are we models of god?

[scythekain]

@wdmc

Is god more powerful than you?

Yes

Is god free to act?

yes

Why is there suffering?
if the christian god has the power to stop these things by these very attributes, why doesn’t he/she?

As I said before:

God allows suffering because He gives us free will, and we bring the suffering upon ourselves.

not all of the time. Sometimes society brings the suffering upon you, and as I stated in a buddhism thread awhile back, cancer is not brought upon by oneself and cancer causes suffering in youself an in your family.

Bliss is only found through ignorance, and we gave that up when we ate from the tree of knowledge.

but “we” (if you believe the story as fact) ate the tree out of ignorance. And what knowledge did it really give us? Most people today still make the wrong choices simply for the fact of not taking time to reconcile within themselves. It has nothing to do with “knowing” and everything to do with taking the time to sit and think, “Why should or shouldn’t I do said thing.”

Does God cause any of the suffering endured by Job?

uhm… yes actually god does cause the suffering.

6 One day the angels [a] came to present themselves before the LORD , and Satan [b] also came with them. 7 The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the LORD , “From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”

8 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil."

9 "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Satan replied. 10 "Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face."

12 The LORD said to Satan, "Very well, then, everything he has is in your hands, but on the man himself do not lay a finger." 

christians forget this very conveniently in their mythos, that “satan” is at the command of god. Remember “jews” of this time frame believed that good and evil flow from god.

Uccisore did a good job of explaining this.

read my reply to that.

Original sin has nothing to do with it. I believe I already explained why it is difficult in my first post:

original sin has everything to do with it. Without original sin, christs sacrifice and resurrection our meaningless. But I had a further thought on this while falling asleep last night. The bible tells us god created man in his own image. They believed god was a PHYSICAL being like us, this thought continued up until probably about 1500 AD (many modern christians think god was in christs image, but that is not what they thought read on) when copernicus shoved god in the furthest reaches of space.
Earlier christians believed that our body is our holy spirit, and christs holy spirit was god. christ was god transfigurated. god made us in his own physical image. Now christians believe that “god” doesn’t have a “physical” image, that he manifested himself as christ. Christians at the time believed that our body (spirit) would be resurrected. clearly you can see that if the apostle paul were resurrected in the same manner as christ his flesh would be gone. When we die, our physical bodies are gone, this is a commonly accepted modern christian thought, many christians practice cremation, becuase they realize how ludicrous it is that our bodies our gonna rise out of the mud, zombie style and be re-envigorated.

The very concept of christianity and religion has changed. We no longer hold on to the ideal that god is a physical being, yet many of us still think that we came from a non-physical being made in his own image. The very concept is contradictory, and without special creation and original sin, the concept of christs sacrifice for original sin to save us is null and void.

another thought on this is that through creation we come from a higher form of life, in fact our very existence is a de-evolution from god. evolution explains it in reverse, we are becoming more complex as time goes on.

Why then is the population growing? Doesn’t it make sense that as more souls make it to nirvana and out of “hell” that the population of “hell” would decrease if only populated by “recycled souls”? And why would souls begin life in hell? Why would we want to reconnect with a god who lets everyone suffer in “hell” before we have done anything wrong? Regardless, that idea sounds a lot like something from a Buddhism-in-a-nutshell website with a few modifications made to it.

well it’d be more like buddha-christ. But I don’t even believe that I was just stating it as an idea to bob’s statement that hell is away from god. as for the souls? who the hell knows, we can’t even prove we have a soul, so why try to postulate where new souls come from.

If I really felt like continuing with that belief (which would be akin to future man and his omni soul belief) I would say that the universe has an infinite amount of souls, with an infinite amount of worlds to use those souls.

but that’s no different than you believing that a man-god came to save you.

[Uccisore]

If you REALLY want me to I’ll pull up scriptures that contradict that, then you’ll pull up more scriptures that contradict that, so on to infinity.

