My view of Physics and God

[DeterminedJuliet]

"Re: Can you make an atheist out of me before I reach 10 posts"?

Lets say there have been 10,000 gods proposed, you seem to believe in one or oneish.

Divide 1 by 10,000 do some wibbling and wobbling and I conclude you are 99.99% atheist

Oh damn I was too slow, you're on 21 posts already, no cookie from Satan for me today.

Does Satan have those thin mint cookies the girl-guides sell? Those are the best.

[xSilverPhinx]

Damn, now you got me thinking about mint chocolate chip ice cream. At 1:30 in the morning

[The Magic Pudding]

Does Satan have those thin mint cookies the girl-guides sell? Those are the best.

I don't think there's much point keeping up the pretence with questions like this.
Everyone's known for years the girl guides are a Satanic franchise.

[Stevil]

I'm sorry, but you wouldn't make a very good atheist at all, best for you to stick to religion.

[Stevil]

Can god travel faster than the speed of light?

[Siz]

Definition of ABORTION
1
: the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus: as a : spontaneous expulsion of a human fetus during the first 12 weeks of gestation — compare miscarriage b : induced expulsion of a human fetus c : expulsion of a fetus by a domestic animal often due to infection at any time before completion of pregnancy — compare contagious abortion

2
: monstrosity
3
: arrest of development (as of a part or process) resulting in imperfection; also : a result of such arrest

Just because a word has one meaning doesn't mean that a person was using it...in the context it was likely definition 2.  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abortion

Actually No.3 is nearer what I was aiming for, but No.2 is also appropriate. I prefer:

5. a failure to develop to completion or maturity.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/abortion

I take it we failed our challenge??!

[fester30]

Is there a reason that the meaning needs to be a paradox form a revelation of knowledge?  I think the Genesis 3 account is all about the fruit of knowledge.  The meaning is both as far as I can see.

The Bible is written by humans.  Yes.  It is a mirror of God and man.  We are also mirrors.  What does a mirror see when it looks?  What it reflects.  What does a man see when he looks at the Bible?  The same.  Again, we are the image of God.  Where do I find the parallel in the Bible to this context you and I discuss.  So far in this reply, I have talked about education and a mirror.

1 Corinthians 13

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Is God a jerk?  Consider this.  Jesus said in John 3, "you must be born again."  It is not an option.  You will be born again.  This is the process.  He states in John 3 that we have two births.  We are born into the water (baptism into the material world).  Or, we can be born into the spirit.  How is this possible?  When we see nature, we see the sun and moon come together to create life on earth.  We also see sperm and egg come together when a man and woman fall in love.  Again, new life.  Is this where union ends.  No.  The earth is yet another womb and our bodies are the next placenta.  Crude but true.  We fall in love with God and gain union with the spirit within.  Your soul is only one aspect of you.  The spirit (Consciousness) is the other.  Satan is the animal nature to be defeated.  Again, symbolism.  

Why doesn't God just come out and say it and save the suffering?  Suffering is the point.  We suffer to earn.  Suffering either has us or others as a cause, or we choose to suffer work for reward.  Either way, we must suffer to learn.

Confucius says, "I hear and I forget.  I see and I learn.  I do and I understand."

You must be born again.  It is the process.  

Mirror images... or perhaps we create God in our image, which explains all the different denominations of Christianity and different sects of Islam and Judaism and different interpretations of scripture.  Humans see the world (or the supernatural) through their own eyes, and see god as their experiences demand.  Some see an angry vengeful god, some see a kind and gentle god.  People read scripture to conform to their own idea of god by ignoring some passages and enhancing others.

I used to consider myself "born again."  I've given better arguments in favor of religion and god than I am seeing here, and even they had massive gaping holes in them.  I feel repetitive but I must repeat myself one more time: quoting the Bible doesn't convince atheists, as the Bible is not a holy book to us.

[Xjeepguy]

quoting the Bible doesn't convince atheists, as the Bible is not a holy book to us.

^^ exactly ^^

The bible means nothing to me. I have read it cover to cover, and to me, it is just a book.

[Tank]

Is there a reason that the meaning needs to be a paradox form a revelation of knowledge?  I think the Genesis 3 account is all about the fruit of knowledge.  The meaning is both as far as I can see.

The Bible is written by humans.  Yes.  It is a mirror of God and man.  We are also mirrors.  What does a mirror see when it looks?  What it reflects.  What does a man see when he looks at the Bible?  The same.  Again, we are the image of God.  Where do I find the parallel in the Bible to this context you and I discuss.  So far in this reply, I have talked about education and a mirror.

