Theism's Perversion of Basic Terms

Originally posted by RJHinds
The greatest commandment is for us th do everything in love. See how that works for you.

unless it's a time to hate?
or maybe when it's a time for war?

did you forget those verses you love to quote when you want to argue in favor of christian violence?

Originally posted by KellyJay
Right, God being God gets to do whatever God wants, because...well, he is
God after all. Now why God does things He does will lay behind what God
wanted to do when He started the universe. You again, attempt to belittle
God in life or death as if God does have the right or power to choose when
life starts or when it ends. NO HUMAN has that at their finger tips, but you
want to reduce what God does to that of a mere human.
Kelly

So your view is that "God, being God, gets to do whatever God wants because He is God." Sorry, but I can find absolutely no substance to that view. I may as well just say that "my neighbor, being my neighbor, gets to do whatever my neighbor wants because he is my neighbor." That statement has precisely the same dialectic structure as your own. Both of them are basically meaningless and/or vacuous and/or senseless if you simply scrutinize their structure for even a split second. Obviously, you think there is something wrapped up in the concept 'God' (and absent in the concept 'my neighbor' ) that makes one of the statements make sense but not the other. You have been unable, though, to actually unpack those particular contents of the concept 'God' in any reasonable fashion.

I'm not sure how many more times I need to state this: I have not been reducing God to anything. (And it still strikes me as somewhat ironic that you get so bent out of shape when I mention such a hypothetical; and yet, you do not get bent out of shape when you read your own supposedly divinely inspired accounts of His sanctioning all manners of obviously senseless mass killings.) Again, I was commenting on the implications of your view regarding God's rights, not on the nature of God itself. I have been explicitly clear on this time and time again here, so I'll not consider it my problem if you still fail to understand this point. It is simply a fact regarding your view of God's rights that, according to this view of yours, God has the right to do such things as I mentioned for such reasons as I mentioned. That's a fact, KJ. If you don't like this fact, then the only thing you can do about it is revise your own view accordingly. Now, my stating this fact about the entailments of your view, says absolutely nothing about the actual nature of God per se: it merely says something about your view of God's rights. It speaks to the bizarro nature of your view that your view entails that God has the right to X/Y/Z/etc, where X/Y/Z/etc are such horrendous, unthinkable things that you get all bent out of shape merely considering them in hypothetical exercises. But, what you keep doing is erroneously inferring from this reaction to the idea that I have reduced God to something depraved; when in fact, all I did was state and elaborate upon an entailment of your view on God's rights. This is merely an exercise in bizarro thinking.

I have already stated numerous objections to your view throughout this thread, and finnegan has also done a very good job summarizing the main points. It's somewhat irritating that you keep just implying the potter/pot type argument when I explicitly already raised a number of objections against this argument that you simply ignore or refuse to address. I would say this may be impasse.

Originally posted by checkbaiter
It's hard to understand what atheist's and theist's definition of love is. Some say I love my dog, I love my wife, I love ice cream....really? Would you equate loving your wife with loving your dog?
At least the bible definition is much more descriptive, there is "phileo" love, there is "agape" love and many others.
God is agape love, He is just, He is ...[text shortened]... understand some of these matters, your questions are easily answered.....🙂

In just the same way as robbie did, you have missed the point of my inquiry (please see my reply in full to him on page 13 for more clarification).

Since you think the bible offers some good insights into the notion of 'love', for example, I will give you precisely the same challenge as I gave robbie on page 13 (unless I missed it, he never actually responded to it yet):

"Here's my challenge to you. Find some specific passages from your book that you think offer the clearest insights into the true nature of love. Then explain (provide some actual reasons) why anyone should think that such descriptions are consistent with things like the sanctioning of genocide or infanticide; or bringing about the drowning deaths of nearly all sentient beings; or the characteristic failure of an agent to prevent instances of widespread suffering when he has the power, knowledge, opportunity to do so, etc."

Originally posted by LemonJello
So your view is that "God, being God, gets to do whatever God wants because He is God." Sorry, but I can find absolutely no substance to that view. I may as well just say that "my neighbor, being my neighbor, gets to do whatever my neighbor wants because he is my neighbor." That statement has precisely the same dialectic structure as your own. Both of ...[text shortened]... hat you simply ignore or refuse to address. I would say this may be impasse.

