God has FINALLY heard my prayers . . .

[Plane]

If God knows and has always known, everything that will happen until the end of time, that is predestination, period.

I knew you would say that.

[Plane]

I choose to believe that time is beyond God. God may be a tad better at predicting because of a greater experience, but in the long run, an immense great black hole could develop and we could all get sucked into it, perhaps even God as well. It could catch us all by surprise.

It might have started sucking already, way out past Andromeda and the Crab Nebula, and we only have several million years to go.

What in the nature of time , makes it impossible for God to experience it diffrently than we do?

Or how do you have such a complete understanding of the nature of God?

[Plane]

Quote from: hnumpah on August 01, 2008, 06:00:02
That's what you are calling free will. I call it a leap of faith.


Pooch: This statement confuses free will and faith.

Not in the context I used it.

Telling us all these stories about the creation, man's fall from grace, the flood, slavery in Egypt, coming out of bondage, etc, right on up through the crucifixion and Saul's conversion, are all well and good, if one is disposed to take things on faith. Where is the proof, the hard evidence, that any of these events occurred? All we have is a a book, full of inaccuracies, that has been around several thousand years, with the latest additions being some two thousand years ago. Based on this, we are expected to take it as holy writ that god exists, we are all sinners, his son died for our sins, blah blah blah. That's what you are calling free will. I call it a leap of faith.

Plane seems to believe that expecting someone to make a life altering decision without access to all the facts and evidence they might need to make the correct decision is somehow not interfering with that persons free will. I don't believe that requiring a person to make such a decision based on such skimpy, often inaccurate and self-contradictory evidence, when actual hard evidence could be provided but is withheld, is not promoting free will; it is requiring faith, and in my opinion, a huge leap of faith, to make that decision.

Yes I think that is how I understand Jesus admonition that without the simple faith of a child one cannot be saved.

Consider the potential complexity and stubtlety of God ,shall we refuse to be obedient untill after we understand all of his thinking and can agree with all of his decisions?

As much as Guppies do not swallow Whales , I do not understand Gods thinking , I don't expect to, I cannot imagine being able to.

So when Children want it explained why they should not chew on the power cord or play in traffic I don't want to let them chew the power cord in traffic untill I have explained fully to their understanding electricity and traffic law.

As God explained to Job , he might make some decisions that affect Job based on knoledge that Job could never understand.

[hnumpah]

Consider the potential complexity and stubtlety of God ,shall we refuse to be obedient untill after we understand all of his thinking and can agree with all of his decisions?

I did not say that.

Before we go into any of that, we have to establish that such a god exists, and has the powers and abilities ascribed to him. Handing someone a bible and telling them that is proof is not giving them the hard evidence they would need; it is like handing them a Dr. Seuss book to prove the existence of the cat in the hat.

[Plane]

Consider the potential complexity and stubtlety of God ,shall we refuse to be obedient untill after we understand all of his thinking and can agree with all of his decisions?

I did not say that.

Before we go into any of that, we have to establish that such a god exists, and has the powers and abilities ascribed to him. Handing someone a bible and telling them that is proof is not giving them the hard evidence they would need; it is like handing them a Dr. Seuss book to prove the existence of the cat in the hat.

No you said this...

Plane seems to believe that expecting someone to make a life altering decision without access to all the facts and evidence they might need to make the correct decision ...

Do you mean that you determine for yourself what is sufficient to know?

I don't think that a complete explanation is comeing , if you are trying to find God I don't see why he should hide himself from you , but I don't expect it to happen as a result of a perfectly reasoned arguement , or a previously unknown fact, there is no such potential .

[MissusDe]

Congrats, Pooch!  I can understand your feelings about being the last male to carry on the family name - my paternal grandfather had three sons.  One died when he was 19, and of the other two, my uncle had two daughters by his first marriage and no sons with his second wife.  My father had two sons - one died shortly after a premature birth, and my older brother has been married twice and never wanted children.   

Genealogy can be fascinating, and the internet has opened up so much in terms of research.  Recently I wanted to find out some information about my paternal grandfather, and so I signed up for the free trial on ancestry.com.  Although I didn't find exactly what I was looking for about him, I did find a copy of the register showing when he and his wife emigrated to the U.S., crossing from Canada at Port Huron, as well as several copies of the yearly census which listed him and his family. All of these documents were copies from the original handwritten ledgers.

