I have a hard time getting along with God

[Green Xenon]

God has the following duties:

 

1. Heal all existing SDD [suffering, Destruction, and Death]

 

2. Prevent any future SDD

 

Since none of the above happens, either God is being a jerk and not doing his job OR he simply doesn't exist.

 

I was once watching an Adam & Eve cartoon. The serpant lures the couple into a tree to eat a forbidden fruit. They do exactly that. God then punished the couple because they could've resisted. God also punished the serpant [which I don't understand]. Adam & Eve chose, out of their own free will to give into temptation -- the couple then experience the negative results of their actions.

 

I completely understand why God punished Adam & Eve. They chose to do wrong, so they were punished. However, I don't AT ALL understand why God punished the serpant. The serpant did not have any free will. The serpant was under complete control of God. God made the serpant do wrong and then punished the serpant. God could've prevented the serpant from tempting the couple, but God chose not to. God made the serpant do wrong, then he punished it. I think it would have be more logical for God to have prevent the serpant from luring the couple rather than allowing the crime to happen and then punishing the serpant after the fact. This causes me to view God as troublemaker who like to punish others for his own actions.

 

Also, I have no choice but to believe that since God has all power, he most likely misuses it for his own sick pleasure -- just like the kings/queens of human history did.

 

This is why I have such a hard time showing any respect for God. After all, I believe in justice. I hate -- with a passion -- any cold-hearted entity who knowingly/willingly misuses his/her/its power just for the fun of it.

 

God is no better than a schoolyard bully or a dominant prison inmate who gains cold-hearted pleasure and dark humor from victimizing the weaker.

 

If God exists, then all physically-existing entities are his helpless victims. If God does not exist, he is simply a figment of my imagination who I choose to hold responsible for any SDD experienced in physical reality.

 

When good happens, God still exists but the good happens because God fails in making or allowing bad to happen. In this case, I verbally tease-God in a puerile manner and chant in a ring-around-the-rosy tune, "ha ha God, I won you, I won you"

 

If something bad happens and it's not the fault of a human, then it's God's fault. In this case, I curse God with extremely obscene language such as the 4-letter-F-word.

 

In any case, I believe God is the ultimate oppressor. I try to test his lack-of-physical-existence by insulting him as much as possible, whenever he pisses me off. God does exist but he is free from the restrictions of the laws of physics [such as my most hated 2nd-law-of-thermodynamics]. I feel jealous of him, that he is capable of overriding physical limitations while the physical universes are oppressed by them.

 

When I'm in a bad mood, I believe that God and his angels are on opposite terms. The angels want to end SDD but God [being the cruel cold-heart he is] doesn't let them. When any angel tries to eliminate SDD, God punishes that angel.

 

I'm on the angels' side and against God.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of the devil but I'd take a gazillion devils over one God. The devil and God are both evil but God is more powerful than the devil, so I hate God much more than I hate the devil. If you are physically-invincible and have unlimited power, you should use it to end SDD -- if you don't then you are an evil sadist.

 

If a human knowingly and willingly does bad deeds, God is not at fault. On the other hand, if I bite my tongue while eating, it IS God's fault and I say "f*** God". If I can't blame a person, I blame God.

[CaptainPanic]

Was there anything you wanted to discuss in particular, or did you just feel like insulting religion?

 

I have many problems with your post, but I will highlight two:

 

God has the following duties:

 

1. Heal all existing SDD [suffering, Destruction, and Death]

 

2. Prevent any future SDD

I'm not an expert in religion, but weren't humans put on earth in order to prove ourselves worthy? You need some suffering to be able to do good. If all good is already taken care of, then there would be little point in going to heaven.

So, we should heal that SDD (suffering, destruction, death) ourselves?

(I put a questionmark, because once again, I am no expert in religion).

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think religion encourages people to do good, instead of promising people that some higher being will take care of everything.

 

Also, I have no choice but to believe that since God has all power, he most likely misuses it for his own sick pleasure -- just like the kings/queens of human history did.

