Proof-existence of an intelligent Creator+His Purpose for humankind

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by stuck_in_chuk

But jealousy is such a human emotion - it should be far beneath a deity worthy of praise. Not only is he jealous, he takes jealousy to a whole new level. As mentioned in the 10 Commandments (Exodus 20:4-5):

4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me


No wonder he has no problem with causing genocide, or with enslaving people, or raping virgins.

Sounds like the kind of stuff the god of the universe could command from his creation if he so chose. It's that fine balance between love and justice - sometimes we as humans do things that are "mean" to get the point across to children as a consequence. You know that instance when you know they will not learn unless you impose a consequence even you dislike - for their long-term benefit. Amplify that feeling, your perspective on the situation and your power to intercede ten thousand times, and you'll be just barely on your way to God's understanding of human sin.

Sure, jealousy is a human emotion, but you've gotta admit that our language limits word choice. That said, God is "jealous" of our attention. And why shouldn't He be? He created us for the primary purpose of praising Him (because He created us; for those of us who accept that idea, it's the least we could do, no?). It might sound childish to you, but it's as straightforward as I can make it.

I can't really "explain away" the genocide.

I already touched on the slavery part.

I don't actually have much intelligent to say in regards to the raping virgins text. I suspect there's much more to the story in context than it seems on the surface, but it does come across as lewd and perverse without further review, I'll admit that.

[WesternCanadaKing]

Originally Posted by OBCT

Sure, jealousy is a human emotion, but you've gotta admit that our language limits word choice. That said, God is "jealous" of our attention. And why shouldn't He be? He created us for the primary purpose of praising Him (because He created us; for those of us who accept that idea, it's the least we could do, no?). It might sound childish to you, but it's as straightforward as I can make it.

God created humans to praise him? Ugh. Then why does he make it so difficult? What about those poor people he created but didn't alert to his existance?

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by photon

Exo 21:20 And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished.
Exo 21:21 Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.

Not take advantage of their slaves, but you can beat them as much as you want as long as they don't die within a few days of the beating.

The Bible has some good moral teachings, but it also has many bad ones. Viewed in the context of when it was written, that makes sense. But to even recognize that means that the Bible isn't the ultimate source of morality.

Someone should tell those who try to push their morals they say they derived from the Bible on society as a whole.

But if you do kill them, you get killed!! I know I wouldn't take that chance! (But seriously, you make a very good point.)

I really need some sleep here, but I specifically wanted to make a point of this last sentence. In short, I AGREE! Massively so.

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by WesternCanadaKing

God created humans to praise him? Ugh. Then why does he make it so difficult? What about those poor people he created but didn't alert to his existance?

It's difficult because that makes it significant.

Some believe everyone is alerted to His existence in some way; others (including myself) believe some are not alerted, and that these individuals get a free pass of sorts.

[T@T]

Good read on the Catholic church

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_10.asp

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by OBCT

I really appreciate your ability to keep a discussion civil and free of unnecessary insults.

It wasn't an unnecessary insult. You said this...

Could it be that slavery can be done rightly and wrongly? I won't be the one to judge.

If you actually believe that, you are a moron, among other things.

In the interests of civility, I'd be interested to hear any scenario you can describe in which the practice of slavery is "done rightly".

Originally Posted by OBCT

Beyond that point, I am actually serious. As peter12 mentioned earlier, I find that people in today's "civilized" culture are often too quick to assume that the way we do/see/understand/believe things today are far superior to the way things used to be. I disagree.

The Bible was written in a different time. Today, lots of people are into relativistic morality and truth, so here's a comparison that might work for them. Back in Biblical times, slavery was right for them. I do not know exactly what the history of slavery is for humankind, but I know that it was prevalent for many many years (and still, sadly, is in some areas). One way or another, many societies "functioned" - without economic collapse or constant uprisals leading to social upheaval - under a system that either allowed or promoted slavery. This does not mean that we are wrong today - I am certainly not pro-slavery! - but it does mean that it was a long-embraced part of our (recorded) history.

Now, as far as God's stance on the subject... again, I'm not sure He needs my defense. I will say that the Bible was in most ways not written to promote social reform (at least not directly). It calls believers to act in propriety, and if that means having the grace to free their slave, as example, the Bible certainly leaves open that option. A lack of codemning does not necessarily imply condoning. The instances where slavery is mentioned, it is basically commanding readers not to take advantage of their slaves (or for the slaves to be loyal).

