IF there is no heaven or Hell

Zerohero · Post by **Zerohero** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:33 pm

BrandonB wrote:"How can god" are you saying YOU know whats best?

Un justified deaths of millions by people who hated them or could have cared less about them sound pretty bad to me, so I can only imagine if there is a God that he might not like the fact of people killing people, his creations.

De Plano · Post by **De Plano** » Fri Apr 28, 2006 11:48 pm

Zerohero wrote:Un justified deaths of millions by people who hated them or could have cared less about them sound pretty bad to me, so I can only imagine if there is a God that he might not like the fact of people killing people, his creations.

You have read the Old Testament haven't you?

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:18 am

Zerohero wrote:Then all the people down through history that did evil got off free. I find that a little disturbing. I mean people who had slaves that treated them very badly, forcing the women into submission or Being like Hitler trying to kill of an entire race etc. Your telling me these people just die? They get off good. They will never have to endure the suffering that they inflicted on other beings. I find it very disturbing they get to rest in peace.

yes

no

maybe

who really gives a ****

it's late and i am tired............

mods please close this thread

or not

see ya

have a nice day

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:34 am

Zerohero wrote:Un justified deaths of millions by people who hated them or could have cared less about them sound pretty bad to me, so I can only imagine if there is a God that he might not like the fact of people killing people, his creations.

The idea is that God doesn't like it, and it isn't God's fault. Evil entered the world, and what you're speaking of is just that.

I understand what you mena, "how could this happen," but you've got to understand, God isn't the one to blame or question, it wasn't his fault. He gave adam and even the choice, and they messed up. What has happened in the past and present, and undoubtely the future, are simply a direct consequence of their actions.

For God to intervene and completely erase Sin would be going against the choice he gave the human race in the beggining. He doesn't force, and it's always our choice to believe or not.

David · Post by **David** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:44 am

If you are a proper theist, then you might view the occurances of the flesh as placement exam for when the mortal coil is shed.

Castaa · Post by **Castaa** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:55 am

Returning to the original poster's thought.

I think justice or revenge in an afterlife is quite an appealing notion to the religious. I would imagine this is very consoling when one is unable to right a perceived wrong.

If one doesn't believe in an afterlife then it only increases the desire to right a wrong or correct evil behaviors. There's no second chance.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:56 am

Joel wrote:The idea is that God doesn't like it, and it isn't God's fault. Evil entered the world, and what you're speaking of is just that.

I understand what you mena, "how could this happen," but you've got to understand, God isn't the one to blame or question, it wasn't his fault. He gave adam and even the choice, and they messed up. What has happened in the past and present, and undoubtely the future, are simply a direct consequence of their actions.

For God to intervene and completely erase Sin would be going against the choice he gave the human race in the beggining. He doesn't force, and it's always our choice to believe or not.

God let evil in, because god created evil.

Castaa · Post by **Castaa** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 12:59 am

Joel wrote:The idea is that God doesn't like it, and it isn't God's fault. Evil entered the world, and what you're speaking of is just that.

I understand what you mena, "how could this happen," but you've got to understand, God isn't the one to blame or question, it wasn't his fault. He gave adam and even the choice, and they messed up. What has happened in the past and present, and undoubtely the future, are simply a direct consequence of their actions.

For God to intervene and completely erase Sin would be going against the choice he gave the human race in the beggining. He doesn't force, and it's always our choice to believe or not.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

--Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:08 am

YARDofSTUF wrote:God let evil in, because god created evil.

If that's how you want to look at it, go ahead.

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

--Epicurus, ancient Greek philosopher

There would be no choice on our part if he were to "prevent evil".

The whole thing has been about choice. God doesn't want to use worship him because he made us. He wants us to worship him because we want to.

Fortunately he is both able and willing, however not forcing. To claim malovence is rediculous. Because God allows us to make our own choices does not mean He wants evil things to happen to us, it says in the Bible (remember, in order for God to be malevolent, he has to exist, so for all intensive purposes, let's say he does [I believe he does, as a side note]) that God weeps at our foolish choices, and always has a hand extended, but it's still, and always will be, our choice.

Zerohero · Post by **Zerohero** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 1:22 am

Joel wrote:If that's how you want to look at it, go ahead.