Ok, so you believe that. So what?

You haven't backed it up with any quotes from the bible or any other religious literature (which I assume we must use as input, to talk about God?). You might be all alone believing this.

 

Unfortunately, you build the rest of your post on the foundation of this empty argument. Which makes the rest of your post nothing but an angry rant.

 

I know we often give religious people a hard time on this forum, but we base that on logical arguments, not angry rants.

[Green Xenon]

Was there anything you wanted to discuss in particular, or did you just feel like insulting religion?

 

I'm not an expert in religion, but weren't humans put on earth in order to prove ourselves worthy? You need some suffering to be able to do good. If all good is already taken care of, then there would be little point in going to heaven.

So, we should heal that SDD (suffering, destruction, death) ourselves?

(I put a questionmark, because once again, I am no expert in religion).

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think religion encourages people to do good, instead of promising people that some higher being will take care of everything.

 

I respect all religions but follow none.

 

No one should have to prove themselves worthy. God should magically-enter existence and solve all our problems for us. If he doesn't then he proves himself to be a cold-hearted oppressive bastard.

 

It is impossible for us to heal SDD, only God can do that but he is choosing not to. So he is worse than the devil.

 

Where is the need to go to heaven? Why can't God convert physical-reality to something exactly like heaven? Oh, of course he can. He just chooses not to because he masturbates to our SDDs.

 

For the past two days, I've had nagging-hiccups. Since no human is responsible for this, I blame God and call him a "sick sadistic f---tard"

Edited March 28, 2012 by Green Xenon

[CaptainPanic]

Right. So, we have established that this is your own personal belief.

 

Why do you choose to use the same words (God, angels, devil, etc.) as Christianity, if your belief is clearly different from theirs?

[immortal]

I'm not an expert in religion, but weren't humans put on earth in order to prove ourselves worthy?

 

Humans were put on earth to do God's work and to fulfill his purpose and the purpose being that we need to enjoy this world and live here up to your maximum life span by gaining the perfect knowledge of God. In that way you cannot sin nor commit anything evil.

 

You need some suffering to be able to do good. If all good is already taken care of, then there would be little point in going to heaven.

So, we should heal that SDD (suffering, destruction, death) ourselves?

(I put a questionmark, because once again, I am no expert in religion).

 

We cannot heal anything ourselves we need a master to guide us to the path of righteousness and such a seed in a master can only be sown by God.

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think religion encourages people to do good, instead of promising people that some higher being will take care of everything.

 

It neither encourages us to do good nor it encourages to do evil.

 

Ok, so you believe that. So what?

You haven't backed it up with any quotes from the bible or any other religious literature (which I assume we must use as input, to talk about God?). You might be all alone believing this.

 

Unfortunately, you build the rest of your post on the foundation of this empty argument. Which makes the rest of your post nothing but an angry rant.

 

I know we often give religious people a hard time on this forum, but we base that on logical arguments, not angry rants.

 

I think the OP is being spiritually immature and we find a lot of them here and the reason why I didn't replied to the OP when I first saw this thread.

[CaptainPanic]

We cannot heal anything ourselves we need a master to guide us to the path of righteousness and such a seed in a master can only be sown by God.

Everybody is free to choose to do something good. It helps if we have leaders to who give a good example, or who facilitate doing good... but even under the worst circumstances, people can still do good.

I disagree that we cannot do any good ourselves (this reply is from a common-sense-point-of-view, not religious).

 

It neither encourages us to do good nor it encourages to do evil.

The 10 commandments seem to suggest a lot more good than evil?

[Green Xenon]

Right. So, we have established that this is your own personal belief.

 

Why do you choose to use the same words (God, angels, devil, etc.) as Christianity, if your belief is clearly different from theirs?

 

Because it has the simplest good/bad binary terms in it. Angels are good, the devil and God are bad.

 

I think the OP is being spiritually immature and we find a lot of them here and the reason why I didn't replied to the OP when I first saw this thread.

