Nothing You Can Do Will Affect Your Fate

[JoeMama]

JoeMama wrote,

Paul teaches that God makes common, flawed humans he means to cast into the fires of hell, as well as noble ones he has predestined for heaven.

Here is what Paul said:

Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh (on whom he visited all those horrible plagues): "I raised you up for this very purpose (to impress him with his magnificence), that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us (for being sinful)? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:13-21)

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

[1213]

JoeMama wrote,

Paul teaches that God makes common, flawed humans he means to cast into the fires of hell, as well as noble ones he has predestined for heaven.

Here is what Paul said:

Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh (on whom he visited all those horrible plagues): "I raised you up for this very purpose (to impress him with his magnificence), that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us (for being sinful)? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:13-21)

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

I believe God has created Adam and Eve.
I believe God has given free will.
I believe God has determined that righteous people will have eternal life. And I think HE has right to make that decision, because He has given life.

I don't believe any human is forced to do or to be evil and unrighteous. I think it is wrong interpretation of those scriptures.

[TRANSPONDER]

JoeMama wrote,

Paul teaches that God makes common, flawed humans he means to cast into the fires of hell, as well as noble ones he has predestined for heaven.

Here is what Paul said:

Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy.

For the Scripture says to Pharaoh (on whom he visited all those horrible plagues): "I raised you up for this very purpose (to impress him with his magnificence), that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us (for being sinful)? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' " Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:13-21)

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

I believe God has created Adam and Eve.
I believe God has given free will.
I believe God has determined that righteous people will have eternal life. And I think HE has right to make that decision, because He has given life.

I don't believe any human is forced to do or to be evil and unrighteous. I think it is wrong interpretation of those scriptures.

Well, there's the problem. In the OT Pharaoh was minded to let the Hebrews go (not that I believe this happened) but God manipulated the king's mind to make him say No just so that God could show his power by inflicting plagues. This was discussed on another thread and the apologists tried to say it wasn't so, but it was; God says so in the text. I trust we won't hear that again.

In the NT of course, apart from a miracle apparently stopping the people of Nazareth throwing Jesus from a high clifftop or some such high place, we get Jesusgod interfering with Paul in no uncertain way until he converted. So it seems that Free Will is only respected by God when convenient (say to make man responsible for all the bad stuff that happens, even when it is God punishing us, or just 'Letting us know he's there' as one apologist put it.

Long ago i realised that the idea of fate was a delusion; a mental trick. Whatever happened was your fate. Even if you changed your fate, that was your fate, too. The stories of people who tried to escape their fate but it caught up with them anyway were just - stories. It is just another self -delusion humans to to try to make sense of something that makes no sense, like fortune telling, prophecy and the divine plan.

[Difflugia]

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

I think it is wrong interpretation of those scriptures.

Can you justify this? I understand that there are theological and philosophical problems with predestination, but Paul's statement is pretty straightforward. I'm quite convinced that Paul was predestinarian pretty much as John Calvin understood it. I don't think that's compatible with the rest of the New Testament, but then again, I don't have a theology that requires a harmonization of such conflicts. It seems that you do. What's your harmonization that would plausibly make Calvinists, the OP, and me wrong?

[TRANSPONDER]

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

I think it is wrong interpretation of those scriptures.

Can you justify this? I understand that there are theological and philosophical problems with predestination, but Paul's statement is pretty straightforward. I'm quite convinced that Paul was predestinarian pretty much as John Calvin understood it. I don't think that's compatible with the rest of the New Testament, but then again, I don't have a theology that requires a harmonization of such conflicts. It seems that you do. What's your harmonization that would plausibly make Calvinists, the OP, and me wrong?

Fair call. The argument that it is all explainable by wrong interpretation...in fact it's not even a faithclam but an evasive excuse, has to to be Called.

What we do get are a number of surprising departures from Dogma, pullback from mainframe characteristics of God, lime omnicognisance, omnipotence and omniscience just to get out of 'why do it that way?' Just as we have seen some few give up Hellthreat, not just because their Dogma does not hold it but because it is insupportable to believe it. I have observed that some Jesusgod -apologists in evading problems seem to have devised their own church and band of Christianity - something that I come across quite astonishingly often.

So anyway. From what I've seen 'Wrong interpretation' translates as make up stuff to escape from problems, and accuse the atheists of making stuff up when they do 'wooden interpretation' (where did i hear that before? ) meaning reading what the Bible actually says, rather than claiming it means something else. When for instance it is pointed out that Matthew misread one donkey as two, thus proving that he couldn't be eyewitness.

[Purple Knight]

As an evil person myself, I can see my conversation with God about it.

Me: "It was really unfair to create me just to send me to Hell or annihilate me. You gave me not a single speck of goodness or compassion. I never could have won. It's like you created me just to punish me."
God: "Would you rather I not have created you? If I gave you a speck of goodness, you wouldn't be you; you would have been someone else. I created that version of you of course. I created every version of everyone. But are there not experiences, unique to you, that were valuable to you? I'll tell you what: If you're really not glad you lived, I'm God, so I can undo it. Say the word and you'll never have existed. Otherwise, well, you are an evil person, and you did evil, so I have to punish you."
Me: "...."

So I have two choices. I can get what is actually coming to me, or I can choose not to exist. There's no option where I am miraculously gifted a conscience because that person isn't me.

Not ever having created the evil people is just annihilating them without their say-so.

