[OOC] Myriad Reality

[Disdain]

@whizzball1 How do you know hell is real? Even if it is mentioned in the bible, how do you know HE didn't lie? As any parent lies to their children that The Spook will come to those who suck their thumb, God could have followed the same logic. I mean what do you get by creating a realm made to torture a person? They will never get out of it, even if they change in there it doesn't matter, it is their final destination once decided.

@Webmaster
I think he meant on the...specific torture those who have committed the crime get in hell...

@Bishop

For this, I'll argue from a purely Biblical standpoint, because I'm assuming you're questioning me in terms of "What exactly are your beliefs?" rather than "What is your justification for believing in God?" which is a whole other ball game. First, I contend that God is perfectly holy: "God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). Second, darkness and sin are equated: "... men loved the darkness... for their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). Thus, in God is no evil or sin at all. Many things are presented distinctly as sin by the Bible, including lying, as in Proverbs 6:16-19. Thus, God does not lie. God mentions several times that the unrighteous will go to Hell: "And these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matthew 25:46).

You ask, however, why anyone should even go to Hell. Hell was originally "prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matthew 25:41). All sin is committed against God: "Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight..." (Psalm 51:4). God is an infinite and eternal being (Psalm 90:2) and also a just God (Job 34:12) who cannot look upon sin and cannot tolerate wrongdoing (Habakkuk 1:13). Holiness implies perfection (Matthew 5:48) and by sinning, we fall short of that (Romans 3:23) and are stained and can never become clean by our own efforts (Jeremiah 2:22). Thus, the only just punishment is infinite and eternal, because that stain cannot go away... except by an infinite and eternal payment, which was paid by Jesus (1 John 2:2), who is God (John 1:1, 14).

God doesn't want to torture human beings (2 Peter 3:9), but He still must (as I have just established). It's not profitable in any way. But it is required. And since He doesn't want anyone to go to Hell, He makes it very, very easy to escape that infinite, eternal punishment: accept the infinite, eternal payment (John 3:16). Hell is not unjust; it is perfectly just, and it is so easy to not have to go there that it is not a mark on the image of God that Christians believe in and the Bible purports.

oh lol I'm not talking about hell; I'm talking about the justice system

[Bishop]

@Meta I see where I went wrong. I assumed God wanted to separate those with pure souls from those with a tainted one. At least that's what I assumed. And from that I deduced that there is actually no need to make hell to achieve that. You only need the place to house those of pure soul and the rest stay in earth to make the test harder. Why would God go to excessive lengths to make hell with eternal torture for those who have sinned? I repeat, assuming his intention is to weed out the tainted and handpick the pure and get them in heaven, why would he give a second thought to the impure let alone create a realm made especially for them?

And according to me, that analogy is wrong because we can feel with our senses the world around us. For that reason we know we are alive and in the real world as far as that goes. But for God, we only have belief and maybe for you, that analogy stands because you believe in the words of God same as you believe that this world is real. But for me, who doesn't really believe, even if the words of God are lies, it makes no difference to me. So what if, going full atheist here, some imaginary character's words are lies and not real? Well none the less, if I believed in God your analogy would make sense.

[Bishop]

@Disdain You overlook one crucial point. All the men who you mentioned speak the words of God do they not? I mean how can they know what God wants/needs without him telling that? So by that logic, couldn't he have lied to these prophets, to these men he chose to spread his word? He says lying is a sin, but he is omnipotent so is it impossible for him to go against his own words? Not even spoken by him, but rather passed down to these so called prophets.

[Disdain]

@Meta I see where I went wrong. I assumed God wanted to separate those with pure souls from those with a tainted one. At least that's what I assumed. And from that I deduced that there is actually no need to make hell to achieve that. You only need the place to house those of pure soul and the rest stay in earth to make the test harder. Why would God go to excessive lengths to make hell with eternal torture for those who have sinned? I repeat, assuming his intention is to weed out the tainted and handpick the pure and get them in heaven, why would he give a second thought to the impure let alone create a realm made especially for them?