 

I'm not immature in any way. In fact, I'm too mature for my own good. This maturity causes me to have an *extreme* respect for right vs. wrong.

 

One of my rules of right vs. wrong is that those how have the power to heal current SDD and prevent future SDD have the duty to do so. If a being with such power knowingly/willingly fails this duty and instead laughs at the SDD [like God does], then this being deserve to be brought into physical existence, and eternally-burnt-alive. It's only fair.

 

It's God's duty to make physically-reality free of any/all SDD. Sadly, for physical-reality, God gets horny from plaguing such reality with SDD. God laughs at the SDD of all physical-beings. He is a sickest of sickness. I hope his angels turn on him and cook him alive forever. Sadly such miracles of retaliation are way too good to ever be true.

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Green Xenon, preaching and soap boxing are not something this forum takes kindly too. You must keep in mind that this is a science forum and that simply proclaiming your opinions as fact under the assumption that God exists is not going to go down well and is a pretty good way to ensure a flame war followed by thread closure. If you wish to engage in a theological discussion, you should pose your opening post (and subsequent posts) so as to properly facilitate it.

[CaptainPanic]

It's still not clear to me what you're trying to achieve with this thread. It still seems to me that the main point of this thread was to insult.

 

So far in this thread, the only "discussion" we had was just a misunderstanding. I thought you were discussing the standard views of Christianity, but you're not. But now that's cleared up, there is nothing left to talk about... Because we're dealing with your personal beliefs, and you are the only one who knows those.

 

So... ? Are you just preaching your own beliefs (take not of forum rule 2.8 before you do that), or was there something you'd like to discuss?

 

[edit] Ah, I see that hypervalent_iodine just beat me to making a similar comment...

[immortal]

Everybody is free to choose to do something good. It helps if we have leaders to who give a good example, or who facilitate doing good... but even under the worst circumstances, people can still do good.

I disagree that we cannot do any good ourselves (this reply is from a common-sense-point-of-view, not religious).

 

By doing good you cannot heal SDD (Suffering, Destruction and Death), its impossible, what you need is perfection and that knowledge has to come from God or through the men of God.

 

The 10 commandments seem to suggest a lot more good than evil?

 

God not only commands the Ten commandments, in fact he commands every action of every sentient being in this world and therefore the world is in the care of God and everything that is happening is the play of God to fulfill his works.

[A Tripolation]

The 10 commandments seem to suggest a lot more good than evil?

 

You're right, CaptainPanic. immortal has no idea what he's talking about, or he's from some fringe sect that interprets the clear parts of the Bible in a wildly different way than most.

 

By doing good you cannot heal SDD (Suffering, Destruction and Death), its impossible, what you need is perfection and that knowledge has to come from God or through the men of God.

 

Absolutely not. I suggest you look at the widely secular group "Doctors Without Borders" and see how people can alleviate suffering without begging God for mercy and power to fix things.

 

Because it has the simplest good/bad binary terms in it. Angels are good, the devil and God are bad.

 

Angels are God's holy entities. They are agents of light. They are good. God is generally seen as good. The atrocities committed in the OT in the name of God were most likely hateful tribal warlords wanting to justify their slaughter.

 

Satan is seen as bad, but I don't really think that's the case. If he exists, then I think him to be an opposing force to God, one concerned with hedonism and nihilism and self-pleasure above all. Not a guy with a pitchfork that runs around killing babies.

[CaptainPanic]

You're right, CaptainPanic. immortal has no idea what he's talking about, or he's from some fringe sect that interprets the clear parts of the Bible in a wildly different way than most.

The problem with religious discussions is: if you believe different things, there is no discussion.

 

- We already established that Green Xenon has his own personal beliefs.

- You suggest that immortal is of a different religion than you

- I try to speak for mainstream Christianity (if there is such a thing... I'm still no expert, and an atheist normally)

- You might be of yet another branch

 

If all four of us have different assumptions on even what God is supposed to do, and about what's written in the Bible... how the hell are we ever going to have a discussion? It's not like you're gonna convince people with beliefs. If you say: "I believe this-and-this", then I will just shrug, and say: "Ok, good for you". End of discussion. That's about as far as we got here in 12 posts.

