Pros and Cons of Proving God Exists?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Please, respond again. Humor me.

Because it appears you are diametrically opposed.

[Kidlicious]

Um no. You're an idiot. Go back and look for it. Or better yet go back where you said the Spirit is God and post something worth a ****.

[Imran Siddiqui]

So you have no official response to your contradictions. Your hypocrisy is thus duly noted.

[Kidlicious]

What contradiction? Does it have anything to do with my point? No contradiction. Whatever you are talking about is a distraction from the nonsense that you've been posting.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Your objective-ness vs. Existentialism's subjective focus.

[Kidlicious]

I'm not opposed to objective truth. But truth about God has to be subjective so that we are passionate for God. How do you know that the Bible is truth? Subjectively. Problem?

[Elok]

Of course it was a strawman. Show otherwise. When did I ever argue against following the Spirit of the law.

Er, every time you argued with Imran. Albeit possibly you didn't understand what he was saying. You appear to have read "Christianity isn't about rules," leapt to the asinine conclusion that Imran was advocating some kind of theological anarchism, and held on to that conviction throughout the argument that followed no matter what Imran said. Also, see what I said about nuance and your issues with it.

[Kidlicious]

Imran, I believe belief in the Bible is existential, belief in the church and it's doctrine is not. One comes from God the other doesn't. This is how Kierkegaard seemed to believe.

[Kidlicious]

That's incredibly stupid elok. I knew exactly what he was saying. It didn't have anything to do with the point so I let him continue. You are stupid.

[Elok]

BEHOLD: Textual support for arguments!

Oh the Law has been replaced? So it's ok to murder? No, if you murder you are guily. You should be arguing with elok, as he believes everyone is guilty of breaking the rules. But you say there are no rules.

And when did I say I didn't believe in the Holy Spirit? Some incredible way you think there is no rule against murder etc....

So, based on these texts, a reasonable person would conclude that you think/thought Imran is/was advocating amorality, ie you did not, in fact, understand what he was saying. Do you see how I cited specific things you said and used them to build support for a case, instead of simply asserting that support for my position exists and trying to bluff it out when I'm called on it? You can do it too, provided you have some actual textual support to fall back on! Try it, it's fun!

[Kidlicious]

Oh a reasonable person who purposefully makes statements that aren't intended for reasonable people to understand?

Let me spell it out for you. On the first page Imran said, "God is no rule maker." I tried to reason with him about that as God clearly is a rule maker. Comments like, "so you don't think there's a rule against murder" seem entirely reasonable in that context. Did your brain get damaged lately? Good night!

[Elok]

Oh a reasonable person who purposefully makes statements that aren't intended for reasonable people to understand?

That's your weird "interpretation" on what I said, which I've contradicted at least four times now. I surmise that you are only saying it to impress a snake, or something like that.

Let me spell it out for you. On the first page Imran said, "God is no rule maker." I tried to reason with him about that as God clearly is a rule maker. Comments like, "so you don't think there's a rule against murder" seem entirely reasonable in that context. Did your brain get damaged lately? Good night!

That you made such comments at all indicates that you don't understand what he was saying, ie that we shouldn't murder out of love for God and man, not because "it's against the rules." He made that argument on the first page too. You took his rules-aren't-important argument and somehow mutated it into a general license to kill.

[Elok]

Imran: Leaving aside your argument with Kid, I've been thinking maybe "love or obedience" is something of a false dichotomy. In Orthodoxy, I think, obedience is like the first step on the road to love. Our monastics are obedient above all else; they do what the abbot, or their spiritual father, says, even if it makes no sense, so that by surrendering their own will with its attendant desires they might learn to give freely of themselves. Furthermore, they undergo a rigorous ascetic discipline to teach them self-control and temperance. And yet it's said that a monk must be motivated primarily by love for humanity. They give up the world for love.

It's a similar story with marriage. I was once in a youth-group type setting where a priest told us that nobody loves before they're married. One of the girls in our group, who was very fond of romance, objected, but the priest stared her down, so to speak. He said that we don't know love, only infatuation. It's by giving up what we want that we learn to live not for ourselves, but for the other, and that is love. We can't love before we give, and we love most when we give until we bleed. You might say it's not love if nobody bleeds. Hence the crucifixion.

Of course, this is the broad story of the Bible. Humanity is called first to obedience, in the OT, then to love by Christ. In a sense, Kid is right, because we have to begin there. But he's also wrong, because that's not where it ends.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Imran: Leaving aside your argument with Kid, I've been thinking maybe "love or obedience" is something of a false dichotomy. In Orthodoxy, I think, obedience is like the first step on the road to love. Our monastics are obedient above all else; they do what the abbot, or their spiritual father, says, even if it makes no sense, so that by surrendering their own will with its attendant desires they might learn to give freely of themselves. Furthermore, they undergo a rigorous ascetic discipline to teach them self-control and temperance. And yet it's said that a monk must be motivated primarily by love for humanity. They give up the world for love.

It's a similar story with marriage. I was once in a youth-group type setting where a priest told us that nobody loves before they're married. One of the girls in our group, who was very fond of romance, objected, but the priest stared her down, so to speak. He said that we don't know love, only infatuation. It's by giving up what we want that we learn to live not for ourselves, but for the other, and that is love. We can't love before we give, and we love most when we give until we bleed. You might say it's not love if nobody bleeds. Hence the crucifixion.

Of course, this is the broad story of the Bible. Humanity is called first to obedience, in the OT, then to love by Christ. In a sense, Kid is right, because we have to begin there. But he's also wrong, because that's not where it ends.

But there is somewhat of a dichotomy because when people are simply obedient because they are instructed to do so, they do not do it out of love and you can get perversions of what is desired (I keep bringing up the Parable of The Good Samaritan because it is very apt here). In marriage, I would disagree with your contention up there, love has to come before obedience. Otherwise, it simply leads to resentment and a lot of marriages unfortunately disintegrate in that way. They have infatuation and then they are told to be obedient, but they don't love first making the obedience something desired rather than something forced.

I think in the Bible, Israel gets obedience part down, but also shows how it falls short. Without loving first, obedience ends up being useless because the heart isn't it. It is only in loving first does one decide to be obedient because they WANT to be obedient. If you don't want to follow then you look for loopholes.

So I would disagree. I think Jesus arrived after humanity came to the conclusion that obedience by itself wasn't doing the proper thing (ie, when they were ready for the teaching that love is first).

[Kidlicious]

You two talk way too much. Again, "If you love me you will obey my commands."

Elok, you're just an idiot. The issue was whether or not God was a rule maker. Period you moron. You seem to have read a bunch of other things into it. You're a ****.