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Author Topic:   Does the Christian God Play with Free Will?
Zoraster's evil twin
Inactive Member


Message 61 of 83 (73442)
12-16-2003 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 60 by NosyNed
12-16-2003 10:46 AM


Re: Nutty Idea
Why would a loving Christian God choose only one lump of people, his chosen ones? It simply doesn't compute that the same God that created all that is perfectly, would in turn select a strain of his creatures and share his secrets with only them... IE.. I think they're making something uhuuuppp!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 60 by NosyNed, posted 12-16-2003 10:46 AM NosyNed has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 62 by Rei, posted 12-16-2003 4:51 PM Zoraster's evil twin has not replied

  
Rei
Member (Idle past 7012 days)
Posts: 1546
From: Iowa City, IA
Joined: 09-03-2003


Message 62 of 83 (73444)
12-16-2003 4:51 PM
Reply to: Message 61 by Zoraster's evil twin
12-16-2003 4:45 PM


Re: Nutty Idea
Well, because those were the only group of people willing to burn the flesh of dead animals in his name. Duh!
------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 61 by Zoraster's evil twin, posted 12-16-2003 4:45 PM Zoraster's evil twin has not replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 63 of 83 (73453)
12-16-2003 5:04 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Rrhain
12-12-2003 5:03 AM


I can almost tell how one might respond to these Bible verses, but I'll give them anyway since I'm playing at a christian response here. 2nd Corinthians 11:3, 4, 14; Romans 16:20; John 8:44; 1st Timothy 2:14 may imply but don't directly state that the devil may be the serpent of the Fall story. As far as I can tell, only Revelation 12:9, & 20:2 directly call Satan "that ancient serpent". I have not found any other verses which could possibly give one the idea that Satan or the devil was in any way related to the serpent in the Fall story. Christians reading this may wish to correct me if they know of some verses I may have overlooked. I'd like to know what they think.
Agreed; the Bible doesn't necessarily say what people claim it does. That's why for example Jews don't like christians reinterpreting their Bible to contain references to the messiah, and then saying it was Jesus Christ.
After thinking it over, I don't see a Biblical basis for the idea that Job's 'Satan' was in any way related to the Fall story serpent. You are correct; the serpent is an animal in the story.
Actually I should have said that christians in general believe that A&E died both a physical & spiritual death, and I'm sorry if my previous post was misleading on this. Their physical death happened when Adam was 900&something & supposedly also was Eve; but I don't think the Bible even mentions Eve's death; correct me if I'm wrong. Their spiritual death happened when they disobeyed god's order to not eat of the tree of knowledge. Again Paul implied this when mentioning Adam's transgresion in Romans 5:13-14. But of course that's Paul reinterpreting Jewish texts to bolster Christian doctrine.
I can't figure out either how god dares to tell Adam that he would "die that very day", and then it doesn't happen. But since x-ians refuse to believe that god was lying, then they must twist that passage to mean that a spiritual death occured for A&E. Again, refer to Paul's letter to the Romans.
There seem to be only 5 or 6 verses in the whole Bible which may lend credence to the idea that the devil had something to do with the serpent. Since all of these verses(given above) are questionable in regards to the identity of the 'serpent', I think that they are flimsy evidence to base important religious doctrines upon.
It would be interesting to read a few christian rebuttals(?) to the arguments stated in our posts. Any takers?
[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 12-16-2003]
[This message has been edited by Prozacman, 12-16-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Rrhain, posted 12-12-2003 5:03 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 65 by Rrhain, posted 12-17-2003 4:23 AM Prozacman has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 64 of 83 (73662)
12-17-2003 4:06 AM
Reply to: Message 59 by Zoraster's evil twin
12-16-2003 10:25 AM


You're still avoiding the issue.
We're talking about Genesis, not Paradise Lost.
And you're still missing the point: Milton wrote Paradise Lost only after all the various doctrine about the serpent being the devil and such were created. It isn't an original source and cannot be considered.
If Source A says Statement X and Source B quotes Source A as saying Statement X, is Source B really saying anything original? Can it be used for anything?
Milton is just rehashed Christianity. It wouldn't exist were it not for the pre-existing doctrine.
Where in Genesis do we find the justification?
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 59 by Zoraster's evil twin, posted 12-16-2003 10:25 AM Zoraster's evil twin has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 65 of 83 (73665)
12-17-2003 4:23 AM
Reply to: Message 63 by Prozacman
12-16-2003 5:04 PM