 

And that's my problem with this whole thread, and in general also with the religion forum here on SFN. We're talking about beliefs! Normally, it's a single religious person vs. a bunch of scientists. Now in this thread, we have multiple religions against each other, and so far the scientists are observing from the sideline... (no doubt waiting until someone mentions "creationism", which is the Godwin of religious discussions). But there is absolutely no way we can convince Green Xenon that his God is not evil. And there is no reason to do that either... So, this whole thread is a bit pointless.

[A Tripolation]

And that's my problem with this whole thread, and in general also with the religion forum here on SFN. We're talking about beliefs! Normally, it's a single religious person vs. a bunch of scientists. Now in this thread, we have multiple religions against each other, and so far the scientists are observing from the sideline... (no doubt waiting until someone mentions "creationism", which is the Godwin of religious discussions).

 

Because we have so few theists here, or the ones that randomly join, to have an intelligent discussion about religion. I would love to speak with wiccans/muslims/catholics on what they believe and why they feel the way they do. But that never happens. It's simply people saying that they are right and science/all-other-religions are wrong.

 

 

But there is absolutely no way we can convince Green Xenon that his God is not evil. And there is no reason to do that either... So, this whole thread is a bit pointless.

 

Not really. The Holy Books of the world are the "scientific evidence" of the religion forum. Green Xenon has no verses to back up what he is saying. He is offering conclusions not founded in evidence. So, we can ask him to defend his stance and when he can't, then we say the thread is just him preaching. I don't care if someone has different interpretations than I do. I care if they have wholly unsubstantiated beliefs, preach them, and then run away and hide when questioned on them.

[immortal]

You're right, CaptainPanic. immortal has no idea what he's talking about, or he's from some fringe sect that interprets the clear parts of the Bible in a wildly different way than most.

 

I'm not clinging to the orthodox religions of the world, I'm arguing from the point of different Gnosis schools from different parts of the world who claim to have known God and the exact nature of reality.

 

If we keep aside the mythology of those Gnosis schools of thought all of there teachings harmonize well with each other and they speak in one tone and in line with each other and they weren't monotheistic but were pagans and believed in many gods and in many different other worlds.

 

I still think that those gnostic schools stands on their own and I doesn't want to infer anything from the commonality of their teachings.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

 

Hence my views aren't commonly accepted by either the scientific consensus nor the orthodox religions.

 

Absolutely not. I suggest you look at the widely secular group "Doctors Without Borders" and see how people can alleviate suffering without begging God for mercy and power to fix things.

 

Those doctors won't give me the freedom from bondage, it is God who frees us from bondage, suffering and death.

[CaptainPanic]

Not really. The Holy Books of the world are the "scientific evidence" of the religion forum. Green Xenon has no verses to back up what he is saying.

You don't know that. He could have written a Holy Book of Green Xenon already... and it would be just as valid as "scientific evidence" as any other Holy book in this thread (apologies to all different religions, but that's my view).

[doG]

God has the following duties...

According to what definition of god? The deist one? Then it's duties are done, it created the universe. The pantheist god has no duties. The Greek god Thor only has a duty to produce thunder and lightning. The FSM god simply has the duty to defeat creationist efforts to teach their tale as science in the classroom. There are many many more. You should start with defining which god you're actually referring to and then you could move on to proving the existence of that god. After that we can talk about duties.

 

The Holy Books of the world are the "scientific evidence" of the religion forum...

Ummmm..........NO! Holy books are not 'scientific' evidence of anything. In fact they are nothing but hearsay. There's not one word in any of them that was actually written by any god, only men, men that simply said that he said he said.

Edited March 28, 2012 by doG

[A Tripolation]

Ummmm..........NO! Holy books are not 'scientific' evidence of anything. In fact they are nothing but hearsay. There's not one word in any of them that was actually written by any god, only men, men that simply said that he said he said.

