2011-02-08, 12:26 | Link #2961 |
廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 34
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I'm of the opinion that if god is an omnipresent, omnipotent entity, as has often been described in Judeo-Christian religions, that directly contradicts any subsequent attempts to describe him as 'loving' or anything of that sort. If this is a being truly representing infinity (which I believe he would have to be to create the universe) our human description and understanding of him will never be enough. Which seems to be something many theists accept, but then on the other hand they talk about his forgiving nature, how he judges good vs. evil, etc. It can't go both ways in my view. If god is infinite, he encompasses both good and evil, he has no rudimentary, primitive sense of 'judgment' (which is an entirely animal concept) instead he would simply be the grand connector of everything there is and ever will be. All the human descriptions necessarily limit his infinite nature so they don't really mesh well.
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2011-02-08, 13:29 | Link #2963 | |
思想工作
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vereinigte Staaten
Age: 31
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EDIT: About the God being benevolent thing, I'd say it's not so much "God is benevolent" so much as "God is capable of great benevolence". Thus, people who live according to his principles gain salvation, whereas those who oppose them are punished or otherwise done away with. |
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2011-02-08, 14:10 | Link #2965 |
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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I think that's flawed logic, simply because omnipotence/omnipresence/whatever you want to apply to God doesn't actually mean that he can do everything imaginable. Remember the question, "Can God make a rock so big he can't lift it?" Well, no, because that question is devoid of logic. It's like asking God to make a four-sided triangle, or to flip a coin so that it lands both heads and tails. There are some things that just can't be done, and being both good and evil is one of those.
Incidentally, the distinction between good and evil is an important one. They're not opposites; instead, evil is simply a twisting of good. Evil actions are ones that provide a "good" result in the wrong manner. It's not wrong to own a TV, for example, but it's definitely wrong to steal one. It's not wrong to have a sense of satisfaction for a job well done, but it is wrong to be prideful about it. In my mind, God can never be evil, simply by definition. Everything he is and does is good. Evil, then, comes as a result of acting against God's will. Furthermore, there HAS to be the opportunity for that sort of deviation, because otherwise good and evil as concepts wouldn't exist. If there was no such thing as darkness, then light wouldn't be LIGHT; it would just BE. Similarly, if God somehow WAS both good and evil, then those terms would be meaningless. Nothing would be good, and nothing would be bad. It would all just be "God."
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2011-02-08, 14:49 | Link #2966 |
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: classified
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I think there is some confusion as to the nature of the Hebrew God here.
Please allow me to humbly attempt to explain the concept of the Hebrew God to clarify that it is NOT the same concept of the "Triumverate god" that the Council of Nicea imposed on Chrisendom in 325 AD. What all Christians are currently practicing is a State religion of the Holy Roman Empire (or a variant) as approved by the Council of Nicea. In other words, it's not the religion of Jesus the Christ, it's the religion of Constantine the Emperor. That is why I left Christianity behind almost twenty-years ago now. I wanted to know the truth about the God of the Torah/Tanakh because I didn't believe what my Roman Catholic Priests were preaching at the pulpit. The whole concept of the Trinity was the first one to fall for me. If God created man, then he doesn't need to become man since God already understands man's nature. Ruach Hakodesh, the Holy Spirit, is not the "Third Person of the Trinity of God". What it actually supposed to be is divine wisdom/inspiration that is imparted on a mortal after that person has prepared himself/herself properly (diet, mediation, etc.). In other words, Ruach Hakodesh is a person's ability to unlock the knowledge of the workings of the universe in either a mechanical (what we'd call science) or prophetical (metaphysical) manner. The next part of the Trinity that I found inane was the concept of Jesus as god (or the son of god). That is a direct violation of the first commandment: "Thou shalt have no other gods BEFORE me." Even though the concept of the trinity existed before Constantine's time, it was not universally accepted by the various Christian sects scattered over Rome (and abroad). Constantine gave his Imperial approval