Sure, slavery was right for people in the past. They were wrong.

What a weird argument. If you want to pump your particular brand of superstition I'd think that you'd steer clear of this obviously evil practice, but here you are trying to justify it with the "relativism" nonsense.

[WesternCanadaKing]

Originally Posted by OBCT

It's difficult because that makes it significant.

Some believe everyone is alerted to His existence in some way; others (including myself) believe some are not alerted, and that these individuals get a free pass of sorts.

See, this is sort of in my mind what cancels out Christianity (or any religion really) as an option for creation. This jealous God created us for the sole purpose of having creatures that would praise Him, but the way his message is spread is extraordinarily un-God like. In fact, it operates much like a human created propaganda machine. An all powerful God should be able to alert every person that as ever existed about his presence. Why should he pick a certain race of people over another for recieving his message? If it weren't for human advances in technology, his message never would've left Israel. If it weren't for human colonization and indoctrination, nobody today would even know that He exists. Doesn't seem like an incredibly efficient method of spreading the word.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by OBCT

Sounds like the kind of stuff the god of the universe could command from his creation if he so chose. It's that fine balance between love and justice - sometimes we as humans do things that are "mean" to get the point across to children as a consequence. You know that instance when you know they will not learn unless you impose a consequence even you dislike - for their long-term benefit. Amplify that feeling, your perspective on the situation and your power to intercede ten thousand times, and you'll be just barely on your way to God's understanding of human sin.

Ultimately its just the interpretation, of these words. So this is what organized religion has done for a long time, fine tuning their 'understanding' of what the words mean from the orginal text.

To me its quite clear the people who wrote the testaments are just men reciting a story they believe to be true, not witnesses or humans given divine direction to write the word of god. The fact we see such massive failings in all these books in 'God' is a clear indication to me its not from a supreme being but from flawed humans.

Sure, jealousy is a human emotion, but you've gotta admit that our language limits word choice. That said, God is "jealous" of our attention. And why shouldn't He be? He created us for the primary purpose of praising Him (because He created us; for those of us who accept that idea, it's the least we could do, no?). It might sound childish to you, but it's as straightforward as I can make it.

That to me is the most messed up part, the fact he needs praise, heaven is all about praising him for eternity, those who don't praise him end up in hell for eternity, our thoughts are subject to thought crime.

As a freedom loving human, how do you honestly find peace with a celestial dictator who not only watches you when you wake, but when you think!

I can't really "explain away" the genocide.

Because of religions before Christianity, fear is a KEY component of other religious texts predating the testaments. The followers need to know their god is vengefull and that there is reward to obedience. No strange coincidence these books pre dating Christianity were commissioned by Pharoes and other high leaders of the ancient world to placate the masses who were brutally worked, treated, and the afterlife/promise of paradise was one of the few things those poor souls had to keep them from revolting.

I don't actually have much intelligent to say in regards to the raping virgins text. I suspect there's much more to the story in context than it seems on the surface, but it does come across as lewd and perverse without further review, I'll admit that.

See if this is a book of God, God's word. Then why 2000yrs later is it not clear and conscise. Why isn't it not contradictory, brutal, and massively flawed.

Its a simple answer for me, its written by man, and its about their imagined God.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by Thor

Fixed

Okay, this is something that bothers me and I wish people wouldn't do -- and that is to rewrite attributed quotes. It's not the least bit clever. I don't care what side you're on. Don't put words in people's mouths. If you wish to question their argument, do so on their points.

[WesternCanadaKing]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

blah blah blah blah blah.

Fixed .









(just kidding, I agree, its annoying and overdone)

[Thor]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

Okay, this is something that bothers me and I wish people wouldn't do -- and that is to rewrite attributed quotes. It's not the least bit clever. I don't care what side you're on. Don't put words in people's mouths. If you wish to question their argument, do so on their points.

It was funny, but point taken.

[T@T]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Fossils don't take millions of years to form. They merely require the right conditions. Crude oil can be produced in the lab using organic material, heat and pressure. If my memory serves me correctly they were even experimenting with producing crude in the desert using solar power and waste organic material. The layers of bone and plant life from the flood are found in most of the fossils and carbon deposits uncovered today.