 

...do you understand what it means to put quotes around something in the middle of a sentence when it's not spoken word?

[Ben Banana]

"I have a hard time getting along with God"

 

Oh, this is probably because its hard to persistently envision imaginary friends, especially because that requires the justification of so many things that don't make sense. I recommend people stop picturing a white-robed, bearded man in an empty lawn chair (I know no one does that, just joking). But by plain realization, you notice he (or it) is a creep! Others may prefer to envision God differently -- a God, by some extended ideology, which isn't evidently a bastard!

 

Don't complicate a useless picture. If you must satisfy your curiosity, start "painting a new picture" by your previous experience and reasoning, but stop smearing things around. Now, wonderfully, when you develop your delicious ideas, and practice reasoning from a solid basis, you can actually reflect reality without any hiccups. Then, you're out of the dark, where logic can proceed more profoundly!

 

God is cheap; the ideology is a foolish solution to so many entertaining questions which are rather better to actually answer than to bet. Uh, If I took my time to write a few more sentences, maybe I could make this point come across elegantly -- its extremely hard to convince a deist -- however, just ask God. Let the omniscient tell you if he's real, because they are omniscient, and they know all. Unusually, the all-powerful doesn't care... Or perhaps this all-powerful is the mere concept itself: destructively hindering your thought!

Edited March 29, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[immortal]

I'm not immature in any way. In fact, I'm too mature for my own good. This maturity causes me to have an *extreme* respect for right vs. wrong.

 

Then kindly take some time to read this--> Valentinus- A Gnostic for all seasons. It is one of the point of views which gives a different insight to SDD.

 

One of my rules of right vs. wrong is that those how have the power to heal current SDD and prevent future SDD have the duty to do so. If a being with such power knowingly/willingly fails this duty and instead laughs at the SDD [like God does], then this being deserve to be brought into physical existence, and eternally-burnt-alive. It's only fair.

 

Do you still think that God is not doing his duty after reading the Valentinian theology?

 

It's God's duty to make physically-reality free of any/all SDD. Sadly, for physical-reality, God gets horny from plaguing such reality with SDD. God laughs at the SDD of all physical-beings. He is a sickest of sickness. I hope his angels turn on him and cook him alive forever. Sadly such miracles of retaliation are way too good to ever be true.

 

Yes, true, it is God's duty but humanity was inherently made imperfect and that is an illusion due to ignorance and hence from Gnosis point of view SDD can be eradicated only through the perfect or the self-knowledge of God.

 

---

 

The Holy scriptures by themselves cannot be an authority while discussing religion, the oral traditions of religions are equally important too and only the oral traditions gives us a correct and a practical interpretation of the holy scriptures. The Zohar, Talmud, Midrash etc are equally important.

 

If the whole goal of the 30 odd books of the Bible is to show humanity the kingdom of God and his son Jesus Christ then we should care to understand his secret oral teachings. Valentinus, a christian mystic in the 2nd century got that knowledge from Theodus and he inturn got that knowledge from the apostle Paul and in this way that knowledge can be traced back to God himself. Therefore the interpretations of the men of God are the highest authority since their interpretations are based on revelations and not by making up stuff on their own.

[Ben Banana]

@immortal

If the whole goal of the 30 odd books of the Bible is to show humanity the kingdom of God and his son Jesus Christ then we should care to understand his secret oral teachings. Valentinus, a christian mystic in the 2nd century got that knowledge from Theodus and he inturn got that knowledge from the apostle Paul and in this way that knowledge can be traced back to God himself. Therefore the interpretations of the men of God are the highest authority since their interpretations are based on revelations and not by making up stuff on their own.

Who the hell are men of God? Was Jesus even God?

 

--edit--

You quoted something I just scrapped. I'll put it back for readers' sake.

