May I ask one thing when Jesus was praying who was he praying to? I mean if he is God why would he pray to himself when he could just heal with a mere thought.

These prayer passages are some of the basis of "trinitarian" theology. Scripturally, Jesus is affirmed as God - i.e. "one with the Father." But the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (choose to?) exist in a relationship with one another. Thus, they can speak to one another.

In these cases, it was Son speaking with Father. Some have suggested that Jesus, having a human brain, thus limited his divine omniscience (this jives with him saying he didn't know when he would return, but the Father did). In which case, Jesus would desire to have things happen (healings, miracles, etc.), but he demonstrated submitting his desires to the perfect knowledge and will of God. This also jives with him saying, "Not my will, Father, but thine be done." In other words, Jesus' human nature desired things, but his divine nature would only make them happen if he submitted to the Father's will/plan. Thus, he would pray.

In another case (John 11), he said point blank, "I know you hear me, Father, but I pray for the benefit of those who overhear." Some simply explain this by saying Jesus was setting an example by praying.

Either explanation works for me.

So why do you refer to Jesus as God in human form? DId God say thou shall not worship any man or god before me. And you just said Jesus was a human.... explain please.

I realise that Hell is technically "absence of god" which stands to reason that we may indeed be living in hell at this very moment. If God is nothing more than an invisible man and we have to "guess" he is doing stuff, I think it can be argued that he ain't around here.

However, if *hell* is pleasurable to any degree, then I see no issue at all with any of this. Don't believe: Laugh with the sinners. Believe: cry with the saints. You just took away one of Christianities main weapons.

Infinite number of realities (something I am a big fan of) still doesn't mean that God doesn't simultaneously understand all 'sideways eights' of them. Omniscience means All Knowing. God is a very good multitasker (unlike windows). To me, and I know mileage varies on this, either God is all knowing or he isn't. The bible says he is. If he is, Earth is really just an enormous pain simulation that he is allowing to occur and he knows each and every gory line of code and the results that it will produce. If that is true, seems to me that he could have had me worshipping him in a lot easier fashion.

Selling your game in a Jesus thread. Marc, you just might burn..., I mean, you just might find yourself in partial pleasure for that. :)

One other thing, before I head to bed. All this talk of free will. According to the bible, the plan was for Jesus to DIE for our sins. That means that somebody had to KILL him. Killing breaks a commandment. God needed somebody to break a commandment in order for this all to come true. Somebody had to be *coerced* beyond the norm for this to happen as planned, meaning that free-will would not have been allowed in this case.

Imagine if this supposed free will would have kicked in and the Romans had refused to crucify christ or Jesus would have fled instead of allowing himself to be captured (he should have had free will as well), ad infinitum. Wouldn't this have put a wrinkle in things?

Thank God that didnt happen..

-Aes-

What you're asking for is an explanation of the Trinity. Or at least, the Incarnation. The simplest analogy I've heard is this:

Sunlight: is it electromagnetically charges particles? Or light? Or heat? The answer is yes. All three. Seperately. And the same. None exist without the other without ceasing to be sunlight.

Likewise, God the Eternal Father, Incarnated Son, and Holy Spirit are one in the same. Seperate. But the same. God would not be God without one of the beings. Yet he is fully all three. They're not puzzle pieces. He's like sunlight.

Now, if Jesus IS God, then worshipping him is not worshipping someone "before God," it's simply worshipping God.

*****

And as for all this free will/omniscience/predestination stuff, the existence of knowledge does not eliminate the freedom of choice. Neither does choice rule out divine planning. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Why not? Because Christianity understands (though it is difficult to wrap a finite mind around) that God is timeless. He exists outside of time. Today is no different from yesterday or tomorrow to Him. Therefore, he can know yesterday what you will do tomorrow, because he lives in all three at once. It has been a foolish debate within Christianity to pit free will and sovereignty against one another as opposites. Sorry we have confused the rest of the world.

Couldn't one say that in the above posts that Marc is actually pounding out moral code?