And according to me, that analogy is wrong because we can feel with our senses the world around us. For that reason we know we are alive and in the real world as far as that goes. But for God, we only have belief and maybe for you, that analogy stands because you believe in the words of God same as you believe that this world is real. But for me, who doesn't really believe, even if the words of God are lies, it makes no difference to me. So what if, going full atheist here, some imaginary character's words are lies and not real? Well none the less, if I believed in God your analogy would make sense.

@Bishop

That isn't his intention. His original intention was for everybody to be perfect, but that went out of the window when we first sinned, enlightened and then tempted to sin by Satan. Satan is, in fact, the reason that Hell exists; it was created to punish him, his followers, and their evil. He first deserved that eternal punishment, and then he went and made it possible for others to have to suffer that as well.

What analogy? And, I mean, I don't just blindly believe in God. Simplifying extensively, one of the arguments I used when I first justified my belief in God is that God, as described in the Bible, is the only reasonable explanation for innumerable unlikely things that happen in the world. To parallel your wording, I looked at events I perceived with my senses, sought an explanation, and found that such events were, in fact, a natural, sensible (as in, able to be sensed) manifestation of the God you believe cannot be felt with the senses.

[Disdain]

@Disdain You overlook one crucial point. All the men who you mentioned speak the words of God do they not? I mean how can they know what God wants/needs without him telling that? So by that logic, couldn't he have lied to these prophets, to these men he chose to spread his word? He says lying is a sin, but he is omnipotent so is it impossible for him to go against his own words? Not even spoken by him, but rather passed down to these so called prophets.

@Bishop

The Bible states that it is the absolute truth. And it establishes a very, very good reputation for it. The God that the Bible describes acts consistently in daily life, and things that the Bible says are true that can be tested hold up with unfailing accuracy. A reputation for truth is enough in any court system to trust a witness, and for a loving God who claims to be holy and acts that way consistently, it's even easier. I would justify those statements, but I don't really have time to, and I never saved anyone by debating them--I'm just enumerating some of my reasoning for believing in God and that everything He says is the absolute truth. A couple years back I spent several days meticulously justifying every bit of reasoning I had for the existence of God, and I'm not in the mood to do that again right now, heheh.

[Meta]

@Bishop

The idea behind it isn't just to separate them. God decides that one behavior deserves punishment and punishes people for going against what is good.

The analogy assumes that God exists because it intends to explain his behavior to some extent; there's no point to it otherwise. If you want to discuss the rationality of believing in God at all, we can do that

[Bishop]

@Disdain That was meant for the previous post made by Meta but came out after yours. Anyway, couldn't aliens also be a plausible explanation? This being you call God, could as well have been a creature from a highly advanced alien race who came to guide are own that was still in it's infancy. I mean, you don't really know what God is do you? For all anyone knows maybe it isn't even a being, maybe just an unknown force of the universe.

The devil and the demons who defied it could be another race who started learning the way things worked, the secrets of the universe and for that they were expelled, sent away, maybe even exterminated. And all that was a warning to our own race. Hell, maybe the church was right to burn those books as they knew the real nature of God so they wanted to save humanity by hindering it's technological advancement. Just throwing it out there XD

[Disdain]

@Disdain That was meant for the previous post made by Meta but came out after yours. Anyway, couldn't aliens also be a plausible explanation? This being you call God, could as well have been a creature from a highly advanced alien race who came to guide are own that was still in it's infancy. I mean, you don't really know what God is do you? For all anyone knows maybe it isn't even a being, maybe just an unknown force of the universe.

