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Originally written by Khoth:

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Originally written by Synergy:

How does one grow muscles if one never exercises against opposing forces? Does a wise parent want to raise weak, spoiled, passive, untried, ignorant children to grow up and take over the family business? Dad doesn’t fix everything for us as children and make it all better. It wouldn’t serve our interests or help us hack it as adults

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I agree that people can't grow much if everything is done for them. However, I also believe that people also can't grow much if if they die of starvation after a short life of hard labour due to forces out of their control. There is surely a middle ground.
(The argument that this is something humans can/should sort out is irrelevant, since the people who can do something about it not the people suffering. If I was a parent I wouldn't let some children die to prove a point to the others.)

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When I look at Muslim/East vs. Christian/the West at present, I see something like two children bickering over toys and rules. The toys and rules are going to get broken in the process. But it’s not about the toys or the rules in the long run, but they are of present concern to children until they outgrow them and put away childish things.

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I see a lot more than two people, and they're killing each other. It's not just toys and rules that are getting damaged here.

Also, I suspect that thinking of a society as an individual like that is both a drastic oversimplification, and the cause of a huge amount of conflict. Looking at it as East vs West or whatever ignores both the massive diversity of viewpoints within each group, and also hides the fact that the vast majority of concerns of the vast majority of people are family, friends and day-to-day living.
And without seeing a society as an individual, the common justification for ongoing conflict becomes "Someone who is not you killed someone who is not me, so I am justified in killing you". Worded like that, more people might realise how silly it is.

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Originally written by Prometheus:

(Before I get into the post itself, allow me to say that GOD IS NOT MALE NOR FEMALE. Furthermore, if you ever claim that god is not a higher force, it is contrary to your point to capitalize "him" when you are using it as a pronoun.)

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I see it growing up though, as the law of life and growth demands.

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The notion of humanity is growing is as Hegelian as it is absurd. We've been regressing so steadily that it's mind-boggling.

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How does one grow muscles if one never exercises against opposing forces?

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How interesting- you start an argument about god with a statement on fighting people.

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Does a wise parent want to raise weak, spoiled, passive, untried, ignorant children to grow up and take over the family business? Dad doesn’t fix everything for us as children and make it all better. It wouldn’t serve our interests or help us hack it as adults. He wants us to master ourselves and our environment and learn to get along with our siblings and learn how to esteem each other properly.

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And you continue with capitalism as a raison d'être. Oh, fun.

I find the notion that you have to go through the gauntlet before you can "know good" to be nothing short of defeatist (or at worst, rationalizing) nonsense. For example, two scenarios:
1. A child touches a hot stove and is burned. A child knows not to touch a hot stove.
2. A child is told by a parent not to touch a hot stove so as to not get burned. A child knows not to touch a hot stove.
In both scenarios, the child knows not to touch a hot stove, yet in scenario (2), the child's hand is not burned.

Now if your argument is that you can't truly "understand" anything you have experienced, my counter-argument is this: How many people have killed themselves for sake of experiment? I have had my doubts about whether or not a three-story fall would kill me, but I have not ever taken the plunge. Information transmission is a possibility.

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We won’t fail ultimately though, because we are made out of the heart and nature of God at our deepest core, a place I think nothing can touch or displace. That is the claim and promise He has on us as His creation.

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I find your use of "I think" telling, although given the nature of your argument, I think it's implied. None of this gives me any reason to believe any of it.

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I think the point in loving God is that it can only truly be done in context of having some sort of personal experience/knowing of Him in relationship, rather than by knowing about Him. This is by definition an internal personal experience demonstrable to anyone else only by the manner in which it effects change in us and expresses outward from us, as us. God expresses as us, not as something moving in to possess us.

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So are you attributing all interpersonal communication to god? If so, this effectively counters your points about god not being a "greater force." If not, you still haven't given me anything more than "it exists just because." Or are you telling me that god is empathy? In which case, my response would be that empathy is better practiced than glorified (or, in your case, onanized).

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My understanding of man as God’s creation, is that there is something of the spirit of God in the core of man which is not corruptible, and it carries something of a sense, essence, desire, and purpose akin to the “will of God,” which really is just the expressed nature of God. This strives for expression and fulfillment in any of us, so I don’t care what someone has adopted as their belief system—there is still a connection with God by virtue of being His spiritual creation with His spiritual genetics.