From the Simpsons:

Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot that he himself could not eat it.

Now there's a question:D

Or perhaps there is no such thing as good or evil and its all about perception?

Another thing I would like to point out. There are a billion budhists who disagree with christians, so are they condemned to hell?

Are the Jews destined to goto hell?

Hindu's?

It just seems very narrowminded to only believe what you are taught and not take other religions and/or philosophies in life into consideration....

One last post of the night on this topic.

One of underlying reasons that Pagans, Atheists and Agnostics are always "attacking", "questioning" or "defending" is the intollerence that other religions or beliefs show to us. The only way for us to try and explain to you why we think the way we do is to point out flaws in every religion to try and get people to think about it from another perspective other then the one they were blindly taught to follow from a young age.

I really don't care if someone believes in god. In fact my beliefs are hard to swallow and take a strong person to have. It's not as scary to think about dying, if you know by accepting Jesus Christ as your savior you have a ticket to heaven and enternal bliss.

But, what I do have issues with are christians that think I'm not fit to be around them, if I don't believe. I do have issues with people judging me or condeming me based on my ability to have independent thought. Its a natural human reaction for me to at times to attack, at other times question or simply laugh at it all and poke fun.

Don't get me wrong these same flaws can be found in every religion, maybe some have more then others.

I'll sum it up this way for you all. I try and lead a good life. I respect and honor my friends and family. I would help someone in a life threatening sittuation even if I put myself a risk. I can say this because, I was once in this situation and reacted in a way in which I endangered my life to help a complete stranger. I was more surprised ay myself than you can imagine.

I believe that everyone is inately good and evil, we are what we are. Everyone knows certain universal truths. I mean do we assume the indians of north america were all evil because they weren't exposed to Christ?

This below is said with the assumption that I may be wrong.... I don't think I am, but who knows

Anyway, if there is a god as described in the bible and I am wrong about all this and If I live a good life and try to do the right thing and he still doesn't except me into heaven, then that is on him not me. God gave me independent thought, he gave me the ability to question and not blindly obey. If he still wants to send me to hell, then I don't want to goto heaven, because that isn't any kind of god I want to be around.

God or as I call it the constant, wouldnt' have all these human emotions put to him. I don't think god is so insecure that he would want us to worship him....

The thing is if there was no ther choice besides good because God killed evil then why would we have freedom of choice?

Nicely put druez. You've summed up a lot of my feelings on the subject.

A few things....


I will never think I am too good for you... I may be saved from sin but I myself and still a sinner just like you.

Two...Even Christians should believe everyone is good and evil. We were modeled after God but we also have sinned and fall to temptation making us evil.

Three...God wants us to worship him, not because he is insecure but in doing so we may experience even the fraction of the joy He does.


Thats all I have at the moment.

this has been a great read and i've enjoyed it and learned a lot. This has been a great change of pace from the way these threads usually end up. I really agree with what Subby had to say earlier in the thread and what druez just said. And i find the comments by HPF and QuikSand hit home. Jesus said "Love Everyone" and that's what a lot of it boils down to for me.

On a lighter note not to be confused with baiting anyone:

Can God make a stone so big that he would not be able to move it? :)

Jokingly, This is why he made Jesus because he is God yet he could not move the stone, but God in the omnicent form could. :p

Good night all.

:D

PS. What do you think I'm doing up online at mid-night UK time .... ;)

The idea is that God is still very much with us through the Holy Spirit, however whether you have a relationship with him is entirely up to the individual.

Please bear in mind that I don't think there are any 'weapons' in the Christian faith, indeed if hell is pleasurable to an extent then fine - however compared to enternal communion with a loving God it is indeed "Hell".

I'm not trying to convert people just give rational answers (as I see them) for the questions posed, each person individually must come to their own conclusions about religion and their place in the world.

Marc,

If you would like to help me see the light. Do this! Create an American Football Game. If god does indeed exist and love all of his children he would use devine inspiration to have you and your boys create an American Football Game for us over here in the states. That is all I want for proof!

Come on NFG and EHM FE.