The devil and the demons who defied it could be another race who started learning the way things worked, the secrets of the universe and for that they were expelled, sent away, maybe even exterminated. And all that was a warning to our own race. Hell, maybe the church was right to burn those books as they knew the real nature of God so they wanted to save humanity by hindering it's technological advancement. Just throwing it out there XD

@Bishop

too unlikely =P
And far too many assumptions to pass through Occam's Razor. God, as described by the Bible, explains everything with fewer assumptions and more completeness than any other explanation I considered (including pure naturalism) during those several days.
an unknown force whom I talk with all the time and acts awfully sentimental and caring for being unknown and a force lol

[Meta]

@Bishop

Based on my knowledge of physics, biology, and logic, I personally rule out aliens as a scenario. Based on your responses, I understand that you're not super familiar with what the Bible says, but if we assume all of it to be true but replace God with aliens, a lot more breaks than is sustainable. I'd also like to point out that God cannot lie, cannot create a rock heavier than he can lift, and cannot sin. Omnipotent = all powerful, not able to do anything. But to be fair, your theories are getting pretty close to what the Mormons, Scientologists, and other cults believe, so I suppose you can see how they came to be.

[Bishop]

and I never saved anyone by debating them

Wait, what? XDDD

And furthermore, I don't want to debate if God exists or not. I'm certain that if it wasn't all elaborately planned with Jesus as a master conman and the disciples as highly intelligent fanatic that sold their stories very well, it could have also been someone sent from the future who spread these teachings in order to change the course of history in this world. If God was really another being, it could as well have been a highly intelligent and manipulative extraterrestrial being, or even an unknown force of the universe. Doesn't really matter. What bothers me most is your irrational belief that according to the bible's consistency, His words are true.

He is omnipotent, to deceive, to lie to our race, it isn't beyond Him. By saying that he only speaks the truth and only wants the best for us, limits him in that aspect. It's super annoying since you describe him as omnipotent, capable of anything but somehow know his true nature and that he only leans on the good side. There isn't a side to Him. He is and has everything. We are made in his image no? Us suddenly going corrupt isn't just US defecting. That corruption is a part of him since HE IS EVERYTHING!

Yes, from the consistency of the bible we can deduce and hope that God is as depicted. But seriously, just...think about it. We are humans who can't even begin to understand the concept of God's true form, do you REALLY THINK that just by simple logical deduction, you can discern God's true nature and the truthfulness of His words? Here I am taking a stand like God exists. And it annoys the living crap out of me that people think they know that God really wants what is "good" for us. His true objectives could be different. The words He said to the prophets, are dumbed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down so that our simple minds can understand, that is, if he even talked to them. Do you really think that those exact words are his true intentions, all that he meant?

He probably didn't even talk to the prophets. HE SHOWED THEM. He showed his true wanting to them so that they understood. Their being as a whole knew what He wanted. We can't even begin to understand the concept of how That being thinks or works or what It wants. Now what the prophets say are his words, are the best that they can describe what they felt when he showed them. This is how my ignorant self views this matter. Think about that for a moment.

too unlikely =P
And far too many assumptions to pass through Occam's Razor. God, as described by the Bible, explains everything with fewer assumptions and more completeness than any other explanation I considered (including pure naturalism) during those several days.
an unknown force whom I talk with all the time and acts awfully sentimental and caring for being unknown and a force lol

I'm sorry but you, the human race as a whole, is ignorant of everything about the universe. The small part that we know can't even begin to describe the amount that is left to explore, the new properties of everything else. Ruling out aliens and creatures like that is...well it annoys me to say the least. You think aliens as from the movies. Aliens are another being not from this Earth. They could be from another universe, they could be creatures made of pure energy that live on higher dimensions and influence our world in ways we can;t imagine and yet, God couldn't be such a creature because....??? You think simple and the most practical solution to something is the most probable? When we haven't even discovered the secrets of our own earth let alone the universe, you rule out everything else because the Bible covers everything and every question leaving no loopholes?

Based on my knowledge of physics, biology, and logic, I personally rule out aliens as a scenario. Based on your responses, I understand that you're not super familiar with what the Bible says, but if we assume all of it to be true but replace God with aliens, a lot more breaks than is sustainable. I'd also like to point out that God cannot lie, cannot create a rock heavier than he can lift, and cannot sin. Omnipotent = all powerful, not able to do anything. But to be fair, your theories are getting pretty close to what the Mormons, Scientologists, and other cults believe, so I suppose you can see how they came to be.