Do you think that's a little dirty pool? You make a claim about Christianity, I show you [i]specifically why it's false[/i], and your response is 'Sure, I [i]could[/i] defeat your argument if I [i]wanted[/i] to...but then it'd just go on forever, so let's assume the issue is insoluable!' 

The issue isn’t insoluable- The Scriptures indicate that people who never met Jesus, and who never read the Bible will go to heaven in mass numbers. You claimed the opposite, and therefore you’re incorrect.

Or did you? Paul didn’t admit any minor characters of the bible to “heaven” just a few major and minor prophets. Is that really that inconcievable that Paul would write about characters he was taught about his whole life?

Even so, some of the passages I quoted were from Revelation, which describe 'great multitudes' from 'every nation' being among the saints. John wrote Revelation and not Paul, and what he's describing is an alleged vision from God, not a personal commentary of his.  Also, in what way is Paul talking about early Jewish leaders anyway? He's talking specifically about the [i]Gentiles[/i] (i.e., non-Jews), and how they may attain the grace of God without ever having been exposed to the Law. How on earth did you to interpret that to be about the major and minor prophets, who were most certainly [i]not[/i] Gentiles, and most certainly [i]were[/i] exposed to the law?

I thought you were still busy watching YOGHI!

Nono, Uccisorebot #1303 is watching YOGHI. This is Uccisorebot #1353 that you’re talking to.

[Future_Man]

he doesn’t need to be our creator, because the universe runs fine without him.

let me tell you waht you meant to say: he doesnt need to be our janitor/constant maintainer because the place runs fine without him.

he does need to be our creator because the universe was created. (and i assume it wasnt an accident)

that’s very true there is nothing in the universe that suggests perfect creation, now your catching on.

catching on to what? did i stumble into another christian-specific thread that only addresses the stupid things in the christian bible? or are you saying that an imperfect machine is evidence against any intelligent creation?

are you just ranting about something that has NOTHING to do with what I said there.

you implied that if gods mission requires that he do things that humans dont like, then he is a god who you refuse to worship/acknowledge.

the fact remains that he/nothing causes bad things to happen. you either accept that your mission (the golden rule) is still the same in spite of your little hardships, or you give it up because “waaa lifes not fair to me so im gonna make it not fair for others too”. if you are the latter, i will murder you in jesus’ name.

but your omni-soul re-harmonizing ideas, are … to bizarre for words.

thats great i love how everybody thinks its wrong and absolutely nobody knows why. ill try to use words that dont bulge your eyes out.

and actually, your hell on earth idea is a lot like mine. before the omnisoul stepped into the reharmonizing machine (the universe), you could say that whatever was going on is analogous to heaven. apparently omnisouls cant stay too long in heaven without de-harmonizing, and thats why we are here in this non-heaven, working towards re-harmonizing so that we may return to heaven. one difference with my theory is that you dont go to “heaven” when you die (you might still be rewarded in some otehr way, like a cool reincarnation), you only go to heaven when the whole universe has re-harmonized.

[perpetual boners]…interesting example, but I don’t see how it proves your omni-soul or any god for that matter.

it proves how boring and pointless the universe would be if it werent for the presence of evil/the presence of potentially selfish decisions. nothing proves anything about god or non.

ok, but if evil flows from god, then god is = to satan. if god is satan the heaven is hell. If hell is heaven, then what does it matter what you do?

dude… give me a break. god the creator of the universe (who is friends with our omnisoul in the meta-universe, and who cant talk to us right now) god applied a harsh polishing agent to our omnisoul. it hurts, we dont like it for the time being, but it will result in a shiny goodness that was impossible without it.

heaven=hell is not a necesary consequent here.

as for no “evil” to compare good to? who says that he’d (or she?) would have to remove “all evil”, instead heshe could just limit our “evil” actions.

the good that needs to be accomplished is the unselfish decisions made only for the good of society. if the decisions are not selfless, then they are not indicative of a ‘polished’ omnisoul component (a ‘polished’/‘re-harmonized’ individual soul). if there are no possible selfish decisions, then the selfless decisions that are made are just not that impressive.