I believe a man like Martin Luther King does what he does because he has connected with that spiritual nature and vision in some way. I see it as incidental to his intellectual belief system about God, because I don’t see God as being known by the head so much as by the spirit which is something even deeper. The head may be much more astray than the spirit/heart.

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So ultimately, you're saying that your god is essentially irrelevant to us on the level of whether or not we believe in him. The question I posed (and answered) in my previous post was, if it's ultimately vaccuous to us in our daily lives, what is the implication of believing in it?

My ultimate question is not "Does god exist," but rather, "regardless of whether it exists or not, why should I care?" If you state that god exists but is irrelevant or do not give any proof, not only do you create a barrier between believers and non-believers, but you also open the door for the notion that it is easier to posit something than to recall something.

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I am not. Much the opposite. God has chosen to express Himself—His character to physical creation through and as physical creation, which means us. The only God I ever see is witnessed in my fellow human being, and I see and hear God in people all the time. This has little to do with their belief about God or their perfectness.

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Then why call it god? If humanity is your god, then why not call it humanity? There's nothing short of a million implications of this. I've hit on a few already and could go on.

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This is what makes me much akin to a humanist. The humanist has the attitude without the underlying reason to regard fellow man as he does. Both the reason and the attitude together is all the more potent and meaningful. Unlike the existentialists, with whom I also relate in numerous ways, I do see an inherent absolute meaning underlying our existence.

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Dude. This isn't a philoso-religious seminar; if you're a something-ist, no need to point it out.

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God has committed ultimate responsibility for the physical creation into our hands which is precisely why it is so important that we grow up spiritually to learn to wisely govern first ourselves and then the rest.

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I'd ask "what is the spirit?" but I know for a fact that I would not get an answer.

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We have to learn the principle of love which involves deference to our sisters and brothers and our differences. When I look at Muslim/East vs. Christian/the West at present, I see something like two children bickering over toys and rules. The toys and rules are going to get broken in the process. But it’s not about the toys or the rules in the long run, but they are of present concern to children until they outgrow them and put away childish things.

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Um... That's nice, but what does this have to do with god? (If you're arguing that the Middle East struggles are strictly about theological disputes, I will laugh at you.)

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We, as the living agents of our Father will be the ones to save ourselves from ourselves because of the resources at our disposal through our connection to the Father and within ourselves as the offspring in the nature of the Father. How can we separate the two?

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Quite easily, given your rhetorical devotion to separating the two.

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The very nature of being human is to be of the divine family with its capacities as we grow into them. We can’t do it as independent children who have departed from the resources and protection of the Father. We have to learn to work as family.

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So He has Righteously Decapitated His Arm and Hoped for It to Turn into a Magnificent Bicep of Righteousness?

I'm sorry, but this nonsense gets me every time. Is the point of humanity to improve itself for some heavenly reunion? Is god training us by letting us massacre (I'm still trying to think of a word that implies more death here) ourselves left and right to "improve ourselves?" Why couldn't it have made us enlightened, if that was its intent from the get-go? The ultimate moral is that working has inherent value, and I know some capitalists who enjoy turning that moral into an ideology on a daily basis.

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If we seek to usurp authority which we are not yet mature enough to wield, Father does have ways to keep heady children from getting too far ahead of themselves. Children ruling anything is a frightening prospect. Fathers more and more relinquish discipline and persistant direction as children grow into capable adults.

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I do not even know what you mean here. Are you saying that we don't already have dominion over the world? Or are you implying that god punishes us for unrighteous behavior? (If that's the case, let me know now so I can hate you.) What's this "authority" that you mention, anyway?

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I see what you’re saying. My heart tells me humanity is my goal and worthy of all my love and concern. My spiritual experience and understanding furthermore give me the framework of why humanity is of intrinsic value and worthy of the work. Because I know God in my fellow human being, to love another person is showing love, deference, even “worship” to our Father. “As you have done it them, you have done it to Me” is the principle. “God” doesn’t need what we have to give. Our fellow man does, but that is the seat of God. God gets it after all.

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So you're saying that you use loving humanity as a way to love god by proxy? In that case, humanity is still not at the forefront!