Somehow I missed this. Are you seriously saying the fossil fuels we use today came from the plants and animals of this so called great flood?

Sure, in a lab the can make crude oil, they can also make a diamond as well but in nature it takes millions of years. For instance the oil deposits from fossils in northern Alberta are aged from 60 to 400 million years, certainly not a few thousand.

Fossil fuels or mineral fuels are fuels formed by natural resources such as anaerobic decomposition of buried deadorganisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel

Whats next man? the earth is 6000 years old and humans walked with the dino's

Please for your own good read http://godisimaginary.com/index.htm

Most of us non-beleivers have read the bible,gone to church and have had God stuffed down our throats for many years but at least we made a choice after seeing both sides.
Take the time to read the above site and get back to me with any questions.

[photon]

Originally Posted by OBCT

Sounds like the kind of stuff the god of the universe could command from his creation if he so chose. It's that fine balance between love and justice - sometimes we as humans do things that are "mean" to get the point across to children as a consequence. You know that instance when you know they will not learn unless you impose a consequence even you dislike - for their long-term benefit. Amplify that feeling, your perspective on the situation and your power to intercede ten thousand times, and you'll be just barely on your way to God's understanding of human sin.

So on one hand we're supposed to have free will, but on the other hand if we don't love and worship God then we are punished and condemned to an eternity of suffering. AND in addition to that God hides, not even giving us the benefit of a clear indication of that's what he wants.

The consequences I give my child are matched to the infraction. None of them are eternal and none of them are torture.

If I love a girl and I want her to love me back, giving her the choice of loving me or I lock her in the basement in chains being tortured forever isn't free will.. it's coercion.

If God gave us free will, then no he doesn't have the right to command us. Choosing something under duress and threat of eternal torture isn't free will.

God may hate human sin, but he's the one responsible for it and for him to take it out on us isn't moral.

And you never answered my question about is there free will in heaven?

[Vulcan]

For me the question of is there or is there not a god, didn't mean that much. I was more concerned with why am I here and how can I find some peace. One of the first hints I got was to 'know thyself' from Socrates so I tried examining my self. It didn't work to well so I started reading some eastern religions, some dingbat books and some writings that led me down a garden path. I also started experimenting with drugs which showed me there may be more happening then my regular senses knew about, so I started to look at some religions like Bahai, Hinduism and Buddhism and even Christianity. A lot of what I saw, I couldn't connect with or I felt the leaders were charlatans. Anyways I did eventually find a way to know myself and I found my peace, which I hope everyone does.

Calling this thing god, being raised as an atheist, doesn't always rest easy with me because my mind can't really label it but it is a power that rules me and this world. Well it does rule but not in the way that I might normally think. It's more like nature has it's seasons and it's days and nights. It's a rhythm that goes at it's own pace and it's up to me to try and be a part of this rhythm.

As for the Bible setting moral standards when so much of it seems to condone injustices I try to take another lesson from it and separate the wheat from the chaff. The wheat to me is 'the golden rule'. This isn't an original from Jesus but has been said in one form or another in pretty much every religion on this planet.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by T@T

Good read on the Catholic church

http://www.chick.com/reading/books/153/153_10.asp

Thats not a good read.

Just because they call the Catholic Church the devil doesn't mean you should instantly believe everything they say.

Chick is one of the biggest liars on the planet. If you bother to read any of their 'comics'...you'll notice a whole slew of predictions as to when the world is gonna end, and every single one of them was wrong.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by photon

If I love a girl and I want her to love me back, giving her the choice of loving me or I lock her in the basement in chains being tortured forever isn't free will.. it's coercion.

Quoted for awesomeness.

[Reggie Dunlop]

Originally Posted by Azure

Chick is one of the biggest liars on the planet. If you bother to read any of their 'comics'...you'll notice a whole slew of predictions as to when the world is gonna end, and every single one of them was wrong.

LOL.

Jack T. Chick and Chick Publications probably shouldn't brought up in any context other than what mentally ill people think about religion. According to them (and I kid you not), the Catholic Church created all of the following: Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Jewish Holocaust.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

LOL.

Jack T. Chick and Chick Publications probably shouldn't brought up in any context other than what mentally ill people think about religion. According to them (and I kid you not), the Catholic Church created all of the following: Islam, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Jewish Holocaust.

I choose to just mention their 'end times' propaganda, but yes I also realize that they do all that too.