1 Corinthians 13

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Is God a jerk?  Consider this.  Jesus said in John 3, "you must be born again."  It is not an option.  You will be born again.  This is the process.  He states in John 3 that we have two births.  We are born into the water (baptism into the material world).  Or, we can be born into the spirit.  How is this possible?  When we see nature, we see the sun and moon come together to create life on earth.  We also see sperm and egg come together when a man and woman fall in love.  Again, new life.  Is this where union ends.  No.  The earth is yet another womb and our bodies are the next placenta.  Crude but true.  We fall in love with God and gain union with the spirit within.  Your soul is only one aspect of you.  The spirit (Consciousness) is the other.  Satan is the animal nature to be defeated.  Again, symbolism.  

Why doesn't God just come out and say it and save the suffering?  Suffering is the point.  We suffer to earn.  Suffering either has us or others as a cause, or we choose to suffer work for reward.  Either way, we must suffer to learn.

Confucius says, "I hear and I forget.  I see and I learn.  I do and I understand."

You must be born again.  It is the process.  

Mirror images... or perhaps we create God in our image, which explains all the different denominations of Christianity and different sects of Islam and Judaism and different interpretations of scripture.  Humans see the world (or the supernatural) through their own eyes, and see god as their experiences demand.  Some see an angry vengeful god, some see a kind and gentle god.  People read scripture to conform to their own idea of god by ignoring some passages and enhancing others.

I used to consider myself "born again."  I've given better arguments in favor of religion and god than I am seeing here, and even they had massive gaping holes in them.  I feel repetitive but I must repeat myself one more time: quoting the Bible doesn't convince atheists, as the Bible is not a holy book to us.

Very signature worthy, may I quote you?

[fester30]

Very signature worthy, may I quote you?

I would be honored!

[Whitney]

I take it we failed our challenge??!

Ya, whatever....frankly I found it childish to continue counting down the 10 posts after it was pointed out that the challenge couldn't be held even if someone were bored enough to try.

[SuperiorEd]

Were you always Christian?

I was Baptized at 9, then lived a life of doubt.  I started the process of searching in 1996 and knew God in my heart.  I needed to know Him in my mind.  The doubt came from all the bias I felt toward suffering.  Once I found that suffering has a direction, I was free from the reasoning of bias.  There are two ways to suffer in this world.  We either suffer from our own efforts or the efforts of others.  If we take reward, suffering follows.  If we suffer work for others (consider yourself on of the others), then reward follows.

You do realise that thinking that one is bias-free is in itself a bias, right?

The second thing that confirmed my faith was in my view of divine justice.  When Satan visited God again in Job 2 after killing Job's children, God said this:

3 Then the LORD said to Satan, "Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason."

4 "Skin for skin!" Satan replied.

Why Skin for skin as a reply?  A snake sheds his skin, but the snake remains.  Satan was just telling God it didn't matter, they would be back.  

Yet god allowed satan to ruin Job, and even kill his sons who had nothing to do with anything.If there's a divine point to suffering, why did Job's sons have to suffer for that?  

In John 3, Jesus says, "you must be born again."  There is no other alternative.  

For me, the final judgment of God implies that there are other judgments.  Divine justice is truly divine.  We must live under the veil by faith, not fact.  Learning and testing reveals our heart.  God is long-suffering.

These truths set me free to view God as He is.  As a loving God who have given me the gift of life and the education to understand the next.

Edited to add:

What do you think about the suffering of innocents? How do you reconcile that with god's love?

Bias that I speak of is tied to pride.  Yes to what you said because we are all sinners.  Pride is to be eliminated but sin cannot be eliminated here. 

God allowed Satan to take Job's children in destruction.  As we can use hindsight to see the bigger picture, this story has served as inspiration to countless generations.  You cannot understand this until you get the point of suffering for good instead of suffering from the evil of those who steal, kill and destroy.  Job was faithful and suffered toward reward.  If you have read this thread, you have heard me describe how suffering can be approached from two sides.  We either bring suffering to ourselves by taking reward.  Smoke and you get cancer.  Or, we suffer the work of giving of ourselves for others.  We build our house before  we build our home.  This requires us to lower ourselves to raise others. 

