What if you non-Christians were wrong? Have you every seriously considered that you might be?

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom...

Hmm.....

Nah.

The beginning of all wisdom is living a few years, in my opinion.

I wouldnt really care...really dont. Be interesting either way, its the difference that counts. 'To the well formed mind death is but the next great adventure.'

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

What if you non-Christians were wrong? Have you every seriously considered that you might be?



My life isn't dedicated to searching for god, but it's something I happen to do out of interest anyway.

If god is someone who isn't interested in the purity of someones intentions, and is only interested in whether or not we 'get it right', then he's a foolish god and so doesn't deserve to be called a god at all.

So, you wouldn't care if you went to hell, you believe hell is a great adventure?

And I'm not sure on what you mean by isn't concerned with the purity of our intentions being opposed to getting it right. Isn't it the same thing?

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

And I'm not sure on what you mean by isn't concerned with the purity of our intentions being opposed to getting it right. Isn't it the same thing?

What I'm saying is that we could be a person who tries extremely hard to find out what is the right religeon. We desperately want to please god and get into heaven. These are good intentions, but it might turn out that we pick a wrong religeon and are thrown into hell. We tried with all our hearts but god is foolish so it counts for nothing.

God isn't foolish. God is as wise as wise gets, and throwing people into hell for not picking the correct religeon is far from a wise act. Therefore I don't believe that god would have the christian concept of hell as part of his universe.

what if you spent your ENTIRE life trying to get into heaven when you died. You denied yourself pleasures, you persecuted and allowed yourself to be persecuted. You did all the hard crap only to find at the very moment of death that you were in heaven all along but were to foolish to notice so you wound up wasting it so that you were really in hell all along.

What would you change this time around?

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom...

Maybe it is the beginning, and then after we begin to learn more, the fear begins to go away and is replaced by something different.

Maybe that's why these other guys aren't worried about the threat of hell.

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

What if you non-Christians were wrong? Have you every seriously considered that you might be?

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom...

look no one can prove anything about anything. the only absolute truth in life is that there is no absolute truth.

and have you christians ever considered that you are wrong, oh but you cant do that becasue that would mean your entire sad, meaningless existance would have been even more sad and meaningless than before!!

the begining of all wisdom is the enhilation of all ignorance.

you have just started a pointless arguement that will inevitably result in a "yes-no" stlye bickering session (and dont contridict this comment with the response "then why bother responding" because i have to argue with people whose entire arguement is based around crap and which none can be proved!!)

quote:Originally posted by icantthinkofaname:

the only absolute truth in life is that there is no absolute truth.

You can't say that! That's what I've been saying and no one agrees with it. Except I've been saying, "The only absolute truth is that there is no other absolute truth", because what you're saying is a self-cancelling non-statement.

that was the whole point of the statement. it is saying that we can't be sure of anything, as i did actually say. its like saying i am a great lier, yu could be lieing

If someone spent their intire lives dedicated to finding the truth, I believe they would find it, if they really wanted to. And yes, I have considered Christianity might be false, and have believed it wasn't. I've been an athiest, considered Islam, there's no reason to believe them that I can see...

What happens when you fear hell is you look for wisdom, people don't loose their fear of it unless they stop believing in it.

When you want the truth you'll get it.

quote: that was the whole point of the statement. it is saying that we can't be sure of anything,

You can be sure you exist. Right bkc? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

quote:Originally posted by icantthinkofaname:

that was the whole point of the statement. it is saying that we can't be sure of anything, as i did actually say. its like saying i am a great lier, yu could be lieing

But you are saying you can be sure that you are not sure of anything. But you can be sure of one thing, and only one thing. Namely, that you are not sure of anything else.

You are contradicting yourself with your stated belief. It might be nice to get past this (or stay there if you like).

Lieing is a different subject I think. Are you saying you don't believe in your stated belief? Belief is the only thing of real substance.

quote:Originally posted by Rust:

You can be sure you exist. Right bkc? http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)



A facetious question.

From what point of view do you want me to answer from?

It's rhetorical and facetious.

But I see you still don't belive that 'Your existance' is the only thing you can be sure about.

I understand why you think that, but you aren't looking at the limitations of your belief.

Please enumerate them for us.

One would be enough. I think you could help me first by defining what you mean by existence. In other words, first stake your claim, otherwise you are moving target. Make a commitment.

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

What happens when you fear hell is you look for wisdom

Um. No.

Reading up on everything besides christianity is when I looked for wisdom. Trust me, life is deeper than "do this and go to heaven, but do this and go to hell." Christianity seems like it was once somewhat truthful, but changed so much over the years that it is like a joke now.

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

What if you non-Christians were wrong? Have you every seriously considered that you might be?

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom...

What if I'm wrong? Then I die and go to hell, and that's that. Of course, seeing no evidence that indicates I'm wrong, I'm not terribly worried. Fear of God isn't the beginning of all wisdom, unless you definition of "wisdom" is very different from mine, not to mention the dictionary's.

