A
Alerith
Guest
Arkangel said:
Well, we wont know till we get there eh?
The Rapture
- Thread starter DodgeRoadRage
- Start date
-
- Tags
- rapture
Well, we wont know till we get there eh?
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2005
- Messages
- 369
- Age
- 43
- Location
- TEXAS YA'LL
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
- Linkshell
- AvengingAngelz
- FFXI
- Arkangel
- FFXIV
- Jonlee Arkangel
Arkangel said:
the scene when Neo talks to the creator of the matrix is a good example of trying to comprehend all the possible futurs
A
Alerith
Guest
Methinks god can see ahead, but with about as much clarity as the bible.
Stuff like "The great nation will be attacked by its rival" or something like that.
Nothing specific, because human nature can be unpredictable.
But he could easily say, there will be a great war in <insert year here>.
I think he has a "loose" vision so to speak.
Stuff like "The great nation will be attacked by its rival" or something like that.
Nothing specific, because human nature can be unpredictable.
But he could easily say, there will be a great war in <insert year here>.
I think he has a "loose" vision so to speak.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- New York
- Nation Banner
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
Are you serious? This is your god youre talking about, sees all knows all.. that guy? Now you want to say that evil exists because god has myopic vision and didnt see it coming? How about after the fact when he couldnt help but see it and chose not to eradicate it but inflict it upon humanity instead in the form of hell? Or did satan create hell. I didnt know satan was a creator in biblical mythos.
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2005
- Messages
- 369
- Age
- 43
- Location
- TEXAS YA'LL
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
- Linkshell
- AvengingAngelz
- FFXI
- Arkangel
- FFXIV
- Jonlee Arkangel
OK GOD doesn't not believe in waste, he tends to not dispose of anything he createdOrchid said:
Judeo-Christian thinkers would do well to study the Greek conception of a supreme being. Not the pantheism of early greeks, but the metaphysical discussion contained in Plato and Aristotle:
Aristotle in Metaphysics 12 describes a prime mover, a force by which all other objects in the universe get their motion and existence.
Thus, God would have willed everything into existence.
Note that this would not have happened at the beginning of time; the conception asserts that God existed outside of time, which is NOT before time (although it is a convenient way for us who DO see time linearly to think about it).
Thus, God willed (and continues to will, and will "will") all of existence into being and maintains its being by his will.
Many people overlook the main focus of God being able to see all of time. It has to do with free will. God willed an existence wherein humankind has free will. Yet God is willing the existence. If we assume that there is any sort of motivatedness to a creator (whose image we are created in, after all), then God must be willing a world where free will would provide a positive result.
Many people will claim that this means we have NO free will. This is the reaction of a person who has spent no time in thought on the matter. The first thing that must be concluded is that free will naturally will yield a world and a human culture that is pleasing to God. This doesn't mean we don't have free will; it means that free will is going to be worth something in a state of existence governed by a God that is founded on love and goodness.
I think that's the major implication of God being all-seeing. It isn't that God has a loose vision; God sees everything because God made everything in a total piece.
This is antithetical to the idea of a rapture as it is commonly held. The world will not continue to exist beyond the end of time, in that it is God that wills its existence. If God removes God's will from the existence of the world, there is nothing.
That said, we don't have to fear for an "end" to existence; why should God create a penalizing rush of hellfire and brimstone?
Campy though it is, I buy into The Fifth Element's pop philosophy of "Evil begets evil." A loving, kind, and fundamentally good God would not punish people, even for their own evils. The greatest evil (and this idea, too, has much play in Platonic philosophy), then, would be to be separated from the good. If God is good, then hell (the state of evil) is simply not believing in God.
That said, I hardly think that the Judeo-Christian conception of God is an exclusive one. Why should a Christian believe that a person whose vision of God has a bone in its nose is doomed to a hell created by an elderly man with flowing white hair, robes and beard?
Thus, hell would be (I believe) a state of separation from fundamental goodness in the world. If your personal beliefs let you see that, then your free will is probably letting you in on the best that the metaphysical has to offer. That said, examining your beliefs and talking about them with others can often lead to a very rewarding and satisfying bond with your own faith, whatever it might be.
That's a bit of why I'm going to Divinity school next year.
