Immanuel Can, iambiguous and the Christian God

[Martin Peter Clarke]

That's just a thread of Judaism, less than 0.2% of humanity, 1:500, hanging on by its fingernails. Which it will do so till Kingdom come.

And it sets my conspiracy theory alarm bells ringing.

[Pistolero]

That's just a thread of Judaism, less than 0.2% of humanity, 1:500, hanging on by its fingernails. Which it will do so till Kingdom come.

And it sets my conspiracy theory alarm bells ringing.

Only the brainwashed, the socially conditioned, refuse to see the patterns.

The US has been infected by an ideological parasite that gradually took control, as parasites do, of the brain, i.e., government.

They say things in their "sacred books" and nobody wants to notice....
Over-representation in key sectors of America's power centers, is not noticed, or explained away....
It's their higher IQ...it's their culture....

They sell individualism to idiots, and practice collectivism.
They tell these morons that tribalism is bad, and their entire identity is tribal.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

That's just a thread of Judaism, less than 0.2% of humanity, 1:500, hanging on by its fingernails. Which it will do so till Kingdom come.

And it sets my conspiracy theory alarm bells ringing.

Only the brainwashed, the socially conditioned, refuse to see the patterns.

The US has been infected by an ideological parasite that gradually took control, as parasites do, of the brain, i.e., government.

They say things in their "sacred books" and nobody wants to notice....
Over-representation in key sectors of America's power centers, is not noticed, or explained away....
It's their higher IQ...it's their culture....

They sell individualism to idiots, and practice collectivism.
They tell these morons that tribalism is bad, and their entire identity is tribal.

What a shame friend. You've been infected. But unlike one of the poor heroes in Greg Bear's superb Vitals, you don't know it. Your reinvention hasn't taken. How ironic that you need scapegoats.

[Pistolero]

Ha!

I diagnose an ailment...
I know it well.

Cause/Effect....symptoms need a source....
Patient X
Diseases evolve, in time.

[iambiguous]

Just got this from WLC at RF: https://mail.yahoo.com/n/list/folders=1 ... r=PRIORITY

Now, I'm not accusing him of being another "prosperity faith" con artist. I don't know enough about him or RF. But the bottom line [mine] here and now is that his "job" revolves around Christianity. That's how he pays his bills, to the best of my knowledge.

Then this pro/con assessment of him at Reddit.com

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion ... you_think/

[iambiguous]

The latest from RF focuses on a debate between William Lane Craig and Phillip Goff: https://youtu.be/DrzglkR2BpU?si=hTx-0BTydkaQ0770

Goff: "I was never an atheist, but I thought you might be interested in this news that a famous philosopher is now a theist (and calls himself a Christian). However, he still has significant differences with Classical theism and orthodox Chistianity. Specifically, he is not an inerrantist, he does not believe in the virgin birth, and for reasons related to the problem of evil, claims that God is finite and not omnipotent in the sense Christians understand it."

So, here we have two Christians, but they disagree regarding important aspects of Christianity. In particular, the part where Goff is inclined to share Harold Kushner's conjecture that the God of Abraham is not omnipotent.

Does this matter? Come, say, Judgment Day?

Here's another take: https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blo ... to-atheism

So, which is it? 

"God is conceived as unique and perfect, free from all faults, deficiencies, and defects, and further held to be omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and completely infinite in all of his attributes, who has no partner or equal, being the sole creator of everything in existence." wiki

So, given  the Scriptures embraced by Christians, Muslims and Jews, how do we pin down...the Gospel Truth?

What could possibly be more important in regard to saving souls?

[promethean75]

"conjecture that the God of Abraham is not omnipotent."

Incomprehensible nonsense. A thing that creates a universe ex nihilo can not be incapable of determining what it does, nor can it not be called fully responsible for everything that happens in that created universe.

Now if you aren't talking about that thing, you aren't talking about the christian god.

What you have here is another knucklehead who's trying to throw the bathwater out without throwing the baby out, too. These are the absolute worst christian philosophers.

[promethean75]

"What could possibly be more important in regard to saving souls?"

Why would one want their soul to be saved by something that didn't have to create them such that they needed to be saved in the first place?

I wouldn't let such a ridiculous thing anywhere near my soul.

[Martin Peter Clarke]

RF is oxymoronic. You cannot get to faith from reason or to reason from faith. To attempt either is futile, to persist is irrational, deceived. I admire true faith, truly apologetic faith. Is it Dembski? A YECist anyhow. One of their savants. He has the courage to admit that reason pre-empts faith. That Old Earth geology, cosmology and evolution are unimpeachable. But he still believes. Because Jesus died for his sins. That I can respect. Deranged as it is. Once you believe, anything on the spectrum, in the basket (case) of Biblical literalism, fundamentalism, you can justify it with perfect, invincible, impenetrable logic based on those subjective, a priori, unquestionable axiomatic propositions. The nasty, deranged, incompetent killer God of the Bible, God the Damner, is love. Like the Greeks declaring the Erinyes, the Furies, to be the Eumenides, the Gracious. Like having to say It's A Beautiful Day in Jerome Bixby's perfect horror https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/r ... &FORM=VIRE. Love would utterly transcend that id monster we project through our doomed egos.

[iambiguous]

"What could possibly be more important in regard to saving souls?"

Why would one want their soul to be saved by something that didn't have to create them such that they needed to be saved in the first place?

I wouldn't let such a ridiculous thing anywhere near my soul.

I hear that.

On the other hand, the closer and closer some get to the abyss, to oblivion, to nothingness, the more inclined they are to blink when it comes to religion. After all, what else is there when it comes to immortality and salvation?

