Subject:
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Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Mon, 4 Dec 2000 00:35:43 GMT
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Viewed:
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1163 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Bill Farkas writes:
> > > He's not petty or vengeful. Substantiate *your* claim. He put's up with
> > > quite a lot. He's actually quite patient.
> >
> > I think what is generally meant when your God is called petty and vengeful is
> > a reference to the popular assertion that regardless of how good we act, if • we
> > fail to suck up to him, we go to hell. That's probably what Tom means. It's
> > certainly what I would mean if I were saying that.
> Assuming he created life, he makes the rules.
Why? Seriously.
Is the creation of an individual human life a reasonable analogy? Do you
advocate parents having the same rights over their children that you are
accepting of your God having over us?
> So, why is it an issue anyway? Warning: subjectively Biblical answer
> following! Speaking from a Biblical perspective only, God created life
> because He wanted to love it.
I think that creating life entails responsibility to that life. If we create
virtual people, it won't be 'good' to run virtual hell just for our amusement.
> He doesn't want that - He wants to "walk with us in the cool of the
> garden". So He institutes an excruciatingly simple remedy that anyone could
> apply making it possible for the two to be reunited.
And with all His powers, the only options he bothered to create for us is
heaven and hell for after we pass on? So your God is a "its my way or the
highway kind of god."
> God hates sin because it separates Him from the ones He loves period.
But he could have made it such that sin didn't separate us from him. Likewise
he could have built a universe where we had some evidence of His grace so that
basically everyone would want to walk in his bitchen garden.
> Those who do not accept His remedy spurn his affections.
Not me. I don't accept that remedy, and yet I don't spurn His affections. I
simply have no evidence that such affections exist. How could I accept a
remedy that I can't see, hear, feel, or believe?
> Remember, the assumption
> is that if He made the game, He makes the rules.
Fine. I can go along with that for the sake of this discussion. So if I make
a game with really dumb rules, that lasts forever, you'd be willing to play
happily? What if the next time you plated monopoly (a perfect example of a
really dumb game) you were told that there was another rule that you'd never
played with? Your fellow pulls a scrap of paper out from under the 500s that
says, if you donate all your money to free parking as soon as you get it, and
continue to do so for the entire game, you'll win big!
> God does not condemn a
> single person without it tearing His heart out. He does it in anguish, not
> gleefully.
First, why then does he do it? Second, how do you know? Third, if he hated it
so darn much, why doesn't he stop? After all, the best thing about bashing
your head against the wall is how good it feels when you stop.
> The one who is condemned is so by his own hand, God made an easy
> way out but it was rejected.
Not that easy. I don't believe that weapons in space make noise either. SF
movies bug me that way. I have a bad time suspending my disbelief. It is just
so with your God. Maybe it was easy for you, but not for me.
> Again, all of this is strictly a Biblical
> perspective in answer to the above questions.
I'm not really sure what that means. Do you mean that your answers are based
on Biblical passages?
> He is not unloving, mean, vengeful or petty when He condemns someone, they
are.
I see. So you don't see anything wrong with dropping your children into vats
of acid if they hate you?
> > Empahsized in my own terms:
> >
> > If I have to worship someone to avoid neverending torture, that someone is
> > evil. Period. If that is your God, then your God is the sum of evil.
> > Grace and Providence are myths. You worship the most evil force man could
> > imagine, and you are personally not just a coward for submitting, but evil
> > too for trying to get others to submit to such evil.
>
> I don't get your reasoning. How is He evil? Considering that His motivation
> is to be reunited with something that is rightfully His in the first place,
I suspect from your kneejerk assumption that many forms of disagreement are
whining, that you'll rail against this but... _I am not anyone's property_. I
see that I've broken from agreeing with your premises for this discussion, but
I just couldn't swallow that. Your God doesn't have a right to own me. If he
wants to be reunited with me, he could just drop me an email and we could talk
about it.
If he owns people he is evil. Regardless of his motivation.
> it is not evil. His motives are not self-centered, he seeks to avert evil on
> our behalf.
His motives are not self-centered? Then why does it not matter what I want and
only what he wants? Isn't that the definition of self-centered?
> Besides, this is a criticism that we Christians always endure. That we
> preach, "Repent or burn!" That's a distortion of the Gospel not found in the
> NT.
OK, so what happens to me if I opt not to repent?
> I didn't believe solely to avoid a negative. I accepted a positive. Big
> difference. The NT Gospel is "Repent and receive!"
If I don't receive, then what happens?
> God made life, He makes
> the rules. That's how it works here and no one finds fault.
I do.
Chris
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