Choosing a faith

Of course there is......... It's in the Book

I mean that no strength of character is required when following orders. What would an Ultimate Objective Purpose even look like?Isn't that like saying some girl is the Ultimate Objective Beauty?
-there will be a ton of people who disagree, I promiseHow can you have an Ultimate Objective Anything on something, like a person's personal purpose, that is subjective by definition?
It doesn't make any sense.
It's just a lot of words that are put together to sound impressive... when it's actually nothing more than some kid saying 'nyah nyah - my Dad can beat up your Dad!'1. Who cares?2. Even IF you have an Ultimate Objective Purpose - the purpose I choose for myself simply because I choose it is automatically higher/better for me. So what does that do to your "Ultimate Objective Purpose" that's no longer the best?3. Anyone offering this as "a solution" is only clarifying that they have no idea what "purpose for a person's life" is in the first place - and this just makes them look silly.

Why would personally-created-purpose be "as close as one can get" to Ultimate Objective Purpose when personally-created-purpose has the potential to be far greater?It seems like you don't understand.Here's an example:The "Ultimate Objective Purpose" for a hammer is to drive nails.
-it's what it was built for and it's very good at itHowever, if I'm slipping on ice, and I use a hammer to claw into ice and save my legs from getting broken...
-well, this personally created purpose for the hammer (to save my legs!) is greater than the Ultimate Objective Purpose of the hammer.Of course, a personally created purpose for the hammer could be something like holding M&Ms so I could snack on them later... and I would say the Ultimate Objective Purpose would be better than that one.But there's no argument... saving my legs from being broken is far greater than driving nails... this personally created purpose for the hammer is far greater than the Ultimate Objective Purpose for the hammer.Saying that saving my legs is "as close as I can get" to driving in some nails... is absurd.
Saving legs is clearly way, way, way above driving in nails.This is why it's silly to talk about Ultimate Objective Purpose for people... or even inanimate objects... it overlooks the fact that "purpose" in general, is SUBJECTIVE. Therefore... any Ultimate Objective Purpose will be significantly handicapped just by being objective.It's a silly thing to attempt to argue, and only shows that the one arguing it doesn't know how "purpose" works.

When did I ever say that? They made up a God that YOU don't want. ​
When did I ever say that? The God of the Bible is most likely closer to reality than the God that YOU made up - but it still isn't very close to reality. But you're NOT respectful of reality.

That isn't the same situation as the politician. There may be universal agreement about what the politician said but there is no universal agreement about whether or not it was true or made sense. With "God" there is nothing resembling universal agreement about what He said - nor even universal agreement that He said anything.

I don't think that's a good explanation... but it doesn't seem to address the questions that come up.How are we free to "completely ignore" something that's been forcefully placed into our minds/hearts?
Isn't that like saying "don't think of a horse!"?
-you are "completely free to ignore" thinking about a horse... but it is, actually, humanly impossible.Try this example:If I'm at home and hungry, I'll think of something I want to eat and then order it (Skip The Dishes!)But, let's say I'm hungry and looking at my phone. Ad's on my phone (or maybe even memes...) plant a seed in my heart that I should have Burger King.
Did I choose to have Burger King? Or did the ad sway me just enough?
-maybe I actually did want Burger King and the ad was coincidental... or maybe it swayed me
-hard to tell. Maybe I'm the only one who can tell, or maybe I can't even do that.
-it would be nice to have one situation where I don't see any ads, and another where I do and see the difference between them.... but it's (currently) difficult to conduct such an experiment.Which leaves the same problem with God placing memes in our hearts.
-would we choose Love on our own? Or only because God planted the seed?
-what's the point?
-does God want to see if we choose Love or not?
-does God know we can't possibly choose Love on our own... so He plants seeds so that at least some of us have a chance?
-would it not be "more honourable" to choose Love on our own without having any seeds planted?
-why would God eliminate this possibility of us choosing Love honourably? Why does God hate honour? Why does God seem to want robots? (I'm not sure if the above quote is still on the same lines as what I'm discussing - so feel free to correct me if I'm quoting out of context... but I'm going to assume it is.)What is the answer Christianity provides to the point of God doing things this way?
I can't think of a satisfactory one.The secular point is that God isn't putting memes or seeds in our heart so the problem doesn't exist. All our decisions are from us, because there's no other possible place they could come from.
We are not robots... and the decisions we make may be honourable, or disastrous and it's up to us to be adults and take responsibility for our decisions and try to move forward as best we can.

