Ask a Christian Theist

[Yon Yalvin]

I am actually agnostic concerning the age of the earth and God's specific method of creation. Your belief is neither justified nor true

[uwot]

You're a bit like god, Yon: ask a question, you may or may not get an answer.

I am actually agnostic concerning the age of the earth and God's specific method of creation. Your belief is neither justified nor true

Well, the belief that the universe is billions of years old is justified by the findings of machines the size of cities and observations from objects which, if Einstein is right about the speed of light and the bible is right about the age, all originated within a sphere about 1 fiftieth the radius of the milky way. The justification for believing the Earth is thousands of years old is a book written by people who thought a slingshot was pretty neat.
I always remember Hume at this point: religion is proof of at least one miracle: that anyone believes it.

[Arising_uk]

I am actually agnostic concerning the age of the earth and God's specific method of creation. Your belief is neither justified nor true

Incorrect as I was half-right you are a creationist. So how old do you think the earth is?

[Sappho de Miranda]

This goes a step further to say that God is responsible for everything that happens in the universe. Therefore the events you mentioned that hurt, damage, and kill life are not impersonal, but personal. God, ultimately, is the one who is doing these things. I agree with this. Does this make God violent? If violence is simply using physical force meant to hurt, damage, or kill someone then yes, God is violent.

Violence - using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something...

But according to this definition so is a surgeon who is removing a harmful tumor. The surgeon inflicts physical force intending to hurt someone temporarily, but his ultimate intentions are to heal the person he is hurting.

Most surgeons do not intend harm, but rather, intend healing. Most surgeons intend for minimal pain during the healing towards better health. All surgeons are not creators capable of intelligent design and therefore have naught 'power' to make reality painless, disease-less..etc. Your God is a creator god and yet uses Its power for violence. Surgeons use their skill and limited knowledge to repair the body and not add further harm to it than that which was the cause for surgery. Your God is not 'seen' to behave with such humanity as the surgeon.

Perhaps then the parable of the Good Surgeon, as a means of using violence for good outcomes, lacks persuasion.

But what about the creator? He gives life and sustains life. Does he have the right to take it away when and how he pleases? Yes because it came from him and belongs to him. He especially has this right when his creatures violate his commands. Or is God obligated to continue to provide for and sustain creatures that are living in rebellion to him?

I'm not asking about whether your God has rights. I'm asking why is it that your God is so violent.

[Sappho de Miranda]

I guess the Christian Theist gave up on this... or perhaps saw the logic and lost their faith in a Creationist God. So let's see if we can redeem this Creationist God... or not!

The question: Iff (if and only if) Abraham's God exists, why is It so violent.

This speaks to the 'nature of god' as evidenced in the universe. Proponents of Abraham's God claim him to be the Creator of the Universe. The Universe is exceedingly violent. Therefore the nature of Abraham's God must be exceedingly violent.

Is this in dispute?

[Lev Muishkin]

After trolling around on this board it appears as if there are a few theists but I've yet to spot a Christian. To further define myself, I'd say (for my purposes here) that I am a philosophical, Calvinist, Christian theist.

By philosophical I mean that I hold a degree in philosophy and so am familiar with philosophical issues and discourse.

By Calvinist I mean that I generally agree with reformed confessions of faith and systems of theology.

By Christian I mean that I confess that Jesus Christ is Lord of all peoples and nations and the only mediator between God and man.

By theist I mean that I believe in a divine person who created all things and sustains everything He has made.

If you ever wanted to ask a self-styled philosopher, Calvinist, Christian, or theist anything this thread is your chance.

So as a Calvinist do you agree you have no free will and are one of the chosen, but god for salavation?
Are you, like John Calvin antisemitic.
And would you, like Calvin, invite a fellow theologian into your realm and have him bound and executed for not believing what you do, just as Calvin did to Servetus?

[Sappho de Miranda]

Hmmm... well that didn't work. I got properly ignored by the Theist who seemed more interested in expressing his distaste of Calvinists.

Not to be defeated... Hi ho, hi ho... to create a topic I shall go!

[thedoc]

I always remember Hume at this point: religion is proof of at least one miracle: that anyone believes it.

For some, that is enough.

[thedoc]

"The most incomprehensible thing about the Universe, is that it is comprehensible."

[Sappho de Miranda]

I always remember Hume at this point: religion is proof of at least one miracle: that anyone believes it.

For some, that is enough.

I am not disputing that Abraham's God can perform miracles, but that It has a violent nature

It's quite telling that that you avoid addressing the question... as tho you accept that he is violent as evidenced by the universe, but can't explain why. Is this the case?

[Lev Muishkin]

I always remember Hume at this point: religion is proof of at least one miracle: that anyone believes it.

For some, that is enough.

Sad but true.

Sadly it is massively problematic that humans allow themselves to fall for so obvious a trap as that.
One reflects that a Muslim and a Christian trying to kill each other for the same moronic "miracle" ought to give them pause to think that they both can't be right. But then that's why they have been killing each other for over a thousand years, to demonstrate which of them is right.

When they are finished they can go home and the Shia can do the same with a Sunni, and the Catholics with a Protestant.
Some fucking miracle!!

[Daniel Lezcano]

I am well familiar that the scientific community has claims about the age of the earth and evidence to support these claims.

There is no such thing as a scientific community that is in opposition to the religious community. Being a scientist is not incompatible with being religious, it is just that believing that the answers to all questions are to be found between the front and back cover of a single book is unscientific.

I'm not sure that this amounts to knowledge. These claims depend on all sorts of presuppositions that are unsupported. I'm generally skeptical of scientific claims that deal with the distant past.