Furthermore, the notion that the being you worship is truly autonomous is equally malificent- its moral is that to be god-like, you have to be totally independent. I know some capitalists who would like to hear this as well.

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I also have problems with the notion of worship as it is typically understood and practiced. God doesn’t need sycophantic, slathering adulations to validate Himself any more than a good father needs his son or daughter to bow down three times daily and say, “I praise thee for thy goodness and wisdom toward me. Oh how great thou art.”

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As much as this wasn't all that I was saying, I still want to see ben react to this.

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The father’s heart does desire close relationship, love, respect, and appreciation from the child.

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This counters your point of:

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“God” doesn’t need what we have to give.

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Or rather, if you're saying that god wants it but doesn't need it, then we're still ultimately irrelevant to him, countering your point that god isn't above us.

You have so many images of this deity; it's mind-boggling.

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He also desires obedience to His instructions, appropriate to the age of the child. The father knows the rules are for the protection of the child, but the child chafes at the boundaries, seeing them only as something to get in the way of his self-centric desires and whims.

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So now god is above us again. It's like a roller-coaster.

And, I guess- If the father knows the rules, why the hell doesn't he teach them? (This goes back to my "experience is not all enlightenment" point before.)

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The rules and boundaries change and dissolve as we mature.

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Nice way to cover up your god's mid-life crisis there, buddy.

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It never was about the rules for their own sake. Maturity means being self-governed, and spiritually speaking, that means being ruled by a heart of love toward our fellow man. Some children get too hung up on rules and resist growing up into greater liberty and responsibility. There is safety in rules. There is safety in the crib too. I see the present state of Christianity as needing to get a move on and keep growing up. It’s pitched camp for a long time.

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I don't even know what you're saying here or why it's even remotely relevant. But unless it'll open my eyes, don't bother.

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When we really really admire and love someone, we sometimes say we worship them. We talk about their merits. We seek to emulate them. We do a lot to be with them if we can. This is true worship from the heart, and that’s all I think God as a Father desires...to be adored sincerely for recognition of His qualities.

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THEN WHY BOTHER CALLING IT A GOD AT ALL?

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And we are to see and celebrate them in each other, not as a concept out there.

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!!!

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I think it does the heart of God good when I praise and admire and encourage and nurture and comfort and take delight in another person. We all desire to be loved and admired and appreciated by others. I think these three simple things are the most basic universal needs we each have, and where these are frustrated or denied is where we get unhealthy and hurtful.

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Okay. Good. But none of this comes even remotely close to answering my question! At least Ash, Giz, ben et al. have the Hitler-God who will obliterate me for kicks.

If this is all you have, stop with the seperatism. Stop with the emotionally-fueled yet intellectually bereft practice of spirituality. Becoming greater does not require turning into blue sparks upon dying. Becoming greater involves all of the things that your god wants, and yet none of the things that believing in your god provides.

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Originally written by Synergy:

I think you’ve made some excellent points, TM.

I don’t see a greater God behind humanity. I see a great God expressing through and as humanity in a tightly-knit relationship. The difference is humanity is still in its spiritual childhood and hasn’t learned to put aside selfish and foolish things yet. I see it growing up though, as the law of life and growth demands. Children do grow up, and you can’t hurry the process.

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Originally written by TM:

Any god who sees all and is all-powerful who doesn't immediately change the world for the better by ending the massive amounts of strife in it does not deserve my esteem.

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How does one grow muscles if one never exercises against opposing forces? Does a wise parent want to raise weak, spoiled, passive, untried, ignorant children to grow up and take over the family business? Dad doesn’t fix everything for us as children and make it all better. It wouldn’t serve our interests or help us hack it as adults. He wants us to master ourselves and our environment and learn to get along with our siblings and learn how to esteem each other properly. We won’t fail ultimately though, because we are made out of the heart and nature of God at our deepest core, a place I think nothing can touch or displace. That is the claim and promise He has on us as His creation.

I think the point in loving God is that it can only truly be done in context of having some sort of personal experience/knowing of Him in relationship, rather than by knowing about Him. This is by definition an internal personal experience demonstrable to anyone else only by the manner in which it effects change in us and expresses outward from us, as us. God expresses as us, not as something moving in to possess us.

