164 replies to this topic

[Doopliss]

The problem is, why if god is perfect, his word, i.e. the Bible is not?

[TheAvengerLever]

I really hope this isn't pouring salt in the wound, but the reason I bring that up, is that the Bible can still justify perfectly either view. Your view is just as Biblically sound as Fred Phelps' view. To allow the room for one interpretation, one subjectifying of Scripture, you allow for all possible interpretations, no matter how benevolent or belligerent... Yes. It sucks. But that's the Bible - that's how it was written.

Going back to this, and Poore's point, I'd like to address the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the New Testament. Satan pointed out Scripture to Jesus, right? Lemme give the verses.

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'[a]"

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'[b]"

7Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'[c]"

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

10Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'[d]"

11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

It sounds like what Satan says could apply to Jesus. He points out Scripture to Jesus that justifies his actions, just like what hate mongerers do with Scripture today. And yet with Scripture, Jesus proves him wrong. I'm pretty sure if I took the time and dug through the Bible I could (anyone could) probably defeat the logical assumptions of people like Fred Phelps.

The verses above could be evidence enough that the Bible is even aware of the fact that it can be twisted, and also gives the answer to what we should do about when it is twisted.

[Reflectionist]

I really hope this isn't pouring salt in the wound, but the reason I bring that up, is that the Bible can still justify perfectly either view. Your view is just as Biblically sound as Fred Phelps' view. To allow the room for one interpretation, one subjectifying of Scripture, you allow for all possible interpretations, no matter how benevolent or belligerent... Yes. It sucks. But that's the Bible - that's how it was written.

To a point, that's true. However, that's only if you pick and choose little bits and pieces of scriptures and ignore the whole. For example, if you use a single scripture to validate your view on homosexuality, you my call that "Biblically sound". However, when you bring the New Testament into consideration, and the message of Christ's sacrifice which overrules the law of Moses, then that view is less valid.

It's like quoting an article with ellipses and taking it as a legitimate portrait of the whole: "I don't agree with racial discrimination against African Americans" becomes "I don't agree with...African-Americans." Can you say that the article contains both sets of data? Yes. Can you say they are equally legitimate? No.

Unless you can objectively substantiate this (which, it is the Bible, so I know you cannot), this also falls into the category of being an interpretation. My point still stands.

Edited by Reflectionist, 14 December 2008 - 11:27 PM.

[Steel Samurai]

Regarding the main topic:

(All these are of course merely my views on the topic)

Ignoring for the moment the Job issue, and holding with a traditional Satan as antithesis of God -

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place. That doesn't mean you should abandon logic altogether, far from it, it just means you should probably try harder to iron out the inconsistency, and if you still can't, then you put it in the paradox box and just accept it. Having said that, I don't think there are nearly as many logical inconsistencies in the Bible as a lot of people want to think there are. Part of the problem comes with reading a translation rather than the original Greek or Hebrew texts, losing a lot of the nuance of the originals, which, with the way connotations have changed since 1611, makes a huge difference, and the other part comes with people just wanting to see problems in the Bible because it lets them off the hook. It's a psychological mechanism.

Also:

Unless you can objectively substantiate this (which, it is the Bible, so I know you cannot), this also falls into the category of being an interpretation. My point still stands.

Ah I see. So you mean that your forward recon scout is still alive?

[TheAvengerLever]

Steel Samurai FTW.

Steel, sing your theme song.

[Steel Samurai]

Hey man, I don't toot my own horn. That's an American trait. But you're welcome to sing it for me if you want.

[Reflectionist]

Regarding the main topic:

(All these are of course merely my views on the topic)

Ignoring for the moment the Job issue, and holding with a traditional Satan as antithesis of God -

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place. That doesn't mean you should abandon logic altogether, far from it, it just means you should probably try harder to iron out the inconsistency, and if you still can't, then you put it in the paradox box and just accept it. Having said that, I don't think there are nearly as many logical inconsistencies in the Bible as a lot of people want to think there are. Part of the problem comes with reading a translation rather than the original Greek or Hebrew texts, losing a lot of the nuance of the originals, which, with the way connotations have changed since 1611, makes a huge difference, and the other part comes with people just wanting to see problems in the Bible because it lets them off the hook. It's a psychological mechanism.

Also:

Unless you can objectively substantiate this (which, it is the Bible, so I know you cannot), this also falls into the category of being an interpretation. My point still stands.

Ah I see. So you mean that your forward recon scout is still alive?

No. It means my army is in Russia, and my enemies are attacking Australia looking for me.

By the way, it's not just logical inconsistencies in the Bible. There are plenty of disagreements in the Bible. Why, in the book of Acts, it retells Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus three times, all of them differently? And I'm sorry, but 1611 isn't really a good reliable starting point for events from 33AD. Any reliable source would be from 33 AD.

But there are none, are there? The earliest we have is from the 4th Century. Not good enough. Anything, or everything, in this book could be contrived, and probably is. Going off of comparison to Greek / Roman mythological characters and the story of Christ. There are a LOT of similarities. There is nothing about Jesus that isn't part of a previous mythology. So even if Jesus existed, he wasn't that special. His philosophy wasn't original to him, either. But the people who do think the Bible is good enough to base one's life upon, one could argue, only believe so because the Bible lets them 'off the hook.' It's a psychological mechanism.

Edited by Reflectionist, 15 December 2008 - 01:38 AM.

[TheAvengerLever]

No. It means my army is in Russia, and my enemies are attacking Australia looking for me.

By the way, it's not just logical inconsistencies in the Bible. There are plenty of disagreements in the Bible. Why, in the book of Acts, it retells Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus three times, all of them differently? And I'm sorry, but 1611 isn't really a good reliable starting point for events from 33AD. Any reliable source would be from 33 AD.

But there are none, are there? The earliest we have is from the 4th Century. Not good enough. Anything, or everything, in this book could be contrived, and probably is. Going off of comparison to Greek / Roman mythological characters and the story of Christ. There are a LOT of similarities. There is nothing about Jesus that isn't part of a previous mythology. So even if Jesus existed, he wasn't that special. His philosophy wasn't original to him, either. But the people who do think the Bible is good enough to base one's life upon, one could argue, only believe so because the Bible lets them 'off the hook.' It's a psychological mechanism.

Your evidence is just as efficient as ours. Even history and personal accounts are spread by word of mouth and human documentation. Just like the Bible.

Hey, which one is right?

Your choice.

[Reflectionist]

Your evidence is just as efficient as ours. Even history and personal accounts are spread by word of mouth and human documentation. Just like the Bible.

Hey, which one is right?

Your choice.

There's not a correlation there. My "evidence" gave more credit to the Bible than what S.S.'s "evidence" gave, and it still isn't substantiable. Look, that's all it comes down to. If you want to be objective, you'd admit that the only thing the Bible is good for is aesthetic, and possibly culture study. Not a run down of what's going on behind life.

It's not my choice. I didn't make a choice, at all. I just look at it how it is. You're the one with the choice... the choice to accept it on faith.

[CID Farwin]

The problem is, why if god is perfect, his word, i.e. the Bible is not?

Because mortal humans aren't perfect. And Humans wrote the Bible. And translated it, interpret it, etc.

Edited by CID Farwin, 15 December 2008 - 01:34 PM.