That's because you don't understand scientific knowledge. The difference between science and religion is that science will take things which are true, eg 'There are lots of rocks that looks like the petrified remains of giant lizard like things.' and turn it into a hypothesis, 'Dinosaurs walked the Earth'. It is an absolute fact that fossils exist; that is knowledge. The most plausible explanation is that dinosaurs did exist. Any other explanation may well make sense in a particular context, but that context will be predicated on entities, gods and demons most likely, for which there is no evidence, no knowledge, no fossils.
What religion does, by contrast is take a premise and defend it with an increasingly elaborate, and preposterous, fable; much like astrologers or psychoanalysts do. Some religious nuts will rationalise their belief in such a way that it is completely protected against falsification. You say:

...I believe that the Bible alone is inerrant. Man's attempts to systematize the teachings of the Bible can be excellent, but I don't believe they're ever perfect.

So there isn't anything which might not be true and it is only our imperfect systematising that makes something like this look as if god is a psychopath:

"Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

Perhaps you could systematise that in a nice way for us.

(First and foremost – I cannot label myself a Christian; for I still have issues about certain elements of the religion. However, I’m not sure that there is such a Christian that takes not issue in some way with his own religion. Christian Philosophy in general I find to be absolutely beautiful – it is the guiding light of my life.)

One could argue that the #1 sin a man can commit is to presume he should understand everything. One can correlate that with the most egregious sin of Pride. You my friend, appear to me to be the type that could not believe in God until he knew by some sort of scientific method, the absolute truth of God (though, as it has famously been proposed – show me truth of the scientific methods soundness, by using the scientific method.) Do you not see, however, the problem inherent to such an attitude? If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent; how on earth could mortal man presume to know the absolute all-encompassing truth of God? Secondly, how is, based on your apparent assumption that in order for God to be a good God worthy of believing in, his truth needs to agree with you, even rational in anyway?

You challenge Christianity; however, if you will agree that if (?) God does indeed exist, man could never know fully the nature of God, then your own disdain for the Christian perspective is invalid; for it is founded on the notion that Christians must be wrong – that however is groundless, because if no man can know the truth of God – it follows that indeed the truth of God may have been handed to Christians by God (his omnipotent nature is certainly capable of such a thing, would it not be?)

Moreover, if no one knows the truth, it could be that Christians randomly got it right (albeit, unlikely, the possibility remains.) Most importantly, if God is omnipotent then it follows He may have chosen the many natures of reality, and your disapproval of them is simply irrelevant – in other words His plan is not contingent upon your approval (to know that is one aspect of Humility.)

But just forget everything I mentioned, and focus on this – the nonbeliever always assumes his own intellect is the reason why he can’t believe in God, but I tell you it’s not an intellectual matter, it’s always an emotional issue keeping a man from faith.

[Lev Muishkin]

(First and foremost – I cannot label myself a Christian; for I still have issues about certain elements of the religion. However, I’m not sure that there is such a Christian that takes not issue in some way with his own religion. Christian Philosophy in general I find to be absolutely beautiful – it is the guiding light of my life.)
.

Just another example of a religionist making a fetish of inherent contradiction.

It's all a bit sad really.

[Daniel Lezcano]

I always remember Hume at this point: religion is proof of at least one miracle: that anyone believes it.

For some, that is enough.

I am not disputing that Abraham's God can perform miracles, but that It has a violent nature

It's quite telling that that you avoid addressing the question... as tho you accept that he is violent as evidenced by the universe, but can't explain why. Is this the case?

What if what appears violent to you, is really the most efficient way to create such a glorious universe? Of course you might reflect on Neil Degrasse’s statement, “So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it;” as he uses that concept related to such a violent universe as some sort of rational argument against God. However, the presupposition is based on the perception of the term “inefficient” as it relates to mortal and infinitesimally limited man.

For the eternal and limitless power that God must be, if He indeed exists, it could be that that which is time consuming and inefficient to us, is as a blink of an eye to Him.

Furthermore, this point you raise is very common indeed; understandably so. However, it is plain to see the answer that has been given throughout the ages satisfies the argument. In summary, the best possible world is a world that includes violence and suffering; I realize this answer disgusts many people, but again, how can anyone presume to think reality should be devoid of such vast dynamics? How could a reality that is only perfect be experienced in anyway? If you had a notion of the perfect universe, and with your word could make it as such, then by its perfect measure, it would be perfectly limited – devoid of any experience, because one would have no measure by which to qualify any given moment in time – it would be a worthless creation; for no value could ever be derived from such a world.

[Lev Muishkin]

For some, that is enough.

I am not disputing that Abraham's God can perform miracles, but that It has a violent nature

It's quite telling that that you avoid addressing the question... as tho you accept that he is violent as evidenced by the universe, but can't explain why. Is this the case?

What if what appears violent to you, is really the most efficient way to create such a glorious universe? Of course you might reflect on Neil Degrasse’s statement, “So if the purpose of the universe was to create humans then the cosmos was embarrassingly inefficient about it;” as he uses that concept related to such a violent universe as some sort of rational argument against God. However, the presupposition is based on the perception of the term “inefficient” as it relates to mortal and infinitesimally limited man.

For the eternal and limitless power that God must be, if He indeed exists, it could be that that which is time consuming and inefficient to us, is as a blink of an eye to Him. .

An inefficient and fumbling blink of an eye. The greater you imagine god, the more inefficient and fumbling was his action in creating man: a tinkerer and trail and error experimenter.