Me? Well, if Jesus Christ [or the equivalent of Him in other religions] ever did return, I wouldn't hesitate to do all I could do -- must do? -- in order not to be...left behind?

Yes, I know there are folks who take great pride in not believing in God. It's part of what they deem to be their very own intellectual honesty and integrity. And I used to be one of them. I'm just not anymore.

"Here and now" I want to be saved. And if I could figure out a way to be, I would be.

[ThinkOfOne]

"What could possibly be more important in regard to saving souls?"

Why would one want their soul to be saved by something that didn't have to create them such that they needed to be saved in the first place?

I wouldn't let such a ridiculous thing anywhere near my soul.

I hear that.

On the other hand, the closer and closer some get to the abyss, to oblivion, to nothingness, the more inclined they are to blink when it comes to religion. After all, what else is there when it comes to immortality and salvation?

Me? Well, if Jesus Christ [or the equivalent of Him in other religions] ever did return, I wouldn't hesitate to do all I could do -- must do? -- in order not to be...left behind?

Yes, I know there are folks who take great pride in not believing in God. It's part of what they deem to be their very own intellectual honesty and integrity. And I used to be one of them. I'm just not anymore.

"Here and now" I want to be saved. And if I could figure out a way to be, I would be.

"Here and now" I want to be saved. And if I could figure out a way to be, I would be.

FWIW, there's a wide gulf between the "gospel" of Christianity and the gospel that was preached by Jesus during His ministry. Presumably you are well aware of the typical requirement(s) for being "saved" according to Christianity.

According to Jesus, in order to be saved the unrighteous must make themselves perfectly righteous. That is, they must cease to commit sin. By inference those who are already righteous do not need to be "saved" as they are already righteous. It's also important to understand that Jesus effectively redefined what is and is not sin. Jesus' conception of God is also very different from the typical Christian conception of God.

[iambiguous]

"Here and now" I want to be saved. And if I could figure out a way to be, I would be.

FWIW, there's a wide gulf between the "gospel" of Christianity and the gospel that was preached by Jesus during His ministry. Presumably you are well aware of the typical requirement(s) for being "saved" according to Christianity.

According to Jesus, in order to be saved the unrighteous must make themselves perfectly righteous. That is, they must cease to commit sin. By inference those who are already righteous do not need to be "saved" as they are already righteous. It's also important to understand that Jesus effectively redefined what is and is not sin. Jesus' conception of God is also very different from the typical Christian conception of God.

Okay, but the alternative is still the abyss, oblivion, nothingness. And IC and I are inclined to share the belief that in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals.

On the other hand, sure, there are any number of mere mortals who choose suicide because existence itself seems to be the problem.

In any event, I'm less interested in what Jesus said, and more interested in the extent to which it can be shown that He did say it...as the Son of God i.e. God Himself.

IC claims this can be shown here: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/animated-videos

And though he won't explore this evidence with me here -- viewtopic.php?t=40750 -- perhaps other Christians here might go there.

[ThinkOfOne]

"Here and now" I want to be saved. And if I could figure out a way to be, I would be.

FWIW, there's a wide gulf between the "gospel" of Christianity and the gospel that was preached by Jesus during His ministry. Presumably you are well aware of the typical requirement(s) for being "saved" according to Christianity.

According to Jesus, in order to be saved the unrighteous must make themselves perfectly righteous. That is, they must cease to commit sin. By inference those who are already righteous do not need to be "saved" as they are already righteous. It's also important to understand that Jesus effectively redefined what is and is not sin. Jesus' conception of God is also very different from the typical Christian conception of God.

Okay, but the alternative is still the abyss, oblivion, nothingness. And IC and I are inclined to share the belief that in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals.

On the other hand, sure, there are any number of mere mortals who choose suicide because existence itself seems to be the problem.

In any event, I'm less interested in what Jesus said, and more interested in the extent to which it can be shown that He did say it...as the Son of God i.e. God Himself.

IC claims this can be shown here: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/animated-videos

And though he won't explore this evidence with me here -- viewtopic.php?t=40750 -- perhaps other Christians here might go there.

Okay, but the alternative is still the abyss, oblivion, nothingness. And IC and I are inclined to share the belief that in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals.

In any event, I'm less interested in what Jesus said, and more interested in the extent to which it can be shown that He did say it...as the Son of God i.e. God Himself.

IC claims this can be shown here: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/animated-videos

What lead you to believe that "in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals"?

I'm familiar with RF. From what I've looked into, it's all sophistry. That includes the moral argument for God. What swayed you about it?

Also, Jesus never claimed to be "God Himself". In fact, he repeatedly distanced Himself from that idea. "son of God" is a metaphor. In that metaphor the "sons of God" are the righteous; "sons of Satan" are the unrighteous. Jesus calls the unrighteous to make themselves "sons of God" as He was a "son of God". Those who are righteous are "born of God"' which makes them "sons of God".

Luke 20
34Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; 36for they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.

Luke 6
35“But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men.

[promethean75]

"in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals"

It ain't within reach even if there is a god, Biggs. Either what is objectively 'good' is merely the whimsical choice of a god (in which case anything could be called good if god so chooses) or what is objectively 'good' is 'good' regardless of what god thinks it is.

That wasn't my point, though. The point is that in both cases, we still can't know what is objectively 'good'.

[Age]

"in a No Christian God universe objective morality is not within the reach of mere mortals"

It ain't within reach even if there is a god, Biggs. Either what is objectively 'good' is merely the whimsical choice of a god (in which case anything could be called good if god so chooses) or what is objectively 'good' is 'good' regardless of what god thinks it is.

That wasn't my point, though. The point is that in both cases, we still can't know what is objectively 'good'.

But, in all cases you, also, can know what is what is called 'objectively good'.