if you are able to make decisions that help society, and you cannot make decisions that hurt society and help yourself, then you are not a part of a machine designed to teach you to not be selfish. my theory assumes that we are, therefore my theory requires the potential selfish decision to be a viable possibility for all students/omnisoul components/souls.

most people who do “evil” are in fact acting in what they think is the best course of action… Hitler wasn’t evil… extremely misguided. Manson… he was evil. Ted Bundy? evil.

this is totally backwards. manson and bundy had diseases. hitler was trying to manipulate his masses by pandering to their stupid beliefs, and maybe he thought he was kind of right, hes a bad example.

manson and bundy were not trying to selfishly gain something, unless manson thought the best way to get laid was by making his cult as crazy as possible. george bush, on the other hand, purposely withholds the truth behind many many of his policies because he is selfishly trying to gain something.

he is evil. a retard who thinks hammers in your head feel good because his brain is broken is not evil.

I’ll just leave you to thoughtlessly bash christianity. All my arguments are at the very least well thought out.

all you do is take the same old hackneyed arguments that ive already tried to use against them, and then you try to use them to describe all theories!

so anyway, if anybody is still talking about the title of this thread, we are not models of god, each of us is one separate component of one user of the machine designed to teach our meta-right hand to work in concert with our left (the universe, with its golden rule mission as an essential property). the creator of the machine is not neccesarily anything like our omnisoul, but theres no reason to say that he is not, or that our omnisoul is not the one who created the machine. but basically, we are the individual pieces of a whole that we would not recognize, and therefore are not ‘models’ of god. but we are essentially connected to a greater being, and that guy is not neccesarily the creator of this thing.

@wdmc

No, that all is the result of a little somebody called Satan, and ultimately Job is blessed by God.

what exactly do christians say about evil? that satan was just a regular dude and he suddenly decided he was going to dedicate his eternal life to pissing off god and his friends? or that he is an abstract manifestation of the part of the machine that is required for its function but a part that humans would characterize as ‘evil’?
if its former: bow your head in shame, medieval peasant
latter: you are one with the omnisoul

[She (She (now Ichthus77))]

Uccisore –

The scriptures you posted are not saying that non-believers will go to heaven…

This:

“…I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 8:10-11.

is just saying that not only Jews will go to heaven – it is talking about “gentiles” – who have faith.

“Indeed, when Gentiles who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness,” (Romans 2:14)

having a moral sense of “the law” does not automatically mean accepting grace from God… being judged (see earlier in the chapter) does not mean going to heaven…

Here:

And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.(Rev. 5:9)

talking about gentiles who believe “Christ died for their sins.”

and here:

After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; (Rev. 7:9)

Again, talking about converted gentiles.

I am no longer a Christian, I don’t think Jesus is the Son of God, the sacrificial Lamb who shed His blood to pay the price for my sins… I don’t agree w/ all 10 Commandments, and the ones I do agree w/ – the agreement is not due to them being handed down by God, because I don’t believe that happened.

I think “blessed is he who believes but does not see” is bullshit.

And I think you agree w/ all of what I just said. I don’t think you’re a Christian. I think you are someone who just takes on positions just for the sake of debate.

You should know you are misrepresenting your chosen position.
[/quote]

[scythekain]

thank you for that she.

he does need to be our creator because the universe was created.

the universe was created? where’s your time machine to prove that? I say you have no proof thus your statement is invalid and illogical.

I also say that Quantum Theory shows (as I’ve said before) that not every effect needs a knowable cause.

the fact remains that he/nothing causes bad things to happen. you either accept that your mission (the golden rule) is still the same in spite of your little hardships, or you give it up because “waaa lifes not fair to me so im gonna make it not fair for others too”. if you are the latter, i will murder you in jesus’ name.

your not a very good follower of your made up religion if your already considering murder. And I don’t see how someone randomly stating their opinion on a message board could drive you to such a statement. DUDE we are all stating our opinions here, with a blending of some facts. even if they are facts you don’t have to accept them, a majority of christians consider evolution opinion and not fact.

continue such an attitude and you’ll end up like white lotus.

and actually, your hell on earth idea is a lot like mine. before the omnisoul stepped into the reharmonizing machine

what’s the difference between your belief in god - universe and a christians? the christians base their belief on the bible, you base your belief on pure opinion. The christians can at least claim some historicity to their belief what can you claim for your omnisoul belief? How can you even start to rationally prove such an idea?

