Religious Tolerance & Religious Moderation Are a Joke

[Mike wanna be 0]

If God is omniscient (which would be a by-product of omnipotence, although Christians tend to attribute it separately), free will doesn't exist and he knew evil would result in his actions. That would make him malevolent.

The important part bolded. Whether free will exists isn't really the argument. The point is, if God knows all, does he not know who will be good and evil ahead of time? And if so, why does he not just eliminate those who are evil and be done with it?

 

One answer would be that you really can't have good without evil to counterbalance it, or else you end up with everybody stuck outside the Piggly Wiggly saying "No no no, you go first!".

 

My question is this: Can one not argue that due to the necessity of evil to have good exist, isn't it possible that everyone, good and bad, is in God's divine plan and thus worthy of Heaven regardless?

[Brett Favre 0]

And you're assuming that omniscience entails that there can't be free will. You're argument doesn't stand because omniscience says you know, not choose for. There's a difference between knowing and choosing for.

 

oldskool, heaven wouldn't be reserved for those who do evil because they had the choice to do good. God's gift to us was to have the power to choose. And would you like a God who makes all our decisions or allow us to do what's right? If he God chooses good for us, we'd all be angels, and that ain't that good.

[TheBigSwigg 0]

Free Will is not tied into God's omiscience because God exists outside of time. God is not bound to our timeline, therefore he knows what has and what will happen.

 

And to answer WWM's question, in the Christian mindset evil comes from people who ignore the truth. The truth, in the Christian Mindset, being Christ and the Bible. I'd try to explain this, but I'd be better off giving you the name of the person who I got it from, Ravi Zacharias. He's got a podcast called "Let my people think" you can get off of iTunes for free. He goes into that argument in detail.

[Guest panthermatt7]

Omniscience would entail that God has all the knowledge. No where in the definition does it say that choices are pre-determined. Which is why free will still takes place.

 

Let me use an example. If I know this guy who comes to work everyday, and I say tomorrow that he will come to work, and he does come to work, does that mean i'm Omniscient? You could use that as an example of someone knowing something yet not doing the action, or pre-determining the action for them. The guy still had free will.

 

Now we're getting more into my territory, philosophical debate. There are several denominations (most notably Calvinist) that believe in complete and total pre-destination, which would mean that every action ever taken in the world's history has been predetermined, and God knew everything that would happen from the moment history began. This is not my belief, but there is a lot of doctrine out there indicating this.

 

This is my personal view: God has the ability to start or stop anything that occurs in the universe, but mostly chooses to abstain so as to preserve free will. As people have said before, salvation (accepting Christ) is a free gift, BUT it must be accepted. That does not mean living a perfect life, so much as acknowledging that you cannot live a good enough life to make heaven on your own -- this is commonly misunderstood by many judgmental Christians. Thus, it's our choice to believe or not believe... without this choice, we would simply be drones; that's not what we were created for.

 

That's a world of opinion, just wanted to put it out there. I look forward to hearing what people think about it.

[World's Worst Man 0]

If God is omniscient (which would be a by-product of omnipotence, although Christians tend to attribute it separately), free will doesn't exist and he knew evil would result in his actions. That would make him malevolent.

The important part bolded. Whether free will exists isn't really the argument. The point is, if God knows all, does he not know who will be good and evil ahead of time? And if so, why does he not just eliminate those who are evil and be done with it?

 

One answer would be that you really can't have good without evil to counterbalance it, or else you end up with everybody stuck outside the Piggly Wiggly saying "No no no, you go first!".

 

My question is this: Can one not argue that due to the necessity of evil to have good exist, isn't it possible that everyone, good and bad, is in God's divine plan and thus worthy of Heaven regardless?

 

Valid issues. When one starts throwing around the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, free will, compassion, etc, it leaves the door open for such problems. It all points to the inherent logical unsoundness of mainstream theism. And assuming a theist would accept those logical flaws and change their definition of God accordingly, I go back to the Epicurus quote - if God is neither omnipotent nor benevolent, why call him God?

[Guest panthermatt7]

If God is omniscient (which would be a by-product of omnipotence, although Christians tend to attribute it separately), free will doesn't exist and he knew evil would result in his actions. That would make him malevolent.