to the concept of the trinity at the Council of Nicea, which also made Jesus a divine being as the son of god. Since Constantine's Imperial seal solidified the decisions of the Council into law, the Emperor is responsible for the creation of the trinity. He did this to claim the political power known as Divine Right of Rulership and turn Christianity into the state religion of Rome. Those are the reasons I saw the "holy" trinity, and Catholicism in general, as an extension of a State Religion that had become essentially detached from the Hebrew religion it claimed to be directly decended from. In so far as the Judeo-Christian God is concerned (not the religions) there is an excellent treatice on the nature of what God actually is, and is not. Moses Maimonides Guide for the Perplexed was written in 12th century AD and is still as relevent today as it was then in so far as understanding the concept of Ain Sof (the infinite being). One fact is clear. The early Hebrews (before the first Kingdom of Israel) did not view God as being anything other than a Extra-Universal being (a thing which exists outside of universe) that infused in its creation the qualities that it(God) possessed. Such as the ability to create via predetermined mechanisms in the basic birth, life, old age, and death cycles that apply to all things in this universe (both animate and inanimate), including stars, galaxies, and this universe itself. This story is told in the Kabbalistic text The Sefer Yetsirah or Book of Creation.
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2011-02-08, 14:57 | Link #2967 | |
思想工作
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vereinigte Staaten
Age: 31
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2011-02-08, 14:58 | Link #2968 | |
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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If you're going to reject the Bible, go ahead, but at least know what's in it first.
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2011-02-08, 15:23 | Link #2969 | |||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2011-02-08, 15:28 | Link #2970 | |
Senior Member
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and in comes buddhism with the karma thing. those children were criminals in past lives. *someone here said "the devil is in the details"...
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2011-02-08, 15:32 | Link #2971 | |||
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: classified
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You shouldn't be so quick to attack since it greatly weakens your position. I have nothing but amicable feelings towards most followers of the Christian faith. My angst is not with you or any other follower, it is with the leadership of Christendom that has lead their peoples astray. There is no referrence to the Trinity anywhere in the Bible as put forth by the Council of Nicea. There are no referrences to Jesus in the Torah/Old Testament (no matter how badly Christian scholars try to twist, spin, and blend the text). Jesus was a great man, an incredible profit on the same scale as Moses and Abraham, but he was not god nor the Messiah. I must ask you, in which Chapter and what verse did Jesus claim godhood or anything for that matter? The entire new testament was written by his disciples, not him. However, even if we assume that what the disciples wrote is 100% accurate, there is still nothing that states Jesus is god, nor is there anything which dismisses the law of the Torah. I believe the Apostle Matthew was the one that claimed Jesus said this (Matthew 5:17-20): Quote:
They eat forbidden meats, worship on the first day of the week, honor pagan holidays (Christmas/Saturnalia, Easter/Ishtar fertility celebration, Holloween/Samhain), engage in usury, etc., etc. They don't even follow the 7 Noahide Laws. Yet the Christian churches claim some kind of "chosen one" status for their flocks. The fact is, there are no "chosen ones." According to the Hebrew faith, you make the choice to either obey or disobey the law put forth in Torah and thus the individual is responsible for their own sins, not Jesus or anyone else. Personal responsibility is the way of the Hebrew and that's what works for me. If Christianity works for you, then good for you and may God smile upon you, but for me it was too much of a contradiction. I'm still researching the old religions of the Hebrews, and learning new things all the time. I take Hosea 4:6 to heart: Quote:
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2011-02-08, 15:41 | Link #2972 | |
Uncaring
Join Date: Sep 2010
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In buddhism, murder itself would be negative karma. You're mixing the effects of karma with actions wilfully undertaken. The former is always natural (you get sick, you get hit by a bus, etc), the latter is what gives you karma. If i recall correctly, even gods would be thrown back into reincarnation when their positive karma is used up and the same with ghosts when their negative karma is used up. I tend to interpret that as debit and credit in accounting terms. |
