Jesus Freaks...why do you believe?

by **unriggable** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:01 pm

Heimdall wrote:This Movie looks good:

http://www.thegodmovie.com/clips/Trailer.mp4

I am totally watching that.

by **Spockers** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:57 pm

graeme89 wrote:Whats your favourite religious movie? I like The Mission with Robert DeNiro, apparently it was Pope JP's favourite. Its got a great soundtrack, same guy who did The Good, Bad, Ugly.

The life of brian

by **Napoleon Ier** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:23 pm

Heimdall wrote:This Movie looks good:

http://www.thegodmovie.com/clips/Trailer.mp4

A good masonic conspiracy, shall we say.

by **Heimdall** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:34 pm

Napoleon Ier wrote:
Heimdall wrote:This Movie looks good:

http://www.thegodmovie.com/clips/Trailer.mp4

A good masonic conspiracy, shall we say.

Possible, however i haven't seen it yet so i can really comment on it yet. Are you being objective?

In the end, Christianity could be a sham too. Depends on what is most probable.

by **unriggable** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:56 pm

Napoleon Ier wrote:
Heimdall wrote:This Movie looks good:

http://www.thegodmovie.com/clips/Trailer.mp4

A good masonic conspiracy, shall we say.

You mean the story of mithras?

by **1ngliz** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 8:19 pm

God is perfect.Man is imperfect.A perfect God cannot create an imperfect being.If he did he would not be perfect therefore God did not create man.If God created Man he is not perfect therefore he is not God.
Take your pick either choice its up to you

by **suggs** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 8:24 pm

"its not so much that i dont think God exists, its more that i just hate him"
(K. Amis).
too darn right.

by **OnlyAmbrose** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:38 pm

1ngliz wrote:God is perfect.Man is imperfect.A perfect God cannot create an imperfect being.If he did he would not be perfect therefore God did not create man.If God created Man he is not perfect therefore he is not God.
Take your pick either choice its up to you

There is something very wrong with this argument.

Firstly, the theistic argument is that before God there was nothing. Therefore, God was everything. Therefore, should the theists be right, "perfection" is essentially whatever God is. It's not so much that God is perfect, so much as it is that perfect is God. God is the alpha and the Omega, he is omnipotent and omniscient, and thus he is the standard by which we judge perfection.

Therefore, any act of God is perfect, because God is perfect. Therefore, God's act of creating man was perfect - however, man is not God, therefore man is not perfect, because perfect is God.

God gave man free will so that we may freely love, for what is love if it is not freely given? Love is what is most valuable to God. God is love, and God is perfect, therefore love is perfect. Love cannot exist without free will. Therefore, free will is a necessity for perfection.

I hope this helps you better understand why the whole "God is imperfect because he made man" is fallacious. I'm certainly happy to hear an argument to the contrary.

by **Backglass** on Sun Dec 23, 2007 10:47 pm

WidowMakers wrote:Just because you say, "God does not exist" does not mean he does not exist.

Refusing to believe something does not make it go away if it is there to begin with.

SO if you can prove God does not exist I will agree that you can reject Him. But you can't prove it.

WM

Just because you say, "Magical Gods exist" does not mean they do exist.

Refusing to believe something is a myth or legend does not make real if it was never there to begin with.

SO if you can prove Magical Gods exist, I will kneel down next to you and pray until my eyes bleed. But you can't prove it.

BG

by **vtmarik** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 1:59 am

OnlyAmbrose wrote:There is something very wrong with this argument.

Firstly, the theistic argument is that before God there was nothing. Therefore, God was everything. Therefore, should the theists be right, "perfection" is essentially whatever God is. It's not so much that God is perfect, so much as it is that perfect is God. God is the alpha and the Omega, he is omnipotent and omniscient, and thus he is the standard by which we judge perfection.

Therefore, any act of God is perfect, because God is perfect. Therefore, God's act of creating man was perfect - however, man is not God, therefore man is not perfect, because perfect is God.

