Why worship a "god" that threatens you?

[OpiatefortheMasses]

I'm reasonably sure that to extort something from someone else would constitute a sin of some kind according to most Christians but why is it OK when the very religion itself employs it? Most of the Christians I've talked to over the years would describe their "god" as fair, just, loving etc. but extortion (among other things) really strikes me as cruel and manipulative. Is this a "god" that's truly worthy of a person's worship or adoration?

[dusk]

Tex: Too bad Hitlers dead....He had an IQ of 147...Are you saying he knew what he was doing?
Stalin=140
Also would you believe a man who had an IQ of 220 ....If he told you he believed in God

Not necessarily which is exactly the point. It is the same argument you brought up just a different one.

[dusk]

I responded to your definition of true free will decision in post 77 in my Post 97

Your bit

If one chooses not to follow a false god he is not aware of the truth that it is actually a true real god.
and vice versa
If one chooses to follow the perfect god, he is not aware of the fact that it is a false god.
add #3
If one chooses another god, he probably does so based on the knowledge that the first god is a false god and that there is another true god.

is asking for proof of the knowlege you have been given and proof cannot be given or it coerces choice.

Of course you don't know - that is why you must choose the kind of life YOU want... the proof of the life does does not force you to choose it.

And before I read further, this happened in sheol, the spirit world, before the creation of the physical universe and the theology is usually called Pre-Conceptiuon Existence Theology, PCE.

Granted I didn't quite understand that you are here trying to show some true free will choice. Probably because I don't think such a thing exists nor has any meaning if it does. I wouldn't call it a choice anymore.

I studied Information Systems & Knowledge managment. What you call knowledge is just information and a rather meaningless one. That is NOT knowledge. Read Nonaka & Takeuchi or just the definition on Wikipedia which is a bit old fashioned but good enough.
I am not asking for perfect proof but you have to give one something to base a choice on otherwise it is just rolling the dice and nobody is responsible but the dice for how they fall.

The Elements of a True Free Will Choice:
1. Free will can't be coerced:
Nothing in their created nature could force them to choose love or hate, good or evil.
Nothing in their experience could force them to choose love or hate, good or evil.
Nothing in their understanding or knowledge of reality could force them to choose good or evil, love or hate.

In other words, they had to be completely and truly ingenuously innocent.
2. Consequences must be known but not proved:

2. The person must understand the full consequences of their choice or it is a guess, not a choice. “What will happen if I choose left or right, the red pill or the blue pill?� must be answered in full detail.
But "PROOF" of the nature of the consequence would compel or coerce the person to choose what was proven to be the best for them. If the answer “death here,� “life there,� was proven, which would you choose? The weight of knowledge would destroy the effect of a true ‘free will’ choice.
Therefore they must know, but without proof, the nature of the consequences of their choice. Such a choice, might be described as making a choice based on faith and hope.

The problem is #2 as I see it.
You cannot know anything without some experience about what it is, some understand of what it means. The stuff in #1 makes it impossible to know anything. Whatever so called unproven knowledge one hands somebody in #2 would be no knowledge but just meaningless information that one cannot base a choice on.
It is like I tell you
"Please decide between A and B", "A has the attributes X,Y" and B has the attributes Z,V.", "this is all I can say or I might coerce you to one decision".
Without experience or understanding what Z,V,X,Y is you don't know anything about A,B. You have been handed information not knowledge. Information can be entirely meaningless as this one is and it will just be a rolling of the dice if you choose at all.

You see perfect proof is not needed but still something and that little something is the base of the choice. I don't know where you got that definition from but it just makes no sense at all. It invalidates itself.

Your phrase: "What one wants depends on what they believe to be true"...should in fact be What one wants depends on what they hope to be true because without the proof, their belief will have the qualities of faith, as hope, not the quality of belief based on experential fact.

Okay rephrase it if you want but "What one hopes, depends on their understanding of the reality they are hoping for."
You don't want either A or B, or are entirely indifferent towards it if you have no understanding of either. And whatever that understanding of either may be it does coerce you to choose something.

Say my understanding of eternal life in heaven is
- eternal boredom
- eternal bliss
will very much coerce me one way. If I have no knowledge about either I will naturally choose bliss, because and here it comes
I do have an understanding of bliss and boredom and only if I was entirely irrational would I choose boredom. Therefore I hope for bliss. Or if there is the 3rd choice of "no eternal life at all", I might based on experience/character prefer the safe way. Before risking eternal boredom for a 50:50 on bliss I rather be safe and hope for a quick end.

It is no choice unless you base it on something. This true free will is a meaningless term. There is no such thing unless you define a few things away.