Meta has a better way of putting it as seen in the first sentence.

Forgive my by-the-word-increasing-ignorance, but what's the difference between all powerful and doing anything? Didn't He make the universe? Does He even need to look outside of Himself for sustenance? Doesn't that make him able to do everything? I mean lying is like, at the very bottom of things he is allowed to do. If we can lie, and He is everything, he also can lie.

[Disdain]

<Snipped quote>
Wait, what? XDDD

And furthermore, I don't want to debate if God exists or not. I'm certain that if it wasn't all elaborately planned with Jesus as a master conman and the disciples as highly intelligent fanatic that sold their stories very well, it could have also been someone sent from the future who spread these teachings in order to change the course of history in this world. If God was really another being, it could as well have been a highly intelligent and manipulative extraterrestrial being, or even an unknown force of the universe. Doesn't really matter. What bothers me most is your irrational belief that according to the bible's consistency, His words are true.

He is omnipotent, to deceive, to lie to our race, it isn't beyond Him. By saying that he only speaks the truth and only wants the best for us, limits him in that aspect. It's super annoying since you describe him as omnipotent, capable of anything but somehow know his true nature and that he only leans on the good side. There isn't a side to Him. He is and has everything. We are made in his image no? Us suddenly going corrupt isn't just US defecting. That corruption is a part of him since HE IS EVERYTHING!

Yes, from the consistency of the bible we can deduce and hope that God is as depicted. But seriously, just...think about it. We are humans who can't even begin to understand the concept of God's true form, do you REALLY THINK that just by simple logical deduction, you can discern God's true nature and the truthfulness of His words? Here I am taking a stand like God exists. And it annoys the living crap out of me that people think they know that God really wants what is "good" for us. His true objectives could be different. The words He said to the prophets, are dumbed waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down so that our simple minds can understand, that is, if he even talked to them. Do you really think that those exact words are his true intentions, all that he meant?

He probably didn't even talk to the prophets. HE SHOWED THEM. He showed his true wanting to them so that they understood. Their being as a whole knew what He wanted. We can't even begin to understand the concept of how That being thinks or works or what It wants. Now what the prophets say are his words, are the best that they can describe what they felt when he showed them. This is how my ignorant self views this matter. Think about that for a moment.

<Snipped quote>

I'm sorry but you, the human race as a whole, is ignorant of everything about the universe. The small part that we know can't even begin to describe the amount that is left to explore, the new properties of everything else. Ruling out aliens and creatures like that is...well it annoys me to say the least. You think aliens as from the movies. Aliens are another being not from this Earth. They could be from another universe, they could be creatures made of pure energy that live on higher dimensions and influence our world in ways we can;t imagine and yet, God couldn't be such a creature because....??? You think simple and the most practical solution to something is the most probable? When we haven't even discovered the secrets of our own earth let alone the universe, you rule out everything else because the Bible covers everything and every question leaving no loopholes?


<Snipped quote>

Meta has a better way of putting it as seen in the first sentence.

Forgive my by-the-word-increasing-ignorance, but what's the difference between all powerful and doing anything? Didn't He make the universe? Does He even need to look outside of Himself for sustenance? Doesn't that make him able to do everything? I mean lying is like, at the very bottom of things he is allowed to do. If we can lie, and He is everything, he also can lie.

@Bishop

Most of your points do not pass either Occam's Razor or Newton's Flaming Laser Sword (yes, that's entirely a thing and yes, logicians and philosophers use it), and though I have replies for each, like I said, I don't have time to debate. if I am going to be taken to an undisclosed location tomorrow I might as well pack for it with the packing list they gave me

[Meta]