God gave man free will so that we may freely love, for what is love if it is not freely given? Love is what is most valuable to God. God is love, and God is perfect, therefore love is perfect. Love cannot exist without free will. Therefore, free will is a necessity for perfection.

I hope this helps you better understand why the whole "God is imperfect because he made man" is fallacious. I'm certainly happy to hear an argument to the contrary.

Understanding that God is perfect.
Understanding that Love is what God needs.
Understanding that God is what's behind it all.

Then why does it follow that Love requires Free Will? Why is it a necessity? Because, without that automatic assumption then the case for free will as proof of God is null. Since God made everything, he made Love. He could just as easily have made Love a function of non-free-will activity. Thus, he wouldn't necessarily need to create free will in humanity, or vice versa need to create humanity.

Thus, free will and humanity are permanently intertwined as concepts, since without one the other is canceled out as a necessity.

Why would God create a system that wasn't infinitely flexible? Why would God corral himself into only one form of correct system and render all others either incorrect or incomplete?

by **1ngliz** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 2:43 am

The Old Testament speaks of the eloyhiim, translated as angels, existing before God or with God depending how its read.Yahweh conquered them to become the God of Israel.Eloyhiim is more literally translated as 'little gods' .If we read this as a parable of Judaism rising ,ousting the other religions ,all is well and good but if the Bible is the literal 'word of God' surely theres a problem.
If God is omnipotent why did he create other gods?
If these other gods are man's creation why did God fight them?

If man can create gods is HE God?

by **Beastly** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 4:51 am

wonder where you got that information?

ELOHIM

In the Bible the word for God in the Hebrew that is most often used is Elohim. It is a plural noun. Today it is popular to say it means plural of majesty. However the form of the word, Eloh-im, is plural. The word for God in the singular sense is El which is used most often in describing Gods characteristics or attributes. El Eyon, El Shaddai, In the Hebrew when Elohim is when used of the true God it is used singular, as a composite unity, when it is used of false gods it is used in the plural. (ex. you shall have no other Gods Elohim before me.") Is God calling the false Gods majesties. God is not this nice to impostors who cause people to rebel and forsake him.

When looking at its usage it always refers to persons in the plural, there is no passage I've come across that it is used in the sense they claim.

For example in Gen 1:24-31 "Let us make man in OUR image is an appeal to self; Not to God and the angels. God is speaking of Himself and with Himself in the plural number. Some say this is a reference to the fullness of the divine power and attributes He possesses. This only part of it as God’s Divine Being is more than His powers and attributes for within contains persons. He would not be speaking to his attributes but to that which can respond.I sa 40:13-14 “Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him...”

The preface im (masculine in gender) at the end of a word makes the word into a plural form. For example the angels called seraph or cherub are in the singular but when they are Seraphim or Cherubim they mean more than one.

The word for heavens is shamayim Gen.1:2 Again in the plural. Could we ever interpret this as a plural of majesty.

we find from the scriptures all the attributes of God belong to Elohim, they also belong to the three persons who are the Elohim. The word Elohim can also be used for one person of the godhead or all three since they all share in the commonality of that eternal essence of deity. Each person the Father, Son and Spirit are 100% deity so when they appear singularly there is no division of that deity since God is indivisible. The same rule would be for the word God theos, in the N.T. . Such as in Jn.1:1 the word was with God and was God as sharing in the same essence.

Even the ancient Rabbis recognized this word as related to more than one. In the Midrash Rabbah on Genesis Rabbi Samuel bar Nahman in the name of Rabbi Jonathan said, that at the time when Moses wrote the Torah, writing a portion of it daily, when he came to this verse which says "And Elohim said, let us make man in our image after our likeness," Moses said, Master of the Universe why do you herewith an excuse to the sectarians (Who believe in the Triunity of God), God answered Moses, You write and whoever wants to err let him err."In other words God had Moses write down what is correct, and we are to study to understand it. Selah