That is all, now let us pray.

LOL I completely agree. I've never tried the CM games because I'm not a soccer fan but from what I understand, they're the best text sims out there. I will cry hallelujah and praise any god if we can get an American football sim from the masters. :)

Some of you may be interested in this:

http://www.killingthebuddha.com/manifesto.htm


Here is a link to the main page...

http://www.killingthebuddha.com/index.htm

I would like to second this motion. Maybe you can be the guy that makes Jim step up his game. :D

:)

noop

There was no coersion involved. The fall of Man includes the temptation of evil no matter what kind or degree of evil. It is mankind's perogative to destroy rather than create. I don't think that requires any form of faith to realize this is inherently true.

Christ knew his destiny and why He was brought to this Earth. He came to give mankind atonement through the ultimate sacrifice and to teach the most fundamental joy of humanity which is to love. When He was well on his way to dying He asked God to intervene "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" God could have easily done so, but that would have done nothing except strengthen the idea of fearing Him.

The concept of a Creator is a hard one to grasp and one I struggle with to this day. We try to put 3 dimensions to it, but in my opinion it is like trying to draw a sketch of an infinitely dimensional being. We are just not given the tools to draw it. ;)

As far as myself, I enjoy and listen to people of all faiths or lack thereof. It does not make them a better or worse person than myself because in the end we are all on the same boat.

Kudos to everyone no matter your thoughts on this matter for not making this thread sink into what it usually does.

I must think on this

druez, thank you for the heart-felt, thoughtful post I quote below. I appreciate the greater level of vulnerability, and I hope to handle it with respect. Because you put so much thought into it, I'd like to respond, though I don't want to rehash what nfg22 said.

I've seen several things said in this thread and the other one that are quite similar to this, and I just want to point something out. I have never in my life known a single person who blindly followed a religious belief. This is not to say that it doesn't happen. Of course it does. But to state this likes it's commonplace seems quite a narrow view in my opinion. Every person of faith that I've ever known has contemplated deeply over many years, questioned every aspect of the Lord, and arrived at their own conclusions based upon their own logical analysis, many struggling with the questions for years and through very painful circumstances. It may be difficult for a person who doesn't have faith in God to understand, but I just think it should be pointed out that belief in God is rarely a blind pursuit in my experience.

Marc's ruminations on free will and foreknowledge (and reconciling the two) is interesting to me. It's a topic that I find endlessly interesting. Here is another coherent argument on the same topic that is not, at least by my rekoning, inherently religious.

Q: How can you reconcile a belief in "free will" with the notion that God, or anyone for that matter, can "know" things that are yet to come? If we have will to make decisions on our own, how can the future already be knowable?

A: We think of time as simply flowing, in order, one moment to the next. This moment happens now, another moment will happen later, and another moment will happen later still.

Perhaps time does not function this way. Perhaps all the infinite different moments in time all exist at once (this requires you to bend your idea of time a bit)-- they are not actually "happening" in any kind of sequence at all.

Imagine this very moment of your life. You saw what just happened a moment ago, and you see the things that happen right now as a conqesuence. At htis moment, you have memories of the things that happened just a moment ago, as well as all the other moments that happened "before" this one. But another explanation might be that all these moments just exist, all at the same time -- and that the presence of the cause-and-effect and memory connections just serve to give us a sense of order. In reality, we might not actually be living our lives from start to finish, and making choices as we go -- but rather the whole of our lives are already laid out and we simultaneously experience them without knowing it. At any given moment, from that point of view we know what we see as having has already happened, but we don't know what we see as yet to come... but in reality it's already "done."

Long-winded, and perhaps incoherent... but there's nothing in what we see or experience that refutes this concept. And if that were a fairer explanation of how time actually works... then there's nothing at all inconsistent with a higher power of some sort, who has better "access" to the whole array of these seemingly sequential moments in time, to have knowledge of the things that from our perspective are yet to come.