[Reflectionist]

The problem is, why if god is perfect, his word, i.e. the Bible is not?

Because mortal humans aren't perfect. And Humans wrote the Bible. And translated it, interpret it, etc.

...so is Joseph Smith.

[CID Farwin]

The problem is, why if god is perfect, his word, i.e. the Bible is not?

Because mortal humans aren't perfect. And Humans wrote the Bible. And translated it, interpret it, etc.

...so is Joseph Smith.

And?

[spunky-monkey]

If he is not a rogue force, but a pawn of God, then he simply serves God's will and cannot be evil.
If he is a rogue force, permitted to exist by God in order that God's will might be served, then he is evil, but evil is allowed to exist so that free agents might be inclined to good.

This is something the Bible does not resolve properly, on the matter whether Satan is an independent force or simply a slave who's subjugated to his lord and master's will. Until that is clarified or defined better we can't label Satan as evil if God is quite possibly using him as part of some un-contrived and convoluted "master plan".

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place. That doesn't mean you should abandon logic altogether, far from it, it just means you should probably try harder to iron out the inconsistency, and if you still can't, then you put it in the paradox box and just accept it. Having said that, I don't think there are nearly as many logical inconsistencies in the Bible as a lot of people want to think there are. Part of the problem comes with reading a translation rather than the original Greek or Hebrew texts, losing a lot of the nuance of the originals, which, with the way connotations have changed since 1611, makes a huge difference, and the other part comes with people just wanting to see problems in the Bible because it lets them off the hook. It's a psychological mechanism.

So we're all Sid's toys from Toy Story are we?

Just because God created everything doesn't automatically make him good, Samurai, your logic falls on its ass right there. To be 'good', a deity must have benevolent intentions towards others, not just to its own supernatural self, it should seek to exalt kind-hearted people, whilst humble/restrain wicked people and show them the error of their ways - i.e. not try to ruin or destroy them at every given opportunity.

We know he's killed thousands of people without good cause, and the reason its not just is because (you'll love this) HE'S A GOD, and should not be answerable to the biological needs/limitations we humans require/possess, therefore should have a far greater level of understanding and comprehension of how to deal with mankind's failings, not act like a complete monster at his earliest convenience. If you were an almighty God, wouldn't you, I dunno, set an example to your creation rather than opposed to resorting to cruel Greek mythology-style punishments courtesy of Zeus?

You may claim our logic to be ultimately fallible, but you really have to wonder how far our reasoning has truly progressed when we begin to find the glaring flaws in a God's actions, yes we may become hypocritical considering our own blood-stained history, but it's now relatively safe to say that in this Universe -nothing's perfect-.

[Egann]

(To make things clear, from this point on, I will capitalize Evil to mean "rebellion from God" and lower-case evil to mean "selfish action.)

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place.

QFT. Very QFT. I don't necessarily like it more than anyone else here, but my own misgivings don't change how true it is.

Just because God created everything doesn't automatically make him good, Samurai, your logic falls on its ass right there. To be 'good', a deity must have benevolent intentions towards others, not just to its own supernatural self...

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Jesus important because He proved that to be true? Even if your definition of good were true, it would still be true of God.

It's not true because the definition of good you use is arbitrary. Who told you that good was defined by benevolent intentions? Surely it is a part of what is meant to be good, but how do you know it is the entirety?

Legitimately speaking, God is the only one in a position to define Good and Evil and know for certain that He is not making an omission or putting something in that ought not be included, because God transcends Creation, both natural and supernatural.

Reading between the lines, the reason you don't like this is because you perceive it as restricting your freedom. To have someone else's character be the standard to define right from wrong would mean that He is free to do as He pleases and remain totally righteous, while you are not. Therefore you insist on a definition that is arbitrary and divorced from anyone's character, so that no one is free. Not even God.

It's anarchic thought like that which led to Satan's revolt. I'll wager he wasn't after God's power, but for his own freedom with the choice to rebel.

Feel free to join him if you like and re-voice the sentiment Milton gave him, "better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." I can hardly blame you, seeing that I understand why you would, but I do have to point out that you will not be on the top of the totem pole, there, either. Regardless, in the end, you have two choices: anything except what is Good, or anything except what is Evil. Given the human condition is incomplete knowledge and that, given incomplete knowledge there can be more than one "Good" or "Evil" response to any given dilemma, there is effectively no difference in freedom between them, because neither position is free from constraint.

(Feel free to disagree.)

Edited by Egann, 15 December 2008 - 03:23 PM.

[spunky-monkey]

Well you applauded the illogical (but as the Bible would tell us, valid) argument Steel Samurai presented so no matter what I say as a follow-up I'm practically boned. Ah, what the heck...

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Jesus important because He proved that to be true? Even if your definition of good were true, it would still be true of God.

It's not true because the definition of good you use is arbitrary. Who told you that good was defined by benevolent intentions? Surely it is a part of what is meant to be good, but how do you know it is the entirety?

Legitimately speaking, God is the only one in a position to define Good and Evil and know for certain that He is not making an omission or putting something in that ought not be included, because God transcends Creation, both natural and supernatural.

Granted, but:

Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Do you of course realize therefore that by creating us only for his own entertainment and not with our best interests at heart, God quintessentially founded all negative morals of utilitarianism? Or at the very least suffers from pathological self-righteousness or some kind of psychological egoism. We have a paradox: - God can kill children yes (as he often has done in the Bible) but he cannot be simultaneously regarded by anyone else as "right". For a lowly man to kill a child is an abomination... for the God Most High who transcends both time and space to kill a child out of anger, is nothing short of unspeakably evil.

So to resolve this paradox God cannot be associated with good, it's that simple. Satan becomes just another side of the same coin.

Reading between the lines, the reason you don't like this is because you perceive it as restricting your freedom. To have someone else's character be the standard to define right from wrong would mean that He is free to do as He pleases and remain totally righteous, while you are not. Therefore you insist on a definition that is arbitrary and divorced from anyone's character, so that no one is free. Not even God.

Neither God nor Man is ever free of Consequentialism.

It's anarchic thought like that which led to Satan's revolt. I'll wager he wasn't after God's power, but for his own freedom with the choice to rebel.

By that logic it would subsequently make Satan the most tragic anti-hero figure of all time, not the very incarnation of darkness everyone's blabbed about thus far.

God has asserted that he's only interested in his glory, not our welfare. The Bible recites he is perfect and does not need us nor is deficient without us, likewise, I don't need him, and I'm no stupid sheep either. If I was to cease to be and God doesn't care then, why should I?

Feel free to join him if you like and re-voice the sentiment Milton gave him, "better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." I can hardly blame you, seeing that I understand why you would, but I do have to point out that you will not be on the top of the totem pole, there, either. Regardless, in the end, you have two choices: anything except what is Good, or anything except what is Evil. Given the human condition is incomplete knowledge and that, given incomplete knowledge there can be more than one "Good" or "Evil" response to any given dilemma, there is effectively no difference in freedom between them, because neither position is free from constraint.

Hah, you presume much if you think that just because I don't like God I must really love Satan. No Egann, in actuality I hate them both.