My understanding of man as God’s creation, is that there is something of the spirit of God in the core of man which is not corruptible, and it carries something of a sense, essence, desire, and purpose akin to the “will of God,” which really is just the expressed nature of God. This strives for expression and fulfillment in any of us, so I don’t care what someone has adopted as their belief system—there is still a connection with God by virtue of being His spiritual creation with His spiritual genetics.

I believe a man like Martin Luther King does what he does because he has connected with that spiritual nature and vision in some way. I see it as incidental to his intellectual belief system about God, because I don’t see God as being known by the head so much as by the spirit which is something even deeper. The head may be much more astray than the spirit/heart.

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If it is the work of a higher force, then are you implying that humans aren't going to be the ones to save humans?

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I am not. Much the opposite. God has chosen to express Himself—His character to physical creation through and as physical creation, which means us. The only God I ever see is witnessed in my fellow human being, and I see and hear God in people all the time. This has little to do with their belief about God or their perfectness. This is what makes me much akin to a humanist. The humanist has the attitude without the underlying reason to regard fellow man as he does. Both the reason and the attitude together is all the more potent and meaningful. Unlike the existentialists, with whom I also relate in numerous ways, I do see an inherent absolute meaning underlying our existence.

God has committed ultimate responsibility for the physical creation into our hands which is precisely why it is so important that we grow up spiritually to learn to wisely govern first ourselves and then the rest. We have to learn the principle of love which involves deference to our sisters and brothers and our differences. When I look at Muslim/East vs. Christian/the West at present, I see something like two children bickering over toys and rules. The toys and rules are going to get broken in the process. But it’s not about the toys or the rules in the long run, but they are of present concern to children until they outgrow them and put away childish things.

We, as the living agents of our Father will be the ones to save ourselves from ourselves because of the resources at our disposal through our connection to the Father and within ourselves as the offspring in the nature of the Father. How can we separate the two? The very nature of being human is to be of the divine family with its capacities as we grow into them. We can’t do it as independent children who have departed from the resources and protection of the Father. We have to learn to work as family.

If we seek to usurp authority which we are not yet mature enough to wield, Father does have ways to keep heady children from getting too far ahead of themselves. Children ruling anything is a frightening prospect. Fathers more and more relinquish discipline and persistant direction as children grow into capable adults.

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Is humanity itself not enough of a goal for you? That itself is where I find objection with the notion of worshipping.

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I see what you’re saying. My heart tells me humanity is my goal and worthy of all my love and concern. My spiritual experience and understanding furthermore give me the framework of why humanity is of intrinsic value and worthy of the work. Because I know God in my fellow human being, to love another person is showing love, deference, even “worship” to our Father. “As you have done it them, you have done it to Me” is the principle. “God” doesn’t need what we have to give. Our fellow man does, but that is the seat of God. God gets it after all.

I also have problems with the notion of worship as it is typically understood and practiced. God doesn’t need sycophantic, slathering adulations to validate Himself any more than a good father needs his son or daughter to bow down three times daily and say, “I praise thee for thy goodness and wisdom toward me. Oh how great thou art.” The father’s heart does desire close relationship, love, respect, and appreciation from the child. He also desires obedience to His instructions, appropriate to the age of the child. The father knows the rules are for the protection of the child, but the child chafes at the boundaries, seeing them only as something to get in the way of his self-centric desires and whims.

The rules and boundaries change and dissolve as we mature. It never was about the rules for their own sake. Maturity means being self-governed, and spiritually speaking, that means being ruled by a heart of love toward our fellow man. Some children get too hung up on rules and resist growing up into greater liberty and responsibility. There is safety in rules. There is safety in the crib too. I see the present state of Christianity as needing to get a move on and keep growing up. It’s pitched camp for a long time.

When we really really admire and love someone, we sometimes say we worship them. We talk about their merits. We seek to emulate them. We do a lot to be with them if we can. This is true worship from the heart, and that’s all I think God as a Father desires...to be adored sincerely for recognition of His qualities. And we are to see and celebrate them in each other, not as a concept out there. I think it does the heart of God good when I praise and admire and encourage and nurture and comfort and take delight in another person. We all desire to be loved and admired and appreciated by others. I think these three simple things are the most basic universal needs we each have, and where these are frustrated or denied is where we get unhealthy and hurtful.

