Why worship a "god" that threatens you?

[OpiatefortheMasses]

I'm reasonably sure that to extort something from someone else would constitute a sin of some kind according to most Christians but why is it OK when the very religion itself employs it? Most of the Christians I've talked to over the years would describe their "god" as fair, just, loving etc. but extortion (among other things) really strikes me as cruel and manipulative. Is this a "god" that's truly worthy of a person's worship or adoration?

[ttruscott]

I think God did not love anyone before our free will choice but did love those who chose to fulfil HIS plan for their creation and does not love those who refused to fulfill HIS plan for their creation.

That seems kind of selfish and petty. You make it sound as though your "god" only loves the obedient which tells me he's incapable of unconditional love. That's also reaffirmed with the fact that you seem to believe he doesn't love people who can't help him "fulfill his plan". You also make it sound as though "god" needs us in order fulfill that "plan" which implies a dependence of sorts. Can the "plan" fail?
...

I don't make it "sound like" anything - you just hear it that way in your oppositional mood.

You obviously cherry pick the timy parts of what is written as objections, refusing to deal with the meat which is they became the epitomé of evil BY choosing to be outside of HIS plan, not for not being abe to fulfill HIS plan.

As we said in the 60s: are you on the bus or off the bus? Inside HIS plan defines good. Outside HIS plan defines evil. That is the reality I live in and love.

As for GOD needing us to fulfil HIS plan, wellll yeah, since HE created us to do that...

Can HIS plan fail? Not now, since it obviously succeded, but the possibility did exist at the time of our true free will choice that not one of the spirits created in HIS image would choose to bow to HIS plan.

This possibility of this absolute bad must have been weighed against the possibility of the smallest good, ie only one person choosing HIS plan, and found to be acceptable.

Peace, Ted

[dusk]

You obviously cherry pick the timy parts of what is written as objections, refusing to deal with the meat which is they became the epitomé of evil BY choosing to be outside of HIS plan, not for not being abe to fulfill HIS plan.

As we said in the 60s: are you on the bus or off the bus? Inside HIS plan defines good. Outside HIS plan defines evil. That is the reality I live in and love.

And what a cute reality you built yourself there. You can claim it your very own.

Seriously though
1. you base it on a god that cannot be proven better than any other god around
2. than you postulate that this god has a plan, because I supposed you like the idea better than if he had not.
3. next you say you know that supposed plan and follow it, the other millions of people who don't have this special knowledge are just fools. Like the ones that follow other plans, gods, no gods, no plans.
4. next you add an entirely illogical true free choice decision, that you don't even care to defend, in a spiritual realm that is impossible to disprove or prove that is supposed to justify why you are on this good path and others are not.
5. Next it is good because it is the path you chose. Obviously if you thought the other path would define good you would choose that one, and therefore that would be the good path probably.
6. Also you say there is only one good path and all the others are evil.

You cannot possible expect any person, that hasn't been indoctrinated with something similar since birth, or built their own similar little reality, to call that anything but crazy.
Even Christians would call that a bit out there I expect.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 101:

...
Inside HIS plan defines good. Outside HIS plan defines evil. That is the reality I live in and love.
...

If only for me, this is one of the most dangerous things about religious belief - anything that goes against "my" interpretation is evil.

Talibanish, if ya ask me.

As for GOD needing us to fulfil HIS plan, wellll yeah, since HE created us to do that...

I challenge you to show you speak truth in this regard.

Can HIS plan fail? Not now, since it obviously succeded, but the possibility did exist at the time of our true free will choice that not one of the spirits created in HIS image would choose to bow to HIS plan.

So it is claimed, devoid of any evidence.

This possibility of this absolute bad must have been weighed against the possibility of the smallest good, ie only one person choosing HIS plan, and found to be acceptable.

"As long as I believe, God has won!"

[Tex]

Seriously though
1. you base it on a god that cannot be proven better than any other god around

Tex: I love the way some atheist think......6 billion people believe that the God of Abraham is the one true God. Plus you have the OT, NT, Koran, and countless of testimonials.

Now, instead of being amazed by this fact and say "wow this must be the true God"
They look to the people that don't believe our God, that have no scriptures at all, so they can deny the true God.

The debate should not be about whether God exist or doesn't.....But how best we can serve(a way of being) God.

[dusk]

Tex: I love the way some atheist think......6 billion people believe that the God of Abraham is the one true God. Plus you have the OT, NT, Koran, and countless of testimonials.

6 billion? Are you serious. Check your facts.

Now, instead of being amazed by this fact and say "wow this must be the true God"
They look to the people that don't believe our God, that have no scriptures at all, so they can deny the true God.
The debate should not be about whether God exist or doesn't.....But how best we can serve(a way of being) God.

There are a lot of other scriptures (Vedas, Upanishads, Buddist stuff, book of mormon, the watchtower, ...) and more that just showed up and disappeared again. Also 3 scriptures based on the same myth doesn't really give separate evidence. That monotheism spread more successfully gives more evidence for Freud's theory if anything. Your 6 billion believers is delusional.
In the well educated countries even many of the people that are counted as believers are more agnostic in nature or even Atheists (officially I am among the rom. Cath. and among my friends. It is hardly more than 5% who would say there is probably a greater than 50% chance god exists, the rest would say it is like close to 0 and most of them are officially Cath. in the statistics). Only 30% of Austrian Catholics believe that Jesus rose from the dead, which wouldn't make them Christian in some other Christian's eyes.
The concepts of god the people even in one denomination hold are often so different they are mutually exclusive. As an Atheist you cannot even be against one specific deity because some have personal gods, some rebirth, some hell, some not, some pantheistic gods, some don't care, some don't know, some pray to Mary more than Jesus, some need priest, some say a priest is just a guy, some ....
Personally the only thing I am amazed of is how people can ignore it so easily that there has been a time before Christianity, before revelation, a place where it doesn't matter shit and so many other believers or the simple fact that what a guy who studies theology believes is often very different from the layman. How can one ever truly be so arrogant and be entirely convinced that he got it right.