I'm open for you to tell me how God would be stopped from doing what God
wants, outside of God going against His own nature what could stop Him from
doing anything He wants? Being God who could for example grow another
3 inches when God had you growing to whatever height you are? Can you add
two years to your life or live forever when God decides it’s your time? The
right and wrong of anything statement aside, you've nothing you can present
to God to force God into any action, no recourse what so ever.
Kelly

Originally posted by LemonJello
So your view is that "God, being God, gets to do whatever God wants because He is God." Sorry, but I can find absolutely no substance to that view. I may as well just say that "my neighbor, being my neighbor, gets to do whatever my neighbor wants because he is my neighbor." That statement has precisely the same dialectic structure as your own. Both of ...[text shortened]... hat you simply ignore or refuse to address. I would say this may be impasse.

Your hypothetical had God acting out of human traits, it wasn't the action it was
the motivations I was complaining about. You had God doing things, because
He was bored and wanted to just enjoy people suffer neither of which are things
God would act out of. So since God sets the rules on people's deaths all peoples
deaths just as much as He does getting life in the first place, your hypothetical
only issue was now God was going to act out of human traits to do things that
God has been doing since He started giving us life. So I rejected your
hypothetical statement not because God ends life, but for the reasons you were
saying God was going to do it.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm open for you to tell me how God would be stopped from doing what God
wants, outside of God going against His own nature what could stop Him from
doing anything He wants? Being God who could for example grow another
3 inches when God had you growing to whatever height you are? Can you add
two years to your life or live forever when God decides it’s y nothing you can present
to God to force God into any action, no recourse what so ever.
Kelly

Yeah, but that is completely irrelevant, remember? The fact that God has the power to bring about X cannot be what justifies His having the right to bring about X, remember? We've gone through this dozens of time, so it's amazing to me that I have to keep refreshing your memory on this. We could construct virtually any number of counter-examples in which a moral agent clearly does not have the right to X even though he possesses the mere ability, opportunity, etc to successfully bring about X. So, this obviously cannot be what justifies God's having all these rights.

This is one of the bizarro aspects of your view. It's an example of what we could call a bizarro-justifier. In your everyday talk, the mere consideration that S has the power to successfully bring X about would never suffice in itself as a justifier for the idea that S has the right to do so. For example, if some really powerful human invaded your home while you slept and you were powerless to prevent his taking your life; of course you would simply deny that this thereby grants him the right to do so. Somehow, though, when it comes to God, such considerations alone are supposed to suffice. It's a bizarre contortion of your reasoning.

Originally posted by LemonJello
In just the same way as robbie did, you have missed the point of my inquiry (please see my reply in full to him on page 13 for more clarification).

Since you think the bible offers some good insights into the notion of 'love', for example, I will give you precisely the same challenge as I gave robbie on page 13 (unless I missed it, he never actually re ...[text shortened]... s of widespread suffering when he has the power, knowledge, opportunity to do so, etc."[/i]

There are so many to choose from...but here are a couple..

Prov 3:12
12 For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
NKJV

Luke 12:32

32 "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
NKJV
There are no verses that come to mind that would be what you are looking for. What you want to know is how love can be consistent with things like sanctioning genocide, etc.. You apparently did not give my post much thought. Whenever the killing occurred, floods, wars, they were always to protect God's people.
You miss the whole point, you think the people that died in the flood were innocent people...they were not.
You also do not understand the ongoing spiritual war. It is unseen, we only see the results.
Something else to consider is God cannot intervene in peoples lives unless He is invited...given permission, if you will..
You are looking at this from a carnal point of view, an intellectual point of view.
The bible says that these spiritual matters are foolishness to those who are unbelievers. I was in that camp once too.
You also forget that the god of this world(Satan) is the one who controls this world, not God. There is much you do not understand and I see why unbelievers scoff at the bible and Christians. We must appear utterly stupid. I understand that.
It is not God's will that people die without knowing the truth. Sadly we/I as Christians have failed miserably in not taking a stand. Not all, but most Christians.
In the first century people were being healed, raised from the dead, the blind saw, the lame walked, all in the name of Jesus Christ. This still happens, but rarely. Christians are untaught in the power they have to perform signs, miracles and wonders. Our faith is weak. I am sorry I cannot articulate better.
God is good, He is holy and He is love.

Originally posted by KellyJay
Your hypothetical had God acting out of human traits, it wasn't the action it was
the motivations I was complaining about. You had God doing things, because
He was bored and wanted to just enjoy people suffer neither of which are things
God would act out of. So since God sets the rules on people's deaths all peoples
deaths just as much as He does gettin ...[text shortened]... not because God ends life, but for the reasons you were
saying God was going to do it.
Kelly

No, I am afraid you are really, really confused. My hypothetical had nothing to do with the attributing of "human traits". In fact, the example could be comparing God with some intelligent alien from Mars for all I care. The important point is that you have two moral agents and the same, identical morally relevant action (an action here consists of both the act itself [e.g., the lining up of Jewish people and the execution of them] AND the underlying motivation). And, on your view, moral agent A's carrying out the action is "evil to the core", whereas moral agent B's carrying out the exact same action is consistent with perfect justice and love.

