Is God Self-Evident

No he punish CONditionly and forgivess CONditionally, through Jesus Christ. Punishment is conditional only if we dont accept Christ. Forgiveness is Conditional depending on whether accept Christ. Sin is always sin, we make the choice or condition. remember he has more than one characteristic, IF WE CAN ASSUME HE EXISTS. Great Id like to see those discussions if you can point me to them HG if you say God is this or that, you are assuming his existence for argument sake, thats where we are at present. On ething at a time please You are a very good person Im sure and its going exacally as I expected This would only be true if you could demonstrate from the source you draw your knowledge about this God that he possess only one characteristic in the area of morals. That is not what the SOURCE suggests. Ive only used the source to demonstrate that your evaluations about God and his morality are in error. If you want to set up what God should do or be outside that source, from which you draw your conclusions about him, that is your choice.About Christ and Rahab HG writesDo you mean here references or reliabilty?EAM Edited by EMA, : No reason given.

Ah, right, that one... That works for me. Sometimes of their own volition, sometimes because they said God told them to. I don't think God would ever order something like that. What kind of a God would? That kind of a God really would be a monster. I think it was the Israelites, just like modern-day Muslims, abusing their faith to enact their own retribution.

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That's because there is no moral principle at all. If it doesn't exist, why do you insist that I make one up?

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There are only three things to deduct, logically speaking. Either the God described in those verses was not the true God, God is just as hypocritical as his creation is, or there is no God at all.You have to remember that you are taking cues from a collection of ancient books to make your determinations, all of which could be false. See, you're putting the cart before the horse. You are assigning the bible its authority, but it may just be a collection of books claiming to be God-inspired.

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My mind, which is shaped by life experience.

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I would say it's the only thing we have going. Everything we know or think we know is processed through our mind, even the very concept of God. It just is what it is. I was a born-again Christian for many years. I have since fallen away, which may be prophetic, as it says that in the End Times there will be a great falling away! Gosh, let's hope not for my sake.I never will count God all the way out, and to be honest, I love the scriptures. There is much wisdom to be found in it and it really has some of the most beautiful things in it. But I've found myself at the crossroads, whether I wanted to or not. Don't you ever wonder why there is such a stark contrast between the OT and the NT? He goes from slaying infants to longsuffering. That's difficult to wrap your mind around, regardless of whether or not we now live in an age of grace. Yes, but the issue here is whether or not Rahab's lie was justified or whether or not it was absolutely wrong, especially in light of the fact that God, according to the scriptures, blessed her for it. I mean, she was helping people from being killed. In that instance, is it really wrong of her?If we think logically about why lying is a sin, can't we determine that lying is a way to unrighteously gain something untrue? If the intent is righteous, why is it not righteous?Wouldn't it be much like stealing? If you procure something, there is nothing wrong with it, right? But only if you procure something by depriving someone else what is rightfully theirs. That's what makes the difference, and is therefore relative to the circumstances involved.So it is with Rahab, Perhaps. So choosing to smash babies on the rocks versus allowing them to live is not changing your morals, just changing the way he goes about dealing with them? He goes from not having any pity to salvation by grace? That certainly seems like not only a change of heart, but a change of morality. Even allowing this, what possible sin could infants do to God that they are some how deserving to have their skulls smashed open? At some point, don't you say this is inconsistent with everything I know about God? Because it seems that you defend God no matter what happens when it may be that God never instructed the Israelites, or whoever, to do anything that heinous.Knowing that heresy's have made their way in to the annals of biblical history (i.e. the Gnostic gospels), is it possible that some amount of the bible is not from God? And if not, how would you know either way?we are instructed to live by faith, which is all fine and good in its proper context. We are also instructed to live by faith according to Islam. They fervently believe that the Qu'ran is from God.My point is, if we simply lived by faith alone, we would end up believing everything. To add, there would be no need for prophesy if it were by faith alone.By assuming that the bible is wholly true beforehand, it automatically excludes any debate on the subject. That is not in keeping with "testing the spirits."How am I supposed to reconcile crushing baby skulls with grace? It's quite maddening, especially for those of who feel that we have earnestly sought God, and knocked on the door, as Jesus instructed.

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"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samual Adams

Msg 110This seems like a cop out to me, saying that God has different "characteristics" rather changing his morals on a subject. Not having pity on anyone, simply because they are Amalekites or Egyptian or Philistine or whatever, does not in any sense point to an unconditional yearning to have people come to salvation.Was it God's different characteristic for the Judaic laws as well? Different characteristics on dietary laws versus changing whether or not it is a sin to eat shellfish?About Christ and Rahab HG writesAre you assuming that or can you point to anything specific showing what you are alleging?Do you mean here references or reliabilty?