The important part bolded. Whether free will exists isn't really the argument. The point is, if God knows all, does he not know who will be good and evil ahead of time? And if so, why does he not just eliminate those who are evil and be done with it?

 

One answer would be that you really can't have good without evil to counterbalance it, or else you end up with everybody stuck outside the Piggly Wiggly saying "No no no, you go first!".

 

My question is this: Can one not argue that due to the necessity of evil to have good exist, isn't it possible that everyone, good and bad, is in God's divine plan and thus worthy of Heaven regardless?

 

Valid issues. When one starts throwing around the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, free will, compassion, etc, it leaves the door open for such problems. It all points to the inherent logical unsoundness of mainstream theism. And assuming a theist would accept those logical flaws and change their definition of God accordingly, I go back to the Epicurus quote - if God is neither omnipotent nor benevolent, why call him God?

 

That's an interesting point. To me, it's less about good and evil, and more about the root of actions. Even Hitler could make heaven, if he accepted Christ. (Weird)

[Brett Favre 0]

The idea is though that if you accept Christ, you intend to do good. Because why would you accept someone and do the total opposite of what he wanted you to do?

[Mike wanna be 0]

And you're assuming that omniscience entails that there can't be free will. You're argument doesn't stand because omniscience says you know, not choose for. There's a difference between knowing and choosing for.

 

oldskool, heaven wouldn't be reserved for those who do evil because they had the choice to do good. God's gift to us was to have the power to choose. And would you like a God who makes all our decisions or allow us to do what's right? If he God chooses good for us, we'd all be angels, and that ain't that good.

That's my point though; without evil, there can be no good. If everyone did good things, and there was no evil...the "good" things wouldn't be "good", they'd just be things because there's nothing to offset it/compare it to.

 

If everyone was a Christian, there'd be no Christianity.

[Guest panthermatt7]

The idea is though that if you accept Christ, you intend to do good. Because why would you accept someone and do the total opposite of what he wanted you to do?

 

True, but we all fail at it to some degree. The question is, where's the line?

[Brett Favre 0]

The idea is though that if you accept Christ, you intend to do good. Because why would you accept someone and do the total opposite of what he wanted you to do?

 

True, but we all fail at it to some degree. The question is, where's the line?

 

That's for God to decide .

[World's Worst Man 0]

The bible is so conflicted that it wouldn't be difficult to act the opposite of how Jesus taught while still following a large portion of the book. That pesky old testament. For example would you consider Pedro Arbues or Pope Pius IX to have been following the word of God? Incidentally, the Roman Catholic Church seems to think so, considering the former was canonized and the latter beatified. I would personally say they were both very un-Christian, despite what they themselves believed of their actions.

[Brett Favre 0]

The way people act has nothing to do with what the Bible is saying. Anyone can manipulate what's going on and make it seem like they're following the Bible, but at the day of Judgment they'll get their due. Just because you're a high ranking official, doesn't mean everything you do is right just because you say that you're doing right according to the Bible. Or just because the church says so. The Church is a bad example because they've been manipulating things to their advantage for centuries.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I don't know if this is a specific religious teaching for Catholics or if this was just my own interpretation on things after 13 years of the catholic school system, but it always seemed to me that the idea was to take most of the Old Testemant and accept it as a symbolic fable (Adam and Eve being a moral about mankind's greed keeping them from the perfect life, or something... definitley not to be taken as 'this is where life began and evolution and dinosaurs don't exist) about good living, then take the New Testement as a more literal account of Christ's actions.

 

I don't want to say I don't understand why science and religion are often at odds, because I do, but religious people who are adamently opposed to science or scientists who determine that since they can't prove God exists therefore he must not just seems too closed minded to me. Nothing wrong with educated people who believe in evolution and realize rainbows are caused by... uh, light reflections off of moisture? (damn I should have picked an example I knew) and not God putting on a magic show believing in a higher power. Maybe the one mindset versus another is just a few people that seem like a lot due to the media.

 

Then again, I love the show Bullshit! and would like to watch some of the religious based episodes.

 

But hey, maybe in 2000 years someone will find a bunch of DBZ manga volumes and determine that God is a guy from another planet living on a floating palace while higher Gods live on other planets in the universe, and people won't think it's all that crazy.

