" you are your own god, defining good and evil, and so on what is honorable or not." And thinking about it, to where would that lead us? I will argue, to confusion, current state of the world.
I just wanted deeper dialogue, thats all. I take the stance that bible is the truth, word for word, and I do my best find the truth in what ever claim or subject, and since we are in the religion forum, it should not treated lightly.
sideshowbob said: "Of course, we could have figured that out for ourselves anyway." ...and for the balance...Why is it so?
On God and Shoeboxes Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Click to be found naked and left dying. Well, sure, but it can be argued that God would declare pretty much anything we can think of, and that doesn't make it right. In fact, neither does it mean it's God. If you meet the Buddha on the road? In truth, it is easier to accept the proposition that a god would declare this or that. The monotheistic godhead, fashioned in our own image, is smaller and more finite than even we ourselves.
What you mean with right? Surely, if it is God that sayeth it, it is the truth, or else it isnt God that sayeth it. Monotheistic godhead, that sounds like a demigod of somekind, sounds like new age? Whats that?
You kind of missed the point there: It can be argued that God would declare pretty much anything we can think of, and that doesn't make it right. I can make up whatever the hell I want and tell you God sayeth. Doesn't mean I'm right. That we might argue something does not necessarily make that argument correct. The monotheistic godhead is properly panentheistic; anything else invokes the question of (∞ - 1) The problem with pronouncements of what God says isn't so much that they are unprovable, but, rather, that we reduce God by requiring It attend differentiation, which, in turn, It is supposed to transcend. The monotheistic godhead is the deity at the top of a monotheistic structure, such as IHVH/Allah, Platonic Unmoved Mover, or first principle proscribing a subordinate polytheistic scheme.
But that is you saying it, not God. I´m on the premise here by the OP that God sayeth "be honorable", not you or anything else claiming to be God. Sorry, you lost me here. No problem for me, I argue from the bible. Interesting, on what basis you bundle all those to be one and the same, I will argue that God in the bible is not same as Allah for example.
I don't know if God would command me to tie my shoelaces right now, but I am confident that God would command me to Be Honorable. Yes, it is debatable what constitutes 'Honor', but that I should be Honorable is not debatable to me. But if there are people who don't think it is obvious that God commands us to Be Honorable, then I'll just have to convince them. I'll start with this: Have the readers ever been honorable and what would a good story of their honor be? Care to share? DE
I will argue that there is precise reason why God gave us Ten Commandments, it boils down to our corrupted heart by sin which can not decide what is honorable as God can, seppuku is honorable thing to do, but, not in the bible. Interesting challenge, that is for later I think
'Do no harm' from the medical establishment is an example of honor. Again, what constitutes doing no harm is debatable in each case, but that to do no harm is undeniable good and an example of honor. From a broader perspective, not just limited to medicine, 'Do no harm' is a potent virtue and central to my beliefs and practices. I would agree that 'Do not murder' is essential as well. DE
You confuse yourself when you change the subject. That is, okay, so you're here on that premise, which is what it is, but the issue at hand―that you chose to engage―starts with the propostion that, "It can be argued that God would declare, 'Be honorable.'" Notice the word argued. That's what you're skipping. Yes, Mr. Elkins and I are saying it, because that's the proposition he put before us. Your opinion is what it is, but part of the reason you're confused is that you're changing the subject. Once God becomes finite, there are portions of existence separate from it; God is no longer the authority. Right, so cramming God into the shoebox kind of wrecks the whole Alpha and Omega idea. It's quite simple: When you can fit God into the nightstand drawer at a red-light motel, a lot gets omitted, compressed, or distorted. Okay, so: The Joker, Gecko Moria, and Syndrome are all villains. They're not the same villain, but they are all villains. God, Allah, the Unmoved Mover, and the first principle proscribing a subordinate polythestic scheme (or, as such, a shoebox assertion of monotheism such as we find in the Bible) are all assertions of the monotheistic godhead. Unlike the villains, though, not all of those monotheistic assertions can exist simultaneously and independently of one another. • • • (chortle!) Okay, more usefully: (1) Do set the example. (2) Self-promoting authors trying to facilitate unanchored metaphysical discussions at websites full of cynics is itself an interesting propositon. (3) What, seriously? You really want people to get up and talk about how honorable they are? By any number of religions and at least a few formal honor codes, that's kind of dishonorable.
