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cubedemon6073
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16 Apr 2022, 6:53 am

I've been told that God has a nature that he is bound to. God can't go against his own nature.

The nature of everything else comes from God including myself.

God has also given all a set of commandments, statutes and laws we're all expected to go by. To transgress is to disobey God and to sin means to transgress God.

Sin is simply to go against the rules, laws, commandments, statutes God has put into place.

But, what is God's nature exactly and where does this nature come from?

What gives God his nature? What makes God well God?

If God has no control over his nature and did not give himself his nature then God is bounded to his nature and this boundary came from somewhere not even God himself would know? Would there be anything that God didn't know that he didn't know? And, how would God even know that he didn't even know this?

If God has control over his nature and he himself gave himself a nature then claiming that something would violate his nature seems to push the problem back a step.

Skit I made up!

God: What you ask goes against my nature to do?

Me: Where does your nature come from?

God: Me! I am the alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. I define all there was, is and ever will be! I simply, I am!

Me! If you control your nature then how does what I ask go against your nature? Remember, you created me with Aspergers so I'm extremely confused especially with abstract language.

God: I'm God! I define nature! I am perfection. I define the essence of what you call logic. In fact, I am pure logic.
I define all.

Me: Huh??? God, it took me a lot of reverse engineering to understand that postivity and negativity was referring to emotional states and not Boolean logic and/or mathematics. I have no clue as to what you are saying. If I could barely grasp this do you think I would be able to be able to understand anything meaningful from your words in the Bible and what you're saying? Come on God! You created me. You should know.



kitesandtrainsandcats
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16 Apr 2022, 7:42 am

It looks to me like you are desiring a complexity which does not exist and are having trouble accepting simplicity.

God is self-existing & God's nature is self-existing and there is no why/because/cause. He simply, is. His nature simply, is.


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kitesandtrainsandcats
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16 Apr 2022, 8:02 am

Remember where the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said that he had kept all the commandments, what else did he need to do and Jesus said to sell/give all his material wealth to the poor; and the guy went away sad because he had great wealth?

It appears that God often asks or challenges people to do the thing which is hardest for them to do.

It could be that God is asking you to accept simplicity.


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aghogday
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16 Apr 2022, 9:53 am



"Simplicity of Evil,"

Burning Foes Forever;

It's TOO BAD, All Forgiving,
All Merciful, Loving JeSuS, Loving

Enemies the Same As "Lovers" Before,

Becomes A Villain By The End of His Story;

EVEN BY THE END OF 'MATTHEW,' CHANGING
ONCE LOYAL DO GOODING SHEEP INTO GOATS

AND BURNING THEM BURNING THEM FOREVER

AFTER THE BEATITUDES WERE SUNG IN THAT SAME MATTHEW

SONG; At Least, in the ReVisions of the Story that Exists...

It Happens... IN 'THAT
LAKE OF FIRE TOO;'

i've Even
Seen it Happen...

For Real... True, At Least 'Jesus' is Only Human... too...

For It's True, The Story Presents Evidence of Who Wrote It...

Text BOOK Psychology 101; Villain or Hero; All That Separates Good From Evil:

Love

OR
NOT
LOVE NOW
AND OR THEN.

LOVE NEVER REQUIRES
WORSHIP, NEVER FEARS
CRITICISM, AND NEVER DOES
THE EVIL OF BURNING AND TORTURING
ANY PART OF NATURE FOREVER IN SUFFERING;

Only A Horror Story Writer or Psychopathic Leaning Human

Could Possibly

Stoop

The Lowest

Ever ThiS Way...

By iLLuSoRY Story at least...

God Became Love, Then Most Evil Sin EVER
in Doing WORST Evil By The End of New Testament
Witness, And the End of the Revelation of Who God Became;

Thank God OF
LOVE FOR REAL;

It'S Only A Story...

Or Made into A TV
Series or Movie or Whatever
STill in 'Churches' That Spread This

Evil Ending Story...

Yes, It's as Simple

As Stories With Real Evil Endings...

At Least For Folks Who BeLieVE iN A

Real ALL Loving, Forgiving, All Merciful God That
Actually Does What God Breathes; It is Fair Enough

To At Least

Let ITS
Creations
Go Away Without
Suffering Any More; Yep, the Blessing

Of Death And Birth That Put All
On An Equal Footing For Real,

For Even Stars Burn Away
And Resurrect From Dust Again...

Now That's A Hopeful Story FOR REAL,
i FOR ONE Will Continue to BREaTHE NoW.