Elohim can be used as a general term for God in the O.T.. For example Samuel was called a Elohim when he came up from the dead (1 Sam.28:13-14) In Ex. 7:1 Moses was made an Elohim to Pharaoh. Jesus call the rulers in Israel Elohim, "Gods" ? (Jn. 10:34) After the Jews accuse Jesus of blasphemy because he being a man claimed to be God he answers "Is it not written in your law I said 'You are Gods" citing Ps.82:6: " This was addressed to the judges of Israel they were called Gods not because they were divine but because they represented God when they judged the people and were misrepresenting God. Jesus’ point," is intended to show that the idea of a communication of the divine majesty to human nature was by no means foreign to the revelations of the O.T." ( New Commentary on the whole Bible,Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown) So this title can be bestowed on those who are not by nature God. However they were never called Yahweh or I Am.

1 Cor. 8:5-6 states "For even if there are so-called Gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords) yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live." Paul is speaking to the Corinthians who had a background of worshipping the Greek pagan gods and idols. He was writing in context before this about the idols they once worshipped. These were not God by nature even though they called them God. Look at how Paul clarifies this" but to us there is one God and includes both the Father and the Son."

elohim

Elohim. [The basic form]
God; gods. The plural form of El, meaning “Strong One.” The Name Elohim occurs 2,570 times in the Tanakh. See Isa. 54:5; Jer. 32:27; Gen. 1:1; Isa. 45:18; Deut. 5:23; etc.

God of -

elohei

Elohei.
God of -; a “construct form” that never appears with a qualifying descriptor.

The Son of God

Ben Elohim

Ben Elohim.
The Son of God (Matt. 16:16; 26:63; Jn. 6:69).

My God

elohai

Elohai.
My God.
Elohim with personal pronoun suffix indicating 1st person singular.

The God of Abraham

Elohei Avraham

Elohei Avraham.
The God of Abraham (Ex. 3:15).

The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob

God of Abraham, Isaac...

Elohei Avraham elohei Yitschak velohei Ya’akov.
The God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob (Ex. 3:15).

The God of my kindness

elohei-chasdi

Elohei Chasdi.
God of my Kindness (Ps. 59:17).
From chesed, the covenantal faithfulness (of God). See also Psalm 89:29; 144:2.

The God of gods

elohei-haelohim

Elohei Haelohim.
The God of gods (Deut. 10:17; Josh. 22:22; Ps. 136:2).

The God of my strength

elohei-ma'uzzi

Elohei Ma’uzzi.
God of my Strength (2 Sam. 22:33; Ps. 31:5; 43:2).

The God who is near

elohei-mikkarov

Elohei Mikkarov.
God who is near (Jer. 23:23).
This Title for God acknowledges His immanence within all.

The God who is far

el-yeshurun

Elohei Merachok.
God who is far (Jer. 23:23).
This Title for God acknowledges His transcendence above all.

The God of heights

elohei-marom

Elohei Marom.
God of Heights (Micah 6:6).

The God of Justice

elohei-mishpat

Elohei Mishpat.
God of Justice (Isa. 30:18).

The God of Hosts

elohei-tseva'ot

Elohei Tseva’ot.
God of hosts or God of armies (2 Sam. 5:10).

The God of Rock

elohei-tzur

Elohei Tzur.
God of Rock (2 Sam. 22:47).
Rock is poetically used to indicate the strength of God as the ground of all being in the universe.

The Eternal God

elohei-kedem

Elohei Kedem.
God of the beginning; Eternal God (Deut. 33:27).

The God of my praise

elohei-tehillati

Elohei Tehillati.
God of my Praise (Ps. 109:1).
From Tehillah, praise, hymn, or psalm. Tehillim is the book of Psalms in Hebrew.

Our God

eloheynu

Eloheynu.
Our God (Ex. 3:18).
Pronominal form that is common in many Hebrew blessings and prayers.

The God of our fathers

elohei-avotenu

Elohei Avotenu.
The God of our fathers (Deut 26:7; 1 Chron. 12:17).

God our father

elohei-avinu

Elohim Avinu.
God our Father.