You are confident that God would command you to "Be Honorable" but that it is debatable what constitutes "Honor"? Not really too useful a command then, is it? Assuming you mean "Honor" as in being morally correct, whose moral code are things to be judged by? Yours? Mine? Some ancient notion of morality? Are you going to convince us in the same way that I can convince you that Frodo was a ringbearer? I.e. That you'll try to convince me that in some text somewhere the character of God tells people to "be honourable"? Okay - just point out the section of the book where he does that. I could be convinced that way. If, on the other hand, you wish to claim that God exists and that God commands what you are claiming... First convince me that God exists. Then we'll get on to the other part. Or perhaps you wish to go down the route of saying that IF God exists then, due to the nature of God he would indeed command us to "Be Honorable"? Or perhaps an alternative route? If so, clarification please.
Belief in God is a choice. You either choose to believe in Him or not. I chose to believe in Him. It's that simple. I have to start by knowing something. It's like in mathematics. If you are not willing to agree that 1 + 1 = 2, then how are you to build thousands of complex proofs? You have to start with some axioms. I simply chose to believe that there is Perfection and that Perfection is Being. How can you have Bravery without Being? If you want me to convince you that Frodo was a ringbearer, then I could take an intra-literature approach and point out the page number in Tolkien's book that declares this. Should I deny that Frodo was a ringbearer? Any Tolkien lover would just point out the passage where it says he is. Yet, in there real world there was never a Frodo or ringbearer as described by Tolkien. As far as texts that declare what God says, there are some things I believe without the need for texts as a prerequisite for belief. Regards, DE
This has to do with the training of men, who historically do most of the damage to culture and the earth. If you look at the inner cities, where there are only mothers to raise children, with the fathers often absent, the young men tend take to the streets and get into trouble. The daughters tend to fair better, since they have a mother to help them become a woman. The boys have no father figure, and look for this in the streets. If we had a female God, this would benefit the women, but it would not be sufficient to regulate the men. Mothers tend to spoil their male children and let bad behavior slide; unconditional love. This is good in the short term, but not in the long term. God the father, is not afraid to set the rules and take off his belt, to teach the spoiled monsters, the rules of proper society. A mother goddess would allow too much slack for the boys, causing problems. The original religions were mother god based; mother nature and fertility. This helped to structure marriage and women, but it did not optimize the men, as well as the women. God the father was an upgrade needed to regulate the needs of men, so the men are not wasting time and resources, fighting, warring and stealing resources. Once the males were more structured, cultures evolved quickly. The Catholic Church added a woman; Mary, to the otherwise male hierarchy of Western Religion. This is there to help the women become natural women, since fathers tend to spoil their daughters. Mothers tend to be more strict toward their daughters, so they can learn the ways of women. The change to add a female God, is because the male only god of Western religions, is not fully able to optimize the needs of women. The analogy is a divorced dad raising the children. He can be a good dad, but the female children have unique natural needs. Once he remarries, his wife can help with the needs of his daughter, he can't fully optimize in a natural way, since he is not a woman.
To avoid the confusion that has mired many a thread on similar topics, are you referring to "belief IN God" or merely belief that God exists. I would certainly struggle to have "belief IN" anything that I didn't also believe existed, but I don't "believe IN" most things I believe exist. So which are you referring to, so as to avoid confusion? For my part I am referring to the existence of God. And in this matter I do not think it is simply a choice, any more than I could choose to believe in the existence of a yeti, for example. I find that, based on one's experience and processing make-up one either simply believes or not, but there is little choice in it. We could choose to expand our experience which we then process, to better inform ourselves, but the eventual belief (or lack of) is still not even then a choice but rather an outcome we can do little about. Sure, I can accept the assumption of premises, or postulates, for the purpose of exploring scenarios, but the soundness of those scenarios is only as sound as the veracity of those premises. We could explore further reasoning around there having been a virulent plague in 2015 that wiped out 90% of the population. But as you can surmise we'd be talking fiction, as that postulate is demonstrably false. With the existence of God the postulate can be accepted as true for the sake of further reasoning, but unless it can be demonstrated, the conclusions of any argument predicated upon that postulate are necessarily conditional. So, IF God has existed, did he command us to "Be Honorable"? I am not aware of any such direct command, although please do state your case for it, you did say that it could be argued, right? But don't for one moment take any conclusion conditional upon that postulate as being therefore an implied reality, unless you also wish to prove the postulate true. Whqt exactly do you mean by "Being"? Do you simply mean existence itself? Is that how you define God? But you perhaps think there was a great flood across the entire earth? Such as? And why do you believe those things?
Not really. Almost every religion, every version of "God", understands that the way we treat each other is what really matters. It has nothing to do with any specific belief about "God". It doesn't require the concept of "God" at all.