Got A Real 'Good' Case of Asperger's; i Don't
Love the Taste of Lies; i Spit Them out Like Fire;

Or Like 'Elon Musk,' When He Experiences Righteous Indignation AGAINST 'The SEC', Hehe..;)



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AngelRho
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16 Apr 2022, 11:34 am

False premise. It isn’t logically necessary to assume anyone or anything gives God His nature. The nature of anything or anyone flows from what exactly that person or thing is.

Broadly defined, God is the greatest conceivable being. Nothing greater than God can be imagined by the human mind. It is a logical necessity that the greatest logically possible supreme being exist in our universe.

Aside from contemplating the attributes, God must by logical necessity possess, certain attributes (infinitude, the Omnis) require God to be undefinable.

Human beings deal with self-evident, undefinable things all the time. I find it somewhat paradoxical that we can explore infinity as a mathematical reality when it doesn’t exist in actual reality, yet infinities have practical uses. For instance, take electrical signals in audio applications. On a mixer, 0 dB represents Unity level, or an incoming audio signal multiplied by 1. +6 dB multiplies the signal by 2. -6 divides by 2, and so forth. At the bottom of the fader is infinity where the signal is infinitely cut, representing complete silence on the channel.

So we are aware of transcendent things such as infinities, we make practical use of them, and they are self-evident EVEN IF they defy definition.

The problem you seem to be having is you are trying to logically deal with something in concrete definable terms when it is inappropriate to do so. And may I be honest here? You’ve said often elsewhere that you depend on strict logic and definitions. Ok, I think that's fair. Think about this: Is it possible that in your black-and-white thinking you are missing an important aspect of reasoning, the reality of things that are known to exist but can't be defined? Things that are perfectly reasonable for the mind to accept and assimilate? Take the imaginary number as a metaphor. Negative numbers can't have a square root. However, it is sometimes necessary to calculate the square root of a negative, hence the imaginary number. Or what about pi? Pi is transcendent. We can't make EXACT calculations because the exact value of pi is indefinable. It exists as a ratio of circles, which we can calculate to a thousand decimal places, but it is impossible to completely determine what it is.

Think of it metaphorically. We can know many things ABOUT God by witnessing what He does and has done, such as the creation of the universe, miracles, and instances when things happen that cannot be naturally explained. I don't mean God of the Gaps thinking where something MIGHT be explained, but things that can't nor ever will be explained any other way.

Consider anecdotal evidence. We all know the problem of anecdotes, right? I wouldn't suggest diluting science with unreliable, unfalsifiable evidence. But science cannot prove to someone that their experiences didn't happen. Sometimes it's undeniable that SOMETHING happened, that what happened defies known phenomena, but whether what one claims as causation is unrepeatable and thus, scientifically speaking, inconclusive. Science treats it as something that never happened despite one’s knowledge to the contrary. Understand this: I AM NOT SAYING that just because someone made a claim they are telling the truth and their experience must be real. What I AM saying is that the conclusion that someone is lying because they can't repeat something is a non sequitur. It is illogical to make that assumption.

The universe is full of undefinable things. If you can open your logic just enough to understand concepts such as logical possibility, self-evident things, and undefinables, you will have an easier time understanding God's nature.



ToughDiamond
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16 Apr 2022, 3:27 pm

If the Bible tells us the truth, God broke character quite profoundly between the Old and New Testaments, transforming from a highly vengeful war god into much more of a loving, forgiving being.



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16 Apr 2022, 4:34 pm

AngelRho wrote:
Human beings deal with self-evident, undefinable things all the time. I find it somewhat paradoxical that we can explore infinity as a mathematical reality when it doesn’t exist in actual reality, yet infinities have practical uses. For instance, take electrical signals in audio applications. On a mixer, 0 dB represents Unity level, or an incoming audio signal multiplied by 1. +6 dB multiplies the signal by 2. -6 divides by 2, and so forth. At the bottom of the fader is infinity where the signal is infinitely cut, representing complete silence on the channel.

If we use percentages of full signal level instead of decibels, there's no infinity, the bottom of the fader is simply marked "zero," and the top is "100%." "Infinity" only rears its head because the calculation of the decibel scale from percentages leads at the extreme to a divide-by-zero error. The so-called logarithmic slider's resistance track is only logarithmic within certain limits - once you get near the bottom, it rather suddenly cuts the signal strength to zero. Zero and 100% are pretty real, it seems. Even a primitive might easily have a full container and an empty container in his cave, and would know which was which without having to think very hard.

It becomes rather hard for the average human mind to comfortably work with infinity, and most of us spare ourselves the hard work and just leave it at "unmeasurably large, extending forever" or words to that effect. But apparently some infinities may be larger than others, and there's even a symbol for "beyond infinity."