But if given *the choice* with what to do with my destiny, and not wind up six feet under, then I'd rather be Truman Burbank and leave his creator's synthetic world. Of course I'm well aware there's nothing but a void outside reality, but 'tis the price of freedom I guess.

[Goose]

Just on your last point there monkey. Why are you sure there's nothing but a void out there? What can make you so certain of that. I thought the point was that it was unknown?

Not an emptyness as such, just a "We have no idea whats out there."

[Reflectionist]

[this can wait... lol]

Edited by Reflectionist, 15 December 2008 - 05:11 PM.

[Poore]

But if given *the choice* with what to do with my destiny, and not wind up six feet under, then I'd rather be Truman Burbank and leave his creator's synthetic world. Of course I'm well aware there's nothing but a void outside reality, but 'tis the price of freedom I guess. sleep.gif

That totally contradicts a lot of your earlier arguments. I'm baffled by this, actually. Truman lived in a perfect world, where everyone made his choices for him and he was kept free from harm by a benevolent overseer. He even had a little bit of free will - he could make certain non-important choices - but within his contained environment, he was always forced to follow the "right" path, and was always saved from suffering. IIRC, this is exactly the hypothetically perfect Universe you proposed God should have created. Yet now you claim that given such a Universe, you would try to escape it. What? Do you honestly believe anything you say, or are you just the world's biggest troll?

I would like to note, as that my points have still been unchallenged, all debate in this thread is firmly in the category of presuppositional speculation. I've already proven beyond refutation that God is not 'good' and by extension, Satan can not be 'evil,' either. The debate that continues now is under the absolutely smashed, yet optimistic assumption that God and Satan are still required to be assigned qualities of "good" and "evil." Though, they need not be, and I still hold that it's blasphemous to hold God up be up to some standard of a specific characteristic.

All of existence falls into that category. Go read up on Goedel and then come back and talk to me about irrefutable proof (Protip: there's no such thing).

Also, your "debate" strategy is strangely reminiscent of how America "won" in Vietnam: spout of some vague and obfuscated logic, declare victory, then run away. Classy.

[Reflectionist]

post unneeded. nothing to see here.

Edited by Reflectionist, 16 December 2008 - 12:02 AM.

[Egann]

All of existence falls into that category. Go read up on Goedel and then come back and talk to me about irrefutable proof (Protip: there's no such thing).

Goedel's theorems don't mean that irrefutable proof is impossible....it just means that proof must become either circular (although not necessarily viciously circular) or inconsistent at some point, perhaps both. That's what I pulled from them, anyways. I have no formal training on it.

Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Do you of course realize therefore that by creating us only for his own entertainment and not with our best interests at heart, God quintessentially founded all negative morals of utilitarianism? Or at the very least suffers from pathological self-righteousness or some kind of psychological egoism. We have a paradox: - God can kill children yes (as he often has done in the Bible) but he cannot be simultaneously regarded by anyone else as "right". For a lowly man to kill a child is an abomination... for the God Most High who transcends both time and space to kill a child out of anger, is nothing short of unspeakably evil.

So to resolve this paradox God cannot be associated with good, it's that simple. Satan becomes just another side of the same coin.

Your conclusion follows logically IF AND ONLY IF your definition of evil was proven. You assume it is proven, and then proceed further along with a sylogysm, BUT, if your definition of evil is, as I originally argued, an incomplete aspect of the true definition of Evil, it becomes about as water-tight as a seive.

Neither God nor Man is ever free of Consequentialism.

God is a cause, not an effect, so no. God is free of consequentialism because He's the one who initiated the causes and effects. He's outside of the system, and if He is restrained by causes or effects, they are not any sort of causes or effects we are in a position to observe, much less comprehend.

Hah, you presume much if you think that just because I don't like God I must really love Satan. No Egann, in actuality I hate them both.

Please, respond to what I say and not what you think I meant. To love or hate is irrelevant, to agree more is the issue.

[Reflectionist]

I really hope this isn't pouring salt in the wound, but the reason I bring that up, is that the Bible can still justify perfectly either view. Your view is just as Biblically sound as Fred Phelps' view. To allow the room for one interpretation, one subjectifying of Scripture, you allow for all possible interpretations, no matter how benevolent or belligerent... Yes. It sucks. But that's the Bible - that's how it was written.

Going back to this, and Poore's point, I'd like to address the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the New Testament. Satan pointed out Scripture to Jesus, right? Lemme give the verses.

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
4Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'[a]"

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"

7Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'[c]"

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."

10Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.'[d]"

11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

It sounds like what Satan says could apply to Jesus. He points out Scripture to Jesus that justifies his actions, just like what hate mongerers do with Scripture today. And yet with Scripture, Jesus proves him wrong. I'm pretty sure if I took the time and dug through the Bible I could (anyone could) probably defeat the logical assumptions of people like Fred Phelps.

The verses above could be evidence enough that the Bible is even aware of the fact that it can be twisted, and also gives the answer to what we should do about when it is twisted.

Of the three 'tests' in the temptation of Jesus story, only one of them has a verse pitted against another verse. I only find that ever-so-slightly compelling. Especially when the verse Jesus uses to refute Satan is a pretty vague, catch-all response. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

What about the story with Peter and Jesus walking on water? The one where Peter steps out of the boat... Jesus tells him to have faith, and step out onto the water. Isn't that putting God to the test, or is that just what faith is?

I don't think there's anything significant here in that passage. You can certainly argue that there is a heirarchy of Bible Verses, and I'm sure you would. You can argue that that's what's intended to occur, but then I can show you that it's not (as I just did). But the truth is, it's still an interpretation. Look, I don't agree with Fred Phelps' views either, but as long as he has a shred of Scripture to back up what he says, you can't touch him with Scripture.

You can talk about New Covenants until you're blue in the face, but you're done as soon as someone asks why the Old Testament is still being taught out of. Without the Old Testament, Christianity would lose a lot of its moral and historical values. You couldn't say that "Homosexuality is a sin," at all anymore if the Old Testament wasn't there, but as long as it remains there, you're going to have nutjobs like Fred Phelps who are just going to focus on that. All Jesus matters to these people is that he's Heaven's Ticket-Checker.

But, then again, examining the hermeneutics, particularly the political, and grammatical settings of the time in which Jesus was around, you'll see that the Bible makes much more sense without any of this "path to salvation" nonsense and is actually a lot closer to something akin to Theistic Buddhism. That does have a little more credibility than the norm, by the way, as an interpretation, because it does bring in sources that come from secular history as well. It's not something that's completely biased. (Read "The Secret Message of Jesus," by Brian D. McLaren if you have time. It's an interesting read.)

Regarding the main topic:

(All these are of course merely my views on the topic)

Ignoring for the moment the Job issue, and holding with a traditional Satan as antithesis of God -

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place. That doesn't mean you should abandon logic altogether, far from it, it just means you should probably try harder to iron out the inconsistency, and if you still can't, then you put it in the paradox box and just accept it. Having said that, I don't think there are nearly as many logical inconsistencies in the Bible as a lot of people want to think there are. Part of the problem comes with reading a translation rather than the original Greek or Hebrew texts, losing a lot of the nuance of the originals, which, with the way connotations have changed since 1611, makes a huge difference, and the other part comes with people just wanting to see problems in the Bible because it lets them off the hook. It's a psychological mechanism.