(another bit is that I'll get the title: "Master of Divinities" after my name for the rest of my life) ;P
Aristotle in Metaphysics 12 describes a prime mover, a force by which all other objects in the universe get their motion and existence.
Thus, God would have willed everything into existence.
Note that this would not have happened at the beginning of time; the conception asserts that God existed outside of time, which is NOT before time (although it is a convenient way for us who DO see time linearly to think about it).
Thus, God willed (and continues to will, and will "will") all of existence into being and maintains its being by his will.
Many people overlook the main focus of God being able to see all of time. It has to do with free will. God willed an existence wherein humankind has free will. Yet God is willing the existence. If we assume that there is any sort of motivatedness to a creator (whose image we are created in, after all), then God must be willing a world where free will would provide a positive result.
Many people will claim that this means we have NO free will. This is the reaction of a person who has spent no time in thought on the matter. The first thing that must be concluded is that free will naturally will yield a world and a human culture that is pleasing to God. This doesn't mean we don't have free will; it means that free will is going to be worth something in a state of existence governed by a God that is founded on love and goodness.
I think that's the major implication of God being all-seeing. It isn't that God has a loose vision; God sees everything because God made everything in a total piece.
This is antithetical to the idea of a rapture as it is commonly held. The world will not continue to exist beyond the end of time, in that it is God that wills its existence. If God removes God's will from the existence of the world, there is nothing.
That said, we don't have to fear for an "end" to existence; why should God create a penalizing rush of hellfire and brimstone?
Campy though it is, I buy into The Fifth Element's pop philosophy of "Evil begets evil." A loving, kind, and fundamentally good God would not punish people, even for their own evils. The greatest evil (and this idea, too, has much play in Platonic philosophy), then, would be to be separated from the good. If God is good, then hell (the state of evil) is simply not believing in God.
That said, I hardly think that the Judeo-Christian conception of God is an exclusive one. Why should a Christian believe that a person whose vision of God has a bone in its nose is doomed to a hell created by an elderly man with flowing white hair, robes and beard?
Thus, hell would be (I believe) a state of separation from fundamental goodness in the world. If your personal beliefs let you see that, then your free will is probably letting you in on the best that the metaphysical has to offer. That said, examining your beliefs and talking about them with others can often lead to a very rewarding and satisfying bond with your own faith, whatever it might be.
That's a bit of why I'm going to Divinity school next year.
(another bit is that I'll get the title: "Master of Divinities" after my name for the rest of my life) ;P
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2005
- Messages
- 983
Arkangel, give it up dude - Orchid enjoys being a cynical bitch over the internet. It's how she gets her rocks off - by trashing people she views as intellectually inferior. Orchid is a creature who does not subscribe to the notions she champions, or the standards she holds everyone else to. Save your time by telling her to shut her fucking mouth, and leave it at that - do you really care what she thinks?
Dodge - I can't seem to find the original thread so I don't know why this thread is necessary. If Orchid was running her stupid bitch mouth about religion again then I can understand your frustration. If you merely disagree with her and this is an opinion post, maybe keep it to general discussion where it will invite only intellectual consideration and not closed-minded bashing.
Dodge - I can't seem to find the original thread so I don't know why this thread is necessary. If Orchid was running her stupid bitch mouth about religion again then I can understand your frustration. If you merely disagree with her and this is an opinion post, maybe keep it to general discussion where it will invite only intellectual consideration and not closed-minded bashing.
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2004
- Messages
- 700
- Linkshell
- Gone
No longer posts.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2004
- Messages
- 700
- Linkshell
- Gone
No longer posts.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- New York
- Nation Banner
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
DodgeRoadRage said:
just so everyone knows I have raivyn on ignore so I wont be responding to his posts. He doesnt argue or think, he just swears and insults.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- New York
- Nation Banner
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
Valoran I loved your post, it was well thought out and argued... but.
"Free will" is not a concept I understand, much like "blind faith." When you talk about free will what are you referring to? The ability to make choices? God's allowance of free will in christianity refers mainly to address a lack of physical or metaphysical divine presence in the world. His absence, the lack of an inborn knowledge of or belief in god, and the preponderance of religions make it necessary for a christian belief structure to conceptualize the reason for his absence. Yet still christianity attempts to include predestination with revelations, prophecy, and the vagaries of the OT. So here we have both freedom and predestination in the same structure warring against itself. The solution of course is to say that god gives you the choice, he just knows how itll turn out... which makes no sense. If there is actually flexibility of choice, and not predetermination, then its not possible to see to the end of a series of events. Temperal causality aside, god can end the game and go home whenever he likes but a tapestry of existence that was created whole isnt going to change into the mona lisa because the threads have the choice to move, any more than I have the free will to resist gravity, entropy, or pressure.
