Why Earth?

[ElCodeMonkey]

If Christianity is to be believed, why the whole Earth ruse? God knows everything that is and would be. With such knowledge, he would know what direction and decisions we'd make and thus whether or not we're "worthy" of heaven (either by our beliefs, works, or whatever). With all power, he could make up our brains and spirits or whatever to immediately be whatever we would have become without any past whatsoever and he could even make us believe we had the past without actually enduring it if that was somehow useful. So then, what's the point of Earth? What does God possibly gain from it? What could God possibly gain in general? It couldn't possibly be for him since God can have everything at the snap of a finger--it'd have to be for us. So what do we gain if God can make us our end-result without it? I can't see a useful reason for Earth in a Christian world. And anything that we could gain from it is useless for the unborn or those with early deaths. So what's the point?

[ttruscott]

So then, what's the point of Earth? What does God possibly gain from it? What could God possibly gain in general? It couldn't possibly be for him since God can have everything at the snap of a finger--it'd have to be for us.

You are understanding the Bible from a secular pov and it misses the mark. It rests upon the idea that all people are born equal and with the same opportunity and ability to 'find' GOD which leads to the feeling of a ruse that you mention and the fact some churches teach this doesn't make it sensible.

PCE Theology contends that there are two types of sinners living on earth, the sinful elect called the good seed and the eternally evil non-elect called the reprobate tares.

The sinful elect group is made up of believers, ie, those who put their faith, their unproven hope, in YHWH as their GOD and in HIS Son as their saviour from any and all sin but after their election (being safe from hell) they chose to sin, to rebel against YHWH to seek their further happiness on their own. As believers they are not condemned for their sin, Jn 3:18.

The reprobate non-elect have never put any faith in YHWH as their GOD but repudiated HIM from HIS first claim to be our GOD, putting their faith in HIM being a false GOD and a liar motivated by evil thus sinning the unforgivable sin. They are eternally evil because they also repudiated being saved by the Son, rejecting the whole idea of sin, hell, heaven and the need for salvation. As those who never believed, ie, they never put any faith in HIM whatsoever, they are condemned already, Jn 3:18.

As HIS first order of business after everyone had finalized their decison about HIS claims, HE called for the separation of the elect from all the non-elect so they could be judged. Though HE cannot abide living with evil, HE gave HIS elect the choice again as to where they should put their faith, in HIM or in their old friendly relationships within the community of spirits. Some elect chose to idolize their friends who chose to be non-elect over the command of GOD and refused to repudiate them, becoming evil in HIS sight. HE allowed them to make this choice as HIS heaven can only be filled with those who truly and fully want to be there and so they had to make a free will choice about who to follow. Some chose badly...because if every elect had repudiated the eternally sinful ones at that time, the judgement would have happened then and the heavenly marriage immediately after and the need for the sufferings of earth would have been dissolved.

THEN the physical universe was created and earth was chosen as the prison for sinners to keep them away from those who stayed loyal to HIM. Earth also serves as a Rehab Centre for the sinful elect to bring them to awareness of their great mistake in choosing evil so they could choose to follow HIM again and become holy and heaven ready. They must live with the eternally evil ones, as the parable says, Matt 13:29 No, he said, if you pull the weeds now, you might uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. so they can learn to repudiate their evil and reject their hatred for YHWH and so become free of sin.

This is the reason we are sequestered away from the spirit world and suffer the pains of being evil - to encourage the sinful elect to quit rebelling against HIM and turn from sin, NOT by forcing them but by opening their eyes to their great sin and to the inevitability that sin always produces suffering so they repent and turn to HIM.

The separation of the sinful elect from the eternally evil tares by living with them, as the parable says, contains the whole reason for why earth and how the earth is run from HIS pov. Why earth is answered in "Let both grow together until the harvest...." - the harvest being the time of maturity of the seed and the only maturity that saves one from judgement of being pulled up and burnt is the maturity of holiness.

This sums up (in short) the PCE interpretation of the Bible about this topic...

[ElCodeMonkey]

[Replying to post 2 by ttruscott]

So to sum up what you said, I am hearing that you believe Earth to be a training grounds of sorts for the elect who had rejected God and were cast here as a result mingled with the non-elect who have no purpose except maybe as demonstration to the elect of what not to do/be or the effects of their ways. The goal in the Earth-training is to have [strike]us[/strike] the elect accept God once again.

Accurate summation?

[William]

[Replying to post 1 by ElCodeMonkey]

If anything, given those parameters, the Earth (thus the Universe) acts as a holding place where we can find the answers to those questions in an environment which provides the greatest opportunity for us to do so, on our own terms.

If we didn't have that, if we were already born with the knowledge, we could never truly experience what 'our own terms' were. We could never hope to experience autonomy other than being GOD all by Gods-self...alone.