Okay, let me actually address this, now. It was X:30 in the morning when I responded to this, and I didn't really address it.

Going along with something Spunky-Monkey said, I'd like to note that if this is what the relationship between "God" and "Good" is, then we have it completley backwards. If God is "good," then it is reasonable to say that benevolence is "evil," and belligerence is "good." If God is "Good," then we might as well just go out and kill every mother fucker on the street that we want to kill. After all, God does that in the Bible, and God defines Good. But we don't do that, do we?

So I would say that either someone in the very, very, very, very, very, very early Church (within the first few centuries) is lying and got to everyone else... or your argument is just wrong.

Of course, there's also the third option and that is that God just simply doesn't exist and all of this is nothing more than gits and shiggles. But where's the fun in that?

Adding to that what I said before, it's not just the logical inconsistencies in the Bible that are disturbing. A lot of people don't even get to those before they give up. Take my example from the book of Acts.

Acts 9:7 says this: "The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone."

Later, Paul recounts the moment, saying this in Acts 22:9, "The people with me saw the light but didn’t hear the voice of the One speaking to me."

In one account Paul's companions hear the sound but see no light, and the other account, Paul's companions see the light, but hear no sounds. And then the third time he describes it, Acts 26:12-14, it's just so different that I shouldn't even bother mentioning it here.

Three times in one book, and this one event is different every single time. That's not "logic" that's just obviously screwed up.

(To make things clear, from this point on, I will capitalize Evil to mean "rebellion from God" and lower-case evil to mean "selfish action.)

Satan is evil because he is against God. God cannot, by definition, perform an evil act because he defines good. Not, "God is good" but "God defines good." The two are inseparable. So, any action God takes is good merely because it was God that performed it. Thus, killing the firstborn of Egypt was a good thing. Don't like that? Tough. Now you might say "lol inconsistency." Nope. Firstly, if God created logic, and is perfect (again, if He wasn't perfect, he could not, by definition, be God) then he never has a logical inconsistency. I really don't give a damn if you think there's a logical inconsistency. It's rather stupid to try and match your logic, so easily affected by chemicals or emotions against the Dude who gave it to you in the first place.

QFT. Very QFT. I don't necessarily like it more than anyone else here, but my own misgivings don't change how true it is.

Just because God created everything doesn't automatically make him good, Samurai, your logic falls on its ass right there. To be 'good', a deity must have benevolent intentions towards others, not just to its own supernatural self...

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Jesus important because He proved that to be true? Even if your definition of good were true, it would still be true of God.

It's not true because the definition of good you use is arbitrary. Who told you that good was defined by benevolent intentions? Surely it is a part of what is meant to be good, but how do you know it is the entirety?

Legitimately speaking, God is the only one in a position to define Good and Evil and know for certain that He is not making an omission or putting something in that ought not be included, because God transcends Creation, both natural and supernatural.

Reading between the lines, the reason you don't like this is because you perceive it as restricting your freedom. To have someone else's character be the standard to define right from wrong would mean that He is free to do as He pleases and remain totally righteous, while you are not. Therefore you insist on a definition that is arbitrary and divorced from anyone's character, so that no one is free. Not even God.

It's anarchic thought like that which led to Satan's revolt. I'll wager he wasn't after God's power, but for his own freedom with the choice to rebel.

Feel free to join him if you like and re-voice the sentiment Milton gave him, "better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven." I can hardly blame you, seeing that I understand why you would, but I do have to point out that you will not be on the top of the totem pole, there, either. Regardless, in the end, you have two choices: anything except what is Good, or anything except what is Evil. Given the human condition is incomplete knowledge and that, given incomplete knowledge there can be more than one "Good" or "Evil" response to any given dilemma, there is effectively no difference in freedom between them, because neither position is free from constraint.

(Feel free to disagree.)

Egann, I ask you, what happens to this position if there is no God? I'm seriously wanting to know. Not that you would ever not believe in God, but if you were convinced that there was no God, would you still percieve 'good' and 'evil' as you think you do in the world now? You do have moral judgement. You just think it comes from God. I'm just curious to know what happens to your position if there is no God.

I find God's existence to be pretty significant in this discussion, yet insignificant in the whole of what we're saying in this discussion.

Revelation 4:11
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Do you of course realize therefore that by creating us only for his own entertainment and not with our best interests at heart, God quintessentially founded all negative morals of utilitarianism? Or at the very least suffers from pathological self-righteousness or some kind of psychological egoism. We have a paradox: - God can kill children yes (as he often has done in the Bible) but he cannot be simultaneously regarded by anyone else as "right". For a lowly man to kill a child is an abomination... for the God Most High who transcends both time and space to kill a child out of anger, is nothing short of unspeakably evil.

So to resolve this paradox God cannot be associated with good, it's that simple. Satan becomes just another side of the same coin.

Your conclusion follows logically IF AND ONLY IF your definition of evil was proven. You assume it is proven, and then proceed further along with a sylogysm, BUT, if your definition of evil is, as I originally argued, an incomplete aspect of the true definition of Evil, it becomes about as water-tight as a seive.

Wait. Stop. Read:

I have defined Evil so that such a statement makes no sense. That's kind of my point, though.

Egann, don't call other people out on something that you're guilty of doing. That's the second time in this thread, now.

Edited by Reflectionist, 15 December 2008 - 06:13 PM.

[TheAvengerLever]

Of the three 'tests' in the temptation of Jesus story, only one of them has a verse pitted against another verse. I only find that ever-so-slightly compelling. Especially when the verse Jesus uses to refute Satan is a pretty vague, catch-all response. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

The emphasis is not on the response verse in question but just in the example that however you twist the Word of God, whatever you twist has to correlate with the rest of God's Word, or, in the case of Jesus and Satan, if Scripture is used to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself.

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense. I'm trying to say that Scripture is it's own fail safe in case of the kinds of things that hate mongers and false facers do.

What about the story with Peter and Jesus walking on water? The one where Peter steps out of the boat... Jesus tells him to have faith, and step out onto the water. Isn't that putting God to the test, or is that just what faith is?

Bah, I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound rude but I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I don't really see any implication that God is being tested here. Could you please explain this better if that's not too much trouble?

I don't think there's anything significant here in that passage. You can certainly argue that there is a heirarchy of Bible Verses, and I'm sure you would. You can argue that that's what's intended to occur, but then I can show you that it's not (as I just did). But the truth is, it's still an interpretation. Look, I don't agree with Fred Phelps' views either, but as long as he has a shred of Scripture to back up what he says, you can't touch him with Scripture.

I don't know, this seems more like your personal opinion. I think you and I agree on the fact that yes, Scripture can be twisted around and it sucks when that happens. I just simply believe that Scripture also has a way of fixing that problem itself, which is not such a farfetched thought, and it does help shed light on what a Christian (err, Christ Follower) like myself is supposed to do when such occassions arise.

Though I must say, even if I did confront and refute Fred Phelps with Scripture, I'm pretty sure he's just convinced himself that he's right anyway.

You can talk about New Covenants until you're blue in the face, but you're done as soon as someone asks why the Old Testament is still being taught out of. Without the Old Testament, Christianity would lose a lot of its moral and historical values. You couldn't say that "Homosexuality is a sin," at all anymore if the Old Testament wasn't there, but as long as it remains there, you're going to have nutjobs like Fred Phelps who are just going to focus on that. All Jesus matters to these people is that he's Heaven's Ticket-Checker.