"Although the concept of infinity has a mathematical basis, we have yet to perform an experiment that yields an infinite result. Even in maths, the idea that something could have no limit is paradoxical."
https://thajokes.com/is-infinity-a-real-number

"It might seem odd that finite beings like us could come to know anything about infinity, given that we have no direct experience of it. Descartes thought that the idea of infinity was innate, but the behavior of children suggests otherwise; in one study, children in their early school years “reported ‘counting and counting’ in an attempt to find the last number, concluding there was none after much effort.” As it happens, the man who did the most to capture infinity in a theory claimed that his insights were vouchsafed to him by God and ended his life in a mental asylum."
https://lithub.com/on-david-foster-wall ... -infinity/



AngelRho
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16 Apr 2022, 4:52 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
If the Bible tells us the truth, God broke character quite profoundly between the Old and New Testaments, transforming from a highly vengeful war god into much more of a loving, forgiving being.

No, I think that’s a common misunderstanding, perhaps to justify the idea that Christians and Hebrews don’t worship the same God. God is unchanging and as much a God of vengeance, war, and justice as He is peace, mercy, and compassion. Our sense of justice both requires murderers to die to repay the lives they take (justice) and to give peace to surviving friends and family that the murderer can no longer hurt anyone (mercy). When judgment comes in the Bible, it is quick and always more merciful than the offending persons deserve.

Also…look at the timeline for when judgment does come. After Adam and Eve left Eden, it was some generations before men worshiped YHWH. Afterwards it was some generations before Noah and the totality of human depravity. There’s always a chance for mankind to repent until we cross a point beyond which we won’t, and that is when destruction comes.

After the flood were a few generations when man spread out to populate the world and drift farther from God’s will. The nascent Israelites migrated to Egypt at this time during which Canaanites continued to worship God. About the same time, the Egyptian government became totally corrupt and the Canaanites became steeped in idolatry. The Israelite nation were God’s messengers to show Egypt that YHWH is God, not Pharaoh, and to warn the Canaanites that their time had run out. There is every indication that many Canaanites fled northward. God also allowed Israel to negotiate peace treaties with the remaining peoples in Canaan despite God’s explicit instructions forbidding it. Though God had set these people apart for destruction, God already knew that Israel would not obey. By bringing the Israelites in, God showed mercy and gave Canaanites one last chance. And many generations after David finished the job, Judah’s corruption sank to the same level as Canaan, initiating the Babylonian captivity. The exile sparked a revival among the Jews, after which they were eventually allowed to return home.

Christianity is nothing but the fulfillment of the promised Messiah and the restoration of YHWH worship to the entire world rather than a select nation. Israel was only ever meant to be a model nation. Once Canaan had been conquered and the borders of Israel established, wars were only ever fought to protect Israel’s sovereignty and protect her own people. Likewise, predominantly Christian, western nations tend to follow a more objective foreign policy, although I do think we’ve largely lost our way since the First World War. Regardless, if war happens, it is God who allows it. If there is peace, God allows it. And any time a nation neglects its God-ordained duty to model righteousness, God will raise up unrighteous people to impose righteousness on them. This was always the Biblical pattern, and so it has continued since Roman times.

Is God a god of war, of peace, of wrath, vengeance, mercy, compassion, justice? No, I think God is just God and He does as He pleases. He’s no different now than the time of Jesus or David or Adam or before creation.



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16 Apr 2022, 6:07 pm

If there was no shift in attitude, then it becomes difficult to understand what Jesus was for. But the message appears to be "he died so we could be at last forgiven." We're told that we can't do without him, but all those people who lived and died in the BC era never got any choice in the matter, they had to do without him. What's so special about we AD types that would entitle us to a window of mercy before all the violence kicks off again in the final act?



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16 Apr 2022, 6:43 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
If there was no shift in attitude, then it becomes difficult to understand what Jesus was for. But the message appears to be "he died so we could be at last forgiven." We're told that we can't do without him, but all those people who lived and died in the BC era never got any choice in the matter, they had to do without him. What's so special about we AD types that would entitle us to a window of mercy before all the violence kicks off again in the final act?

There's nothing special about us. The ancient Israelites were redeemed through faith in what God would bring about with the promise of the coming Messiah. Christians are redeemed through faith in what God has already done by fulfilling His promise in the person of Christ.



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16 Apr 2022, 8:24 pm

Is there anything much in the Old Testament that particularly emphasises a requirement to believe in the coming of this promised Messiah?



cubedemon6073
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17 Apr 2022, 2:56 am

kitesandtrainsandcats wrote:
Remember where the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said that he had kept all the commandments, what else did he need to do and Jesus said to sell/give all his material wealth to the poor; and the guy went away sad because he had great wealth?


