? How could anyone possibly know that they are "saved"? Has God spoken to you, first hand? I'm going off topic and have been for the last few posts. Last post for this thread from me, Ultimately we live by faith. Yet is this faith blind? Have not God's prophecies been fulfilled time and time again? When Jesus said he is the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets, he wasn't kidding. The ENTIRE Old testament Post-TheFall is about the longing for the messiah. Now the messiah has come, what more proof do we need of God's good promises? I guess people always want more proof. "If God came to earth and destroyed all the wicked and corrupt authorities, I will believe in Him". "If God saved that baby which was starving, then I would believe in him". Yet, did the Jews believe when Jesus came and did countless miracles? No. They killed him. And you are no better than a Jew. I am no better. I would have killed Jesus as well if I was a Jew in that day. Once again, we believe because we have reestablished this relationship which was once severed. We feel the bonds of the relationship, while those who arent' friends with God obviously don't feel the same way. Faith man!
God's prophecies are nothing more than people writing about events in retrospect, and/or things that are likely to have happened in the last 2000+ years. It's also very highly up to interpretation, similar to the way Astrology works. As for Jesus, it actually would have been really really easy to write about yourself/someone else/a fictional character and say they did these things in another village as you travel around the country. Save your 'faith' for places where it's important, like trusting the people important to you.
It's preaching like this guys that makes me absolutely hate religion and all it stands for, more so when they force it upon people like in the OP
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what he did was a douch bag move to do seeing as how it was a "tradition" at there school for such a long time. however the ppls reactions was just way to harsh and uncalled for. death threats? idc how religious u think u are, but if u make death threats and if u kick ur OWN FLESH AND BLOOD out the house for something as trivial as that then u are dispicable. these kinds of ppl give religion and other ppls beliefs in god and Christianity such a bad name that it sickens me.
u beleive in the bible and in God but u kick ur own sun out of the house? u beleive in the bible and god and u make DEATH threats to other individuals? fucking retarded.
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