It's certainly in the book. No supernatural whisperings required.Our Brains are Wired for Morality: Evolution, Development, and Neuroscience · Frontiers for Young Minds

I didn't mean that response to be taken seriously. If you play the link you can see it was meant as humour.It was dragging us back into done before debates that you and others complained about so it was an effort to keep us from going off track.

I've always had a difficult time parsing Shakespeare... let me have a crack at this.I'll break it up into two parts. The first part:

quote:

---

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring barque,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

---

...seems to basically be saying how unstoppable, immovable, impenetrable and unlimited Love is.

quote:

---

If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.”

---

...this part I don't really get.
I think it's saying something like "if I'm wrong... then Love doesn't even exist in the simplest of senses?"

I did notice that.
​ Talking about still small voices was taking us all the way back but as you did it anyway it required the response that there's no such magic and that morality is adequately explained by the non-supernatural forces of evolution and culture.What else have you got?

We are bombarded with conflicting means. Back to letting someone into traffic. Maybe I’ve been in that line up for an extended period of time, and the other driver has just pulled up on the side street. We understand fairness so it seems fair that he/she should wait like I have, which maybe we can fall a meme of fairness. Which do we choose? The loving thing still prompts us to let him/her in, but have a very strong meme saying we shouldn’t. (As in all metaphors it breaks down eventually because in effect it also impacts the drivers behind me but I think you get my point.) [/qs]-would it not be "more honourable" to choose Love on our own without having any seeds planted?
-why would God eliminate this possibility of us choosing Love honourably? Why does God hate honour? Why does God seem to want robots?[/qs]If we are looking for honour then it isn’t sacrificial. What we do then is for the benefit of the self. Honour means that we are simply looking to be built up in the eyes of others. Christianity contends that death is not the end, and that ultimately it is metaphorically like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The Christian contention is that ultimately there will be a recreation of all things, but that this life matters, and will have an impact in the world to come. Yes, that is a faith issue. I’ll go back to my initial example regarding memes. When one driver let’s another driver into traffic ahead of themselves it is more likely that the driver let in when he is next in that situation. It is still however his decision. Theoretically that can be spread around exponentially, however somewhere somebody is sure to break the chain.
So yes, I see the God meme of sacrificial love touching everyone’s heart, but then everyone has the choice of accepting or rejecting it. I suggest that you have made the choice unconsciously to have that meme impact your life – Hitler, for example, not so much.
From this we can go back to the point of starting this thread. Which God do we choose? We choose between a god of self love where we are prepared to sacrifice the well being of others for our own benefit, or a god where we are prepared to sacrifice our own well being for the well being others. It is our choice.

I find the key to understanding The Bard is to reorder the structure into complete sentences then decipher from there. A big mistake people make is stopping to take a pause at the end of each line regardless of the punctuation. If the line ends and there is no period, don't pause, don't stop reciting. The seeming disordered nature of poetry is to lend a rhythm and meter to the spoken word on stage."Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments." Let me not interfere between those who love each other."Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove." Love is not fickle and stands in the face of adversity. Nor does it break with infidelity."O no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken;" Yeah, love is pretty strong."It is the star to every wand'ring barque, whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken." Love is like a guiding star for every wandering ship (soul) whose value is unknown but promises great reward."Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass come;" Love does not change with time, though physical beauty wanes as a sickle worn with age."Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom." Love is for all time, unto death."If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.” If I am wrong about these thoughts on love then I recant all I have ever written since no man has ever loved.

Edited by AZPaul3, .