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Originally written by Prometheus:

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(Side note: penultimate and not ultimate? Well, either way.)

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Yeah, I was hoping nobody would notice. Ah well.

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Aha, but here's the problem. Suddenly you run out of steam as much as the god argument does. Why should people be the penultimate achievement of people? ... What makes that any more inherently true than being concerned with a deity?

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I did not claim that morals do not exist. (I will address this for most of the post- just you wait.)

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The problem with TM's logic is that it assumes we can understand what God wants or is doing. He could just be screwing with us or he could be helpless or incompetent, but he could also have some reason for the way things are that is entirely beyond our puny mortal minds.

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If we don't know what god wants, why bother doing anything than what we're doing otherwise? Or rather- if we don't know, then isn't even mentioning it merely a rationalization?

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To Slartucker's point:

I do not mean "ethics." I believe this merits a side tangent. It will be incredibly long and should hopefully address your (if I may be blunt) proto-postmodernist, liberal concerns.

Morality does not imply people coming together and determining right from wrong on the basis of people not wanting one another's rights to be violated. When society is founded on the assumption that people will always act upon their own desires, it is not unreasonable for society's members to follow their directives. (It is for this reason among many that I feel that Locke is an intolerable barbarian.)

People should come together since humanity is essentially an organism unto itself. Each human is defined by experience, the vast majority of which comes from other humans. People do not and cannot interact with one another without affecting one another. No human being can have an interaction with another human being that does not change the thoughts of both, if not subtly so. If people are not susceptible to outside influences at all times, books would not be written to anyone but children. (As an aside, one might argue that books aren't written to non-children anymore, but let's assume otherwise.) That this is being typed out in a language- a system designed for interpersonal communication- proves this to be true.

So in all things that humans do, be it interpersonal, literary, political or (especially) economic, humans are affecting one another constantly. When one individual decides to profit at another's expense in any sense of the word "profit," such an individual is encouraging those around her/him to act for their own self-interests. It's an ideology people make that generally tends to make some people more "wealthy" and others "poorer."

Unfortunately, this sort of ideology when applied on a larger scale ends up ruinating massive numbers of people. (Alas, most if not all people who read this will be in the population of "ruinators" when speaking of global capitalism.) But the ruinators don't win either: The "upper-class" are only defined by the extent to which they can't easily be taken down from their class and the extent to which they will collaborate with others in the "upper-class" to keep one another in such a state.

Furthermore, any relationship founded on such an ethic, be it business (the one used in my shamefully transparent allegory above), interpersonal, etc., ultimately betrays a sense of trust that the vast majority (if not all) of human beings possess.

Nobody is born as an adult, and all human beings need people to care for themselves before becoming "autonomous" or at least considering themselves to be so, since no human is ever truly autonomous in any sense of the word. People who live past infancy tend to have a sense of trust due to providers and caretakers: It is a necessity. (It is my hope that this point isn't particularly difficult to prove and I apologize if it's inadequate, but there's no easy way to prove that people are born with a sense of trust by any other means. Let me know if you take objection to this; I hope this isn't the place of contention for most.)

I won't insinuate that the upper-class are the primary sufferers in life or even that their sufferings are much of a priority, but they too are subject to the rules of the ideology they promote, and in actuality, they are far safer in an environment where they can trust all human beings to guarantee their well-being rather than living in their environment where any guarantees are only as stable as all parties involved desire.

Most people in the upper-class people can feasibly live their entire lives without stepping down from it, which itself is something of a tragedy. (Furthermore, it goes a long way in explaining why the current administration is populated with nothing but ideological sociopaths.)

Thus, a "liberal ethic" is defunct since it inevitably either descends into a transparent version of the same oppression it was made to fight (Identity vs. Difference if you're keeping score) or it undoes itself. Just as freedom is only as good as what its holders do with it and a republic is only as good as its leaders, so too does a contractual society either render its contracts obsolete or allow its upper-class to capitalize on the legal morass of its foundation.

This is, essentially, why I feel that people are ultimately the ultimate: People are creations of people, and therefore profit the most when keeping one another's best interests at heart.