Do you think that’s a little dirty pool? You make a claim about Christianity,

No I think that i don’t want to play your game. You’ve read the bible, and as she quoted there are many scriptures that counter what you posted.

Nono, Uccisorebot #1303 is watching YOGHI. This is Uccisorebot #1353 that you’re talking to.

ah thanks for straightening that out.

this is scythekain #42

[Future_Man]

the universe was created? where’s your time machine to prove that? I say you have no proof thus your statement is invalid and illogical.

I also say that Quantum Theory shows (as I’ve said before) that not every effect needs a knowable cause.

do you know that all of the things quantum theory describes are bathed in a huge, indescribably complicated sea of zero point field photons flashing around with apparently no rhyme or reason, in and out of existence like you are probably refering to. we know nothing about the zpf.

quantum mechanics is so far away from being sure about any ‘facts’ other than how to predict experiments and what to call the different effects they find.

what exactly are you refering to, i know a decent amount about it.

what’s the difference between your belief in god - universe and a christians? the christians base their belief on the bible, you base your belief on pure opinion.

the bible contradicts itself all over the place as was evidenced not one monitor width away from here, or somewhere.

my logical theory is completely consistent. nobody has said why its not, and you definetely cant say it compares to contradictianity

The christians can at least claim some historicity

yeah history to be proud of

[scythekain]

@Future Man

do you know that all of the things quantum theory describes are bathed in a huge, indescribably complicated sea of zero point field photons flashing around with apparently no rhyme or reason, in and out of existence like you are probably refering to. we know nothing about the zpf.

it also describes parrallel worlds, which we also know nothing about. But it’s imminently more proveable than any theory about god.

the bible contradicts itself all over the place as was evidenced not one monitor width away from here, or somewhere.

my logical theory is completely consistent. nobody has said why its not, and you definetely cant say it compares to contradictianity

it looks like nihilistic has explained to you repeatedly why your omnisoul theory is flawed.

The christians can at least claim some historicity

yeah history to be proud of

some of it is, some of it isn’t, the same can be said of any group, especially our country the USA. At least it has that history.

[Future_Man]

some of it is, some of it isn’t, the same can be said of any group

i know for a fact that there is not one quaker who was famous (and probably none at all) who were worthy of the hatred i would freely pour upon at least like 5 popes and almost all presidents. and there are definetely no bad omnisoulists. guess what, it is possible to actually be a good person. you wouldnt guess that from reading much history, but trust me.

[quantum mechanics] also describes parrallel worlds, which we also know nothing about. But it’s imminently more proveable than any theory about god.

you dont understand QM. it doesnt describe or prove anything except how particles interact with particles.

it will say “ok lets say one proton weighs 1 ‘weight-thing’. when 1 weight-things worth of pressure is exerted on an electron, the electron moves 1 inch. therefore the electron weighs .003 weight-things.”

do you see how that doesnt actually explain anything? it doesnt explain why a proton weighs what it does, it just explains how other things are in relation to an agreed upon standard. its very useful for manipulating the mystery pieces, but not at all enlightening as to what the mystery pieces are. why does + love -? nobody knows, or ever will at this pace.

besides just because particles or anti-particles pop out of nowhere, that absolutely has nothing to do with the creation of the universe. all it means is that the universe does a thing that does not supply us with a visible cause. forget that we cant even tell whether or not there is a cause out there and most likely never will be able to, the fact that one little particle of which we have no understanding can pop out of “nothing” does not mean that a whole universe and all its rules and complexity can similarly pop out of nothing.

those two things are unrelated. this is why i want to know exactly what you are refering to.

it looks like nihilistic has explained to you repeatedly why your omnisoul theory is flawed.

all he has explained is that jesus’ exact, thrice translated description is not a very efficient way to live. and i agree with him. that is not the same as saying that the whole idea is flawed and the fact that you arent pointing out why its flawed means that you have no reason for thinking it does.
[/quote]

[scythekain]

I’m only going to respond to the quantum portion because if you really think the multi-verse theory isn’t related to quantum mechanics than you know less than I do about quantum mechanics and like I said before my knowledge of it is extremely limited.

