Posted on 12/20/2011 9:15:48 AM PST by Paladins Prayer
That change is, in my opinion, crucial to the modern concept of individual liberty, since if the state can dictate how one may worship God, what can it not dictate?”
Excellent point - but I think it is also key to the answer of where the concepts that give rise to a Free Republic come from.
I think within Christianity there is the seed of the thought of acceptance of Christ being an individual choice - but it was hard for that seed to break through the crust of the entrenched idea of the State/Church with an official religion and official religious functionaries and the resulting forced conversion and violent suppression of any contrary theological thought.
Once the concept of ‘freedom of conscience’ arises alongside the idea of ‘natural rights of mankind’ within a populace - a free republic will become a possibility.
I didn't claim this has been proven. If your read my post again, you'll see that I stated "according to science all the laws of physics and constants were established merely by chance, within just a few seconds after the theorized ‘Big Bang’.” and this has been proven exactly how?!
No one has ever proven this. I am simply telling you what just about every cosmologist and astrophysicist tell us.
Please see my post #122.
I used to be a Militant Apathist, but I’ve mellowed quite a bit.
OK, fine that’s what science [as in some nebulous astrophysicists and cosmologists] taught you,
- why yes you did say that in post #96 in so many words,
but then you did also underline ‘merely by chance’ [or maybe science taught that underline thingy too]
- so yeah sorry for the mistake(s)...
oops post #94...
Sorry, looking back over your many posts I think what I missed or lost in a string of responses was your intended sarcasm...
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
That's a rather dim hope. You might do better by presenting an argument with fewer holes than a colander. Sadly atheism has become somewhat fashionable. Meanwhile society unravels. But one never know if a seed planted will bare fruit. Paul witnessed to many and the Bible records that some believed and some didn't.
What a shame, then, that he created so many billions that he didn't want added to his kingdom. Do you think that they get a break from the eternal hellfire? Say an hour or so every ten thousand years?? There will be no break from an eternity in hell. But God doesn't want anyone to perish. He has given us free will; He will respect our decision to choose or reject Him.
No problem. I probably worded it badly.
So... did God make Hell?
IF you are asking about the 'last' fiery furnace that destroys the 'soul/spirit' entities of all the unrepentant rebels? That 'fire' pit has yet to be 'created', only the devil and a few of his henchmen have to date been judged to be erased (destroyed from within) forever. Judgment Day for every one else won't take place until final exams are taken. Exams follow required mandatory classes of the A B C's of the Creator and HIS perfection without the ugly evil influence of the first rebel narcissist.
Yes, hell was prepared for the devil and his angels.
There are two opposing forces. Good and Evil. Did God create evil or is evil the absence of good?
God is described as the creator and the devil as the destroyer. Were we created on purpose or did we occur by accident? How often does something good occur by accident? How likely will the occurrence of many accidents accumulate into something that is good?
God is described as Love. Love creates. Hate destroys.
Not only do I believe in God, I believe we are alone in the universe of billions and billions of galaxies and that we are the pinnacle of His creation. That is how special I believe we are to Him and that is why He chose to become one of us.
He paid a debt He didn’t owe because we owe a debt we cannot pay.
Of course. And it follows that God is fully aware of those who will exercise their free in making a choice not to follow/believe in Him. There was a good portion of my life where I used my free will to reject the Gospel message. When I look back, I can see the times where He was trying to communicate His message to me (through events in my life, through others sharing the gospel with me, etc.) and I simply ignored it, turned away from it, scorned it. I can also now see how He was keeping me alive(through the “happenstances of my life”), gracing me with time and opportunity to exercise that same free will to respond, finally reaching the point where I realize that all that is important in my life, or anyone else’s has its center, how they respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
This idea of free will brings us back to something I mentioned earlier to (I think it was) perfect_lady that dealt with God being a jealous God and being saddened when people choose to exercise their free will in choosing a “not-God” position. He longs for all to accept Him, come to Him, receive Him freely choosing to do so, not by force or compunction. It brings Him glory, provides evidence of His power to transform lives (even how a person thinks). This is the only reason I speak with folks on these forums about Christ, because I know that God used people to do the same thing in overpowering my own finite understanding when it comes to things eternal (read 1Corinthians chap. 2 dealing with the “natural” man and the “spiritual” man). When a person uses his free will to turn to God, it is because they have been overpowered by the the love and the grace of God in Christ—a moment has occurred where this decision, to receive Him as your savior, has become the very focus of your existence.