There would be no choice on our part if he were to "prevent evil".

The whole thing has been about choice. God doesn't want to use worship him because he made us. He wants us to worship him because we want to.

Fortunately he is both able and willing, however not forcing. To claim malovence is rediculous. Because God allows us to make our own choices does not mean He wants evil things to happen to us, it says in the Bible (remember, in order for God to be malevolent, he has to exist, so for all intensive purposes, let's say he does [I believe he does, as a side note]) that God weeps at our foolish choices, and always has a hand extended, but it's still, and always will be, our choice.

Hmm, thats probably the most remorsefull thing I've heard all day. It's really been bugging me lately on this subject so...

Castaa · Post by **Castaa** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 4:13 am

Joel wrote:If that's how you want to look at it, go ahead.

There would be no choice on our part if he were to "prevent evil".

The whole thing has been about choice. God doesn't want to use worship him because he made us. He wants us to worship him because we want to.

Fortunately he is both able and willing, however not forcing. To claim malovence is rediculous. Because God allows us to make our own choices does not mean He wants evil things to happen to us, it says in the Bible (remember, in order for God to be malevolent, he has to exist, so for all intensive purposes, let's say he does [I believe he does, as a side note]) that God weeps at our foolish choices, and always has a hand extended, but it's still, and always will be, our choice.

Three problems with that if you are assuming god is all-powerful and all-knowing.

One. How can anyone have a choice if a god knows all things. If a god created a person and were all-knowing, he'd then know the "choice" that was going to be made by that person. If he (a god) didn't know what choice would be made then he cannot be called all-knowing.

Second, if a god is all-powerful, then it seems obvious that the system you are describing is needless since a god could instantly create a scenario in any way he desires. Evil (or even lack of good) is not needed.

Third, the evil that occurs in our world is not caused by man alone. Disease, accidents, natural disasters all occur without any choice by anyone. Again, why were these scenarios ever created to begin with. Certainly god knew (god all-knowing) that evil would be caused by man. Why create more suffering and pain that man cannot effect? If a person were to do this, we would certainly label this as a great evil.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 7:37 am

Joel wrote:If that's how you want to look at it, go ahead.

There would be no choice on our part if he were to "prevent evil".

The whole thing has been about choice. God doesn't want to use worship him because he made us. He wants us to worship him because we want to.

Fortunately he is both able and willing, however not forcing. To claim malovence is rediculous. Because God allows us to make our own choices does not mean He wants evil things to happen to us, it says in the Bible (remember, in order for God to be malevolent, he has to exist, so for all intensive purposes, let's say he does [I believe he does, as a side note]) that God weeps at our foolish choices, and always has a hand extended, but it's still, and always will be, our choice.

Yet someone who chooses to accept god and lives based on the ideas of the bible and follows its rules and commandments absolutely is just as likely to get cancer, be murdered, wahtever, as anyone else. Then also you have children being taking at very young ages.

God created the world and everything in it, so if he did not create evil AND still gave us choice, we would choose to do things, but evil would not be one of our choices. We can only produce and create things that god has made possible for us. God chose to create evil just as mush as he chose to create humans or cows or flies, or anyhting else.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Sat Apr 29, 2006 9:52 pm

Since I returned to Judaism, I have learnt many things, but one article that probably explains it the best from a Jewish perspective is Rabbi Kaplan who btw was also a physicist as well

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philos ... re_God.asp

an excerpt

To even begin to understand this, we must delve into the very purpose of creation.

This purpose requires a creature responsible for its own actions. This in turn requires that people have free will.

If God would have wanted a race of puppets, then He would have created puppets. If He would have wanted robots, then He would have made robots. But this is not what God wanted. He wanted human beings, with free will, responsible for their actions.

I been questioning the same stuff you have for a very long time until now and one of the main reasons why i stopped believing in the hebrew bible and observing the Torah years ago.

westy · Post by **westy** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 12:28 am

There is a heaven and a hell.

All the sinners that your talking about here (and that is all of us) will one day have to stand before God, so no one is "getting off free", and eternity is a mighty long time !!!!!!!

