Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:28 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 6:48 pm
God IS before all things, by definition. It's called being the "First Cause." So is God legitimately "before all things," and do all things "consist in Him"? Indeed so: and it's a claim that Scripture is glad to make (see Col. 1:17).
But none of that prevents God from having priorities. So why is it not legitimate to ask what God puts before all other things?
Because whatever is the most valuable thing in the universe IS the thing most deserving of our affection. By definition, there's nothing higher.
But there's nothing "self-centered," in the negative sense, about God: a God who is willing to die for His people
But God is said to be eternal, therefore he can't die. But I suppose you are talking about the earthly death of Christ. Whether presented as truth, or allegory, I have never understood the "logic" of Christ's death being a benefit to anybody. It makes absolutely no sense to me, and believe me, I have genuinely tried to understand the underlying concept.
It's called "substitutionary atonement." And it's actually not a hard concept to understand. There are at least rough parallels in ordinary human practice. Think of when somebody else pays your fine for you, and you don't end up going to jail. It's when somebody else gives you a kidney, so you don't end up on dialysis. It's not hard to understand what's going on, in either case. But as with either case, your agreement to the arragement defines whether or not it's even going to happen.
But, the actual very reason that that 'just another human being' being 'killed' for its lack of ability to communicate, and/or argue, Correctly, or sufficiently and efficiently enough, and which is called 'died for our sins' also has gone completely unnoticed and unrecognised by you human beings, hitherto the days when this is being written.
That human body being nailed to a cross is absolutely in no parallel at all to one human being paying a fine for another human being so the latter does not have to go to prison. you really are, literally, completely 'missing the mark' here, again, "immanuel can".
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
What makes such a claim hubristic in a human being, and what turns being self-centered into such a bad thing for us is two things: first, that it's totally unwarranted, and secondly, that no man is legitimately or plausibly the center of even his own universe, let alone anybody else's.
Well we are all inevitably the centre of our own universe,...
Actually, the obvious fact is the opposite. You and I come into a world that was already formed and running when we were born. During our lives, much of what happens to us, from cradle to grave, is beyond our ability even to influence, let alone control; and what actually we can control or change often turns out to be very small, local, and only related to our own immediate situation.
LOL Talk about, another, prime example of one who has been completely and utterly misled, and is continuing to mislead. Thus, continuing to create and cause a Truly twisted and distorted 'world', in which more unfortunate human beings will be born and brought into.
And we're totally out of control of when and how we die...short of suicide. And then, when we're gone, the universe will go on as if we never existed. So of what were we the center?[/quote]
Once again, 'this one' completely and utterly missed the actual point that was being made by 'another one'. The point being that you human beings make up and create your own little universes by 'the way' you 'look at' and 'see', things/the One and only Universe, differently.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
Maybe the real marvel is that so many people think they're some kind of "center of the universe" when nothing could be farther from the obvious truth.
Obviously you human beings, individually nor even collectively, are the centre of the Universe. But, what is actually at 'the center' of the Universe, because It is at 'all of' the Universe, always is in fact right within the 'very center' of each and every one of you human beings.
'I/It is and am, also, guiding and instructing you all to what is, actually, irrefutably True, and Right, if only you, individually, would just LOOK, and LISTEN.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
But if we have any duty at all, as human beings, I think it is towards other human beings, and not to "supreme" beings, whether they be real or fictional.
To fictional ones, you're right; we can have no duty. But if God is God, then not only is it obvious we have duty to Him,
LOL "Him".
These people could just not SEE and HEAR the actual irrefutable Truth, while they were believing and presuming otherwise.
As 'this one' keeps proving irrefutably so, for me.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm
but it's been an instant recognition by all cultures and by practically every person who has ever lived that we do. If it's not obvious to you, that might be a function of being raised in an atypically unspiritual culture. It's certainly not the world or historical average.
'Averages' do not matter one iota here.
And, just maybe it is not obvious to "harbal" because "harbal" is not as susceptible to unsupported and unverified beliefs and claims as you obvious are "Immanuel can".
After all you have proven over and over here that you are absolutely susceptible to the biggest and most obvious False, Wrong, Inaccurate, and Incorrect views and claims.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 18, 2024 7:45 pm And given that all attempts to construct a metaethical basis for morality on secular lines have been dismal failures so far, then if we believe in morality at all, it's only because of that legacy of recognition that mankind has that God should be the focus of our duty.
LOL you say this as though 'following perceived gods' and 'following some claimed rules made up by these perceived gods has made 'the world' a better place. LOL one only has to 'look at' the warring, in the so-called "middle east", with the absolute slaughter of completely absolutely innocent child, in the very days that these words are being put on screens, and all under the 'pretense of God', to 'see' how following and worshipping human beings made up theologies is, and was, absolutely disastrous for not just human kind but also for the planet and thus all of the other animals as well.
you human beings were living a far more peaceful and harmonious life before the introduction of human beings made up stories of God/s, and lawfully enforced rules.
you human beings used to live 'morally', before you decided to do what you 'knew' was Wrong, and started punishing others for doing what just some claimed were 'wrong things' to do.
There is absolutely no wonder why "harbal" and far clearer thinking human beings are so skeptical about what you and others say and claim here "immanuel can".
Thee is no wonder why there is so much hatred and anger in 'the world' when there are so many people with 'superiority complexes' and with 'very judgmental views' like you 'immanuel can".