 

If? The Bible. Goal of the Bible. Which Bible? Interpretations. What interpretations? Bob is a man of God more than Jim. Bob is the authority. Bob's interpretations are correct. Bob is a man of God because his interpretations seem to make sense to me more than Jim, and I've just never really appealed to what Jim has ever said, because it all "sounds" like baloney and obviously Bob's got the stuff it takes. Note: Bob's a good guy, I've known him my whole life and he's intrigued me by his apparently legitimate information. Jim is a liar! But Bob... Bob is a man of God! (note: Jill has no chance either, she's a woman.)

----

 

If we keep aside the mythology of those Gnosis schools of thought all of there teachings harmonize well with each other and they speak in one tone and in line with each other and they weren't monotheistic but were pagans and believed in many gods and in many different other worlds.

They keep dropping pickles in my apple juice. This is not good.

 

Yes, true, it is God's duty but humanity was inherently made imperfect and that is an illusion due to ignorance and hence from Gnosis point of view SDD can be eradicated only through the perfect or the self-knowledge of God.

wtf

Edited March 29, 2012 by Ben Bowen

[immortal]

@immortal

 

If? The Bible. Goal of the Bible. Which Bible? Interpretations. What interpretations? Bob is a man of God more than Jim. Bob is the authority. Bob's interpretations are correct. Bob is a man of God because his interpretations seem to make sense to me more than Jim, and I've just never really appealed to what Jim has ever said, because it all "sounds" like baloney and obviously Bob's got the stuff it takes. Note: Bob's a good guy, I've known him my whole life and he's intrigued me by his apparently legitimate information. Jim is a liar! But Bob... Bob is a man of God!

 

The oral traditions are there to guide one to have revelations and in such a way a metaphysical truth is established, anyone can have those revelations and the truth will be self-evident, even I don't know which interpretations are correct and which aren't, I just presented a different point of view.

 

(note: Jill has no chance either, she's a woman.)

 

Don't be silly, the word 'men of god' refers to the whole of humanity, there were mystics who were women, St. Theresa of Avila is one.

[Ben Banana]

The oral traditions are there to guide one to have revelations and in such a way a metaphysical truth is established, anyone can have those revelations and the truth will be self-evident, even I don't know which interpretations are correct and which aren't, I just presented a different point of view.

 

That itself is an interpretation of "oral traditions." Use a solid basis, and stop trying to merely interpret stupid things other people said to fix (mask) a ridiculous ideology.

 

Don't be silly, the word 'men of god' refers to the whole of humanity, there were mystics who were women, St. Theresa of Avila is one.

 

Other religions are indeed silly. Well, in fact, might they all be?

[immortal]

Use a solid basis, and stop trying to merely interpret stupid things other people said to fix (mask) a ridiculous ideology.

 

I don't think it is ridiculous, there are compelling reasons and arguments in philosophy, metaphysics, science, psychology etc which forces the theists to investigate such an ideology.

 

I'm not trying to fix anything, I just gave an interpretation which already exists in majority of the oral traditions of the world.

 

Other religions are indeed silly. Well, in fact, might they all be?

 

I don't know, I would love to investigate all of them.

[doG]

...do you understand what it means to put quotes around something in the middle of a sentence when it's not spoken word?

You and I may know that but many passers-through here don't and I would rather they understand that story books are not evidence!

[Ben Banana]

I don't think it is ridiculous, there are compelling reasons and arguments in philosophy, metaphysics, science, psychology etc which forces the theists to investigate such an ideology.

I understand that. The compelling reasons to persist with theistic ideology are often, at their best, still quite faulted... and interpreted by some Bob (self-proclaimed man of God) to reflect modern minds with a genuine appearance. Would you like to talk about Bob's appealing words of religion with regards to philosophy, metaphysics, science, psychology etc? Lets see how much of its nonsense and how much can stand. Note: That would mean highjacking the topic, so send a Personal Message to me instead.

 

I'm not trying to fix anything, I just gave an interpretation which already exists in majority of the oral traditions of the world.

Like what Bob says about oral traditions. Don't expect anyone to consider it.