I personally believe that God is our savior. There have been too many answered prayers in my life to ever deny that and I see him working in so many people and in so many ways.

I respect everyone's opinion and your right to an opinion.

In short, that is mine.

blebs · Post by **blebs** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 6:50 am

westy wrote:There is a heaven and a hell.

All the sinners that your talking about here (and that is all of us) will one day have to stand before God, so no one is "getting off free", and eternity is a mighty long time !!!!!!!

I personally believe that God is our savior. There have been too many answered prayers in my life to ever deny that and I see him working in so many people and in so many ways.

I respect everyone's opinion and your right to an opinion.

In short, that is mine.

Zerohero · Post by **Zerohero** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 7:08 am

Ghosthunter wrote:Since I returned to Judaism, I have learnt many things, but one article that probably explains it the best from a Jewish perspective is Rabbi Kaplan who btw was also a physicist as well

http://www.aish.com/spirituality/philos ... re_God.asp

an excerpt

I been questioning the same stuff you have for a very long time until now and one of the main reasons why i stopped believing in the hebrew bible and observing the Torah years ago.

Interesting, I'm going to have a look at that Torah.

Joel · Post by **Joel** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:33 am

Castaa wrote:Three problems with that if you are assuming god is all-powerful and all-knowing.

One. How can anyone have a choice if a god knows all things. If a god created a person and were all-knowing, he'd then know the "choice" that was going to be made by that person. If he (a god) didn't know what choice would be made then he cannot be called all-knowing.

Second, if a god is all-powerful, then it seems obvious that the system you are describing is needless since a god could instantly create a scenario in any way he desires. Evil (or even lack of good) is not needed.

Third, the evil that occurs in our world is not caused by man alone. Disease, accidents, natural disasters all occur without any choice by anyone. Again, why were these scenarios ever created to begin with. Certainly god knew (god all-knowing) that evil would be caused by man. Why create more suffering and pain that man cannot effect? If a person were to do this, we would certainly label this as a great evil.

YARDofSTUF wrote:Yet someone who chooses to accept god and lives based on the ideas of the bible and follows its rules and commandments absolutely is just as likely to get cancer, be murdered, wahtever, as anyone else. Then also you have children being taking at very young ages.

God created the world and everything in it, so if he did not create evil AND still gave us choice, we would choose to do things, but evil would not be one of our choices. We can only produce and create things that god has made possible for us. God chose to create evil just as mush as he chose to create humans or cows or flies, or anyhting else.

I don't need to defend myself or my opinion, and no matter what I say, you will find 'fault' in it. However, I will offer a bit more of my opinion, after which I will not return to this thread.

God didn't create evil. If you want to look at it like "God created the angel that turned on God," then go ahead]Castaa[/b], the "If God knows everything, then we are not making our own choices," thing is one of the oldest questions/debates in the book. Peronsally, it makes perfect sense to me that we are making our own decision, God simply knows what they will be. He didn't make the decisions for us - Like I said though, one of the oldest debates or whatever in the book, so I'm not going to start on it, but think about it from his point-of-view: God created intelligent, living, thinking creatures, and surely he wants us to use what he's given us. The fact that God put the tree into the garden in the beggining shows that God didn't want it to be "my way or the highway." He has always wanted us to worship him because we want to, and in order for that to work out, there has to be an another choice to choose from.

Also, the things you noted; disease, accidents, natural disasters, are all a direct result of what Adam and Eve did way back in the beggining. They ate from the tree, and they brought sin into the human race, and gave Satan control over this world. Simple as that.

Finally, God does things that I cannot explain, and as such I'm not going to be able to give you an explination as to why things are the way they are. You just have to trust God and the decisions he makes.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:48 am

Joel wrote:I don't need to defend myself or my opinion

You dont have to, I havent even expressed mine, I'm just working with the senarios that zerohero setup.

Ghosthunter · Post by **Ghosthunter** » Mon May 01, 2006 10:26 am

Zerohero wrote:Interesting, I'm going to have a look at that Torah.

Glad I can help out...someone once told me despite humans wanting to know all the answers the truth is if we did know all those answers we lose our free will and that is not a good thing.