This you and I agree upon.

But, then again, examining the hermeneutics, particularly the political, and grammatical settings of the time in which Jesus was around, you'll see that the Bible makes much more sense without any of this "path to salvation" nonsense and is actually a lot closer to something akin to Theistic Buddhism. That does have a little more credibility than the norm, by the way, as an interpretation, because it does bring in sources that come from secular history as well. It's not something that's completely biased. (Read "The Secret Message of Jesus," by Brian D. McLaren if you have time. It's an interesting read.)

Heh, I was actually looking for something to read over the Christmas break, thanks

[Reflectionist]

Of the three 'tests' in the temptation of Jesus story, only one of them has a verse pitted against another verse. I only find that ever-so-slightly compelling. Especially when the verse Jesus uses to refute Satan is a pretty vague, catch-all response. "Do not put the Lord your God to the test."

The emphasis is not on the response verse in question but just in the example that however you twist the Word of God, whatever you twist has to correlate with the rest of God's Word, or, in the case of Jesus and Satan, if Scripture is used to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself.

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense. I'm trying to say that Scripture is it's own fail safe in case of the kinds of things that hate mongers and false facers do.

Ah. I'm sorry. I should've been clearer. The reason I brought it up was because that was the only one where Satan uses a verse to back up what he is saying. That's the distinction between the other two. In the other two temptations, Satan just challenged Jesus ("Turn these stones to bread" / "Bow down to me"), without the use of Scripture. See, Satan only appeals to Scripture in one of the Temptations... not all three of them. And Jesus' response isn't that stellar, in my opinion.

But, I have to ask: when you say, "if Scripture is used to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself," what stops the opposite view from being equally valid? In the same way that one would say that the "New" Covenant rules out the "Old" Covenant and makes it obsolete, couldn't one also say that God's shameless killings and apparent bigotry in the Old Testament kind of refute Jesus' liberal teachings in the New? And, if not, how can you know for certain without admitting interpretation or pulling rank or appealing to potentially (and as current events would indicate, very likely) corrupt church officials and their word?

Just how far do you have to go before you come up with something irrefutably for your view of God that cannot be easily refuted by another verse that completely smashes that view of God? It's like God talks a pretty talk with the whole "Love your Neighbor" thing, but then the Paparazzi come out with pictures of him turning people to salt and sending locusts on them when no one's around.

What about the story with Peter and Jesus walking on water? The one where Peter steps out of the boat... Jesus tells him to have faith, and step out onto the water. Isn't that putting God to the test, or is that just what faith is?

Bah, I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound rude but I'm not quite sure what you mean here. I don't really see any implication that God is being tested here. Could you please explain this better if that's not too much trouble?

Sure. I don't mind.

The whole "lesson" behind the story of Peter and the boat is that the we are supposed to have our faith that God will take care of X so we should step out of our 'boats' and meet Jesus on the 'water' in faith. The point I'm trying to make is that having faith that God will take care of something is a lot like putting God to the test. Faith often breeds complacency. A lazy, dangerous complacency. "God will take care of it." Isn't that putting God to the test?

Perhaps that says more about the Christians that I know instead of their Bible... so I won't press the issue further.

I don't think there's anything significant here in that passage. You can certainly argue that there is a heirarchy of Bible Verses, and I'm sure you would. You can argue that that's what's intended to occur, but then I can show you that it's not (as I just did). But the truth is, it's still an interpretation. Look, I don't agree with Fred Phelps' views either, but as long as he has a shred of Scripture to back up what he says, you can't touch him with Scripture.

I don't know, this seems more like your personal opinion. I think you and I agree on the fact that yes, Scripture can be twisted around and it sucks when that happens. I just simply believe that Scripture also has a way of fixing that problem itself, which is not such a farfetched thought, and it does help shed light on what a Christian (err, Christ Follower) like myself is supposed to do when such occassions arise.

Though I must say, even if I did confront and refute Fred Phelps with Scripture, I'm pretty sure he's just convinced himself that he's right anyway.

I think I addressed this accidentally at the top of the post.

You can talk about New Covenants until you're blue in the face, but you're done as soon as someone asks why the Old Testament is still being taught out of. Without the Old Testament, Christianity would lose a lot of its moral and historical values. You couldn't say that "Homosexuality is a sin," at all anymore if the Old Testament wasn't there, but as long as it remains there, you're going to have nutjobs like Fred Phelps who are just going to focus on that. All Jesus matters to these people is that he's Heaven's Ticket-Checker.

This you and I agree upon.

Perfect. This is central to the point I was trying to make earlier in the post.

But, then again, examining the hermeneutics, particularly the political, and grammatical settings of the time in which Jesus was around, you'll see that the Bible makes much more sense without any of this "path to salvation" nonsense and is actually a lot closer to something akin to Theistic Buddhism. That does have a little more credibility than the norm, by the way, as an interpretation, because it does bring in sources that come from secular history as well. It's not something that's completely biased. (Read "The Secret Message of Jesus," by Brian D. McLaren if you have time. It's an interesting read.)

Heh, I was actually looking for something to read over the Christmas break, thanks

It's a good one. Glad I could help.

[Goose]

In this case, I don’t think its about testing.

To say, “Meh, not to worry, Gods got it covered” is faith

But if we were to turn it upside down and say

“God you’ve got it covered, right? Please?”

Would be more like a test.

Faith is kinda like the opposite to testing. I think it comes after testing. Its a confusing idea. I"ll play around with it and get back to you.

[Egann]

Egann, I ask you, what happens to this position if there is no God? I'm seriously wanting to know. Not that you would ever not believe in God, but if you were convinced that there was no God, would you still percieve 'good' and 'evil' as you think you do in the world now? You do have moral judgement. You just think it comes from God. I'm just curious to know what happens to your position if there is no God.

I find God's existence to be pretty significant in this discussion, yet insignificant in the whole of what we're saying in this discussion.

IF God does not exist (which my epistemology forces me to regard to be a non-possibility) then not only is there no Good or Evil (because there is no judge to determine Good or Evil) but all the distinctions human thought can create are ultimately futile because they have nothing to rely upon and spunkey-monkey's nihilism is spot-on, even if it is a non-answer because it invokes a liar-paradox by saying "we can't know." A statement that must be derived from an assumption that we can know to be valid in the first place.

(TL;DR: If God does not exist, then Logic bears no weight.)

It only takes a Pascal's Wager to see that we have nothing to loose and everything to gain from believing in God. Even with only this life granted as evidence, taking God's existence for granted offers an epistemic order to the universe otherwise impossible, and -without which- civilization will ultimately lack the confidence, energy, and direction to keep itself afloat and is the same epistemic degradation that led to the fall of Rome. (See Lord Kenneth Clarke's TV Series "Civilization" for more on confidence, energy, and civilization.)

Egann, don't call other people out on something that you're guilty of doing. That's the second time in this thread, now.

I figured you'd say something like that eventually, so I covered that base several posts ago.