Good point. I, for one, although I grew up going to church virtually every Sunday, was pretty skeptical about it all as a youngster. As a late teen, I questioned, studied and checked into things, and as a result, became convinced that Jesus was real, and that his claims about himself as presented in scripture are true.

To comment on one other thing, revrew makes a great point about God sometimes taking a bit of time to flush tendencies out of His followers. A common (and understandable) mistake would be to judge Jesus by those who purport to follow him.

To Quik: that isn't incoherent. Our minds, which think in finite terms, naturally have a difficult (impossible?) time truly comprehending the infinite--such as the number of moments in time. I read or heard somewhere (not in any sort of religious text....for some reason I'm thinking that it was perhaps said in the novel Jurassic Park by the Ian Malcolm character) the philosophy is time is merely nature's (God's?) way of making sure everything doesn't happen to us at once. Interesting thought.

I hate to bring this up again, but it seems time to repost this thought I had.

A quick thought on what defines a god and how they are created:

At least my take on how gods were created throughout history. In saying all this, I still do believe there is a constant or universal law that does not sit in judgement.

The gods are not so different then us mortals, they love, they fight, they envy, they destroy. Gods are made and Gods are destroyed. Though they may live forever and by our standards, I suppose that makes them gods? But, lets imagine a second that they can die, does this mean they were never gods? If their existence is simply removed by a more powerful being, or perhaps a constant that makes everything equal in the end. This must mean that in the end everyone "mortal and immortal" is really equal. Which leads back to the constant.

Hmm, maybe gods are ideas simply created out of mortal thought. The more you talk about the thought, the more it becomes part of you. So more people around you start to feel it and it becomes more real to them. All those thoughts woven together of like-minded individuals could make the being or entity seem real in a persons mind. The more you talk about the thought, idea etc. the more it becomes part of you. So more people around you start to feel it and it becomes more real to them. Can you see how this pattern could convince you that is indeed real and not something you created in your own mind and in actuality really control.

It still goes back to where you are raised and how you are brought up. In the middle east, you have their beliefs. In asia you have their beliefs. In Europe you have their beliefs. Granted religions do cross those boundries, but many times it is spread through war and hatred. The spanish conquiestors and their spread of christianity through the new world. The crusades to retake the holy lands.

I'll site my area in Houston Texas for example. I live in an upper middle class neighborhood. My neighbors for the most part are quite religious. They don't really like to associate with me and my family.

I heard the lady next door say to my wife, well I don't know how I could be the mother I am without god. This is the same lady who smacks her kids and they run around like heathens hitting other kids, throwing temper tantrums and at the same time building a ladder to go see Jesus.

Now my wife and I are raising our daughter of a little over 2 years of age, without hitting as a form of disiplin, we let her watch christian video's, we talk to her about god, buddha, mother nature and a variety of things we have learned about and believe i.e. karma, balanced spirituality. We explain to her our belief about the circle of life and the constant and try the best we can. We will take her to a variety of churches when she gets older and let her make her own descisions. I was raised catholic and the last day I went to church was in 8th grade at my confirmation.

My daughter may turn out to be devout christian, but it will be bacause she looked at everything we could possibly show her and allowed her to make her own desicsions not something we forced her into.

The message above I addressed some of these issues, but many children are raised in all area of the worlds to blindly follow a faith. Look at the muslims if you don't want me to single out christianity. Many children are not presented with options but are simply told what to believe by their parents church and beliefs.

This explanation actually complies with what we're learning about the physics of the universe on the quantum level. It helps if you buy into String Theory, though. :)

It's quotes like the one aboove in the midst of a serious theological discussion that make me really appreciate this board. :)

Great discussion guys. Hopefully I will have something more substantive to add when I get home this evening.

You seem to be confusing the concept of exposing a child to a particular belief and indoctrinating them with nothing else. I don't know what may or may not occur in the Muslim faith. I only pointed out that in my experience, I have never known anyone who blindly followed what their parents happened to believe. In fact, again from my experience, it's typically quite the opposite, and I think that should be pointed out because many seem to believe as you do and it's erroneous in my opinion.