This is where I see some big flaws and if there was any rebuttal form your part I must have missed it.

dusk, your distoritions of what I wrote are amazing...how can you keep a straight face? But if you can't face what I wrote in truth....

It is no distortion it just is what it sound like from a POV that does not accept the bible as fact. I did face what I wrote in truth though I missunderstood you at first. It is based on the bible which you wouldn't deny and is okay even if my post doesn't sound like it, but it also based on a definition of a true free will choice which is so odd I really don't get where you got it from.

I do not postulate, He wrote it in scripture... I don't care what you believe.

My believe has nothing to do with it. Yet the Christian god is a personal god simply because they say it is. If the postulation comes from scripture doesn't really change that. "I" was the wrong word, granted. The whole list was written from the generic view of a believer in your world view and I don't think it matters a whole lot where one gets it from. The nature of the postulation doesn't change.
Otherwise the ideas of a smart guy like Hitler would suddenly be intrinsically better than of a stupid guy like Bush. Tex is right that they are not, even if he missed what I was getting at with my whole religion vs. intelligence post.

I chose it well before I had any proof it was good - I chose it because it was the universe, the reality, that sounded the best to me without proof, as I said so many times.

I know, I read it before, I get it. What I am getting at is the pattern of thought you are employing and as I see it the failure to recognize the circular pattern. You chose what sounded best to you because it sounded best to you. Of course but where is the proof that what sounds good to you is good. It just sound like you define as good what you want it to be.
If that is in conflict what sounds good to another person, who is to say which person got the objective good. I am saying you have no more to go on than anybody else. You only know what YOU think is good/better but if god only accepts one of the options as godly true, it is just by accident that it alignes with your own thoughts and impossible to know.
Now ask yourself is it possible that it only alignes so well because you want it to, or because it actually does?
POV me, as an Atheist who would vote Option 2 without the god in your scenario. Do I accept it as the better option because it is or because I want it to be that way?
I personally am very much aware of what I only want to be true and what I know to be true (that is why I am a sceptic in some subjects). I am not so sure you make the same distinction.

Bothers you does it...? God's reason for creating spirits in HIS image is the whole definition of GOOD. Wander outside that reason for any reason of your own is therefore the definition of evil. Should I be upset somebody doesn't believe me?

Why should it? You do approve of my description I take it.
FWIW my objection would be that by defining the usually rather narrow path you need to wander on, religious people do define the good/evil alongside it themselves, not god. Their interpretations define good/evil not the scripture which is just a lot of information that can mean a lot. And I think it sad that so many (not all, definitely not all) are not humble enough to not forget that little part.

[Tex]

Tex: Too bad Hitlers dead....He had an IQ of 147...Are you saying he knew what he was doing?
Stalin=140
Also would you believe a man who had an IQ of 220 ....If he told you he believed in God

Not necessarily which is exactly the point. It is the same argument you brought up just a different one.

Tex: I don't remember bringing up peoples IQ's to show who should be right.

Also...Remember I was talking about the people who believed in the God of Abraham.
Most of the whole world believes in a God.

So the argument is mostly about, how is the best way to follow God.
Atheist try to remove God from the picture.....But that will never happen.
Some my dream of this....But that as close as they will get.

[dusk]

Tex: Too bad Hitlers dead....He had an IQ of 147...Are you saying he knew what he was doing?
Stalin=140
Also would you believe a man who had an IQ of 220 ....If he told you he believed in God

Not necessarily which is exactly the point. It is the same argument you brought up just a different one.

Tex: I don't remember bringing up peoples IQ's to show who should be right.

You don't get it, do you? You brought up numbers, I brought up different numbers. It is the same kind of evidence. Neither can ever convince. The same way a smarter person is not necessarily right (though there is usually a correlation), the same way many people believing the same thing doesn't really prove add anything useful in and of itself.

Also...Remember I was talking about the people who believed in the God of Abraham.
Most of the whole world believes in a God.

So the argument is mostly about, how is the best way to follow God.
Atheist try to remove God from the picture.....But that will never happen.
Some my dream of this....But that as close as they will get.

Is it? I always thought the question is which is the right god. The best way would imply all are good some are better but with religious guy it is usually, mine is right the rest must therefore be wrong.
The Atheist conclusion is much more rational. If among a lot of ideas that invalidate each other with equal credibility only one is right, simple probability says they are most likely all wrong. Maybe I should start a thread on the issues. I will in a few days when I have time for some proper opening.

Very much possible and very likely that religion will never go extinct. Considering who breeds faster the Atheist don't stand a chance. Intelligent people don't either. At the rate we are going we will be apes again before long, unless genetics saves us. But for a globalized world and understanding among different cultures you need secular laws and that is what Atheists want, more tolerant people, more equality. It is basically the same thing the American founders wanted. And not be bothered by religious nonsense.
From an objective perspective you must assume they are all wrong only then can you make them work together.