Prozacman responds to me:
quote:
I can almost tell how one might respond to these Bible verses, but I'll give them anyway since I'm playing at a christian response here.
[New Testament comments deleted for space]
All irrelevant. You're trying to impose a Christian theology upon a Jewish story.
What does Genesis say? For the umpteenth time, I don't care what the Christian opinion is. I know what it is. I freely admit that plenty of people share this opinion.
The question is not what the opinion is.
It is whether or not there is anything in GENESIS that justifies this claim.
If I lie about something and you agree with me about the lie and we convince a whole bunch of people to go along with the lie, does that make it any less a lie?
That said, Romans 16:20 and John 8:44 aren't about the garden.
quote:
As far as I can tell, only Revelation 12:9, & 20:2 directly call Satan "that ancient serpent".
And what makes you think they're talking about the serpent in the garden? They're referring to a dragon.
Revelation 12:9: And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelation 20:2: And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Besides, dragons have legs and the serpent from the garden doesn't have them anymore. Obviously, the "serpent" mentioned in Revelation is not a reference to the serpent from the garden. It is merely using the fact that a dragon is a kind of serpent.
Are you saying that every time the Bible mentions a snake, it's a reference to the serpent in the garden?
quote:
Actually I should have said that christians in general believe that A&E died both a physical & spiritual death, and I'm sorry if my previous post was misleading on this.
But he didn't. He was supposed to die that very day, before the sun set, and he continued to live on for another 900+ years. Do you think when he hit 500 he figured that something was up with this, "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"?
quote:
I can't figure out either how god dares to tell Adam that he would "die that very day", and then it doesn't happen.
And that's a big problem.
Here's a thought: The Bible is actually a work of the devil. The character of god is really the devil and the character of the devil is really god. What better way to get souls than to make them think they're following the embodiment of all that is right and good?
Or another thought: The Bible is a test by god to see who will be able to see the glaring contradictions and inconsistencies and decide to use their god-given intellects to examine the world around them, possibly being wrong but having the courage to try and find out. Those who get sucked in by the promises while ignoring the problems are going to be in for quite a shock.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Prozacman, posted 12-16-2003 5:04 PM Prozacman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 66 by Prozacman, posted 12-17-2003 4:31 PM Rrhain has replied
 Message 69 by Abshalom, posted 12-18-2003 5:40 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 66 of 83 (73821)
12-17-2003 4:31 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Rrhain
12-17-2003 4:23 AM


But that's what christians have done ever since Paul wrote his letters, & that was a point I clearly raised in my 2 previous posts. Of course Christiany imposes it's theology on Jewish stories, especially the A&E story, and that's how X-ianity gets it's veiws on salvation, sin, & free-will. If x-ianity didn't do this, then it wouldn't survive as a religion. For Pete's sake' aren't we talking about the x-ian god playing with free-will. Your original ? is about the x-ian god, right? Therfor, it only makes sense to get an x-ian's opinion of his god playing with free-will wether or not his opinion is rational. Heck, CALLING ALL CHRISTIANS: CAN YOU PROVE TO US THAT YOUR GOD WAS BEING RATIONAL BY ALLOWING A&E TO GAIN FREE_WILL?? PLEASE RESPOND.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Rrhain, posted 12-17-2003 4:23 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 67 by Rrhain, posted 12-17-2003 8:39 PM Prozacman has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 67 of 83 (73889)
12-17-2003 8:39 PM
Reply to: Message 66 by Prozacman
12-17-2003 4:31 PM