To my surprise, I found many news articles about both of my parents.  When I was born, my father was a Lt. Colonel in the Army Air Corps and was the commander of the base hospital.  There were mentions of him at various functions - hosting dinners and giving awards and so on - and also mentions of my mother in her role in the Officer's Wives Club at their meetings and luncheons.  There were even two articles that had photographs, although the one with my mom was too blurry to even make her out.  Later in his life, my father was the chief psychiatrist at a prison, and I found articles quoting him in newspapers across the country concerning an experimental drug that was being used at the time, and another article where he testified during a state inquiry of prison conditions. 

There was something in one of the articles that I found very interesting.  My father was asked by an assemblyman how the prison coped with the problem of homosexuality (this was back in early 1972).

My father responded that there was a 47-bed ward separated from the rest of the institution for what he termed "flamboyant, effeminate homosexuals".  He said confirmed homosexuals were advised when they first arrived at the institution, "Okay, you're a homosexual.  Try not to get in trouble while you're here."

"Homosexuals receive very little therapy treatment," he testified. "We don't have the staff, and even if we did have the staff, we still don't have the answer to homosexuality."

Another assemblyman voiced his concern that the prison hadn't been active enough in denying reports that operations such as lobotomies had been taking place there.  My father responded that the facility had made extensive efforts to discount the reports as completely unfounded.

My father died the following December, shortly before I turned 18.  I don't remember any talk at home about his testimony before the prison reform investigating committee (although I will confess that at the time, I was busy experimenting with an entirely different class of drugs...).  As a teenager, I never got the chance to know my father on an adult level, and there's so much that I'll never find out.  Finding these articles was an eye-opening experience for me, and
I was amazed at the amount of information that the website had.

[Cynthia]

You'll have to ask God why he set it up that way.

That won't work.

He's mute.

Or possibly not there.

Some say that he was deafened by the Big Bang.

LOL


Ok, There was once upon a time a Big Bang. . . but

GOd

Was the Big Banger!

[Cynthia]

My oldest son, who just turned 30 (yep, I got a thirty-something) is FINALLY getting married.  Since he met his intended at a New Year's Eve dance, they are geting wed on that date. 

Actually, as fate would have it, they met before then.  It turns out after comparing notes, they found that he had known her as a child.  She is in her mid-twenties so they were not "hang-out" friends at the time, but we had her father as a "home-teacher" (a church member who visits you at your home with a monthly lesson).  We went to visit our eldest last year and stopped by to visit the prospective in-laws.  They actually had a video of my family singing four-part harmony Christmas carols to them years ago!  We had completely forgotten them!

Since Val and I got married young (19 and 17 respectively) and our youngest just graduated, we have been wondering when the next generation was going to get busy and get here!  My family name, which I have traced back to A.D. 1095, has become (in my branch) an endangered species.  My branch of the family has had only-child sons or sons without progeny through seven generations.  My father had three boys and that was the most in any of the previous 5 generations.  My fourth great grandfather, James, had two sons.  His eldest, John, has a line of descendants all over the place.  I am descended from John's younger brother, William.  William is depending on my eldest to keep his branch going.  Here's how it works:

William had one son, Thomas.

Thomas had a daughter, Julia, who died young, and a son, Thomas Clarence. He had one other daugher, Ethel.  (Our family historian.  She died at 97 and I miss her to this day.)  She died childless.

Thomas Clarence had one son, Thomas Clifton.

Thomas Clifton had two sons, Thomas Clarence (my uncle Tommy) and George (my dad).

Uncle Tommy had one daughter, who died childless of a disease called MENS.

My dad had three sons, of which I am the middle.

My older brother had one daughter from his first marriage, who is in her twenties, and has a new daughter from his second marriage who is about 5.

My younger brother is unable to produce children.

That left it up to me.

I have had three sons. 

I gave it my best shot, Willie!

One of those three needs to get busy and produce at least one boy!  Otherwise, this entire line from William on down disappears.  Our family name is rather prominent in our historical home, and genealogists in that area have been going nuts for years trying to figure out where these few extraneous family-name bearers came from.  When I was able (courtesy of great-aunt Ethel's excellent memory and family history knowledge) to show where we fit in after contacting some of them on ancestry.com, there were some collective sighs of relief from the rest of the klan.  All of the desendants of John (and there are many) had been frantically trying to fit in all of those Thomases that were showing up on the census.  If Aunt Ethel hadn't preserved the info, it may well have been lost and remained unsolved.