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2011-02-08, 15:46 | Link #2973 | ||
思想工作
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Vereinigte Staaten
Age: 31
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2011-02-08, 16:11 | Link #2974 | ||||
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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The murderer could be doing it for some twisted sense of enjoyment, to protect himself from testimony or something like that, or any of a bunch of other reasons. Joy and self-preservation are both good things to shoot for; this is simply not the right way to do it. Quote:
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2011-02-08, 16:23 | Link #2975 | |
廉頗
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Massachusetts
Age: 34
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Good and evil objectively don't exist; they are judgments made by human beings. I can consider someone to be completely good while you consider him completely evil. And there's no way either one of us can definitively prove the other wrong, since it's ultimately a subjective issue. At the same time, a single person can be considered very good and very evil for different actions. I don't mean to offend you or anyone else in the thread (just expressing my view), but I really think this whole good vs. evil thing, with god the ultimate good force fighting against evil, is pretty childish. This isn't a comic book. Reality isn't black and white. And a being far beyond human comprehension certainly can't be limited to our foolish methods of judgment. |
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2011-02-08, 16:59 | Link #2977 | |||||||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2011-02-08, 17:35 | Link #2978 | ||||
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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The point I was making was that free will necessitates a world of suffering. If you don't have free will, you don't have good OR evil, and if you don't have evil, you can't have good. Quote:
I'll go back to my "stealing a TV" example. If you buy a TV or you steal it, in both cases your motivations are to own the TV. However, because you chose to fulfill that desire improperly (through theft), it becomes a sin. In the murder case, the murderer has some desire he wanted realized. Why murder was the best outlet in his mind is something I'll never understand, but people don't just kill unless they think they'll get something out of it. Quote:
It's not until the child becomes mentally equal (or at least close) to the parent that these restrictions and unbalanced freedoms become understandable. However, since we'll NEVER be close to God's mind (as long as we're human), things like this will always seem unfair to us. Quote:
It's called an example. If I substitute "my cousin Bob" for "me" in those two sentences, would that make you feel better?
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2011-02-08, 17:57 | Link #2980 | ||
Senior Member
Join Date: May 2009
Location: classified
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And no, Jesus doesn't call himself god. In fact in John 16:25-28 he explains to his disciples what he meant in speaking to them previously (which John recorded in the previous chapters of his testamony): Quote:
That's a nonsequitur and is impossible even in metaphysics. Therefore, it is plain that like Moses, Jesus was sent from God(in the spiritual/Kabbalistic sense via Ruach Hakodesh) to teach Torah at a time when the Sadducees had banned it from the common people (since the Sadducees viewed themselves as the direct decendents of the Levites and thus the keepers of Torah). Therefore, for Jesus to go through the country of Judea and preach Torah would have sent the Sadducees into a tizzy, but would have served the purpose of spreading Torah to every tribe of Israel (and the world). The Muslims know this as well. In Quaran 19:30 it states that Isa (Jesus) is "The Slave of God." He is a servant of the Lord, and thus had abilities beyond normal men, but he was still just a man whose purpose was clearly to spread Torah to the world. As did Mohammad, Moses, and all the profits before and after Jesus. Moses performed miracles (the parting of the Red Sea, the plagues of Egypt, the destruction of Core and his disciples at Mount Sinai via earthquake, the Mana falling from heaven, the water springing from a rock in the desert, etc.). Jesus performed miracles, Daniel performed miracles, Mohammad performed miracles, all are equally great men, but still only men,and not God himself. This argument (the divinity of Christ) was made centuries ago in what is known as the Disputation of Barcelona in 1263 CE. Nachimaides was correct in his oral-dissertation against the divinity of Jesus and his being the Hebrew Messanic figure that would lead to the future civilization (world) prophesized of in the Torah.
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not a debate, philosophy, religion |
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