Different conceptions of God

Free will is an illusion that arises when God constantly does what you want God to do without you knowing that God causes the desire to do something to arise within you before God does that thing with/for you.

To share God's wealth and perfection with others. To create others to watch and feel God.

As pointless as reading a good novel or watching a kick ass TV show. I mean, all you are doing is observing what God creates within other people's imaginations.

 

so..........

your free will-less christianity is intriguing, dude..... you ask anyone and they'll proudly claim to have free will, but do we really? i'm beginning to doubt that we do. it seems that a different pattern of behaviour cannot be expected from me which is not somehow connected to the immediate past.

but, regarding god?
why though, are we told: to love god (if god decides whether we shall love him or not), not to kill (if god ultimately guides our every action), not to lust, not to worship other gods, not to take our neighbour's donkey (hyuk), etc etc etc...

in fact, why the 10 commandments?
why the bible?

interestingly, there are quite a few spots in the bible that side with you, against free will: god hardens hearts right, left, and centre in exodus, doesn't he? 'god' is the author and finisher of faith in hebrews..

also,
it seems that after wiping the possibility of free will out of our lives,
btm is right: life is essentially pointless. we are god's living robots: he pushes our buttons and we walk around, fall down, screw up, fall in love, fall out of love... (& therefore our "fall in love" experiences are pretty damn meaningless!)

according to you, if i walked out my front door right now and murdered the next dood i saw, it would be o-k, because god made me do it.
without free will, any talk of moral right and wrong is meaningless.

 

You are on the right path- not that you could have been on the wrong one, but it is nice to see that you are farther along than some.

Well, sometimes God causes you to forget what you were doing and move on to something else that is not apparently connected to what you were just doing (except that it is part of what God does with/for you).

Commanding someone to love you who gives you a perfect life is pretty funny if you think about it.

No they aren't! Sorry, but that's a stupid perspective. You have to be taught God's sense of humor....

Well, if God really wanted you to go kill the next dude you saw, it is most likely that God would make you want to do it beforehand. God has probably given you a conscience that dictates against this, and God probably won't kill the next dude you see with you, then again God could put a person in the path of your truck.

 

so then, who is good, and who is evil? there is no difference.
hitler and ghandi are high-fiving in heaven right now.

i have a lot of questions... your philosophy is nowhere near complete in my mind. ha.. it all seems sort of dream-like to me; i can imagine that your experience of life is quite dream-like. this is also very much caused by my lack of understanding though.

so,
hell: if god causes you to have, or not-have, faith... how can "punish" you for your lack of faith?
heaven: likewise, how can we be rewarded?

of course, if heaven & hell are not rewards & punishments at all, but other 'rooms' of learning, you could escape that dilemma.

a stupid perspective! but kharakov, if you admit that god controls our actions, our minds, our entire lives (in fact, it begins to look as though we are essentially god, ourselves!), then one human loving another human is a love fashioned and destroyed by god alone. i do not love you; god loves you. am i wrong?

i would certainly love to ask god himself, and save myself some typing time...!
but when i ask out loud, i tend to wake up my flatmates or at least weird them out,
and what's worse - no one answers me!

hmm

 

why do you even 'like your god' then if you think you have no free will? it really doesnt make sense. what evidence do you have in your life that has made you believe there is no free will, or is it something you just came up with one day and thought it sounded good?

 

'God' is a word with three letters. 'God' can mean something a little different or a lot different to some 6 billion people. For me 'God' is the truth of everything, whatever everything is. As for us flesh and blood humans, when you think you know everything, it is a sure thing that you do not. For our immediate needs it is important for us to understand a small portion of God's everything. That portion is 'proper conduct' for us as humans to promote social harmony, so we don't kill each other out of existance. I would also like people to look at my reply to Kharakov's blame thread.

 

God is dreamy...

Lack of faith is lack of wisdom. Eventually you will have enough, but at some points in your life lack of wisdom can be painful, and the state of lack of wisdom is sometimes called hell.

Accumulate wisdom from God and the rewards become apparent.

No, we are souls that God has created within God's self to experience God.

Yes, you are wrong. I can love you and percieve you as a creature that percieves as I do. When I tell a joke to you that God has brought me, I can share the riches of God with you, because I know that what I have said is something they will understand. After all, we the creatures, are part of the riches of God.

Why do you ask out loud? God knows your inner thoughts and doesn't require an embarassing display. Anyway, don't expect the answer to come immediately, sometimes God brings you the answer through another person, sometimes God whispers the answer in your mind, but understand that God has God's own schedule, and will not tell you til the time is right.

God does answer you.

 

i dont really see how you yourself can accumulate wisdom when God puts every thought into your head. It didnt really answer the question of how we determine who is 'good' or 'bad' when God controls everyone's lives like a game of "The Sims" or something

 

Acumulated wisdom gives us better clarity in interpreting what goes on around us. Wisdom is like a lens for you mind, the more you have, the sharper you can see. Of course, being able to focus on the intricasies of reality requires great knowledge.

There are many theologians who have direct experience of God who cannot focus their mind upon evolution because they have not accumulated the wisdom necessary to focus their mind clearly upon it. Likewise, there are great scientists who have accumulated wisdom of genetics who cannot focus their minds upon God because they have not accumulated the necessary wisdom to see God clearly.

God gives us this wisdom to see the world clearly, and clearly it is appropriate for some of us to see different parts of the world than others do because God doesn't grant all of us the exact same wisdom at the same time. However, we can share the wisdom accumulated by our different experiences- the ones who clearly see God can teach those who clearly see the natural world (God's creation), and visa verca, until we all play our part (that God has set for us) in bringing eachother the gifts that God has gave us.

Wisdom sticks to what it is supposed to.

 

and who hast the gift of writing spinning going nowhere schmooz ? one who insists god is separate from the natural world . there is no wisdom in separation from god . none .

 

a good example of things being neither purely evil, nor purely good would be

a gun, evil? all by itself it can do no harm, the intent of the person is the
deciding factor, he can feed a family, or kill a family.

hurricane, bad? sure it kills people, causes tons of damage, but without
it, the world would lose its air conditioning.

Kali, hindi goddess, bad? Nope, she holds a sword and head in two of her
hands, and blessings in the others, she is birth and death, blessing and punishment, all in one.

Yahweh isnt pure good, read the OT.
Satan isnt all bad, he just got a bad rap from "goody two-shoe" up there.

your "god" isnt this perfect being in the clouds, he just wrote the book that way.

 

Can God be imperfect?

 

No He is PERFECT the BESt at everything

 

Yeah, didn't you know? God is the Ultimate Ego.

 

Aight little squirt, whatever you want to believe.

Welp... God can keep you going for hours at a time... to bad you dad doesn't know that.

 

"No He is PERFECT the BESt at everything"

no...i was asking, if there is a god, is it possible that he not be perfect?

 

According to Anselm's ontological arguement... no.

 

According to the Bible, God creates evil, gets angry, changes his mind, doesn't know things, and can't defeat an army with iron chariots.

 

You don't need scripture to know this. You just need to know God.

 

Sure its possible, gods, all of em, are like us in that regard.

Its seen in every mythology.