I am the only person on this thread in a position to use either definition of Evil/evil freely because earlier I said:

(To make things clear, from this point on, I will capitalize Evil to mean "rebellion from God" and lower-case evil to mean "selfish action.)

As long as I consistently use the format I defined there, there is no problem with me switching back and forth between definitions of Evil/evil. You can borrow the dichotomy, if you'd like, but I figure your pride'll keep you from doing so. (I've been wrong about you before, though, and I do not mind being proven wrong.)

Edited by Egann, 15 December 2008 - 10:10 PM.

[TheAvengerLever]

Ah. I'm sorry. I should've been clearer. The reason I brought it up was because that was the only one where Satan uses a verse to back up what he is saying. That's the distinction between the other two. In the other two temptations, Satan just challenged Jesus ("Turn these stones to bread" / "Bow down to me"), without the use of Scripture. See, Satan only appeals to Scripture in one of the Temptations... not all three of them. And Jesus' response isn't that stellar, in my opinion.

I should've been clearer myself. When I pointed out those verses to you I should've just highlighted the verse in question rather than the entirety of the passage. The verses where Satan tempts Jesus without Scripture are irrelevent to this discussion.

But, I have to ask: when you say, "if Scripture is used to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself," what stops the opposite view from being equally valid? In the same way that one would say that the "New" Covenant rules out the "Old" Covenant and makes it obsolete, couldn't one also say that God's shameless killings and apparent bigotry in the Old Testament kind of refute Jesus' liberal teachings in the New? And, if not, how can you know for certain without admitting interpretation or pulling rank or appealing to potentially (and as current events would indicate, very likely) corrupt church officials and their word?

Before I answer this I want to be clear about just what it is your asking. You say that "if Scripture is use to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself," switched around to mean that, for example, if I posed a verse onto you that provided insight into the idea that God loves everyone and you brought forth a verse that could imply that God would hate certain groups of people (same analogy, I know, but it's the one that best illustrates the point) why is it not perfectly acceptable that your verse is correct over mine?

Well, to be honest, this IS quite a difficult question to answer, not because I am incapable of providing an answer, but that I may provide you with an answer which you may not be able to understand.

See, the core of Christianity, besides the belief that Jesus died for our sins and all that sugary goodness, is that God is sovreign, that he can do no wrong, that he loves everyone and that he is goodness. Acting upon this belief, it would be stubborn to assume that God wouldn't love certain groups of people, because that revelation would be contradictory to his benevolent nature. It's a confused message. "There's God, and he loves everyone!"

"Even black people?"

"Well no, of course not."

Sure. I don't mind.

The whole "lesson" behind the story of Peter and the boat is that the we are supposed to have our faith that God will take care of X so we should step out of our 'boats' and meet Jesus on the 'water' in faith. The point I'm trying to make is that having faith that God will take care of something is a lot like putting God to the test. Faith often breeds complacency. A lazy, dangerous complacency. "God will take care of it." Isn't that putting God to the test?

Perhaps that says more about the Christians that I know instead of their Bible... so I won't press the issue further.

I believe what you're describing is not faith as much as it is just taking the easy way out. And to a person like me the easy way out never works. Faith is more like taking the steps yourself to get somewhere, but relying on the guidance of God, rather than saying, "God, you should just take care of this for me."

Peter did the work, but he relied on God to help him. Does that help?

Perfect. This is central to the point I was trying to make earlier in the post.

Yes, we agree to that much, but our beliefs on how what you said branches out totally differ.

Edited by TheAvengerButton, 15 December 2008 - 10:45 PM.

[Steel Samurai]

So we're all Sid's toys from Toy Story are we?

Just because God created everything doesn't automatically make him good, Samurai, your logic falls on its ass right there. To be 'good', a deity must have benevolent intentions towards others, not just to its own supernatural self, it should seek to exalt kind-hearted people, whilst humble/restrain wicked people and show them the error of their ways - i.e. not try to ruin or destroy them at every given opportunity.

We know he's killed thousands of people without good cause, and the reason its not just is because (you'll love this) HE'S A GOD, and should not be answerable to the biological needs/limitations we humans require/possess, therefore should have a far greater level of understanding and comprehension of how to deal with mankind's failings, not act like a complete monster at his earliest convenience. If you were an almighty God, wouldn't you, I dunno, set an example to your creation rather than opposed to resorting to cruel Greek mythology-style punishments courtesy of Zeus?

You may claim our logic to be ultimately fallible, but you really have to wonder how far our reasoning has truly progressed when we begin to find the glaring flaws in a God's actions, yes we may become hypocritical considering our own blood-stained history, but it's now relatively safe to say that in this Universe -nothing's perfect-.

Apparently you missed my entire point.

Okay, let me actually address this, now. It was X:30 in the morning when I responded to this, and I didn't really address it.

Going along with something Spunky-Monkey said, I'd like to note that if this is what the relationship between "God" and "Good" is, then we have it completley backwards. If God is "good," then it is reasonable to say that benevolence is "evil," and belligerence is "good." If God is "Good," then we might as well just go out and kill every mother fucker on the street that we want to kill. After all, God does that in the Bible, and God defines Good. But we don't do that, do we?

So I would say that either someone in the very, very, very, very, very, very early Church (within the first few centuries) is lying and got to everyone else... or your argument is just wrong.

Of course, there's also the third option and that is that God just simply doesn't exist and all of this is nothing more than gits and shiggles. But where's the fun in that?

Eh, at least you were closer than SM. In the Bible we have two precedents for action. What God does, and what he tells humans to do. These, as most know, do not always coincide, especially in the Old Testament. Humans must follow what they are told to do regardless of whether God does so or not. Thus, when God tells us "Do not murder"

(random side note: Some translations read kill, however, the better translation is thou shalt not do any thing hurtful or injurious to the health, ease, and life, of thy own body, or any other person's unjustly. This is echoed in the Gospels when Jesus says that hating someone without cause is just as bad as killing them. As in much in the bible, the important thing is not the action itself, but the thought processes which lead to the action)

Thus when God tells us "Do not murder" we must not murder, even though it seems as though God does it all the time. It's similar to a parent not allowing a child to drive a car even though the parent drives it every day. Why not? Well obviously the parent is much more mature, more physically able to drive a car, and much more experienced, and if the child tried they would most likely hurt themselves and someone else. Similarly, God, being a superior being, knows what he's doing a lot better than humans, even if they think they do. Now, obviously there are places where it is commanded that the punishment for something is death, and generally speaking God commands humans to do this. Here the same analogy can be used, to a certain extent. When a 14-15 year old (16 in oz) starts to learn to drive a car, they must have their parents in the same car at all times. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I started driving my dad told me everything I needed to do. I didn't execute any maneuver without him telling me how to do it for a long time. It is similar in the matter of the death penalty as it was (ideally) applied in ancient Israel. A human was allowed to kill another because God told them exactly for what cause it was to be done. So, God can kill people whenever he wants because he's God, but we can't because we aren't. Again, don't like it, tough. Feel like it's double standards? It would be were we talking about human interactions, but a whole new set of rules apply when it's humans interacting with a superior being. I'm not sure I've explained my position adequately, but hopefully that makes sense.

Adding to that what I said before, it's not just the logical inconsistencies in the Bible that are disturbing. A lot of people don't even get to those before they give up. Take my example from the book of Acts.

