Unscientific survey of 'poly religious beliefs

[Brent]

God could do anything that is right. God will force no one to heaven. God will not eliminate all evil, but he will separate good from evil to a degree. Any individual who ultimately chooses evil will eventually be permanently separated from the rest of the universe, but new intelligences/ spirits/ people will always have some among them who choose evil, I think.

[Whaleboy]

God could do anything that is right. God will force no one to heaven. God will not eliminate all evil, but he will separate good from evil to a degree.

How do you know all this?

Any individual who ultimately chooses evil will eventually be permanently separated from the rest of the universe, but new intelligences/ spirits/ people will always have some among them who choose evil, I think.

How do you define evil?

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison


Here's a little thought for you Ben Kenobi - if God is all powerful, is he powerful enough to tie a knot so tight that he himself cannot untie. If that is the case he is not omnipotent, and if it is not the case, the same applies...so what do you say to omnipotence being paradoxical?

Just because we can't imagine something, doesn't mean He can't.

[Whaleboy]

Just because we can't imagine something, doesn't mean He can't.

Circular logic

[Brent]

The devil is in a sense governed by God. It is God's will for evil to exist, because without evil there is no goodness. Most people are technically salvagable. Murderers are generally not. Once when Jesus was in mortality, he said that not even he was good, only his Father. It is necessary for evil to exist, and it is necessary for people to overcome evil in order to be redeemed.

[Brent]

The things that I know, I know because I have been taught them and they make sense. The information can be found in scripture. The first definition of evil that comes to mind is: that which separates one from God. Disobedience of commandments given by God is evil. Murder is evil.

[Whaleboy]

The devil is in a sense governed by God. It is God's will for evil to exist, because without evil there is no goodness.

Is "heaven" a perfect attainable state, the reward to a life of virtuous Christianity? If so, are we to say that it is desireable? If so, are we to say that evil does not exist in heaven? So are we to say then that the less evil in the world, the closer in one respect we come to heaven?

If so, why would God want to keep us in this ****hole unless it was to filter the wheat from the chaff? But then, every human is supposed to be salvagable? If so, then the Semitic God is doing nothing more than playing a cruel joke, or experiment on which he has probably placed some cosmic bet with his buddies over a couple of hookers and a few bottles of bud.

You're assuming a dualistic good and bad, that is that good and bad are opposites but cannot exist without each other, but does good necessarily denote evil? No, merely sufficiently, since we are able to establish that good, subjectively, can separate itself from neutrality, but there need be no inherent evil in neutrality. For there to be so, it would lead to moral relativism.

Take dualism to be defeated, and the whole argument by evil proves to be false anyway, and I have still seen no argument for God that stands up. I'm not saying so to flame-bait, I need as many arguments as possible for a novel I'm planning to write. Working title: Apocrypha .

Murderers are generally not.

First degree? Second degree? What if he was coerced, or mentally ill? What if he was hurt and not of sound mind? What if he was in a war who's side had been told they had God's blessing. What if he was a religious nut who killed in God's name (who is to tell him otherwise?). You could get so technical about it and eventually reach a point where the only purely evil murder is so exclusive that it would be impossible to commit since any non-evil causes had been eliminated. Murder isn't special, sure it's a worse crime but it's not an order of magnitude worse. And you can have reformed murderers no?

I can't categorise crimes by their severity because it varies... a painless bullet to the back of the head vs. an unspeakably horrific rape? Who is anyone to choose?

[Whaleboy]

The things that I know, I know because I have been taught them and they make sense. The information can be found in scripture. The first definition of evil that comes to mind is: that which separates one from God. Disobedience of commandments given by God is evil. Murder is evil.

Fair enough. I can't and won't try to drive a wedge between you and your upbringing, but this is a debate one presumes any points raised are open to the cut and thrust of enquiry.

The information found in scripture, how do we know that this scripture is sound? Could it not be a great historic fabrication? Until you can establish otherwise there must surely be that doubt undermining ones entire belief system?