Like I said, some of the biggest liars on the planet.

They also said Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by the Catholic Church. Or the Jesuits as they call them.

[HeartsOfFire]

It is truly fascinating to see these differences of opinion do battle with one another. Each and every person, the sum of their experiences and the knowledge taught to them. Some thoughts embraced, others cast aside.

I was born Christian, and for much of my young life I accepted the existance of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as infallible. As time went on however, I began to question the existance of God. Logic and reasoning were the driving forces behind my scrutiny, as well as some personal revelations over the course of time.

I am just a regular joe working an honest job and living an honest life. Though I'm only 26 years old, there are a few things I've learned about the existance of humanity.

a) Right and Wrong are subjective concepts. What we today perceive as Right and Wrong are the result of cultural beliefs that crushed the beliefs of inferior cultures either by pen or by sword. Though humanity is not extinct, the ways of life of some civilizations are dead, and have been replaced by the cultures that exist today. What was Right then is not what is Right today letter for letter. Likewise, what was Wrong today was not Wrong then. Why, even now, what is Right and what is Wrong varies simply between borders and oceans. Therefore in conclude that Right and Wrong exist not inherently, but out of necessity. For without them, there would be chaos. To suggest that every being knows Right from Wrong out of the womb is foolish.

b) Humanity has left the comforts of the Earth and soared as far as the Moon. At no point in time was Heaven discovered. Given that Heaven was written in the Bible to be described as a kingdom in the sky, this questions its existence (to me, at least). And, if Heaven's existence is questioned, so to then must Hell's existence be questioned.

c) Far too often, scientists assume that the Earth is a constant, possibly due to the fact that change is perceived to be slow and gradual, and that noticable changes take longer than a lifetime to notice. The Earth is not constant, however. There are countless celestial bodies and other objects that affect Earth in one way or another. The moon herself has been proven to affect the tides of our oceans, and she's only 1/6th the size of Earth. And what of the comets that appear every 60 years or so, time and time again? It should be common knowledge that late in the summer, Earth's orbit passes through the wake of a comet's tail and gives us a lovely meteor shower. Who's to say that at some point in time before the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs we weren't struck with a similar body made of ice water? Or perhaps something carbonaceous that started what we now have as carbon-based life forms as opposed to strict vegetation?

d) I exist, but that alone is a miracle. Not because my parents had intercourse and produced me as an offspring, but because when I consider the creatures that came before me, and how they no longer exist, I acknowledge that I am insignificant, and that my species in insignificant. We call ourselves great, and praise our achievements and accomplishments since the days when we crawled out of our caves. Yet for all our accomplishments, we are not safe from another cataclysmic event let alone the Hand of God. Humanity may one day face extinction from sources of a cosmic nature, such as an errant asteroid. Finally, because I may live for at the very most one hundred more years. So since the universe considers 65 million years to be the blink of an eye, I am no more significant than the ants I stepped on as a boy.

e) If the Earth itself has been around for millions of years, then Humanity's existance truly is nothing worthy to note. The speculation that 'we are not alone in the universe' certainly is a curious speculation, but even if true, then we must assume that some, if not all other sentient creatures in the universe have got one hell of a headstart on us. Hell, we might just be the equivalent of a sixth grade science experiment for another species out there.

If an omnipotent and omniscient Creator exists, I cannot fathom why Humanity would be so important to It. We are nothing. We are an atomic particle on a tiny speck of sand in the infinite beach that is the universe. We will have no great impact on Earth, let alone anything beyond. Why do we put ourselves up on a pedestal we have no right to be on? Why do we put so much value in our lives when even our own fellow man consider us little more than statistics after we die?

For all we know, this is all we get, so don't waste it on a hope that after you die something better comes along. Enjoy it while you can, because I guarantee you, at some point in time you will stop taking breaths like the one you JUST took.

[Vulcan]

HeartsOfFire, although the Bible refers to the physical heaven as being in the sky, Jesus said

The kingdom of Heaven is within you... Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven and all things will be added unto you.

I guess this brings up what I've heard, that the Bible can find answers for both sides of a discussion.

Anyways, I agree with Jesus' statement and I have the belief that here on earth each of us can experience heaven or hell, it depends on our understanding and our mental state and not necessarily our circumstances. Even in war or other dire events, a person can experience peace or heaven.

and you're right, enjoy this life while we can.