Was God commanding just him to do this or all of us?

Quote:
It appears that God often asks or challenges people to do the thing which is hardest for them to do.



It could be that God is asking you to accept simplicity.


Well, I've never been to subway to eat a turkey sandwich with God as he's never invited me to do so nor has he ever invited me out to tea. Simply put, I've never had any being come to have a conversation with me that revealed himself as God.

So, I've been asked nothing and if I was asked then I didn't know I was asked anything or to do anything at all.

Hey, maybe Jesus, the son of God can come too or wait a minute is Jesus God as well? Which is it exactly? And, Jesus who is the son of God who is God dies on the cross? How does this work?

Maybe Michael can come too and maybe even Lucifer can come as well and Lucifer and I can discuss while eating a turkey sandwich at subway why even bother to rebel against God, causing a war in heaven and getting a third of the angels on your side knowing damn well it would not even be possible for Lucifer to win.

Hey, we can make it a combo with chips and a drink.



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17 Apr 2022, 3:06 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:
I've been told that God has a nature that he is bound to. God can't go against his own nature.

The nature of everything else comes from God including myself.

God has also given all a set of commandments, statutes and laws we're all expected to go by. To transgress is to disobey God and to sin means to transgress God.

Sin is simply to go against the rules, laws, commandments, statutes God has put into place.

But, what is God's nature exactly and where does this nature come from?

What gives God his nature? What makes God well God?

If God has no control over his nature and did not give himself his nature then God is bounded to his nature and this boundary came from somewhere not even God himself would know? Would there be anything that God didn't know that he didn't know? And, how would God even know that he didn't even know this?

If God has control over his nature and he himself gave himself a nature then claiming that something would violate his nature seems to push the problem back a step.

Skit I made up!

God: What you ask goes against my nature to do?

Me: Where does your nature come from?

God: Me! I am the alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. I define all there was, is and ever will be! I simply, I am!

Me! If you control your nature then how does what I ask go against your nature? Remember, you created me with Aspergers so I'm extremely confused especially with abstract language.

God: I'm God! I define nature! I am perfection. I define the essence of what you call logic. In fact, I am pure logic.
I define all.

Me: Huh??? God, it took me a lot of reverse engineering to understand that postivity and negativity was referring to emotional states and not Boolean logic and/or mathematics. I have no clue as to what you are saying. If I could barely grasp this do you think I would be able to be able to understand anything meaningful from your words in the Bible and what you're saying? Come on God! You created me. You should know.


Spinoza answered all this--probably better than anyone ever will--in Ethics.



kraftiekortie
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17 Apr 2022, 6:06 am

When God reveals Himself to me, then I will believe.

It’s always interesting discussing theology and philosophy, though.



AngelRho
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17 Apr 2022, 6:19 am

HighLlama wrote:
cubedemon6073 wrote:
I've been told that God has a nature that he is bound to. God can't go against his own nature.

The nature of everything else comes from God including myself.

God has also given all a set of commandments, statutes and laws we're all expected to go by. To transgress is to disobey God and to sin means to transgress God.

Sin is simply to go against the rules, laws, commandments, statutes God has put into place.

But, what is God's nature exactly and where does this nature come from?

What gives God his nature? What makes God well God?

If God has no control over his nature and did not give himself his nature then God is bounded to his nature and this boundary came from somewhere not even God himself would know? Would there be anything that God didn't know that he didn't know? And, how would God even know that he didn't even know this?

If God has control over his nature and he himself gave himself a nature then claiming that something would violate his nature seems to push the problem back a step.

Skit I made up!

God: What you ask goes against my nature to do?

Me: Where does your nature come from?

God: Me! I am the alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. I define all there was, is and ever will be! I simply, I am!

Me! If you control your nature then how does what I ask go against your nature? Remember, you created me with Aspergers so I'm extremely confused especially with abstract language.

God: I'm God! I define nature! I am perfection. I define the essence of what you call logic. In fact, I am pure logic.
I define all.

Me: Huh??? God, it took me a lot of reverse engineering to understand that postivity and negativity was referring to emotional states and not Boolean logic and/or mathematics. I have no clue as to what you are saying. If I could barely grasp this do you think I would be able to be able to understand anything meaningful from your words in the Bible and what you're saying? Come on God! You created me. You should know.


Spinoza answered all this--probably better than anyone ever will--in Ethics.

Spinoza. Eeeewwww.



AngelRho
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17 Apr 2022, 6:20 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
When God reveals Himself to me, then I will believe.

It’s always interesting discussing theology and philosophy, though.

So why don't you believe already?