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Wow. Okay, I'm finished.

EDIT: Does anyone want to take this philosophical debate out of a topic about christian radio?

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Originally written by 7 per day keep the doctor away.:

Ephesos: Lyrics are part of aesthetics. There are songs that would be damaged by having their lyrics turned into gibberish. There are songs that might benefit from lyrics. It just demand lyrics that aren't thrown in at the expense of the music. Then again, I dislike lyrics in general. Give me instrumentals or give me peace and quiet.

Helping people provides tangible good to people, and God approves. Helping God, as it were, doesn't help people and doesn't help God either, although He apparently likes it. When given a choice to help nobody or somebody, I'll take the latter.

I can see three divine qualities that need addressing: omnipotence (and omniscience, to some degree), benevolence, and ineffability. If God is omnipotent but not benevolent, well, that explains some things. If God is benevolent but not omnipotent, I feel sorry for him. God can't be both, though, unless he is also ineffable, as TM pointed out.

The problem with TM's logic is that it assumes we can understand what God wants or is doing. He could just be screwing with us or he could be helpless or incompetent, but he could also have some reason for the way things are that is entirely beyond our puny mortal minds.

No, I can't think of one, but that's because my mind is puny and mortal.

—Alorael, who can say to God that he lived his life in a reasonable approximation of how he believes God would want his life to be lived, although not in accordance with rewritten, translated, re-rewritten, and retranslated books that profess to speak for God. He'd just have to hope for some forgiveness for little errors here and there. Pedestrians come to mind. Fortunately, his God doesn't have any hellfire even for the truly awful people, so he's not terribly at risk either way.

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Originally written by Slartucker:

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Is humanity itself not enough of a goal for you? That itself is where I find objection with the notion of worshipping. People should be the penultimate achievement of people. A maybe-existant deity should not be the concern of people, lest they be distracted from the main issue at hand- one another.

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Aha, but here's the problem. Suddenly you run out of steam as much as the god argument does. Why should people be the penultimate achievement of people? (Side note: penultimate and not ultimate? Well, either way.) What makes that any more inherently true than being concerned with a deity?

There are people who exploit religion for their own selfish purposes. And there are people who exploit the idea of helping others in the same way. There's no reason to throw out the good with the bad, in either case.

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Originally written by Prometheus:

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Originally written by Ephesos:

In the event of a god, specifically the traditional christian one (omnipresent, -potent, and -benevolent), I think I'd be fine.

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I wouldn't be. Any god who sees all and is all-powerful who doesn't immediately change the world for the better by ending the massive amounts of strife in it does not deserve my esteem.

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Originally written by Synergy:

I simply wonder how many people love God because they know God and find God irresistibly warranting their love and admiration, not out of craven fear of punishment or avarice for heavenly reward.

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Okay, here. Let's assume that god is good, and let's assume that (like in the real world) it does not manifest itself in the real world.

If such a god is not omnipotent, he becomes worthy of love, but to love it would essentially be to fetishize an abstract concept- history is filled of examples of when this will lead you astray. Nationalism, classism, racism, et cetera. There is no example, however, of when worshipping an abstract concept will lead you towards good. For example- let's take King. He was a baptist and helped fight against racism. He would certainly lay claim to say that his religion has helped fight intolerance, but not only did he study under the Muslim, Hindu and Bahá'í followers of Ghandi; his fellow baptists on the other side of the racial line were radically against abolishing the Jim Crow lines. Christianity was not in-and-of-itself the motivation for King's actions.

Now, you might want to argue that there is a "greater force" or a "true god" motivating folks like King, but at the point where their main focus is the helping of actual people, why bother attributing it to a higher force anyway? (At this point, believing in a god is proven worthless. But I'll go on in case you're not convinced.)

If it is the work of a higher force, than are you implying that humans aren't going to be the ones to save humans? If that's your grand conclusion, then you're encouraging humans to accept the status quo as the will of god. ("If it hasn't changed yet, god hasn't willed it yet.")

And assume that your belief is that people coming together and doing good independent of a god is still influenced by a god. At that point, belief in god is humorously vaccuous. What point is there in believing in a god if the world is already fixed and the god is ultimately not the miserable, insecure, hate-mongering being followed by the majority of christo-cults nowadays? Do you really need to be convinced that there's something greater than humanity?