God in heaven

elohim-bashamayim

Elohim Bashamayim.
God in heaven (2 Chron 20:6).

The God of truth

elohim-emet

Elohim Emet.
The God of truth (Jer. 10:10).

The God of Nahor

elohei-nachor

Elohei Nachor.
The God of Nahor (Abraham’s father) (Gen. 31:53).

God the father

elohim-ha-av

Elohim HaAv.
God the Father (Jn. 6:27; 1 Co. 8:6; Gal. 1:1, 3; Eph. 6:23; Phil. 2:11; 1 Thess. 1:1; 2 Tim. 1:2; Tit. 1:4; 1 Pet. 1:2; 2 Pet. 1:17; 2 Jn. 1:3; Jude 1:1).

The Living God

elohim-chaiyim

Elohim Chayim.
The Living God (Deut. 5:26; Jos. 3:10; 1 Sam. 17:26, 36; 2 Ki. 19:4, 16; Ps. 42:2; 84:2; Isa. 37:4, 17; Jer. 10:10; 23:36; Dan. 6:20, 26; Hos. 1:10; Matt. 16:16; 26:63; Jn. 6:69; Acts 14:15; Rom. 9:26; 2 Co. 3:3; 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; 4:10; 6:17; Heb. 3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22; Rev. 7:2).

The God of the living

elohei haChayim

Elohei HaChayim.
The God of the Living (Mk. 12:27).

The God of the spirits of all flesh

el-elyon

Elohei haruchot l’chol-basar.
God of the spirits of all flesh (Num. 16:22; 27:16).

And there is more than that!!!

by **CrazyAnglican** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:16 am

Merry Christmas folks. Have fun. Happy Hoidays whatever your take on them might be.

by **1ngliz** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:10 am

ben elohim-sons of god the 8th order of angels
In the beginning the gods created the heaven and the earth.Genesis i.1
Fall of the angels Book of Enoch
In the phoenician tradition the 'little gods' cleared up the chaos,the shotereb. The hebrews were slaves of the phoenicians and they learned to write at this time.It is not surprising they incorporated some phoenician theology.The battle of the gods is a very common theme in early eastern religion too.With the adoption of monotheism bits of the old tradition were left behind.This doesn't really matter if the OT is just a history of the jews .It does if God wrote it.

by **OnlyAmbrose** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:16 am

vtmarik wrote:
OnlyAmbrose wrote:There is something very wrong with this argument.

Firstly, the theistic argument is that before God there was nothing. Therefore, God was everything. Therefore, should the theists be right, "perfection" is essentially whatever God is. It's not so much that God is perfect, so much as it is that perfect is God. God is the alpha and the Omega, he is omnipotent and omniscient, and thus he is the standard by which we judge perfection.

Therefore, any act of God is perfect, because God is perfect. Therefore, God's act of creating man was perfect - however, man is not God, therefore man is not perfect, because perfect is God.

God gave man free will so that we may freely love, for what is love if it is not freely given? Love is what is most valuable to God. God is love, and God is perfect, therefore love is perfect. Love cannot exist without free will. Therefore, free will is a necessity for perfection.

I hope this helps you better understand why the whole "God is imperfect because he made man" is fallacious. I'm certainly happy to hear an argument to the contrary.

Understanding that God is perfect.
Understanding that Love is what God needs.
Understanding that God is what's behind it all.

Then why does it follow that Love requires Free Will? Why is it a necessity? Because, without that automatic assumption then the case for free will as proof of God is null. Since God made everything, he made Love. He could just as easily have made Love a function of non-free-will activity. Thus, he wouldn't necessarily need to create free will in humanity, or vice versa need to create humanity.

Thus, free will and humanity are permanently intertwined as concepts, since without one the other is canceled out as a necessity.

Why would God create a system that wasn't infinitely flexible? Why would God corral himself into only one form of correct system and render all others either incorrect or incomplete?

Free will is necessary for love because that is how God wants it to be. Think about it yourself - can you really be forced into love? It's not something that you can really make someone do.

