How "Christian" of him!!

[Berzerker]

but what if it was by his will? I doubt Jesus was the only one around capable of miracles

btw y'all, there's an interesting coin from Ugarit (I think) in ancient Syria near Baalbek and the cedars of Lebanon possibly showing the tower of babel - take a look if you can find it. Now recall how God and all these angels keep climbing ladders and fountains of fire to ascend to the Heavens. Ancient astronauts I tell ya Thats why our gods are so like us... A question comes to mind, a question from one of those Star Trek movies, Kirk asks "God" what he needs with a starship? Why does God need a ladder?

[Kidlicious]

Yes, its envy and its worse - its anger, and Jesus equated anger with murder. But even moreso, its all too human, Kid. Why is that? Why does God have some of our nastier traits?

No. Anger is not murder at all. Jesus got angry. Anger is not a sin. Holding a grudge is a sin.

me too, I dont think its the Good Samaritan story but its along the same line anyway. Ben or JM might know...

I found it. Jesus didn't say the man doing good was with him. He just said, let him be. Just because you do good. That doesn't mean you aren't against Jesus.

[Nikolai]

Mark 9

39But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

40For he that is not against us is on our part.

41For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.

42And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Doesn't sound like he was regarded as against Jesus.

[Kidlicious]

Mark 9

39But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.

40For he that is not against us is on our part.

41For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.

42And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.

Doesn't sound like he was regarded as against Jesus.

And Jesus also said whoever is not with me is against me, so this person must have been with him in some way. That doesn't mean, for example, that false teachers are with Jesus just because they claim to be.

[Imran Siddiqui]

No, he's saying that whoever is not against me is with me. It's a small difference in the order of the words, but it results in a SUBSTANTIAL difference in its effect.

[Kidlicious]

No, he's saying that whoever is not against me is with me. It's a small difference in the order of the words, but it results in a SUBSTANTIAL difference in its effect.

In Luke 11:23 he says, "He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth."

The Geneva Study Bible says that it means, "Against indifferent men, and such as love to have a compromise, who seek means to reconcile Christ and Satan together."

So I think as long as someone is true to Christ he is with him, but when he isn't he's against him.

[Boris Godunov]

No he is not, he is fundamentally misunderstanding/representing God because he hasn't read and thought about the stories in the Bible and what they mean.

Jon

You've utterly failed to substantiate this opinion. Your argument amounts to "NUN-UH!!!" If you're not going to offer more than that, it's pointless for you to interject.

[Boris Godunov]

Basically sums up to why does suffering exist in the world. I'd argue personally that there can be a spiritual benefit in suffering.

Strawman argument. I never said the god would have to eliminate suffering. There's a massive difference between creating a universe with no suffering at all versus creating a universe in which the god would not ever have to kill innocent children for any reason.

One, it's already been proven to me that this outlook on the world is false. I gave you an honest answer to your question. This was my belief before, I was a pro choice person before I went to university and I saw nothing wrong with abortion.

We're not talking about abortion! I'm talking about the right of a parent to kill a living, born child for whatever reason he wished. Did you believe that, and would you believe that should it be proven to you no god existed? YES/NO? No, you haven't answered that question, and it's obvious you're squirming away from it because you know the answer will either make you look morally terrible or render your argument invalid.

WRT to how God is, we aren't self aware either.

Bzzzt. Self-awareness is not a matter of degrees. You're either self-aware or you aren't. That one being may be enormously more powerful than another doesn't change the fact that the other is sentient.

Is it moral for me to perform surgery on you? No. Is it moral for a surgeon who is trained how to do it properly to perform surgery on you? Yes. Whether an act is or is not moral does depend on who is doing the act.

Wow. I simply have to laugh at how feeble your moral reasoning is, if you think this analogy is valid or even relevant to the issue.

No, Ben. It is NOT immoral for you to perform surgery, in and of itself. Performing surgery is neither a moral nor immoral act. It's the circumstances of the surgery that make the actions moral or immoral, not who you are.

For starters, I can think of at least a few circumstances when a non-surgeon performing surgery would be absolutely necessary and moral. Think of a soldier wounded in combat, and needing to have shrapnel removed from him and the wound cleaned and sutured before it gets infected. Under your terrible logic, his comrade would be acting immorally by treating him were he not a trained surgeon.

What would make your performing surgery on me would be the following: either you had lied to me and presented yourself as a surgeon when you weren't, or you were forcing me to undergo surgery at your hands against my express will. In either case, it's not the surgery that's immoral, it's your deceiving me or forcing surgery upon me that is immoral. If, on the other hand, I knew full well you were not a surgeon and was 100% willing for you operate as best you could (such as in an emergency circumstance), it would be totally moral for you to do it.

So no, it has NOTHING to do with who you are as a person that makes something moral or immoral. Logic Fail.

God cannot do an immoral action because it would be contrary to his nature. WRT to ending and beginning life, that is His prerogative. It is not murder, else all death in and of itself would be murder. He gives us a gift, which he returns to himself at the appointed time.

Perfect. This is an obviously morally flawed belief. It is proof-positive that you really believe there is no "higher morality"--it's just the whim of the dictator. If you believe that whatever your god does is good by definition, then you've rendered the meanings of "good" and "evil" null and void. It's not about morally right behavior, it's just about obeisance. It's slavery, and you've proven my point that you have no genuine moral compass, as you will do whatever your god commands you, not matter what it is.

Boris, where does Reason come from? Did you give it to yourself?

Reasoning is a function of self-awareness and human sentience. Of course I don't believe it was "given" to anyone, so the question is nonsense.

But that doesn't render morality obtained through reason, empathy and experience arbitrary, not at all. It's actually the ONLY way to dispassionately judge things as morally good or bad. Your method is to slavishly believe whatever your god does/tells you to do is good. That's not morality.