@wikipedia

Many-worlds interpretation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The many-worlds interpretation (or MWI) is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, based on Hugh Everett’s relative-state formulation. The phrase “many worlds” is due to Bryce DeWitt, who wrote more on the topic of Everett’s original work, and this particular version has become so popular that many confuse it with Everett’s own work.

[Future_Man]

yeah sure the multiverse theory is a ‘part’ of QM in that a scientist affiliated with QM put forward the ‘theory’. QM has nothing to do with the cause of the universe.

there is no theory. the multi-worlds “theory” is a zany, off the wall attempt to explain how something ‘random’ can happen in a place where randomness and rule-defying are completely unexpected.

it “states” that every time any interaction happens, there is one universe per possibility. whenever an electron is faced with the ‘choice’ of randomly selecting one of many alternatives, the only reason why it chooses the one that we observe is because we happen to be in the only universe where that is the decision that was made. why is it like that Hugh? yeah i dont think he knows.

according to this theory, there is a universe ‘nearby’ where one electron in front of me here aimed .00000000000000000000000000001 radians to the left. the only reason why this theory was ever vomited out of the back of somebodys brain is because they had no idea why the electron would go here instead of there.

this is not an explanation of how things are created. there is no explanation of how a universe can be created. this is an essential property of the omnisoul universe, but it is an essential contradiction of all scientific ideas.

you cannot explain the cause of the universe by using science. you cannot answer the question “why does everything that we will ever see exist” by looking at all the things you see. the nature of the question prevents the answer from coming from the things that we see because when we make a new discovery, we will [i]always [/i] have to ask “oh ok so why is that there… oh ok so why is that there… oh ok…” FOREVER.

if you think youve found the last cause in that infinite chain of cuases, please very specifically explain what it is. so far you have not even refered to its name.

[Uccisore]

She-

is just saying that not only Jews will go to heaven – it is talking about “gentiles” – who have faith.

 The issue here is that when those verses were written, there was no dogmatic Christianity to [i]believe[/i] in, the message of Jesus was expected to be the next phase of Judaism. Revelation underlines this situation nicely- if you take the view that the disciples thought Jesus would return in their lifetimes, then certainly the idea of their being converted Gentiles, in great multitudes, in every nation of the Earth would have made no sense at all. If on the other hand, you take Revelation to be a discription of a distant time, unlike 1st Century AD, then certainly the expectation Jesus' followers was that the terms "Gentile" and "Non-Christian" would be equivalent. Your interpretations make the most sense in hindsight- where we see Judaism and Christianity as two distinct religions, with one never overtaking the other, but I don't think any of the New Testament writers saw it that way. 

I think you are someone who just takes on positions just for the sake of debate.

I have done that from time to time, especially in situations where I don’t know much about an issue, and am trying to draw out both sides to see what they look like. My Christianity, however, is not one of those situations.

[She (She (now Ichthus77))]

Uccisore,

Yes, Christianity was seen (by followers of Jesus) as the next phase in Judaism – that Jesus was the Messiah of OT prophecy. Those verses you posted are talking about believers, those who have faith – not non-believers… that is the issue here. By gentile, I meant non-Jew (the race, not the religion)… Paul was saying God wants everyone, not just Jews… in other words… no longer tribal… but global… those who /believe/, however… which was part of the point – the tribal thang was for those of the tribe who /believe/… being Jewish did not guarantee automatic entry.

Ok, so I will interact w/ you as if you were actually a Christian…

I don’t really have any motivation to stay in a religious discussion.