[TRANSPONDER]

As an evil person myself, I can see my conversation with God about it.

Me: "It was really unfair to create me just to send me to Hell or annihilate me. You gave me not a single speck of goodness or compassion. I never could have won. It's like you created me just to punish me."
God: "Would you rather I not have created you? If I gave you a speck of goodness, you wouldn't be you; you would have been someone else. I created that version of you of course. I created every version of everyone. But are there not experiences, unique to you, that were valuable to you? I'll tell you what: If you're really not glad you lived, I'm God, so I can undo it. Say the word and you'll never have existed. Otherwise, well, you are an evil person, and you did evil, so I have to punish you."
Me: "...."

So I have two choices. I can get what is actually coming to me, or I can choose not to exist. There's no option where I am miraculously gifted a conscience because that person isn't me.

Not ever having created the evil people is just annihilating them without their say-so.

I can see the sense in that sort a like giving animals a decent life before turning them into freezer -packs. Would they rather not have lived at all? There are some who seem to think the best thing we humans could do for animals is for humans to vanish from the earth, and maybe a god who had real love for us would disappear Himself. Maybe that's what he did.

Now maybe the faithful may consider that life is not worth living. Only a promised afterlife makes it worth doing, but we goddless don't feel like that. The experiences do make it worth doing for ourselves, never mind the others that come after - if we can. If at the end of that oblivion, I'll gladly take it. Buddhists call it 'Nirvana'.

I agree with you - I don't agree with those who bemoan having been born at all. But then I don't know how it is for them and they maybe have a reason to not want ever to have lived, which is why i don't altogether regard self - ending as indefensible. I just wonder why a god, knowing everything, made them at all, unless he doesn't care about other people and their feelings, only what suits him. And that is the god i cannot believe exists.
A Creator, arguably, but not that one.

[1213]

Do faithful Christians believe that God plays with the lives of humans in this way?

I think it is wrong interpretation of those scriptures.

Can you justify this? I understand that there are theological and philosophical problems with predestination, but Paul's statement is pretty straightforward. I'm quite convinced that Paul was predestinarian ...

I think it depends on, what is predestined. I think righteous are predestined to eternal life and others to death. However, all people have chance to become righteous. No one is forced to be evil.

[1213]

Well, there's the problem. In the OT Pharaoh was minded to let the Hebrews go (not that I believe this happened) but God manipulated the king's mind to make him say No just so that God could show his power by inflicting plagues. This was discussed on another thread and the apologists tried to say it wasn't so, but it was; God says so in the text. I trust we won't hear that again.

I think you make baseless claim. If we read the text, pharaoh's mind was "manipulated" only by the demand to let the Jews go and by plagues. Every time plague ended, or it was asked that he should let the Jews go, pharaohs heart wars hardened. And every time there was a plague, pharaoh's heart softened. So, to keep pharaohs heart soft, God should have kept the plagues going on without end. Bible doesn't tell there was some other magical mind altering trick going on.

In the NT of course, apart from a miracle apparently stopping the people of Nazareth throwing Jesus from a high clifftop or some such high place, we get Jesusgod interfering with Paul in no uncertain way until he converted. So it seems that Free Will is only respected by God when convenient (say to make man responsible for all the bad stuff that happens, even when it is God punishing us, or just 'Letting us know he's there' as one apologist put it.

Paul could have said he doesn't want to follow. His will was not limited in any way.

[TRANSPONDER]

Well, there's the problem. In the OT Pharaoh was minded to let the Hebrews go (not that I believe this happened) but God manipulated the king's mind to make him say No just so that God could show his power by inflicting plagues. This was discussed on another thread and the apologists tried to say it wasn't so, but it was; God says so in the text. I trust we won't hear that again.

I think you make baseless claim. If we read the text, pharaoh's mind was "manipulated" only by the demand to let the Jews go and by plagues. Every time plague ended, or it was asked that he should let the Jews go, pharaohs heart wars hardened. And every time there was a plague, pharaoh's heart softened. So, to keep pharaohs heart soft, God should have kept the plagues going on without end. Bible doesn't tell there was some other magical mind altering trick going on.

In the NT of course, apart from a miracle apparently stopping the people of Nazareth throwing Jesus from a high clifftop or some such high place, we get Jesusgod interfering with Paul in no uncertain way until he converted. So it seems that Free Will is only respected by God when convenient (say to make man responsible for all the bad stuff that happens, even when it is God punishing us, or just 'Letting us know he's there' as one apologist put it.

Paul could have said he doesn't want to follow. His will was not limited in any way.

Exodus 10. 1 And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him:

I have a question for you. multiple choice.

1 did you not know what the Bible said?
2 did you hope I wouldn't?
3 are you claiming that it doesn't mean what it says?

The latter wouldn't surprise me when (e.g slavery) apologists insist that the bible doesn't say what it says but means what the apologist would like it to mean.

This is riding the divine steamroller over free will, so to pretend it is some sort of unbreable law is simply false. And the same applies with Paul's forced conversion. To pretend that Paul actually wanted to convert is going completely in the face of what Acts claims. If God hadn't intervened, Paul would have gone on persecuting. JesusGod told Paul who he was and what he intended and inflicted some stuff on paul until he converted.

True suff gets inflicted on us but it is never made clear what it is supposed to tell us. That's point; if God could do it for Paul he could do it for all.#cue 'God knows best'. Excuse. But 'there is no god and we are dealing with unplanned natural stuff' is actually a better answer.