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"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - Samual Adams

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I'm not arguing that God is self-evident because I don't think he is, in the sense demanded for self-evidence in this thread. I'm dealing with an objection from Teapot&unicorn which finds flaw in the mechanism of salvation posed which doesn't rely on God making himself evident. That mechanism supposes an absolute, unchangeable morality to which we have access. T&u says such a thing can't be because Gods own moral viewpoint (T&u claims) changes.

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I see. Since God's own personal moral viewpoint is unknown to us, we can't say that God has changed his stance on anything since we don't know what this master plan is either. We only have what we are not allowed to do. Like parents who snack before a meal, but won't let their child snack before a meal. The do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do leadership style.IOW, when reason closes in, write a new back story. Of course, since we don't have evidence of God's moral viewpoint, he could very well be changing his mind and moral stance willy nilly.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

Hi purpledawn iano, please tell us how a God that offers salvation, but does not offer said salvation with a clear, well known method of getting in as well as no clear proof of said salvation, can possibly be just.

Do people have different consciences? If so, how would we tell*? Remember, the mechanism of salvation posed suggests that people can suppress conscience in order to:a) carry out evil (suppression of conscience telling us what we "ought to do")b) justify the evil done (suppression of conscience telling us that we didn't do as we ought to have done = suppression of guilt)By this means will you arrive at a situation where different people have different moralities. It doesn't mean they weren't/aren't equipped with the same conscience at the outset.-* Richard Dawkins cites an interesting piece of scientific research in his recent book "The God Delusion". The scientists generated a series of moral conundrum type questions which aimed to strip out influences that might exert themselves on those questioned. Influences such as class, religion, education, country of birth, age, etc. What they found was that people the world over share the same morality thus cleansed. Even primitive tribes with minimal exposure to western mores were found to share world-morality.Quite what Richard thought could be gained for his case by such a revelation isn't known to me

iano, what Dawkins was trying to show was the effect of evolution on human altruism. If all humans evolved, then they should neccessarily share many of the same moral values, aside from any that deviated from the original morality- as most of these deviations are imprisoned or done away with, they have no ability to spread their morals through the gene or meme pools.In the meantime, please address the point I made above.Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.

We are told by this God what moral behaviour we are to engage in in order to be holy. Then we are told "be holy for I am holy" he says. Which does give us links into his morality. We are also told that he is good and are given indications as to what goodness entails.You, as so many others, appear to be conflating God (eg killing with us killing when you suggest a "do as I say not as I do" style. A snack is a snack - a righteous killing is not an unrighteous killing.Apples and pears.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Aah! Well the same research indicates to us that there is such a thing as an underlying common morality. And that life influences change it. So far so fine for the posited mechanismI might have to leave your question for now as I'm on the way out the door.

iano, you are missing the point. The point is whether the "do as I say, not as I do" motto is moral, even when applied to God. If it is, then God is relativistic. If not, then you should correct your way of thinking.Once again, please address my above posts. Why would a just god offer salvation, but refuse to give a testable and clear method of obtaining said salvation?Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.

There is no need for you to be consciously aware of the salvation mechanism working in your case in order for it to work in your case. You are being asked a question and your choices w.r.t. to good/evil and guilt/suppression of guilt when you have done evil form your answer to the question.What better way for gauging a heart response from someone than let their thoughts, words and deeds dictate their answer?

.The point is that you're comparing apples (eg: God's righteous killing) with pears (our unrighteous killing) so as to erroneously arrive at a "do as I say" comparison."Do as I say.." involves 2 same order / same circumstance beings. God/us doesn't.

God says "Do not kill." (Which is absolute)
Then he kills, whether using the Israelites, plague, etc.
Why is God's killing (righteous or not) different from our killing (righteous or not)?

God says "thou shalt not kill". Thou means you and me. God takes something belonging to him (a life) we, if we kill unrighteously, take something not belonging to us. The only righteous killing we can do is killing sanctioned by God. Some suppose war to involve righteous killing. They may be right, they may not be. We'll all find out in the end.Later..

This still does not change the fact that he is saying "do as I say, not as I do." Why is God exempt from his own laws? By your logic, a parent saying to his or her child can say "you may not eat cookies, " then go stuff his/her face.Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.Edited by Teapots&unicorns, : No reason given.