Is humanity itself not enough of a goal for you? That itself is where I find objection with the notion of worshipping. People should be the ultimate achievement of people. A maybe-existant deity should not be the concern of people, lest they be distracted from the main issue at hand- one another.

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Originally written by Synergy:

Ben, I’m not operating under the assumption that God ever asks us that question. I hear Christians ask that question all the time, but that’s not the same thing.

I simply wonder how many people love God because they know God and find God irresistibly warranting their love and admiration, not out of craven fear of punishment or avarice for heavenly reward. Would any of us want those we love to "love" us out of fear or greed? Would that be satisfying? Why do we imagine it would be satisfying to God Who says He makes us in His image?

EDIT: Added appropriate quote marks.

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Originally written by Ephesos:

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Originally written by ben12C8:

However, what if you were to die today and God asked you if you'd been faithful on your stay on Earth? Would you change your mind about being "saved"?

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In the event of a god, specifically the traditional christian one (omnipresent, -potent, and -benevolent), I think I'd be fine. Such a god would see that I'm basically a good person, unlike the people who frequently carry out questionable acts in his name (just saying that there are people who do so, not pointing at anyone).

In fact, I've had staunch Catholics say that your God would probably let me in. That was almost a heartwarming moment for me.

And yes, it kind of sounds like a threat...

(In the event of a god similar to the ones pined for by neo-fundamentalists today, I'm sure I'd burn. I joke about it a lot... but I took the test, and I'd only be in the first circle anyway.)

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Originally written by ben12C8:

Eh, it was more of a point than a threat. The only reason you'd interpret it as a threat is if the outcome would be potentially unpreferrable.

Of course, God would know the answer to that question. He was just asking to make sure you knew. :P

[This post was verified threat-free by Microsoft Anti-Threat v2.1.05.]

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Originally written by Synergy:

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Originally written by Thuryl:

That sounds an awful lot like a threat.

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It is of course. Seems like it's harder to scare people into the faith than it once was when people were less educated, more superstitious, and less acquainted with other spiritual beliefs in other parts of the world.

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Originally written by Prometheus:

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Originally written by ben12C8:

However, what if you were to die today and God asked you if you'd been faithful on your stay on Earth? Would you change your mind about being "saved"?

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No.

If a god needs me to be an idealogue for him to not burn me eternally, he doesn't deserve my worship. If he doesn't need that, why bother making the difference between worshipping and not worshipping at all? (Actually, in that instance I'd argue that worshipping is still worse than not worshipping, but that's extraneous for now.)

Anyway, Creator didn't design this purpose so that self-righteous cyberpundits could crap all over it.

My question to Creator is, how "christian" do people want the station to be, and how do they "enforce" this policy?

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Originally written by Slartucker:

you're describing a very confused God, there.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

That sounds an awful lot like a threat.

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Originally written by ben12C8:

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Originally written by Ephesos:

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Originally written by Semodius:

Eep! Christians! Run away!!!

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I tend to feel the same way, but only when they're preachy. But then again, that goes for anybody of any group who thinks that they're right and nobody else is. Closed-mindedness gets on my nerves, as well as people who offer to try to convert me or "pray for me" (with the intent of getting me saved). I too am an atheist hippie nature-lover with a semi-liberal political stance, so I tend to be irked by the more uptight neo-fundamentalist types.

Generally, I'm fine with christians, and they're fine with me. As long as nobody tries to "save" anyone, everything's fine. :D

For instance, I get the feeling that I'd be intensely annoyed by any of the people who pay for their shows to air.

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However, what if you were to die today and God asked you if you'd been faithful on your stay on Earth? Would you change your mind about being "saved"?

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Originally written by Prometheus:

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Originally written by Arancaytar the Grey:

Uttered motivational, optimistic phrases.

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Aran's right. The more all of you try to defeat this notion by talking, you prove it.

All we're suggesting for right now is open-sourcing BoE. And hell- even if we don't open source it, I'm willing to start pirating it like hotcakes. It's just that all other ideas are exhausted, and putting BoE out there as a penultimate demonstration AND a more feasible designing platform is a good idea at this point.

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