Not 15 minutes ago I was reading about this very thing. I was honestly going to answer with the same thoughts. (Though I'm unsure of what String Theory is...I was reading more about the Ithacan conclusions...)

The idea of free will and foreknowledge are NOT incompatible. If God exists outside of time, he can know at all times what all people have, are, or will choose, because time is irrelevant.

I've got no problem accepting your theories on how differernt cultures have created their gods. Makes reasonable sense.

But it does leave open the "what if" questions. For example...What if there really was a God who was tired of people inventing all the false gods? What if out of benevolence he knew their manufactured gods would do them more harm (see child sacrifice, etc.) that knowing Himself? How would the one true God make himself known? What would he have to do to prove He was the one true God?

Would plagues and thunders and splitting the Red Sea do the trick? Would showing mastery over nations and governments be enough? Would proven foreknowledge of the future be convincing? And if He decided to manifest Himself as a man, would that be helpful? What miracles, healings, or wisdom would convince a person that this man-god was really the God? How about dying, and then coming back to life? What would it take? Amid all the other manmade gods, how could God prove He was who He was?

This is the premise of the Bible. God is...God made every effort to demonstrate He is...now, He'd like you to know. What will it take?

Perhaps it will take time. Perhaps it will take a bunch of guys on a computer message board. Or perhaps it will take someone close to you demonstrating for real the transforming power of God's love.

Since I, for one, believe in the sovereignty of God, I'm willing to let God take as much time with you as you need. I'm not going to shove threats of hell or insults to your intelligence down your throat. If you must question and doubt, then do so. Do so hard. Don't stop. The only real enemy to faith is apathy, not doubt. Bang the doors of heaven until you get your answers. Ask, seek, knock. The rewards are too rich not to.

If god wanted everyone to know. I think a simple hello would suffice.

I don't think he needed to split the red sea. Or take all the first born. I don't think he needed to smite saddam and gamora.

I think a simple hello tommorrow. A speach of sorts. Hi I am god. Yes I'm here and I watch over you. Now will you jackasses start acting like you are supposed to.

All that would work.

But instead, he speaks to one person every 2000 years and we have to accept that this person is speaking the truth and it isn't some kind of conspircy or made up story. Or it isn't someone who had a bad acid trip. Or it isn't a way for a repressed people to feel good about themselves again.

What proof would it take?

Or getting the SI Games guys to make an American Football game :) that might work.

Just something I think everyone can relate to, A good old fashioned Hello How are you doing.....

Whats the first thing you do when you meet someone or want someone to know you.... Introduce yourself!

I don't always agree, theologically, with everything you say, Rev, but that was a great summary.

Maybe we aren't quite understanding each other. As a child, I know I was only exposed to Christianity.

I know a good many people who were only exposed to christianity as a child. Let me take that a step further, they were only exposed to being Catholic, or Methodist etc....

Of course as adults or mid to late teens we can rebal and choose to look at other things, but some do and some don't. Some stay with what is comfortable, some rebal. Some really go on the quest for answers. But, come live in a southern baptist neighborhood with fire and brimestone as your answer if you think of something else. Then come tell me that isn't brainwashing......

Your answer is very well thought out and doesn't really need to be repeated, and I've read a lot of scientific journals dealing with the same ideas it laid out (funny, since I've hated every science class I've ever had but find it fascinating).

Anyway, I think the common "answer" to reconciling free will and God's omniscience (word?) is that the whole idea of God being infinite makes the point moot. To be infinite correlates to existing without time. For God, time doesn't exist. It's not just irrelevant, it literally does not exist. Everything has happened that ever will happen, while at the same time it hasn't. Imagine sitting outside of time, would you know if anything actually occured when time did exist, because it wouldn't even be an instant to you. Now I haven't even tried to think about how he would insert Jesus at just the right time (nor do I necesarilly agree with this "answer") or how he would interact with time if indeed he has, but thats the answer I've most often seen.