Prozacman responds to me:
quote:
But that's what christians have done ever since Paul wrote his letters
Don't care. It's irrelevant. If I lie to you and you agree and we get a whole bunch of people to go along with the lie, does that make it any less a lie?
Who cares what Christians have done? Who cares what Paul did? If Paul was wrong and Christians have gone along with Paul's error, does that make it any less of an error?
What does Genesis say?
quote:
For Pete's sake' aren't we talking about the x-ian god playing with free-will.
Indeed. But if the Christian religion is going to include Genesis in its holy documents, then it is going to have to suffer the consequences of what it says. Genesis was written from a Jewish perspective and cannot be understood except in that perspective.
If certain Christians screw up and claim that Genesis says something that it clearly does not say, then who cares how many make that claim? If Genesis does not say that, then it doesn't matter how many people claim that it does. Reality is not a popularity contest.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 66 by Prozacman, posted 12-17-2003 4:31 PM Prozacman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 68 by Prozacman, posted 12-18-2003 4:48 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 68 of 83 (74148)
12-18-2003 4:48 PM
Reply to: Message 67 by Rrhain
12-17-2003 8:39 PM


You are quite correct. The history of the christian movement from the beginning sought to use Jewish writings like Genesis to try to back up their claims about sin, death, and the Devil. As I see it, there is no devil in Genesis, and the christian devil can't be equated with the serpent of the A&E story in any case. It is interesting though that the original x-ians were Jewish and of course they would include Genesis as one of their holy writings. The problem for the original christians unfortunately was that they didn't stay a sect within Judeaism, like the Pharisees turned Rabbinic, or the Essenes who were wiped out by the Romans. Like Matthew who interpreted the OT to try to show that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, christians from then on attempted to find things in the OT that they could possibly use to base their evolving doctrines on. This is where St. Augustine came along & interpreted the fall story in christian terms; a bad twist on the story as I see it now. PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 67 by Rrhain, posted 12-17-2003 8:39 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
Abshalom
Inactive Member


Message 69 of 83 (74152)
12-18-2003 5:40 PM
Reply to: Message 65 by Rrhain
12-17-2003 4:23 AM


Rrhain asks Prozacman, "If I lie about something and you agree with me about the lie and we convince a whole bunch of people to go along with the lie, does that make it any less a lie?"
Allow me to rephrase the question slightly just for the purposes of argument. "If I lie about something and you agree with me about the lie and we convince a whole bunch of people to go along with the lie, does that make the lie appear to be true?"
Emphatically, YES ... especially in politics and religion ... not to mention sales.
Now, does the nearly universal appearance of truth constitute truth? Whatever works.
[This message has been edited by Abshalom, 12-18-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 65 by Rrhain, posted 12-17-2003 4:23 AM Rrhain has not replied

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 Message 70 by Prozacman, posted 12-19-2003 4:40 PM Abshalom has not replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 70 of 83 (74343)
12-19-2003 4:40 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Abshalom
12-18-2003 5:40 PM


Allow ME to refrase that question slightly. If I lie to you about aliens being responsible for co-mingling with "the daughters of men", and giants were born, then these giants evolved into the Yeti, Sasquatch, & Bigfoot, and these monsters kidnapped gullible people in order to do wierd experiments on their bodies inside pyramid shaped spaceships from the Orion Nebula, & then we agreed about the lie and convinced a whole bunch of 1960's dope-smoking hippies up in the mountains somewhere that this crap was actually taking place, does that make the lie appear to be true? Well, YES, but only to those idiots in the mountains who don't have any critical-thinking skills.
Now, does the nearly universal appearance of truth constitute truth? No way; just because there's a "univeral" belief that the sun revolves around the earth does not make it so. Thank goddess hippies are not universal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Abshalom, posted 12-18-2003 5:40 PM Abshalom has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 71 by Rrhain, posted 12-20-2003 12:10 AM Prozacman has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 71 of 83 (74392)
12-20-2003 12:10 AM
Reply to: Message 70 by Prozacman
12-19-2003 4:40 PM


Prozacman writes:
quote:
Now, does the nearly universal appearance of truth constitute truth? No way; just because there's a "univeral" belief that the sun revolves around the earth does not make it so.
This also goes the other way...just because there is a "universal" belief that the earth goes around the sun doesn't mean it does. However, we still claim that the earth goes around the sun because we try to show the opposite and continually fail. We may eventually find a way to do so, but we haven't figured out how yet and the earth-round-sun bit works so well.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 70 by Prozacman, posted 12-19-2003 4:40 PM Prozacman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 72 by Prozacman, posted 12-20-2003 12:39 PM Rrhain has replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 72 of 83 (74436)
12-20-2003 12:39 PM
Reply to: Message 71 by Rrhain
12-20-2003 12:10 AM