@Bishop

All powerful in the sense that he has infinite energy and infinite control over that energy. In a sense, you could even say that he can do anything at all, but the problem is that a blanket absolute statement phrased that way leads to all sort of logical errors (i.e. "Can God create a square circle?"). So if you want to define omnipotent as "Able to do anything," you have to be extremely careful not to create questions with internal inconsistencies. For example, the square circle question is grammatically correct, but there's no real meaning to it because you asked two definitions to contradict each other. The same kind of error applies to God creating a rock too heavy to lift. By definition, God could lift anything he wanted because of infinite physical strength, so attempting to define a rock as too heavy for an omnipotent being is mathematically equivalent of asking for 5 to be considered a greater value than infinity, which is another absurd conclusion. In the same way, attempting to define God as sinful contradict the definition of the Christian God (because sin is defined as anything counter to God's nature). So you end up attempting to ask God to do something that is defined as something God would not do. In discrete mathematics, you're looking at this issue:
A = God;
B = Sin;
A∩B = 0;
∃x∈A|x∈B;

Which is not possible because if x∈A, then x∉B
Mathematically speaking, you end up with an impossible conclusion (you can read that as essentially saying that there exist an element x in set A so that x is also contained within set B), because there is zero overlap between set A and set B (A∩B = 0). So not only is it fine if we define omnipotent as infinite energy, but it is also fine if we used your definition because anything that would be self-violating in the idea of omnipotence is a logical error. It's just easier for people to say "Omnipotence means he can do anything" rather than define it like I did or go through the math to prove that it is not actually an illogical statement.

[Bishop]

@Meta@Disdain I completely agree with both of you. As far as human logic goes and the things we can perceive, you are both right. But I'm thinking of the existences and ideas we can not perceive and as such can not even begin to understand.

A square circle, as far as we know and by the limits and definitions that we have placed on each individual geometrical shape can not exist because it contradicts itself. But the definition alone is abstract as everything that we have placed a value or meaning to. Even if God created a form like that, our minds could simply not understand it. That's where I'm coming from. Humans, 3 dimensional beings who try to give meaning and limits to things above them, beyond their understanding using their logic is pure arrogance. Yes, you may call them theories, like everything we know about the universe and how things that we cannot see or touch work but don't go and call them definitive truths. For somethings, even all the vocabulary in the world couldn't begin to define them since we ourselves cannot understand the concept.

[Meta]

@Bishop

If we assume the Bible to be true, then he gave us the information we could understand. The argument of "It could be beyond our comprehension and therefore we can't discuss it is a discussion-ending position to take. It just doesn't really go anywhere productive.

[Bishop]

@Meta It isn't discussion ending. I said it so that to show the wrongness in trying to define, understand,know the intentions of God. It adds to my earlier argument that no matter the consistency that the bible shows, no one can know the true nature of God and as so people should stop saying he is "good" and he is benevolent when you don't know what he really means with the actions he performs. You can only assume it is for the good of humanity since it has had such effects. Though has it really? How many books did the church burn, how many people*? All the atrocities it has committed in "behalf of God". God knew that such actions would happen and God didn't and still doesn't intervene directly with human affairs. He doesn't try to right the wrongs, he just lets everything happen even if such atrocities are performed on His name. As so doesn't he take a neutral position? All humans are the same to him, no matter if they're "evil" or not and he doesn't try to help anyone, no matter if they are pure of soul or not. All is planned and if something is to happen it will happen no matter what you are thinking or your beliefs.

The present can diverse in many ways to future roads and each one of them is known and seen by God. Whatever has happened and whatever will happen is all in His plan and as such, praying to God for change or anything is "blasphemy", seen by the eyes of a fanatic who says that God's will is absolute, since you ask him to change His great plan.

[Disdain]

I'll be back in three days--I'm going on the first trip of five during this internship. I still have absolutely no idea where I'm going, but, hey, that's half the fun. I'll tell you all about it when I get back, along with anything God shows me while I'm there. byeeeeeee

[DarkwolfX37]

Sonic Forces has me subtly hyped but the comic might be getting cancelled and that would be horrible.

[Meta]

Sonic Forces has me subtly hyped but the comic might be getting cancelled and that would be horrible.

@DarkwolfX37

It's canceled, dude. The DeviantArt accounts for the team members already mention that they're looking for jobs.

[Disdain]

I'm back! With many stories.

[Meta]

I'm back! With many stories.

@Disdain

Hi.