But you are right in one point this shouldn't be a debate about wether god exists or not that is not the topic of the thread. I merely started with one of ttruscott unproven premises because it is a part of his "reality".
If it wasn't obvious my real problem with it is not the stuff up to #3 because many people do it. #1 is a matter of believe, #2 also, #3 is not very rational but many people get there.
#4 is where it seems like he is loosing it, IMO. The scientology guys make more sense logic wise.
With #5,#6 I meant to point out that it doesn't necessarily follow from the rest and it objectively only looks like he just prefers it that way. Think about it does it have to be that way, or is it only so feel save and have your nice and pretty black&white world where you can righteously prance around and call everyone else evil?

[Tex]

[/quote]6 billion? Are you serious. Check your facts.

Tex: Forgive me.....3.8 Billion.

[Tex]

Also....Mormons and JW...Believe in the God of Jacob.

[dusk]

Okay now asume that we count that argument as something valid.

There is a similar argument that points the other direction.
Who are you more likely to believe a lot of stupid people or the fewer intelligent.

by countries which means education level mostly.

The red circle is the US. A bit of an outlier.
What is a number of 3.8 Billion people which is greatly exaggerated (because it just counts everybody who is in any way affiliated with a religion) really worth if most of them are either stupid or have too little education. The tendencies are obvious in the pictures. Maybe all that is required for the majority to become Agnostics is to get better education and smarter.
Who is more likely to be right about something a guy with an IQ of 80 or one with 120? How come those that are considered the very greatest minds are almost exclusively Atheist or Agnostics.

I fear we leave the topic, but that 3.8 Billion somehow follow a monotheistic god really is no convincing evidence or only if you never actually investigate the evidence.

[Tex]

Who is more likely to be right about something a guy with an IQ of 80 or one with 120? How come those that are considered the very greatest minds are almost exclusively Atheist or Agnostics.

Tex: Too bad Hitlers dead....He had an IQ of 147...Are you saying he knew what he was doing?

Stalin=140

Also would you believe a man who had an IQ of 220 ....If he told you he believed in God

[ttruscott]

You obviously cherry pick the timy parts of what is written as objections, refusing to deal with the meat which is they became the epitomé of evil BY choosing to be outside of HIS plan, not for not being abe to fulfill HIS plan.

As we said in the 60s: are you on the bus or off the bus? Inside HIS plan defines good. Outside HIS plan defines evil. That is the reality I live in and love.

And what a cute reality you built yourself there. You can claim it your very own.

Seriously though
1. you base it on a god that cannot be proven better than any other god around
2. than you postulate that this god has a plan, because I supposed you like the idea better than if he had not.
3. next you say you know that supposed plan and follow it, the other millions of people who don't have this special knowledge are just fools. Like the ones that follow other plans, gods, no gods, no plans.
4. next you add an entirely illogical true free choice decision, that you don't even care to defend, in a spiritual realm that is impossible to disprove or prove that is supposed to justify why you are on this good path and others are not.
5. Next it is good because it is the path you chose. Obviously if you thought the other path would define good you would choose that one, and therefore that would be the good path probably.
6. Also you say there is only one good path and all the others are evil.

You cannot possible expect any person, that hasn't been indoctrinated with something similar since birth, or built their own similar little reality, to call that anything but crazy.
Even Christians would call that a bit out there I expect.

dusk, your distoritions of what I wrote are amazing...how can you keep a straight face? But if you can't face what I wrote in truth....

1. you base it on a god that cannot be proven better than any other god around

Yep - not in the GOD proving business; so what?

2. than you postulate that this god has a plan, because I supposed you like the idea better than if he had not.

I do not postulate, He wrote it in scripture... I don't care what you believe.

3. next you say you know that supposed plan and follow it, the other millions of people who don't have this special knowledge are just fools. Like the ones that follow other plans, gods, no gods, no plans.

I followED it... there are no millions of others who don't have this special knowledge - every spirit in creation was there when HE told us about this special knowledge called HIS version of reality. And though it was foolish, they were suckers for their desire to live in a universe without any god over them.

4. next you add an entirely illogical true free choice decision, that you don't even care to defend, in a spiritual realm that is impossible to disprove or prove that is supposed to justify why you are on this good path and others are not.

I would like to know where in lies the illogic of my true free will postulations? [see post 77?]
I'd also like to know where I refuse to defend it - though I often refuse to be bullied.
The proof that the spiritual realm does not exist is your problem, not mine, <shrug>.

5. Next it is good because it is the path you chose. Obviously if you thought the other path would define good you would choose that one, and therefore that would be the good path probably.

I chose it well before I had any proof it was good - I chose it because it was the universe, the reality, that sounded the best to me without proof, as I said so many times. [post 79?]

6. Also you say there is only one good path and all the others are evil.

Bothers you does it...? God's reason for creating spirits in HIS image is the whole definition of GOOD. Wander outside that reason for any reason of your own is therefore the definition of evil. Should I be upset somebody doesn't believe me?

Peace, Ted