So free will is necessary for love, and this we know by observation. Why did God make free will necessary for love? Because freely given love is God's desire, and who are we to say what God wants and doesn't want?

by **MeDeFe** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:06 am

1ngliz wrote:monoatheism

Wait, what?

by **CrazyAnglican** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:25 am

MeDeFe wrote:
CrazyAnglican wrote:
comic boy wrote:MM

Actually the points about Unicorns are simply to show the shallowness of WM argument, one simply cannot debate if the response is always ' you cannot prove it 100% '. Our entire lives we make decisions based on probability , if we needed utter certainty we would do literaly nothing !

So without 100% accuracy in our lives, someone who looks at the same facts you see, and comes to the counter opinion based on them is making as justifiable and logical a decision as you are, right? It's really not the facts, so much as how we (you and I) interpret them isn't it?

I think you got it right, mostly, not completely. The keywords are "justifiable and logical a decision". If it can be shown that one persons way of interpreting the facts is not logical or otherwise flawed it is to be expected that this persons interpretation is, to put it nicely, less than perfect.

Certainly, which is exactly what all of the hoopla is about. Both sides make the claim, but neither is able to prove their position. Therefore everyone is perfectly welcome to believe what they please and speak about those beliefs in anyway they see fit.

by **1ngliz** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 11:45 am

Sorry my freudian slip is showing
Monotheism......ah thats better everything in its proper place

by **MeDeFe** on Mon Dec 24, 2007 3:13 pm

CrazyAnglican wrote:
MeDeFe wrote:
CrazyAnglican wrote:
comic boy wrote:MM

Actually the points about Unicorns are simply to show the shallowness of WM argument, one simply cannot debate if the response is always ' you cannot prove it 100% '. Our entire lives we make decisions based on probability , if we needed utter certainty we would do literaly nothing !

So without 100% accuracy in our lives, someone who looks at the same facts you see, and comes to the counter opinion based on them is making as justifiable and logical a decision as you are, right? It's really not the facts, so much as how we (you and I) interpret them isn't it?

I think you got it right, mostly, not completely. The keywords are "justifiable and logical a decision". If it can be shown that one persons way of interpreting the facts is not logical or otherwise flawed it is to be expected that this persons interpretation is, to put it nicely, less than perfect.

Certainly, which is exactly what all of the hoopla is about. Both sides make the claim, but neither is able to prove their position. Therefore everyone is perfectly welcome to believe what they please and speak about those beliefs in anyway they see fit.

However, when the methods of the believers (ontological argument, cosmological argument, poking at perceived holes in scientific theories that have nothing to do with the argument at all and whatnot), who have the far easier task of pointing out the entity that is god and producing evidence for its existence, are time and time again shown to be easily refutable, sometimes even by turning the argument against itself, while the counters against the arguments of the non-believers, who would have to examine every single entity in order to be able to say that none of them is god, often seem to consist of little more than saying that the arguments are not proof or of cop-outs about the nature of god that lead to the question of how the believer can know all that about this fantastic being but not point to the entity that actually is god, I think it is indeed justifiable to say that something is wrong with their methods.

Faith and personal opinion (Like "I just know God exists") are highly subjective and consequently not something that should be used as an argumentative basis. People have no direct access to others faith or personal convictions. I am of the opinion that faith is a learned behaviour, partly learned from others (like parents, the religious community one is a group of, etc.), and partly by training oneself to have this feeling. I know that after my confirmation I would have counted as a believer, not as ardent one as jay, but nonetheless, a feeling that god existed had been instilled in me merely by being around people who talked about god and Christianity for 2 weeks. It faded within 2 or 3 months because my social environment changed again, I was back to being thoroughly neutral on the whole issue and now, now I'm arguing for what is basically an atheistic position.