In this situation we have predestination and the illusion of free will. However..
lets look at actual free will.
In free will god makes a tapestry, it has a beginning and an end and the threads move as they choose. the picture is random, chaotic. God wants the tapestry to end up showing a small yellow daisy on a green field. Unfortunately the fabric itself having free will doesnt comply, colors and shadows and textures fleet across it over time and god starts cutting out any threads that dont appear to be shifting in the right direction. God starts making barriers so that threads that might move against his plan cant, and he cuts them short or picks them out when necessary. Some of the threads, scared of exercizing their free will become limp. They do what god wants out of fear, and he soothes them saying hes not going to pluck them, and that if he does they had it coming, possibly for what the same thread in that row did 14 stitches ago when the thread was a different piece of string entirely. Anyway, to make a long analogy short.. god threatens the tapestry into submission and he gets a very strained and ill tempered tapestry of both willing and unwilling threads and if it doesnt look good enough to hang on his wall hes going to burn it. His creation, a multitude of sentient free willed threads in bondage to the framework he's created. And if its not how he could have made it in the beginning without free will, hes going to set it on fire.
I see the second one.. choice where choice leads to destruction.. but thats not free will either. If it were free, it wouldnt be a tapestry at all, but merely the potential to become a tapestry, and the threads would eventually make something new, and god would be suprised at what they came up with.
The christian god would probably burn it anyway.
"Free will" is not a concept I understand, much like "blind faith." When you talk about free will what are you referring to? The ability to make choices? God's allowance of free will in christianity refers mainly to address a lack of physical or metaphysical divine presence in the world. His absence, the lack of an inborn knowledge of or belief in god, and the preponderance of religions make it necessary for a christian belief structure to conceptualize the reason for his absence. Yet still christianity attempts to include predestination with revelations, prophecy, and the vagaries of the OT. So here we have both freedom and predestination in the same structure warring against itself. The solution of course is to say that god gives you the choice, he just knows how itll turn out... which makes no sense. If there is actually flexibility of choice, and not predetermination, then its not possible to see to the end of a series of events. Temperal causality aside, god can end the game and go home whenever he likes but a tapestry of existence that was created whole isnt going to change into the mona lisa because the threads have the choice to move, any more than I have the free will to resist gravity, entropy, or pressure.
In this situation we have predestination and the illusion of free will. However..
lets look at actual free will.
In free will god makes a tapestry, it has a beginning and an end and the threads move as they choose. the picture is random, chaotic. God wants the tapestry to end up showing a small yellow daisy on a green field. Unfortunately the fabric itself having free will doesnt comply, colors and shadows and textures fleet across it over time and god starts cutting out any threads that dont appear to be shifting in the right direction. God starts making barriers so that threads that might move against his plan cant, and he cuts them short or picks them out when necessary. Some of the threads, scared of exercizing their free will become limp. They do what god wants out of fear, and he soothes them saying hes not going to pluck them, and that if he does they had it coming, possibly for what the same thread in that row did 14 stitches ago when the thread was a different piece of string entirely. Anyway, to make a long analogy short.. god threatens the tapestry into submission and he gets a very strained and ill tempered tapestry of both willing and unwilling threads and if it doesnt look good enough to hang on his wall hes going to burn it. His creation, a multitude of sentient free willed threads in bondage to the framework he's created. And if its not how he could have made it in the beginning without free will, hes going to set it on fire.
I see the second one.. choice where choice leads to destruction.. but thats not free will either. If it were free, it wouldnt be a tapestry at all, but merely the potential to become a tapestry, and the threads would eventually make something new, and god would be suprised at what they came up with.
The christian god would probably burn it anyway.
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2005
- Messages
- 983
Orchid said:
attention whore say what? No one cares what beef you and I have, but hey you're not going to read this.
FYI the real reason I'm on her ignore list is she couldn't handle me telling her to shut her trap on blue gartr :eyeroll:
A
Alerith
Guest
God loves you Orchid. Wheter you believe it or not.