The environment of the Universe/Earth itself forces us to contemplate the idea of GOD and learn to know/discover our self from the outside in.

[marco]

The environment of the Universe/Earth itself forces us to contemplate the idea of GOD and learn to know/discover our self from the outside in.

Across the globe people are struggling to get water and food. Contemplating the idea of God, other than to ask the clouds for help, is not an issue for most. When we have time on our hands and yawn in our office we might reflect on the beauty in a narcissus or the wonderful design of a snowflake and nod approvingly, over our warm coffee, in God's direction.


Why Earth? Because the elements so combined that human lifeforms could crawl into existence. Were there a purpose, framed by a giant, it would have been written large on a mountain. We live to live; all things do. We move in a linear way from cradle to grave and our elements change into something else. In between those of us who have the time theorise or measure our lives with teaspoons. Why Jupiter with its multiple moons? Just a cosmic incident.

[1213]

If Christianity is to be believed, why the whole Earth ruse? God knows everything that is and would be. With such knowledge, he would know what direction and decisions we'd make and thus whether or not we're "worthy" of heaven (either by our beliefs, works, or whatever). With all power, he could make up our brains and spirits or whatever to immediately be whatever we would have become without any past whatsoever and he could even make us believe we had the past without actually enduring it if that was somehow useful. So then, what's the point of Earth? What does God possibly gain from it? What could God possibly gain in general? It couldn't possibly be for him since God can have everything at the snap of a finger--it'd have to be for us. So what do we gain if God can make us our end-result without it? I can't see a useful reason for Earth in a Christian world. And anything that we could gain from it is useless for the unborn or those with early deaths. So what's the point?

I believe the point is to give us the lesson of good and evil people wanted in the beginning. It is not for God, but for us.

[ttruscott]

[Replying to post 2 by ttruscott]

So to sum up what you said, I am hearing that you believe Earth to be a training grounds of sorts for the elect who had rejected God and were cast here as a result mingled with the non-elect who have no purpose except maybe as demonstration to the elect of what not to do/be or the effects of their ways. The goal in the Earth-training is to have [strike]us[/strike] the elect accept God once again.

Accurate summation?

Not the way I'd say it but if I read you right, not too bad except the phrase "the non-elect who have no purpose except..." could be fine tuned as "the non-elect who have no purpose here except..." though they had an equal ability and opportunity to enter into YHWH's heavenly purpose for us all as everyone else until they chose to reject HIM.

[ElCodeMonkey]

If we didn't have that, if we were already born with the knowledge, we could never truly experience what 'our own terms' were.

Knowledge in a brain is a particular arrangement of atoms making up neurons, etc. The end result of all our efforts would be a particular configuration. If that configuration were the starting point, we would believe we had experienced all this and that we came to be who we are via those experiences without realizing we never experienced them. My 10-year-old self is now but a memory. The experiences he had are now simply knowledge. Did I really go through it? I presume so, but I have no way of knowing now. For all I know, my life started this morning and everything else is a farce added to my memory. Now, this goes just for brains, of course, but even if we want to convert it to spirit, it is still some form of something. God could obviously make that "something" in the same way. So each of us has a unique configuration that makes us who we are, but God could simply make that configuration the starting point. It's not just knowledge, but experiences that we believe occurred. We'd all have our lessons learned, believing we suffered to get there, without actually having suffered anything.

In the end, aren't we supposed to become sinless in heaven anyway? What happens to who we are at that point? Why not simply start there since we're obviously going to lose a huge facet of what makes us who we are anyway? Or is there still sin in heaven?

[ElCodeMonkey]

Not the way I'd say it but if I read you right, not too bad except the phrase "the non-elect who have no purpose except..." could be fine tuned as "the non-elect who have no purpose here except..." though they had an equal ability and opportunity to enter into YHWH's heavenly purpose for us all as everyone else until they chose to reject HIM.

Close enough for the topic at hand. So if this is the training grounds, what exactly are we learning and what does it look like when it's been learned? Are we learning to believe without seeing? Are we learning the real effects of sin? Are we learning life without God? What are the lessons that the training grounds is providing?

[William]

[Replying to post 8 by ElCodeMonkey]

Knowledge in a brain is a particular arrangement of atoms making up neurons, etc. The end result of all our efforts would be a particular configuration. If that configuration were the starting point, we would believe we had experienced all this and that we came to be who we are via those experiences without realizing we never experienced them.

I don't think so. We would need the memory of having experienced them, and having the memory of having experienced them, we would naturally believe we had experienced them, even if we had not.

'The starting point' as you have expressed it, would have to place us in a different reality in order for that scenario to have the effect you are arguing.