As a good father, I train my son in the way he should go.  From this point, I step back and let him live his life.  I minimize myself to allow growth by experience.  Guidance is what I provide and not protection.  Do I protect my son from himself?  No.  If I did, he would follow the path of others in my immediate family who still live at home, sheltered by the family to the child's detriment.  We are in the wilderness.  We are prodigal sons.  Earth is an environment for the fallen.  We have the keys to open the doors of our prison or we light the fire we burn by.

As for the suffering of innocents.  We each suffer from our own actions or the actions of others.  Suffering produces reward in the end.  The direction of suffering is always toward reward, even when that suffering starts with reward.  As I said above, Jesus states that "you must be born again."  One life is not sufficient to experience a week in God's garden.  One week is 7000 years. 

Adam - Noah 2000
Noah to Christ 2000
Christ to Us  2000
Reign of Christ 1000

That's seven days.

The Epistle of Barnabas

15:3  He speaketh, too, of the sabbath in the
beginning of the creation: And God made in six days
the works of his hands, and finished them on the
seventh day, and rested in it and sanctified it.

15:4  Consider, my children, what signify the words,
He finished them in six days. They mean this: that in
six thousand years the Lord will make an end of all
things, for a day is with him as a thousand years. And
he himself beareth witness unto me, saying: Behold
this day a day shall be as a thousand years.
Therefore, my children, in six days, that is in six
thousand years, shall all things be brought to an end.

[DeterminedJuliet]

Even when I was Christian, I never bought "original sin". How can a newborn baby be a sinner?

Also, as people have pointed out, not all suffering leads to reward. Unless, you mean, that if you are Christian you get your "reward" because you get eternal life, or whatever, but I don't really see the point of suffering being necessary at all within that framework. If you are Christian you go to heaven regardless, why would you need to suffer? It's not like people who suffer a great deal get to go to heaven any "more" than non-sufferers. You either go, or you don't. Why so much suffering for some people and so little for others? Is there a "suffer scale" that God uses?

It makes no sense.

And while Job may have provided "inspiration" for countless of people, there are tons of un-known atrocities just like that story that happen all of the time. What is the point of those? And don't say "suffering brings them their reward", because, by your argument, if they're Christian they should get their reward either way. Christianity demands faith, not suffering, and those aren't the same thing.

[SuperiorEd]

Even when I was Christian, I never bought "original sin". How can a newborn baby be a sinner?

Also, as people have pointed out, not all suffering leads to reward. Unless, you mean, that if you are Christian you get your "reward" because you get eternal life, or whatever, but I don't really see the point of suffering being necessary at all within that framework. If you are Christian you go to heaven regardless, why would you need to suffer? It's not like people who suffer a great deal get to go to heaven any "more" than non-sufferers. You either go, or you don't. Why so much suffering for some people and so little for others? Is there a "suffer scale" that God uses?

It makes no sense.

And while Job may have provided "inspiration" for countless of people, there are tons of un-known atrocities just like that story that happen all of the time. What is the point of those? And don't say "suffering brings them their reward", because, by your argument, if they're Christian they should get their reward either way. Christianity demands faith, not suffering, and those aren't the same thing.

As you ponder the suffering, realize that suffering is a product of need.  What do you need in this life and what are you responsible for?  Do you activate the cones and rods in your eyes for vision?  No, it's done for you.  Do you make your hair grow?  No again.  Do you make the sun shine or the earth's magnetosphere protect the planet?  No again.  What do we do?

We do two things.  We think and we choose.  That's all we do to produce our lives.  The rest goes back to the original sin.  A garden was given in a perfected state.  We will leave it with a patch of weeds.  Who did this, God or us?  Suffering is a choice.  We choose to take form the earth, which causes a debt.  We can give to the earth / each other and make the choice to add positive to the garden.  Positive is not debt, it is minimizing the self and elevating the others.  Pride is the opposite and where we fell in the beginning.  Original sin is still original and the choice is still there.  The fruit of knowledge must be found as we walk with God.  We have not walked with God for the most part.

Now, think about what you do to produce your life.  Nothing other than thought and choice.  The rest is produced by God and what we do with this is our choice.  We light the fire we burn by or we are the light to those around us.  

[DeterminedJuliet]

You speak in vague generalities and do no directly address any questions asked of you.

From now on, I will only speak to you about cookies.
Does God provide cookies? Because I hear Satan has some sweet thin mints on his side.

All of the other mumbo-jumbo you've been spouting hasn't been that enthralling, but I may be swayed by a decent double-fudge oreo.