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

I have considered Christianity might be false, and have believed it wasn't.

Excellent use of logic there. I love the way the truth of a statement depends on how hard you believe in it.

quote:I've been an athiest, considered Islam, there's no reason to believe them that I can see...

And what reason is there to believe Christianity?

Not to mention the fact that no belief is required to be an atheist. Nonbelief is a default until reasonable evidence is given. Why is that so hard to grasp?

that would utterly suck

OK, I get you guys, I guess we have different phsycologies,

answer me this:



Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

-Epicurus

kinetik...that was a fucking awesome piese of prose there dude! http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

and what if i AM wrong?...looks like i'm going to "hell" then don't it?

but answer me this...if heaven is up and hell is down...then this must be hell.

it fucking seems like it here...fucking rape, muggings, murders, stealing...seems the world is the worst place so far!

I have to say that up and down crap is retarded. It's not like that and you know it. Yea, life can really be shitty. Nothing compared to hell...

quote:Originally posted by Zman:

What if you non-Christians were wrong? Have you every seriously considered that you might be?

Fear of God is the beginning of all wisdom...

what if you christians were wrong? has the church, in all its massive arrogance EVER had a moment of self-doubt? you have no idea what humility is until you have truly doubted yourself.

quote:Originally posted by Kinetik:

answer me this:



Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

-Epicurus

amen.

I think, Zman, that it's time you looked in the mirror while asking these question.

What if you are wrong?

I do not have the audicity to say whether you are or aren't; and you haven't the audicity to say, either.

On the matter of "Hell": if one doesn't believe in a God, then he probably doesn't believe in Heaven, which entails that he probably doesn't believe in Hell. Therefore it's irrelevent to him.

Besides, a lot of religions (believe it or not) don't entertain the idea of Hell. In Judaism - which Christianity is based upon - there is no concept of Hell other than that it is the absence of God, and by that definition anyone who doesn't believe in God is already in Hell.

In short: don't try to save anyones soul.

This forum is for discussion, not dictation.

Cheers,

Lost

[This message has been edited by LostCause (edited 08-10-2003).]

quote:answer me this:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

Easy. The error comes to be when you automatically assume that if he is able but not willing he is malevolent.

A malevolent creator is one that does not give free will to his creations, but uses them as puppets in his pre-destined world.

Hence, free will is a benevolent act.

But the version of God in question, being all knowing, would know everything that correlated as a result of his action of creation, and therefore causing everything that will happen.

This God has to know everything that will happen if he creates the universe in a particular way due to his omnicient property.

God has a choice in creating a universe in which:

1. Bob goes to heaven and Joe goes to hell

2. Joe goes to heaven and Bob goes to hell.

3. They both go to heaven

4. They both go to hell.

If he creates the universe, fully knowing ahead of time that he will create Bob and joe, and they will go to hell, before Bob and Joe have enenb had a chance to make their life decisions themselves, how could this not be determinism?

"Free will" is living in a universe where you're not stuck fulfilling the omnicience of a supernatural deity. The simple fact that God has seen this one and only path makes it readily apparent that there is nothing that could come along and fuck up the omnicience, making it determined.

If you also factor in the fact that God created the universe, knew everything that would result in the universe if he chose to create it in the manner he did (I.e. an aspiring artist getting rejected from art schools, being exposed to certain stimulus, and having the exact brain configuration he did, becoming a political leader by the name of Hitler and causing the death of over 2 million people then it is a grim prospect for free will indeed.

If the future can be known, it must be written, and if the future is written, then it is not subject to change. An unchanging future that is doomed to happen reguardless, is determined, and there is no free will.

God knows what will happen before it does, because he caused everything that will happen by the initial act of creation, and everything that happened afterward was a product of correlation.

It's like tipping the first domino that will set of a chain reaction. You set the dominoes up, you get the chain started, and you know for an absolute certainty everything that will happen in the chain. Nothing can happen in the chain that you do not already know about in advance.

This would mean that there is no free will in the chain, and everything that happens in the chain ultimately comes back on you, the chainsetter. Nothing happened in that chain that you did not allow. If you did not want something to happen in that chain, you would have designed the chain differently so it would have never happened.

The obvious conclusion is that omnicience, or otherwise unchangeable future knowledge, effectively precludes free will. If it's known in advance, it eliminates any other possibility because the future is written in one way that allows for nothing else. Free will is but an illusion and me typing this post and you reading it was decided in advance.

If you really think about it, there is no such thing as complete free will because, in the end, we are all slaves to our individual will.

The question was :"Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent."

To answer the question, I needed only to give a scenario in which it is wrong, which I did.

Omnipotence is an option. Omniscience is also an option.

It is not determinism when the future itself is ever changing with free will. Each choice changes and alters that "vision of the future", thus it would be ever-changing.