Anyway, THAT is the pressure situation being put on my eldest.  Produce or KILL A WHOLE LINE OFF, BOY!!!   And the fact that one of his brothers is gay narrows the odds even more (though that one is seriously questioning his homosexuality now, so maybe the gene pool isn't as shallow as it appears!).

A New Year's Eve wedding.  Two reasons in one to pop the cork and we're Mormons.  But ahh, the root beer will flow.

I'm just trying to figure out how they are going to make it to the NYE dance.  Seems to me they would likely be a bit busy . . .

Sunrise, sunset . . .

How beautiful...and on my birthday, to boot.

God bless your son, Poochie!
Cindy

[hnumpah]

Do you mean that you determine for yourself what is sufficient to know?

Absolutely.

I have not been provided with concrete evidence enough to satisfy me.

if I ever am, I will let you know.

[Plane]

Do you mean that you determine for yourself what is sufficient to know?

Absolutely.

I have not been provided with concrete evidence enough to satisfy me.

if I ever am, I will let you know.

I can't really disagree , as long as you arn't shutting the doors on the possibility God can probly handle the challenge , he has always been gentle on me . Though I understand some people require some extreme experience.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I find it somewhat droll that either people claim that God is omnipotent or that he simply isn't.

There also logically exists the possibility that God is merely semipotent. Perhaps he didn't create the universe, he is just the guy who sort of semi-supervises it. Or maybe he did create it, but these days, he's retired and only works part time.

I realize that this is a tough concept for a church to sell, but hey, supermarkets still have to figure out how to sell Screaming Yellow Zonkers and Froot Loops, even though they aren't really "food".

[Plane]

I find it somewhat droll that either people claim that God is omnipotent or that he simply isn't.

There also logically exists the possibility that God is merely semipotent. Perhaps he didn't create the universe, he is just the guy who sort of semi-supervises it. Or maybe he did create it, but these days, he's retired and only works part time.

I realize that this is a tough concept for a church to sell, but hey, supermarkets still have to figure out how to sell Screaming Yellow Zonkers and Froot Loops, even though they aren't really "food".

I think I will go with the omnipotent option.

What is the limit supposed to be?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I think I will go with the omnipotent option.

What is the limit supposed to be?


=====================================
I do not know how to find the limit, or even whom to ask, or even if anyone could answer.

Saying you favor an omnipotent God is like saying that you favor a car that gets infinity miles or you favor closets of infinite storage capacity. It's easy why anyone would say this.

But as with these examples, I fear it may be less than realistic.
====================================================

Observe the First Commandment; "Thou shall have NO OTHER GODS before me".

Observe that it does NOT say. "I am the only deity around. Believing in other deities is useless."

It instead suggests that there are, in fact other, lesser gods, or at least other gods that we are not supposed to worship more, or perhaps, at all.

I wonder about these other gods. Were they limited, so they were not omnipotent in the presence of, say Krypton, or they were unable to thread needles or had scanty beards, or were just plain plug-ugly.

So I am hardly the first to be able to conceive of semipotent divine beings.

I am reminded of Q and the other members of the Q Continuum on Star Trek The Next Generation.

God also mentions that he is a jealous god. Jealous of what? Doesn't jealously suggest competition, feelings of inferiority, or perhaps insanity? Maybe some combination of these, perhaps all three.

Isn't jealousy a bad thing for a leader? If McCain or Obama would mention how jealous one is of the other, it would make a big difference, I suspect. I don't want a jealous president, sulking like a sullen crab in the White House because Putin has more oil and Argentines have better steaks.

I don't think I like the idea of a jealous Supreme Being. I mean, if you are the only God around and you created everything, what is there to be jealous of? Not Satan, you created him, too, knowing he'd turn out to be defective. If you had the acumen of General Electric or their Chinese affiliate, Angel Inspector Number 12 would have thrown Satan into the recycle bin before activation, as one does with a defective toaster.

If you can't do better than GE, you need to stop yammering on about Omnipotence, that's what I say.