People have little/nothing to do with Christ because they choose to have it that way. People live for Christ because they have chosen to realize that God has loved them with an everlasting love and have stopped trying to fight against it.
A couple of those 'oddballs' write the 'deluded thinking' of The Second Treatise of Civil Government and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Without those you don't have America, or indeed what we call "Western civilization"
When exactly did He make Hell?
I mean, the current, operational Hell. Unless you’re saying there isn’t any yet, which is directly opposed to the other poster’s assertion that it has already been made.
"I am opposed to anything that would make Christianity look like a foolish or inadequate philosophy. I consider that to be a kind of sin against the Holy Spirit. Anyone who has had to overcome a bad case of Jesus Willies will know exactly what I mean. My inability to embrace Christianity earlier in my life was not only a matter of pride, nor only a result of the ubiquitous distortions and intellectual dishonesty of the radical secularists.
"Rather, there was a considerable amount of stupidity -- and therefore spiritual darkness -- in the forms of Christianity to which I was exposed, and which would have required an absence of self-respect on my part in order to embrace."
Surfing the Evolutionary Waves of Cosmic Energy
<>
"Now, metaphysics is all about first principles. .... my intention is to have a completely consistent metaphysic, so that, in order to answer any question, I need only "return to first principles" to answer it. In this sense, [Metaphysical] Darwinism is a lie, because it cannot furnish any consistent first principles. In fact, whenever a committed Darwinist tries, they end up making self-refuting statements right out of the box....
"But so too, in my opinion, do literal "creationists." Of course you are free to insist upon young earth creationism, but you must know that it is going to contradict so much evidence that you will essentially have to split your mind in two. You will live in a scientific world with all of its blessings, and yet, a part of you will have to reject it, or at least not be able to fully integrate it into your belief system. ....
"....For better or worse, the way my mind is built, it seeks unity or wholeness, which is a very different thing from "unicity." In other words, to simply accept an ideology -- whether scientific or religious -- and superimpose it on the world would be an example of unicity. Such a worldview will be "consistent" but it will not be complete, as it will necessarily have to omit a lot of details and anomalies.
"Or, I could accept both science and religion, and not worry about the lack of reconciliation. Such a world view will be more complete, but it will lack consistency.
"[We wish] to have a maximum of completeness and consistency -- at least as much as Gödel will allow. Which is a lot, once you accept the implications of his theorems, one of which is that truth is prior to our fragmentary logical "proofs" of it.
"....nothing can happen in the world of science that is inconsistent with the existence of God. To cite one prominent example that comes to us via quantum physics, if this were a Newtonian universe of logical atomism -- i.e., a cosmos of completely disconnected parts -- that ontology would be radically inconsistent with the existence of the immanent God. To put it another way, the infinite sea of quantum potential is a kind of exteriorized mirror image of God's interior. .....
"Creation is continual. If we are to be accurate when speaking of creation, we should use not the past tense but the continuous present. We should say, not 'God made the world, and me in it,' but 'God is making the world, and me in it, here and now, at this moment and always.' Creation is not an event in the past, but is a relationship to the present."
"Which is why you are called (i.e., it is your summa voc-ation) to live your life with love and creativity, or even "creative love," which is again to be a proper mirror and image of the Creator. Or, to quote Augustine, "Creation precisely affirms a principle of origin, but not necessarily a principle of duration.... God is before the world of duration, yet the word 'before' does not mean a priority of time, but of eternity...."
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