You have this vision of some angry wrathful god. But if that were the case, we would be long gone by now.
The flood was because the world needed to be "re-done".
Lets try your tapestry for example.
The tapestry exists. And instead of a yellow daisy, the image shown is a dead tree, with only three or four yellow strands. That is not something you want. So you wipe the slate, saving the good threads for the next weaving attempt.
If god did not do such a thing, the world would have been a devestating place. Famine, Disease, etc.
Its like a good research paper for english class, you keep editing and rewriting until you have it as close to perfect as you can make it.
You have this vision of some angry wrathful god. But if that were the case, we would be long gone by now.
The flood was because the world needed to be "re-done".
Lets try your tapestry for example.
The tapestry exists. And instead of a yellow daisy, the image shown is a dead tree, with only three or four yellow strands. That is not something you want. So you wipe the slate, saving the good threads for the next weaving attempt.
If god did not do such a thing, the world would have been a devestating place. Famine, Disease, etc.
Its like a good research paper for english class, you keep editing and rewriting until you have it as close to perfect as you can make it.
You know, the majority of this thread is why I stopped being a practicing Christian. You all are far to preoccupied with god, death and the end of the world. Christianity in general deals with death (Jesus died on the cross for our sins, The end of the world is coming, If you don't take Jesus into your hearts then you go to hell and die some more). So much talk of death and afterlife it makes me tired of it.
In my opinion, I don't care if there is an afterlife and what it is, I don't care if the end of the world is coming, it doesn't matter to me. What's important is that I live my life to the fullest, live every moment as if it were my last (cliche I know, I apologize for that). This world as so much to offer in the form of knowladge and adventure, it's more important then any supposed afterlife. I'm not gonna waste my life worring about death and the end of the world, that's a waste of valuable time. When I die, and if there is an afterlife, well then I hope the big cheese will understand, and if it doesn't, well that's their perogative, but I refuse to have regrets about it.
I do follow lots of Christian beliefs, but those are the ones that involve love of the neighbor, charity and compasion. Not any of the negative, because that to me is not important and not what religion is about. A rabbi once was qouted to say "It doesnt matter if there is an afterlife, the good life is here and now so enjoy" wise words, and words to live by.
Now since ya'll belive that the end of the world is coming, well I suppose I should be ready. Imma go buy some stuff to make smores, I might as well make some use of all this "fire and brimstone".
In my opinion, I don't care if there is an afterlife and what it is, I don't care if the end of the world is coming, it doesn't matter to me. What's important is that I live my life to the fullest, live every moment as if it were my last (cliche I know, I apologize for that). This world as so much to offer in the form of knowladge and adventure, it's more important then any supposed afterlife. I'm not gonna waste my life worring about death and the end of the world, that's a waste of valuable time. When I die, and if there is an afterlife, well then I hope the big cheese will understand, and if it doesn't, well that's their perogative, but I refuse to have regrets about it.
I do follow lots of Christian beliefs, but those are the ones that involve love of the neighbor, charity and compasion. Not any of the negative, because that to me is not important and not what religion is about. A rabbi once was qouted to say "It doesnt matter if there is an afterlife, the good life is here and now so enjoy" wise words, and words to live by.
Now since ya'll belive that the end of the world is coming, well I suppose I should be ready. Imma go buy some stuff to make smores, I might as well make some use of all this "fire and brimstone".
A
Alerith
Guest
Pelori said:
lol lol lol.
You sir, are why I still have some shred of hope for the human race. Sure, I believe the end is coming, but Im not going to waste my life worrying about it. As far as I know, it wont be in my lifetime. If it is? Well, Im trying to lead a good life.
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2005
- Messages
- 1,169
- Location
- New York
- Nation Banner
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
Pelori said:
Agreed, I only jump in and attack when people are using religion to justify what I consider injustices in an attempt to make them think more about their religion and their attitudes.
Bashing homosexuals, picketing funerals, terrorizing people into "good" behavior with threats of torture like the raptureites do... Christianity doesnt teach you to do that, god doesnt teach you to do that, you do it yourself. If there is an intelligent benevolent god (who actually cares about the bible at all) i'll assume hes going to think worse of you for justifying your hatred with something attributed to him, than he would if you were just honestly mean-spirited.