The question ultimately comes down to authority. If right and wrong is whatever I choose to believe, then there is no foundation, no basis for anything other than arbitrary pleasure. If there is a right and wrong, which is no different than the immutable laws of the universe, then even if we deny their existance, we cannot escape them. This is my belief, that the laws are no different now than 2000 years ago, because human nature has not changed.

This is ass-backwards. It's YOUR morality that is arbitrary, not mine. You said above that your morality is that you define what is good as whatever your god says is good. That is the very DEFINITION of arbitrary. There is nothing immutable about those morals, they're simply rules made up by someone. By your own admission, your god could theoretically reverse morality tomorrow and say it's morally right to murder, steal and lie--and you'd have to accept it as good! Furthermore, you also believe that your god is free to violate the very rules he lays down as freely as he likes, as they don't apply to him, just people. How is that "immutable?" That is the exact OPPOSITE of immutable!

Immutable means the actions are morally good or bad in and of themselves, regardless of WHO commits them. That has to go for people AND gods, or it's not immutable at all, it's just arbitrary whim.

I daresay the reason you find me offensive is because I won't take your bullcrap or give you a pass or your preferences.

Your inflated opinion of yourself is amusing, but irrelevant. I could care less about getting a "pass" from you, whatever that means. What offends me is that you lie, and you might possibly deceive other people with your lies and twisted logic. Fortunately, given your reputation here, I guess that's a remote possibility, since no one takes you seriously.

Then why all this anger to Christians Boris, if you are truly content?

I love Christians. Like the Quakers. They generally mind their own business and don't try and get their dogma legislated. The Episcopalians are pretty cool, too. I'm a big fan of any Christian who doesn't try to make other people live by his beliefs. I like most Catholics I've met, because by and large they aren't lying, dickish Catholics like Pope Benedict and others are.

The only Christians that make me angry are the ones who try to take away the rights and freedoms of others, or make their religious beliefs law. Same goes for Muslims or people from any other religious creed.

So yet again you miss the mark, as there is not hate for Christians in general from me.

[Jon Miller]

You've utterly failed to substantiate this opinion. Your argument amounts to "NUN-UH!!!" If you're not going to offer more than that, it's pointless for you to interject.

Boris, you ignore the theme throughout the Bible that God uses people to communicate His messages and to do His work.

This is true in Genesis, in the time of Babylon, and for Christ.

How can I take your argument seriously when it disagrees with one of the biggest themes of the Bible?

JM

[Boris Godunov]

There's simply no evidence to show one or the other. We don't know.

Which renders your earlier assertion that there's always explicit warning given to people a fabrication (i.e., a lie). Thank you for admitting it.

[Boris Godunov]

Boris, you ignore the theme throughout the Bible that God uses people to communicate His messages and to do His work.

No, I didn't ignore, I addressed it directly when I pointed out that such a method is a piss-poor way of getting people to do what he wants them to do. You totally dodged my question about whether or not you believe any of the self-proclaimed prophets around today who are predicting all sorts of things. Hell, Robertson himself has claimed to be such a prophet, saying God has spoken to him and told him of things to come. Do you believe that's true? What grounds do you have to not believe it?

If your neighbor started building a big boat in his yard and told you that God has spoken to him and told him to build it because he was going to flood the planet, would you believe him or think he's a kook?

How can I take your argument seriously when it disagrees with one of the biggest themes of the Bible?

How does it do so? I've argued that Robertson and other Christians can, based on scriptural precedent, think that calamities may be divine punishments. Nothing presented so far has refuted that idea. BK has challenged it by falsely claiming that the Biblical god gave explicit warning to everyone before such disasters, and therefore something like Haiti couldn't be divine punishment, because there weren't warnings. And I showed that to be terrible logic, as the Bible always depicts a few lucky souls getting warned while most are not before the divine catastrophes, and Christians would have no way of knowing whether or not such localized warnings were indeed given. It was also argued that previous minor calamities might be the warning signs for the "big one," but that also could fit Haiti, since we all know it's suffered plenty of lesser disasters prior to this one.

If you believe God uses people to communicate his message, then how can you positively deny that Robertson was the person your god chose to deliver the message, and that he could be entirely correct that the Haiti quake was a result of divine anger?

[Jon Miller]

http://www.biblicaltestsofaprophet.com/

I haven't looked at anything but the first couple, but it isn't that hard to see that Robertson can not be a prophet.

JM

[Jon Miller]

If an amazing Christian stopped by, who didn't have a record for misinterpreting things, and said that God told him that there would be an earthquake or something in my location in 10 days and I should leave, I would plan to be somewhere else.

JM

[Boris Godunov]

http://www.biblicaltestsofaprophet.com/

I haven't looked at anything but the first couple, but it isn't that hard to see that Robertson can not be a prophet.

JM

That would be a matter of completely subjective opinion.

Take the first one: you know they're not a prophet if what they prophecize doesn't come to pass. Well, duh. The problem here is that there's generally no time frame given to most predictions.

For instance, Robertson once asserted that Orlando might get smacked by a meteor because Disney let gays in. You might say since it hasn't happened, Robertson is therefore not a prophet. But it hasn't happened yet, and Robertson never said when it would happen. How would we know that it's not going to eventually happen?

Skimmed the others, but they don't seem to objectively exclude Robertson, either.

Think of it this way: there are literally thousands of kooks around the world who are predicting stuff, and the odds are at least one of them is not just going to get one prediction right, but several. Would the apparent accuracy of these predictions render him a prophet? How would we know he didn't just get lucky?

[Boris Godunov]

If an amazing Christian stopped by, who didn't have a record for misinterpreting things

And you would know this... how?

And what about all the people he didn't get a chance to warn? Sucks to be them, eh?