Yes - we are.
Does that mean God is justified in adding one more in order to try and sway us? I just don't think so.Advertising works.
When all businesses are otherwise equal... the one with better/more advertising gets more business.
Memes/ads/forcing-thoughts works. It makes people choose things in a certain direction more often then they normally would.Very difficult to identify when/if it's happening in any given, single scenario... but obvious and objectively measurable that "it does happen." In a large, general sense. Maybe I'm using the wrong word?
Maybe you're using the wrong word...? To me, doing something honourably is doing it "because you think it's the right thing to do." That is, if someone is "looking to be built up in the eyes of others" then they definitely are not being honourable. People doing something with honour specifically means that they don't give two hoots about whatever anyone else thinks... they have their own reasons, and they're going to do it anyway.I don't really care what we call it... "free will" or "honourable" or "without outside influence"... in what you're describing, this isn't possible and doesn't seem to exist. How can we tell if we're actually choosing Love or just being robots and following orders that are written onto our hearts? There's nothing special about doing something that we're programmed to do... it's so much more meaningful if we follow Love because we want to, not because we're "supposed to." I think this is touching on another aspect... that evil exists.
I'm not really touching on that here. I'm sticking to the point of "why does God want us to be robots and follow orders instead of giving us free will to decide ourselves?" I don't see a satisfactory answer to that.Does God give us Free Will to make our own decisions?
Or does God write memes on our hearts to nudge us in certain directions?
Those seem like conflicting ideas, and I don't see how they are resolved within a single entity who created us.I can see why a God might create us and give us Free Will and see what we decide... sounds like an interesting adventure!
I can't see why an all-powerful God would write anything on our hearts to nudge us in certain directions... this seems to remove a certain level of Free Will, or imply that God didn't setup the universe itself, and needs to "correct" or "help" something that He cannot control... as if the world and humans were created by someone else, and God sees us and is all... "oh my... these humans need help! I'll write something on their hearts to guide them in the right direction!"
If God did create everything... why the need to give us memes/nudges? Why not create the world to give us memes/nudges? Why give us Free Will and then decide to override a portion of it? Don't think of horses!
Got you again, didn't it?
But don't you have the choice of accepting to think of horses or reject it? No? Didn't think so... because that's not how brains work. If God touches everyone's heart... this absolutely does not give us the choice of accepting or rejecting it. Giving us the choice of accepting or rejecting something would be to present the options and let us make our own decisions. Touching everyone's heart is, by definition, "stacking the deck" in God's favoured position. If God wants to stack the deck... why give us Free Will? It just doesn't make any sense. This choice is there regardless, though... this choice is there even if God doesn't touch everyone's heart. We can all choose to follow Love or not depending on the situations that arise in front of us. In fact, without God intervening, this choice is even more of a "free choice."God touching our hearts means God is intervening... but only intervening enough to "lead Stile to decide to help the old lady cross the street." But not intervene enough to "lead Timmy's parents to feed their kid so he doesn't starve to death."
It doesn't make any sense. If God wants to remove some of our Free Will in order to show us that Love is the way... why give us Free Will at all in the first place? The question of "will people with Free Will choose Love?" still exists and isn't answered!
If God wants to see what we do with our Free Will... why write anything on our hearts?You seem to reject the idea of a world-wide flood 4000-ish years ago, and the idea that the earth is only 6000 years old.
Why cling to the idea that God is going around writing things on our hearts? What is it about this idea (that also doesn't make sense) that makes you want to hold onto it?There are people who think if the world was not flooded 4000-ish years ago, then God doesn't exist.
But your faith seems stronger than that... it seems to be able to accept the way things are and stay faithful to the good parts of the Bible.So why hold onto this idea of God writing things on our hearts? Why is that required?
Why can't God not write things on our hearts... give us Free Will, and see where we go in this world?
Is that too callous? Something you don't think a loving-God would do? It's more-loving to give us all a little guidance but still allow such atrocities and hatred and torture that exist in this world? That way, when little Timmy dies of malnutrition, God can say "well, I wrote a little something on those parents' hearts... I guess they just didn't choose to listen!" I just don't understand why this is where the line is drawn. Why is that "better" than God not writing anything on anyone's heart and just saying "Well, I guess that's what Free Will decided to do!" I don't really see much of a difference in those two situations. Unless... God is not all-powerful... and God isn't choosing to stop at simply writing a small nudge into everyone's heart and that's all God is capable of doing... that would make sense. Doing everything He possibly could to help, and that stops at "I can only write so much onto everyone's heart!" ...that would make a lot of sense.

Edited by Stile, : Grammar corrections

I tend to believe that God helps those who ask. He does not simply help everybody.

What happened to his infinite love for his creation?