Castaa · Post by **Castaa** » Tue May 02, 2006 7:57 pm

Joel wrote:I don't need to defend myself or my opinion, and no matter what I say, you will find 'fault' in it. However, I will offer a bit more of my opinion, after which I will not return to this thread.

God didn't create evil. If you want to look at it like "God created the angel that turned on God," then go ahead]Castaa[/b], the "If God knows everything, then we are not making our own choices," thing is one of the oldest questions/debates in the book. Peronsally, it makes perfect sense to me that we are making our own decision, God simply knows what they will be. He didn't make the decisions for us - Like I said though, one of the oldest debates or whatever in the book, so I'm not going to start on it, but think about it from his point-of-view: God created intelligent, living, thinking creatures, and surely he wants us to use what he's given us. The fact that God put the tree into the garden in the beggining shows that God didn't want it to be "my way or the highway." He has always wanted us to worship him because we want to, and in order for that to work out, there has to be an another choice to choose from.

Also, the things you noted; disease, accidents, natural disasters, are all a direct result of what Adam and Eve did way back in the beggining. They ate from the tree, and they brought sin into the human race, and gave Satan control over this world. Simple as that.

Finally, God does things that I cannot explain, and as such I'm not going to be able to give you an explination as to why things are the way they are. You just have to trust God and the decisions he makes.

I guess it's why you call it "faith". "I believe it because it makes me feel good and not because I can justify what I'm saying." Lovely.

"It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into." --Jonathan Swift

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Tue May 02, 2006 9:03 pm

It all boils down to two choices. Either you’re tolerant or you’re a prick. Isn’t this basically good or evil? Now if there truly no Heaven or Hell, then I'm sure there will be a lot of pricks all of a sudden.

In this case I hope I would be tolerant towards good and a prick towards evil. Piss me off and your dead, except you will not know it's coming. You know a lot like Iran and the nukes they are not going you get or build?

Now knowing that there is a heaven and a hell (it's called faith baby). I feel I am largely tolerant of everyone, including the pricks (I said largely).

Just because today’s flavor of the month pricks has designs on building nukes. I'm all for dumping a few dozen Tomahawks in their back yard.

Yes I know I'm an evil prick for wanting to do this. But for you folks that have to see some more Americans die in the US before we do that. I guess I will have to agree to let them bomb the US 1st. Wait wasn’t that called 911? And didn’t that happen already?

There are way to many sympatric Iran loving Americans out there. "Oh they're not gonna make nukes" What Yahoos, wow they will have to learn the hard way.

And they say we are “The great Satan”. Isn't Satan an “Arabic word” for adversary?

koldchillah · Post by **koldchillah** » Tue May 02, 2006 10:25 pm

Far-N-Wide wrote:Piss me off and your dead, except you will not know it's coming.

Are you saying that you have convinced yourself that you can never be wrong about that which angers you? Do you always trust the source of your anger and act upon it accordingly?

I've personally made plenty of mistakes in my life by acting out of anger. If I were still a Christian I'd probably have to recommend the book of Job to anyone who thinks as you "appear" to be thinking, however I apologize if I read your statement wrong.

Far-N-Wide · Post by **Far-N-Wide** » Wed May 03, 2006 1:22 pm

You do get the point thread, that there's no heaven or hell... right? Then my post applies. All bets would be off... It would be a dog eat dog world. And to me... Everyone else is wearing Milk Bone underwear.

Spammy · Post by **Spammy** » Wed May 03, 2006 3:37 pm

If you have quesyions about God and all that stuff I will be more then happy to talk to you through PM's or you can email me directly. There is a God, and there is a hell. I would think Prey would have stepped up. But maybe he is already burning

Prey521 · Post by **Prey521** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:08 pm

Spammy wrote:If you have quesyions about God and all that stuff I will be more then happy to talk to you through PM's or you can email me directly. There is a God, and there is a hell. I would think Prey would have stepped up. But maybe he is already burning

I don't need to step up LOL, some good dialogue going on here. No questions need answering that haven't been answered a million times lol

Spammy · Post by **Spammy** » Wed May 03, 2006 4:39 pm

Prey521 wrote:I don't need to step up LOL, some good dialogue going on here. No questions need answering that haven't been answered a million times lol

True, good point