Acts 9:7 says this: "The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone."

Later, Paul recounts the moment, saying this in Acts 22:9, "The people with me saw the light but didn’t hear the voice of the One speaking to me."

In one account Paul's companions hear the sound but see no light, and the other account, Paul's companions see the light, but hear no sounds. And then the third time he describes it, Acts 26:12-14, it's just so different that I shouldn't even bother mentioning it here.

Three times in one book, and this one event is different every single time. That's not "logic" that's just obviously screwed up.

This is more you not even thinking about the inconsistency. Let's look at the accounts side by side.

3 Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.
4 And falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”
5 And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.
6 But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”
7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.
8 Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

6 “As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me.
7 And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’
8 And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.’
9 Now those who were with me saw the light but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.
10 And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’
11 And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.

13 At midday, O king, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.
14 And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
15 And I said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
16 But rise and stand upon your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you,
17 delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles—to whom I am sending you
18 to open their eyes, so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

Now, there's 3 elements to the alleged inconsistency. The light/seeing dude, the voice/noise, and the falling to the ground. The first part is the light. The first passage says the men saw no one the other two say they saw a light. Obviously it was quite possible for them to have seen a light, but not the man Paul saw. The second is the voice. The ESV makes this inconsistency easy to solve. The first passage mentions that the men heard a voice, the second that they did not understand it. In other words, all they heard was a noise. Finally is the last and most difficult problem, the issue of falling to the ground. In the first passage the men are supposed to have stood and heard the voice, in the second passage it's not mentioned, in the third they all fell to the ground. This, however, is rather easily explained if the men fell after Paul and got up before him. This is what I mean by ironing out inconsistencies. I hold the Bible to be perfect. (I have good reasons for this outside the fact that it was spoonfed to me for over a decade) Therefore, if there is an apparent inconsistency, the error is not with the Bible but with the translation or the way I am thinking.

Finally, to address a question posed to Egann, if indeed there was no God I would have no problems accepting no absolute standard of morals.

[Reflectionist]

Alright, this is going to be a long post. Button replied before I finished my reply to Egann, so I had to add in the replies, and I'm sure you guys are sick of my every post being riddled with "edit" tags, so I'm trying to do my best just previewing the post.

Egann, I ask you, what happens to this position if there is no God? I'm seriously wanting to know. Not that you would ever not believe in God, but if you were convinced that there was no God, would you still percieve 'good' and 'evil' as you think you do in the world now? You do have moral judgement. You just think it comes from God. I'm just curious to know what happens to your position if there is no God.

I find God's existence to be pretty significant in this discussion, yet insignificant in the whole of what we're saying in this discussion.

IF God does not exist (which my epistemology forces me to regard to be a non-possibility) then not only is there no Good or Evil (because there is no judge to determine Good or Evil) but all the distinctions human thought can create are ultimately futile because they have nothing to rely upon and spunkey-monkey's nihilism is spot-on, even if it is a non-answer because it invokes a liar-paradox by saying "we can't know." A statement that must be derived from an assumption that we can know to be valid in the first place
.
(TL;DR: If God does not exist, then Logic bears no weight.)

Your religion forces you to regard the nonexistence of God as an impossibility. Epistemology, on the other hand, would yield the exact opposite result; you couldn't possibly take God's existence seriously. Simple misunderstanding of terms; nothing serious. I knew what you meant, though. Except Epistemology is a very objective term, and is better left for the shelf until you're older and can get past the whole 'religion is subjective' thing. Nice try, though.

I would agree on you that there would be no Good or Evil without the existence of a God (which is what I was driving you at in the attempt to get off spunky-monkey's nuts about the last thing in this post, as he does not believe in God, or by extension, Good and Evil). But, even in the absence of Good and Evil, what we can put up in those places would be more than sufficient for what they do, if nothing more than evolutionary crowd control. After all, if there is no God, there is no Judgement to worry about being 'perfect' for. "Good enough" is good enough. And that rules out and disproves your assertion that Spunky-Monkey is a nihilist. The world is not split up into Christians and nihilists, Egann, and in fact, one could argue that all Christians are nihilists in the way they see no hope, nor meaning, in this world and have to desperately grasp at an epistemological unknowable just to have a little hope. Reality's a pain in the ass, but God is your vicodin.

That is nihilism to me. The logic bears weight in it's practicality without the use of any God, who, even if he does exist, he couldn't possibly care less about our predicament nor our methods of thinking. Logic bears weight when there is no God. But when there is a God, you might as well throw logic out of the window, because, as I said: faith breeds complacency.

It only takes a Pascal's Wager to see that we have nothing to loose and everything to gain from believing in God. Even with only this life granted as evidence, taking God's existence for granted offers an epistemic order to the universe otherwise impossible, and -without which- civilization will ultimately lack the confidence, energy, and direction to keep itself afloat and is the same epistemic degradation that led to the fall of Rome. (See Lord Kenneth Clarke's TV Series "Civilization" for more on confidence, energy, and civilization.)

Pascal's Wager. Really? Which God, then, does Pascal's Wager promote? Pascal's Wager only looks remotely valid if you're just too ignorant to know that the world is not split up into Christians and Atheists. What is it with you and these embarrassingly naive dichotomies? What if Allah is the One True God, and then Christians and Atheists both go to hell? You, again, have no argument. I'm beginning to think that you're not trying.

The rest of the quote is just mere opinion with a name drop to feign credibility.

Egann, don't call other people out on something that you're guilty of doing. That's the second time in this thread, now.

I figured you'd say something like that eventually, so I covered that base several posts ago.

Stop right there. No you didn't; you assumed I'm calling you out on something else. I'm calling you out on: "You assume it is proven, and then proceed further along with a [syllogism]." This is what I'm calling you out on because you, as I remember and as you freely admitted in the rest of your post here, simply made up your own definition of Evil and then started using it as an axiom by which to compare the validity of others uses of it... without sourcing anything or indeed, providing a single sentence of objective reinforcement. And then you're crying foul because someone else is doing the same thing. Even if you do use the terms consistently, others may not, and probably don't, agree with your definitions.

The first rule of debate is always to try and get your opponent to agree upon the same axioms. This is impossible because your definition of Evil is "Anything that goes against God," while your opponent scoffs because, surprise, they don't believe that God even exists. That's why I asked you what credibility your position has if there is no God. Hence, your definition of the word 'evil,' while it may work theologically, does not work objectively, and thus, is invalid in this arena. Apparently you didn't make the connection.

Yeah, that's all... no snarky remarks here. You just need to see things from all perspectives before you just jump in and start trying to judge objective debate by subjective, epistemologically worthless standards.


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But, I have to ask: when you say, "if Scripture is used to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself," what stops the opposite view from being equally valid? In the same way that one would say that the "New" Covenant rules out the "Old" Covenant and makes it obsolete, couldn't one also say that God's shameless killings and apparent bigotry in the Old Testament kind of refute Jesus' liberal teachings in the New? And, if not, how can you know for certain without admitting interpretation or pulling rank or appealing to potentially (and as current events would indicate, very likely) corrupt church officials and their word?