And as we continually fail to observe the sun orbiting the earth while also observing the earth orbiting the sun, then we gain more confidence that our observations are correct. It's kind'a hard to do repeatable tests of possible events in history.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 71 by Rrhain, posted 12-20-2003 12:10 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 73 by Rrhain, posted 12-21-2003 6:52 AM Prozacman has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 73 of 83 (74535)
12-21-2003 6:52 AM
Reply to: Message 72 by Prozacman
12-20-2003 12:39 PM


Prozacman responds to me:
quote:
And as we continually fail to observe the sun orbiting the earth
Not at all. Every day, I go outside and I witness the sun orbiting the earth. One can quite easily make the earth the center of the universe and have everything rotate around it. The problem is that doing this makes everything in else in physics horrendously complicated. Somehow, we have to explain why when we take a high pressure water stream and force it into a tectonic plate on earth, the rotation of the universe changes.
It may very well be the case that such is the way things are...that there really is a force that can be transmitted instantaneously across the entire universe. We don't accept it because we get much more accurate results when we put the earth in motion, but that's primarily because we can understand the math better. There may come a time when we run an observation that supports a geocentric model but until then, we go with what we have.
A heliocentric solar system is actually more a function of Occam's Razor than direct observation.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 72 by Prozacman, posted 12-20-2003 12:39 PM Prozacman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 74 by Prozacman, posted 12-21-2003 2:34 PM Rrhain has replied

  
Prozacman
Inactive Member


Message 74 of 83 (74564)
12-21-2003 2:34 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Rrhain
12-21-2003 6:52 AM


Carl Sagan recently requested(before he died) that we turn the camera of the Voyager space probe around to get a picture of the 'Pale Blue Dot' we live on, and this to me gives a humbling and yet grand perspective of our 'place' in the universe. There will probably come a day when astronauts living on stations or planets & satellites for more than a year at a time, will look up at their place origin and watch it arch in movement about the star that keeps us alive. What we have are indirect observations from spaceships, alot of smart astronomers, and some good mathematics. I would be surprised if our observations turned out different than expected or predicted, but I would cautiously accept the outcome only because I am no expert in matters of science.
That having been said, unlike the church inquisitors who refused to look thru Galileo's telescope because what they saw might ruin their faith, some would not hesitate to look. Which reminds me of the time a couple of years ago when I went into an x-ian bookstore & there in an obscure isle containing anti-evolution books was a small one with a picture of stars all over it titled "Geocentrism". As I scanned thru it, the author who was a PHD & creationist attempted to argue (over my head) that we humans are indeed at the "center" of God's universe! Good Grief! PM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 73 by Rrhain, posted 12-21-2003 6:52 AM Rrhain has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 75 by Rrhain, posted 12-22-2003 5:18 AM Prozacman has replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 75 of 83 (74643)
12-22-2003 5:18 AM
Reply to: Message 74 by Prozacman
12-21-2003 2:34 PM


Prozacman responds to me:
quote:
There will probably come a day when astronauts living on stations or planets & satellites for more than a year at a time, will look up at their place origin and watch it arch in movement about the star that keeps us alive.
That could simply be an artifact of the rotation of the universe about the earth. Remember, you can make the earth the center of the universe, but you have to start adding in all sorts of new forces to the universe in order to get the math to work out correctly.
If the entire universe is oscillating around the earth and you set something into it, it will pick up the oscillation of the universe around the earth. It may look like the earth is going around the sun, but that is simply an optical illusion based upon your position within the universe and its motion.
You do this the other way, after all. From the earth, it looks like the universe is rotating around it and yet we claim it's the other way around. Well, from the universe it looks like the earth is moving around the sun, but we can claim it's the other way around, too.
The reason why we don't is because it is extremely complicated to do so, introduces forces that we can't detect as such, and generally makes life difficult. But if some day in the future we were to find such things, we'd discard a heliocentric model of the solar system for a geocentric one.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 74 by Prozacman, posted 12-21-2003 2:34 PM Prozacman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Prozacman, posted 12-23-2003 2:00 PM Rrhain has not replied

  
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