And, as I have already pointed out, you have absolutely no basis whatsoever for objecting to the hypothetical regarding the underlying reason/motivation for God's action. Remember? According to you, you are in no position to understand anything about God's reasons/motivations until He reveals such enlightening information to you on Judgment day. So, for all you know on the basis of your commitments as such, God will reveal to you on Judgment day that simple personal amusement is a morally excellent reason for taking the lives of other persons.

Originally posted by checkbaiter
There are so many to choose from...but here are a couple..

Prov 3:12
12 For whom the Lord loves He corrects,
Just as a father the son in whom he delights.
NKJV

Luke 12:32

32 "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
NKJV
There are no verses that come to mind that would be what you are lookin th is weak. I am sorry I cannot articulate better.
God is good, He is holy and He is love.

You apparently did not give my post much thought. Whenever the killing occurred, floods, wars, they were always to protect God's people.
You miss the whole point, you think the people that died in the flood were innocent people...they were not.

Are you honestly trying to say that there were no non-guilty entities that suffered and died in such events? Are you nuts? For starters, how about young persons, babies and infants, how about all the non-human sentient creatures? Got any idea how their treatment is consistent with the love you are talking about? The other obvious issue is that you haven't given any justification that such fates were merited, even for guilty parties.

Something else to consider is God cannot intervene in peoples lives unless He is invited...given permission, if you will..

Patently false. Many of the non-guilty parties I mentioned above are clearly persons; and yet they are not even capable of giving such consent. (Not that I know too many agents who would consent to such fates anyway.)

You are looking at this from a carnal point of view, an intellectual point of view.

Yeah, I asked for actual reasons, not some exhortation to just have faith or some such. If you have some actual reasons, great. If not, then I probably won't take much interest.

I am sorry I cannot articulate better.
God is good, He is holy and He is love.

That's ok. I thank you for your thoughts.

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]You apparently did not give my post much thought. Whenever the killing occurred, floods, wars, they were always to protect God's people.
You miss the whole point, you think the people that died in the flood were innocent people...they were not.

Are you honestly trying to say that there were no non-guilty entities that suffered and died in such ...[text shortened]...
God is good, He is holy and He is love.[/b]

That's ok. I thank you for your thoughts.[/b]

BTW, If you would be so kind.... how do you highlight sentences? bracket /b....?

Originally posted by LemonJello
[b]You apparently did not give my post much thought. Whenever the killing occurred, floods, wars, they were always to protect God's people.
You miss the whole point, you think the people that died in the flood were innocent people...they were not.

Are you honestly trying to say that there were no non-guilty entities that suffered and died in such ...[text shortened]...
God is good, He is holy and He is love.[/b]

That's ok. I thank you for your thoughts.[/b]

Sometimes it is expedient that many should die to save a few. Let God in His infinite wisdom be the judge of that. You are incapable of judging what you do not understand. That is the reason and the only one that will be given to you.

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by checkbaiter
BTW, If you would be so kind.... how do you highlight sentences? bracket /b....?

Try this:

[X]Whatever you want to highlight[/X] where X = b or X = quote.

Originally posted by LemonJello
No, I am afraid you are really, really confused. My hypothetical had nothing to do with the attributing of "human traits". In fact, the example could be comparing God with some intelligent alien from Mars for all I care. The important point is that you have two moral agents and the same, identical morally relevant action (an action here c ...[text shortened]... personal amusement is a morally excellent reason for taking the lives of other persons.

It was the God did this ... because, that was where I was having an issue and
still do. You still don't get it! God creates life and takes it away, it is God that
does that no one else, and yet you find fault in some actions God takes. I guess
you are okay with all dying nice peaceful deaths in their sleep in a very old age?

God is not like any other moral agent, life starts and ends with Him. When we
take it we are not the ones that gave life or set the boundaries on life itself so
there isn't any comparison between God and any other.
Kelly

Originally posted by RJHinds
Sometimes it is expedient that many should die to save a few. Let God in His infinite wisdom be the judge of that. You are incapable of judging what you do not understand. That is the reason and the only one that will be given to you.

HalleluYah !!! Praise the Lord! Holy! Holy! Holy!

So in His all-knowingness and all-powerfulness, He couldn't figure out some other way to save the few?

Originally posted by checkbaiter
BTW, If you would be so kind.... how do you highlight sentences? bracket /b....?

To highlight something by bold print, you type a lower case right-pointed bracket, the letter b and the 2nd lower case bracket pointed back to the letter b. To end the bold highlight type [/b] bracket /b bracket which adds the forward slash before the b. Like this.