Before I answer this I want to be clear about just what it is your asking. You say that "if Scripture is use to lie and slander, Scripture can also be used to refute itself," switched around to mean that, for example, if I posed a verse onto you that provided insight into the idea that God loves everyone and you brought forth a verse that could imply that God would hate certain groups of people (same analogy, I know, but it's the one that best illustrates the point) why is it not perfectly acceptable that your verse is correct over mine?

Well, to be honest, this IS quite a difficult question to answer, not because I am incapable of providing an answer, but that I may provide you with an answer which you may not be able to understand.

I was a Christian for many years; that's how I learned to debate. I understand your solution, but I don't think it helps. It's kind of presumptuous, and again goes back to what I said in my first couple of posts in the thread. I'll quote it below:

If God exemplifies all of these virtues that He created (as most Christians would tell you) or if He is all-powerful and the originator of everything (as every Christian should tell you), then we have no basis from which to say that God leans toward any of these qualities. Even love; to say that God is all-loving is to marginalize the infinite magnitude of God. Sucks to be bound by the parameters of perfection. To be honest, it sounds contrived to me. When the Bible has so many conflicting views of God (between the Old Testament and New Testament, not even counting all of the Mormon stuff), answers crop up out of nowhere with the same sort of suddenness as making up rules in a made up game to ensure your friend doesn't win, and you do. "Oh, you can't hit one of the light colored bricks with the ball, it's a foul. My point!"

The Bible can be used to justify literally anything that you feel strongly about. Are you against Gay Marriage? The Bible supports you. Are you for Gay Marriage? The Bible supports you. Are you for peace? The Bible supports you. Are you for just killing every mother fucker you want? The Bible supports you.

People have different focal points about God because Scripture's descriptions of God are so vast that they're vague. It's hard to get a sense of the 'true' personality of an infinite God. But, at the same time, to insist that God has a particular personality (as the linchpin of Christianity says that God is Love) is to circumvent God and laugh at his infinite personality and insist that God can only exemplify one aspect of it. That one aspect though is something that changes according to personal desire. Personal prejudices, social standards, etc. and these all change with time.

Who we think God is has nothing to do with the Bible or Christianity. It has to do with us and what people want to believe. Which is blasphemy. Everyone focuses on a certain aspect of what they think God is, that they insist that every other quality is 'wrong,' and in some extreme cases, 'evil.' Hence why people think Satan is "evil."

Hope that helps with you understanding the difficulty here.

Sure. I don't mind.

The whole "lesson" behind the story of Peter and the boat is that the we are supposed to have our faith that God will take care of X so we should step out of our 'boats' and meet Jesus on the 'water' in faith. The point I'm trying to make is that having faith that God will take care of something is a lot like putting God to the test. Faith often breeds complacency. A lazy, dangerous complacency. "God will take care of it." Isn't that putting God to the test?

Perhaps that says more about the Christians that I know instead of their Bible... so I won't press the issue further.

I believe what you're describing is not faith as much as it is just taking the easy way out. And to a person like me the easy way out never works. Faith is more like taking the steps yourself to get somewhere, but relying on the guidance of God, rather than saying, "God, you should just take care of this for me."

Peter did the work, but he relied on God to help him. Does that help?

It helps, sure. But like I said, maybe it says more about the Christians I know instead of the Bible. But then again, it's not really a good, concrete example. Peter didn't do a whole hell of a lot, but admittedly, it was all of the work that a human could do in that situation. So I'm wanting to press the issue a little further, its still pretty vague. Can you extrapolate the situation to something more applicable and something a little less downright epistemologically absurd?


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Eh, at least you were closer than SM. In the Bible we have two precedents for action. What God does, and what he tells humans to do. These, as most know, do not always coincide, especially in the Old Testament. Humans must follow what they are told to do regardless of whether God does so or not. Thus, when God tells us "Do not murder"

(random side note: Some translations read kill, however, the better translation is thou shalt not do any thing hurtful or injurious to the health, ease, and life, of thy own body, or any other person's unjustly. This is echoed in the Gospels when Jesus says that hating someone without cause is just as bad as killing them. As in much in the bible, the important thing is not the action itself, but the thought processes which lead to the action)

Thus when God tells us "Do not murder" we must not murder, even though it seems as though God does it all the time. It's similar to a parent not allowing a child to drive a car even though the parent drives it every day. Why not? Well obviously the parent is much more mature, more physically able to drive a car, and much more experienced, and if the child tried they would most likely hurt themselves and someone else. Similarly, God, being a superior being, knows what he's doing a lot better than humans, even if they think they do. Now, obviously there are places where it is commanded that the punishment for something is death, and generally speaking God commands humans to do this. Here the same analogy can be used, to a certain extent. When a 14-15 year old (16 in oz) starts to learn to drive a car, they must have their parents in the same car at all times. Now, I don't know about you guys, but when I started driving my dad told me everything I needed to do. I didn't execute any maneuver without him telling me how to do it for a long time. It is similar in the matter of the death penalty as it was (ideally) applied in ancient Israel. A human was allowed to kill another because God told them exactly for what cause it was to be done. So, God can kill people whenever he wants because he's God, but we can't because we aren't. Again, don't like it, tough. Feel like it's double standards? It would be were we talking about human interactions, but a whole new set of rules apply when it's humans interacting with a superior being. I'm not sure I've explained my position adequately, but hopefully that makes sense.

But I already addressed this "Father Knows Best" argument!!

The rest of your post, I'm not that concerned about it. It was off the top of my head, anyway.

Edited by Reflectionist, 15 December 2008 - 11:19 PM.

[Steel Samurai]

Suitable for Poore's argument and analogy, not for mine. Technically that's a strawman.

Regardless, your argument is flawed because you aren't thinking in terms of the big picture. Let's pose a hypothetical. You are an amazingly skilled surgeon. Two people have diseases which will kill them very soon at the same time, one heart disease and the other say, brain cancer. The person with brain cancer has a 0% chance of survival. Absolutely no way will he live. So does the heart disease patient. The only difference is, if the patient gets a heart transplant, the recovery rate goes up to close to 100% The brain cancer patient's heart is perfectly healthy. Let's say that the heart transplant must take place within seconds of the donor dying. You, as the surgeon, don't know either patient; you have no personal involvement with either one. Do you perform the operation, killing a man who was going to die anyway to save the life of another, or do you let them both die? The parallels should be obvious. God, being God, knew that (obviously to claim knowledge of God's thought processes is stupid, so the following is merely conjecture) (to cite one specific example) the inhabitants of the land of Canaan would corrupt the Israelites into idol worship etc, killing any chance they had to spend eternity with God instead of apart from him. Those inhabitants, however, would not have been converted by their contact with the Israelites, and would have had to spend eternity away from God regardless. So, the most logical thing to do is to save the ones that can be saved at the expense of the ones who could not anyway.

This I think is what Poore was trying to get at. What may look like being against God's benevolent nature in the long run is in fact an illusion, because we, as mortals, cannot see the end effects of events.

Regardless, this thread is really quite off topic at the moment.

[Poore]

This I think is what Poore was trying to get at. What may look like being against God's benevolent nature in the long run is in fact an illusion, because we, as mortals, cannot see the end effects of events.

Regardless, this thread is really quite off topic at the moment.

Yes (to both).

Edited by Poore, 15 December 2008 - 11:49 PM.