Separates one from God, well that depends on what you consider to be God. There are myriad definitions of God, many of which contradict others, for example a God that makes no moral code, a God that allows murder or capital punishment, a God that himself kills etc etc etc. Now I don't believe in God but suppose I come up with a conception of God that is completely different to yours... which is true? Your scripture says that yours is, but then that's circular reasoning, you have to show that mine is false relative to yours. And if I produce scripture of my own? Does the truth about God come down to historians wrangling about the authenticity of a few sheets of animal skin?

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Circular logic

Being happy because you disappointed your community

[Whaleboy]

Being happy because you disappointed your community

Let's see... forcing me and four others into Bar Mitzvah's we neither wanted nor asked for, even to go behind our backs and cause our parents to make life difficult for fear of embarassment... disapproval and quiet words with the Rabbi after it is made known that I had a non-Jewish girlfriend...

I think they were asking for it. As for the stationary cupboard, we had a box of paper menorahs fall on us; the big dude upstairs and I are even .

[Brent]

Whaleboy: everything in your first paragraph is correct. Mortality is for the sifting of the wheat from the chaff. At the time of creation, every human is salvagable. The ultimate argument for God cannot be put into words.

Coersion is not a very good excuse for murder. Mental illness or not being of sound mind is at least a little better. Warfare is not necessarily murder. If God has actually commanded a war it is one thing. If someone sincerely believes He has it is another. If the killer does not truly believe it when he says God told him to it is another. Killing under orders from your government is not quite the same as murder. There are sins that come close to murder. There are murderers in the scriptures that were forgiven. God is the ultimate judge, we are not, but God can delegate the right to judge. Governments have some authority, as does true religion.

[Tassadar500]

Originally posted by Whaleboy


Let's see... forcing me and four others into Bar Mitzvah's we neither wanted nor asked for, even to go behind our backs and cause our parents to make life difficult for fear of embarassment... disapproval and quiet words with the Rabbi after it is made known that I had a non-Jewish girlfriend...

I think they were asking for it. As for the stationary cupboard, we had a box of paper menorahs fall on us; the big dude upstairs and I are even .

You had sex before the age of 13? No wonder you're screwed.

[Brent]

In order to determine the soundness of scripture, you read it, ponder it, and experiment honestly with it, and you will be told in your mind and in your heart. The true God will reveal His true nature to those who seek him. Historians are not the ultimate determiners of the authenticity of scripture.

[Whaleboy]

You had sex before the age of 13? No wonder you're screwed.

15, we were expected to take Kabbalat Torah, but I decided to put my foot down.

Whaleboy: everything in your first paragraph is correct. Mortality is for the sifting of the wheat from the chaff. At the time of creation, every human is salvagable. The ultimate argument for God cannot be put into words.

See I think the most compelling method of logic pro-God is fideism; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism

Which is where God cannot be argued for, logically he cannot exist because God or (insert object of faith here) is not logical, and does not exist in an empirical, categorical sense. It's a point of equilibrium between faith, as an emotion, and reason.

Coersion is not a very good excuse for murder. Mental illness or not being of sound mind is at least a little better. Warfare is not necessarily murder. If God has actually commanded a war it is one thing. If someone sincerely believes He has it is another. If the killer does not truly believe it when he says God told him to it is another. Killing under orders from your government is not quite the same as murder. There are sins that come close to murder. There are murderers in the scriptures that were forgiven. God is the ultimate judge, we are not, but God can delegate the right to judge. Governments have some authority, as does true religion.

I'd have thought God would be more concerned by life in all of its terribly beauty, rather than the whys and wherefores of a very human, very irrelevant political construct.

Have you ever heard of the idea that to listen is to defeat being judgemental? That's where the more you understand the narrative behind someone's action, the less judgemental you are of that person... the less you think of them in good/bad terms. Morality in that respect is just a cop-out that spares the effort of thinking and understanding imo.

[Whaleboy]

In order to determine the soundness of scripture, you read it, ponder it, and experiment honestly with it, and you will be told in your mind and in your heart.

Fair enough, but that seems fairly subjective, since I could find another work that is completely different and take something else from it. Examples might include Plato's Republic, the Bhargavad Gita, Descartes Meditations, the works of Montaigne... the list goes on.

The true God will reveal His true nature to those who seek him.

So revelation to those with, at most, a passing familiarity with God, is impossible?