 

One of my favourite lines of the more recent Simpsons seasons was Bart and Lisa doing research on some ancient beliefs (they had found an old indian cave or some such). Bart's response to Lisa is "thank goodness we've come to our senses and worship a carpenter from 2,000 years ago".

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

The bible is so conflicted that it wouldn't be difficult to act the opposite of how Jesus taught while still following a large portion of the book.

 

Ned Flanders: I've followed every teaching in the Bible! Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!

[World's Worst Man 0]

They acted on inarguable and unequivocal statements in the bible. They weren't making anything up. But enough with the bible "interpretation". The point is, Jesus' teachings seem to be in conflict with God the Father's teachings. Who is more worthy of heaven, the person who follows more of Jesus' teachings, or more of his father's teachings? Arians (if they existed anymore) would say the latter.

[Brett Favre 0]

I wouldn't say that. Maybe God's teachings if you turn on God may seem different than Jesus' teachings, but that's it.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

I'm often confused by what some people say and reading material I've seen as to the whole Jesus deal. As I know the deal, he is "seated at the right hand of the Father", but I often hear people call Jesus God. Someone told me that was because some view Jesus as God's human form.

 

Someone also told me confession is a sin because you're idolizing a priest as God. I thought this was something the guy said because he's recently born again and, for lack of a better word though I don't want it to come off so negatively, was "brainwashed" at his Bible studies to think this. Someone later confirmed with me that is a true religious belief.

[World's Worst Man 0]

Different sects of Christianity believe in different things. Sects who believe in the trinity (most of them) believe God to be one person who exists simultaneously in three forms. The nontrinitarians (Mormons and Jemima's Witnesses ) believe that three forms of God are separate and distinct, and some sects (Arians for example) don't believe Jesus actually is a form of God.

 

Someone also told me confession is a sin because you're idolizing a priest as God. I thought this was something the guy said because he's recently born again and, for lack of a better word though I don't want it to come off so negatively, was "brainwashed" at his Bible studies to think this. Someone later confirmed with me that is a true religious belief.

 

I don't know about this specifically, but the false idols commandment was likely just a jab towards Paganism, which probably would have been the dominant religion around the time Exodus was written. Simple intolerance towards another faith is all.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

I don't hate people because they're gay. That's not what the Bible teaches. Love the sinner, hate the sin. I don't care whether or not a person is a homosexual.

 

Well, sin is bad, right? And an affront to God? So, from your perspective, what would be the optimum outcome for a homosexual? Conversion?

 

What I bolded is a reference to the Old Testament, and more specifically the things stated in Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. That is the Old Covenant. Does that render everything said in there dead, not necessarily. The New Testament is the New Covenant. NOT what is said in Leviticus. Seriously guys, what's so hard to understand.

 

This is very disputed among Biblical scholars, King. So your claim to to have the final say on it can't stand.

 

More importantly, it's disputed among Christians in general, as some obviously believe that a great deal of Old Testament law is still applicable.

[Gary Floyd 0]

[Brett Favre 0]

I don't know what creationists have to do with this conversation, since I don't think anyone here is actually endorsing creationism.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

And WWM, the Bible being the Word of God does not mean that God created it Himself, it means that he inspired those who wrote it. How it was inspired is up to debate. If you don't believe in God, then it doesn't matter, does it?

 

Religions affect those who are non-believers or followers of other religions, obviously.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

You can't disprove the truths either.

 

Cena's Writer shall henceforth be known as the Purveryor of All Things Logically Fallacious.

 

Negative proof.

[Brett Favre 0]

Okay?

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Okay?

 

The Flying Spaghetti Monster must exist, because there is no proof that he does not exist.

[Brett Favre 0]

Fair enough. But what I said was taken out of context.

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

Fair enough. But what I said was taken out of context.

 

Eric asked if you could prove the Bible's truth, and your response was that you can't disprove its truth.

[Brett Favre 0]

I said that just because you don't have hard concrete proof of what the Bible says doesn't mean it's not true (well what I meant to say if it didn't come out that way).

[Big Ol' Smitty 0]

So...you're asking for negative proof.

[Brett Favre 0]

I never said you had to believe it's true. I do, but not for that reason.