Otherwise, the other answer I've often heard is that God has a plan, but its not a point to point thing. Not everything every person does is planned, but the whole leads to the end. So people are free to do what they want, but in the end everything will end in the exact same way.

I think we are understanding each other. I'm just saying that what you're asserting doesn't happen as much as you think, at least through my experience it is very, very rare. Like I said, I've never seen it. Every person I know who has a deep faith in Christianity has in fact questioned it, many times with some, explored other faiths, and educated themselves quite thoroughly before making up their minds. That kind of pursuit, in my experience, is common in devout Christians because coming to faith in Jesus is not something done lightly.

I have, in fact, lived in a southern Baptist neighborhood, and I can most decidedly say that it is not brainwashing. Again, this is the case at least from my experience and everyone I've ever met contrary to what television and the movies may have you believe. It is inevitable, of course, that children will grow up in Christian households and be exposed to a number of beliefs that their parents hold dear. This does not mean, though, that they will "blindly" accept those views and hold them as their own. In fact, my point was that it is more often the case that the opposite occurs, rebelling as you call it, especially in households where religious beliefs are deep and strict.

My only point in all of this was to answer a comment you made that I have seen others make on this board and elsewhere that it is common for people to be brainwashed or indoctrinated or flooded so completely with a particular religious belief that they simply and "blindly" follow that doctrine. As I said before, I have never seen that to occur, although I'm sure that it has. The frequency of it, however, is in my mind so slight as to warrant a comment to those who repeatedly assert its prevalence.

God uses irony, since it was HE who created it. And the greatest example of irony are all the many nonbelievers in God who think that becoming a Christian is submitting to some kind of brainwashing. In fact, all evidence I ever see shows the exact opposite...that those who wish to NOT believe need to by necessity allow themselves to be 'brainwashed' and 'indocrinated' into unrealistic views of an UnGodly nature (evolution, for instance). The fastest 'kneejerk reaction' you will ever get to anything is to bring up God in a situation is which some atheist feels that mentioning same in 'innappropriate" and is 'offensive' to those who do not believe (taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, for expample because it 'offends' the minority of folks who wish to not believe in ANY higher power). That kind of conditioning is real 'brainwashing!"

Actually most atheists don't care about whats in the pledge. And Christians never find anything offensive and then blame it on the "liberal atheists"?

Now back to real discussion instead of name calling. I don't think anyone is brainwashed, you believe whatever is most natural and comfortable for you. If you're comfortable with believing that there is a higher power and feel strongly that there is, then to you there is no other answer. If you're comfortable in believing there is no higher power and feel strongly that you don't, then to you there is no other answer. Then for some, we look for an answer however we can, that makes us neither weak nor brainwashed, naive nor more intelligent... it makes us who we are.

And re-read Genesis, it pretty clearly spells out evolution.

You do a really good job of destroying any good work revrew or ngf22 attempted to do in this thread. It is attitudes like yours which completely turn people off to Christianity...

Ok, I can't speak for anyone but myself...so I will point off that it turns ME off.

LOL!!!
wow, Evolution has been proved in many experiements. Evolution is a fact of life. The reason people don't believe in evolution is because they think that it disproves God's exstience. Its that kind of backward thinking that turns people off to religion in the first place.

Don't back me up Bubba. :)

I agree with Easy Mac's middle paragraph there. There is very little brainwashing going on for either side of a religious debate. Some children are raised in religious households while others are raised in non-religious ones. Eventually, we all must decide what we believe, and although that may be influenced, very highly at times, by what our parents may or may not have believed, in the end it all comes down to the answers we find within ourselves. I wouldn't have much respect for anyone who did otherwise.

I have to second Subby on Bubba Wheels. Even if people would concede that Bubba's perspective is the truth, his message could be communicated in a less condescending, more humble and loving manner. Revrew and ng have communicated in exactly that manner. They have demonstrated that the truth and arrogance do not necessarily have to go together. I would encourage Bubba to follow their sound apologetic style.

Well said

Yup. I prefer the purely theoretical argument, though, without mention of the fact that there might actually be some evidence that this is how things actually work.