[Tex]

Is it? I always thought the question is which is the right god.

Tex: The right one is, the one you choose to believe in.....Make a good choice.

[Morphine]

Easy question.
The answer is fear and/or ignorance.

[evangelist]

The one and only Living God has simply told us of our condition and the condition of the world.
He has told us why man is naturally evil now, and why our world is full of sickness and death.
Is it so terrible of Him to tell us the truth?

He originally created everything perfect, and man was to spend all of eternity with Him in Heaven.
But, He created man to have free will ... and we rebelled and refused to go along with Him.
So, now He has arranged to take only some of His creation to be with Him.
It's His ball game ... sorry, He makes the rules.

That's what's happening ... whether you like it or not.

[Morphine]

The one and only Living God has simply told us of our condition and the condition of the world.
He has told us why man is naturally evil now, and why our world is full of sickness and death.
Is it so terrible of Him to tell us the truth?

He originally created everything perfect, and man was to spend all of eternity with Him in Heaven.
But, He created man to have free will ... and we rebelled and refused to go along with Him.
So, now He has arranged to take only some of His creation to be with Him.
It's His ball game ... sorry, He makes the rules.

That's what's happening ... whether you like it or not.

"...why man is naturally evil..."
Um. Wouldnt that mean it's all his fault. Every attribute we have, both good and bad, can be credited to him. Since he is the one who created us and knew the outcome (all knowing).

[ttruscott]

...Of course but where is the proof that what sounds good to you is good. It just sound like you define as good what you want it to be.

If that is in conflict what sounds good to another person, who is to say which person got the objective good. I am saying you have no more to go on than anybody else. You only know what YOU think is good/better but if god only accepts one of the options as godly true, it is just by accident that it alignes with your own thoughts and impossible to know.

...

...Of course but where is the proof that what sounds good to you is good. It just sound like you define as good what you want it to be.

Now? Here and now? Or pre-earth?

Pre-earth we saw the proof of HIS power and glory when HE created the physical universe. On earth we forget all that though memories do bleed through; some people meet who know they've met before, kind of thing.

I define good as anything in line with the will of GOD. Not so unusual. And of course I wanted it to be like that; it is what I hoped it would be when I made the choice. And then there is that elusive, can't be experienced by a non-Christian spiritual connection we feel with GOD that non-Christians name as anything else under the sun excpet a connection with the Almighty.

I am saying you have no more to go on than anybody else. You only know what YOU think is good/better but if god only accepts one of the options as godly true, it is just by accident that it alignes with your own thoughts and impossible to know.

This bit (and previous mentions of circular arguments) show that you do have an agenda to convince me that my "arguements " are not logical and therefore unworthy of consideration. This is what I don't care about. I don't need a totally logical "system" as I find no system involving people (let alone religion) to be totally logical.

Nor am I trying to proslytize you so I feel no need to work within definitions you feel comfortable with.

Can you not think of someone totally naieve, innocent and ingenuous who wants a universe like one of the the options I suggested in such a way that the outcome is what that person really most sincerely desired and therefore is not really accidental at all? Accidental (implying a coin toss or random guess) is a somewhat denigrating suggestion when talking about our eternal self chosen characters, so I'd call it serendipitous, a happy surprise that we got the universe we wanted and those who rejected GOD's universe got the opposite of what they wanted.

Accidental alingment also hints to me that you are still struggling with the idea we had to choose without proof... I think you understand the hypothetical necessity of no proof before choice but emotionally, you are too far removed from it.

Maybe. Anyway,

peace to you,

Ted

[OpiatefortheMasses]

The one and only Living God has simply told us of our condition and the condition of the world.
He has told us why man is naturally evil now, and why our world is full of sickness and death.
Is it so terrible of Him to tell us the truth?

He originally created everything perfect, and man was to spend all of eternity with Him in Heaven.
But, He created man to have free will ... and we rebelled and refused to go along with Him.
So, now He has arranged to take only some of His creation to be with Him.
It's His ball game ... sorry, He makes the rules.

That's what's happening ... whether you like it or not.

1) The scenario itself is still extortion. In the bible "god" created the entire scenario and all it's variables (salvation, hell, sin, etc.) and by that is directly manipulating people.

2) If "god" is all-powerful or all-knowing then it's reasonable to say he knew the outcome before he ever created it so it was either always his intention to extort mankind or it was created perfect.

3) If a person is holding a gun to your head and telling you to give them what they want or I shoot are they simply "telling the truth"?