The point of this small anecdote is that faith in god is not something you're born with but something you learn by observation and practicing, it is unique for every person, and in so far as it is possible to talk about it it is a construct of language. A standardized category 'faith' that can come close to describing the mean of the mental states different people would call faith. This definition will in turn influence what people expect the feeling of faith to be and facilitate a change in it, which will in turn lead to a change in the definition, and so forth. I dare make the claim that the same holds for most, if not all human emotions. We influence them by talking, writing and reading about them.

To me this does not sound like a very sound basis for a discussion, which leaves us only with logic and methods that are available to everyone and can be examinated and evaluated. So far I have not seen propponents of the theistic position get the better of the non-believers there. The latest example here would be WM, who has ended his attack against science in general and specifically the theory of evolution by asking for "proof" for several processes that might only be mathematically accessible to us but we might never be able to duplicate in a lab, his demands were not merely unreasonable but practically impossible to fulfill since the only certain way of doing it would be to initiate a controlled big bang (call it a "small bang") and start of a universe with exactly the same natural laws as ours which we could observe and study.

Sorry for the tl;dr, I just felt like writing one.

by **Jasmine_me** on Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:50 am

Heimdall wrote:
radiojake wrote:
Heimdall wrote:
WidowMakers wrote:You can't prove there is no God. You can make assumptions and theories but you can never prove it.

WM

And you can't prove there are no Unicorns.

Or the spaghetti flying monster

And since you can't prove they don't exist, then they must exist just like God

but you dont even have a bible that proves unicorn exist..but you have a Bible that proves God exist...

by **Jasmine_me** on Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:53 am

1ngliz wrote:The Old Testament speaks of the eloyhiim, translated as angels, existing before God or with God depending how its read.Yahweh conquered them to become the God of Israel.Eloyhiim is more literally translated as 'little gods' .If we read this as a parable of Judaism rising ,ousting the other religions ,all is well and good but if the Bible is the literal 'word of God' surely theres a problem.
If God is omnipotent why did he create other gods?
If these other gods are man's creation why did God fight them?

If man can create gods is HE God?

God didnt create so call other "gods"..man created them... and those are Satans who started all those fake gods.. answer this question.. does God comes in sizes?.. just like the Buddhist's god..(no offend to the buddhists)...and we always wanted to be just like our God..no matter what religion you are..so do you even wanna be like the buddhist God who have so many hands ..and some worse.. have a bald head and a big tummy..???

by **WidowMakers** on Tue Dec 25, 2007 9:05 am

Merry Christmas Everyone.

WM

by **unriggable** on Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:41 am

1ngliz wrote:If man can create gods is HE God?

Offshoot of the phrase "God dies when man stops believing in him"

by **unriggable** on Tue Dec 25, 2007 11:42 am

WidowMakers wrote:Merry Christmas Everyone.

WM

You too man.

by **MelonanadeMaster** on Mon Jan 07, 2008 9:58 pm

1ngliz wrote:ben elohim-sons of god the 8th order of angels
In the beginning the gods created the heaven and the earth.Genesis i.1
Fall of the angels Book of Enoch
In the phoenician tradition the 'little gods' cleared up the chaos,the shotereb. The hebrews were slaves of the phoenicians and they learned to write at this time.It is not surprising they incorporated some phoenician theology.The battle of the gods is a very common theme in early eastern religion too.With the adoption of monotheism bits of the old tradition were left behind.This doesn't really matter if the OT is just a history of the jews .It does if God wrote it.

Just a few things I felt should be pointed out. First, why are you making reference to the book of Enoch, a book that no Christian denomination accepts exept the Ethiopian Orthodox, a religous group I don't believe any of us here belong to? Second, by trying to use the translation of "little gods" doesn't realy do much, yes it may be true that's how the term may have been under the culture of the phoenicians, but that doesn't imply that's how it was used theologicaly in Judaism. Besides, if it is not a misunderstanding of the ancient terminology I think it ios a misunderstanding on your part on what they mean (the translators) when they translate it into English. It was not that long ago in a broader sense of the history of the world, that the word 'nice,' now a colloquialism, was a rather strong insult

Jesus Freaks...why do you believe?

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