1. Luftballon
Banned
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Heaven
- Thread starter Butterfree
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shy ♡
whispers in gay
Why create them in the first place?
Vladimir Putin's LJ
your blood flows through my veins
I can get behind this 200%.
Judaism is probably one of my favourite religions because it is totally radical (and has cool holidays)
Eloi
Member
Why create any of us if we have the possibility of rebelling due to free will? Again, its why we want Artificial Intelligence even when we have perfectly working computers: sure they'd be loyal, but would they be a good companion? No, not really.
shy ♡
whispers in gay
Judaism is totally cool except for the 600+ rules like no electricity, tearing stuff, writing/erasing, cooking/using fire, etc. on the weekend and those holidays come with like 10 fast days spread throughout the year. :[
Isn't the point of Satan that he represents evil? He didn't choose it, he was created that way? Or am I missing something?
Vladimir Putin's LJ
your blood flows through my veins
Living in x-treme conditions Bear Grylls-style is precisely what makes Judaism so radical.
iirc he was an angel of god who got banished from heaven for some bullshit reason (was he the one who loved god too much or was that someone else?) and then decided to screw with humans. Lucifer, anyway. I get muddled in my religions :/
Phantom
Uh, I didn't do it.
Depends on where you're getting your information from.
Eloi
Member
Very true.
No, it was more of the whole "I'm better than you and going to take over heaven" type thing.
Phantom
Uh, I didn't do it.
Once again, it depends what your sources are, for the most part, you're right. There are those who say that Lucifer was
It is said that Lucifer is the first Angel to have sinned. Some say that Lucifer is not the opposite of God, but the opposite of Michael, the head Archangel. Some say he was banished because he wanted to be like God. Others say that Lucifer was jealous of Adam and God's love for him.
In the end his greatest sin was hubris.
Though it is a common misconception that Lucifer and Satan are the same person. They are not.
Like Saul becoming Paul, or Anakin Skywalker becoming Darth Vader.
Dannichu
Tragically unbeyachted.
Butterfree said:
This 'critical analysis' is where it all falls apart. In assuming the existance of heaven/an afterlife, you have to then assume everything that follows it logically, including the existence of a supreme being that is so far beyond human comprehension as to render the entire discussion more or less useless.
You can't discuss Christian concepts of heaven and the afterlife without the Judaeo-Christian God, and while it seems cheap to argue that "God can do whatever it wants and exists outside of all natural laws that we as humans can comprehend", that is what the God of Christian mythology can do, and you can't, even as a hypothetical for the sake or argument, accept the existance of one without the other.
This all sounds crazy and stupid, but it's not really. In Social Anthropology, one can look at the beliefs of a sociecty by examining the basic supposition upon which their beliefs are based (eg. that the Azande believe that any misfortune that befalls them is due to one of their neighbours putting a spell on them), and seeing how, if one accepts this supposition, that everything they do (such as conducting 'tests' to see who is responsible like feeding poison to a chicken; if it dies, the neighbour is guilty, if the chicken lives, they are not) follows logically and rationally. This is a rather interesting article on the topic, but you don't have to go so far as tribal cultures to see how competely irrational beliefs become part of everyday life because they're just accepted. Earlier this paragraph, I said that Azande people attribute misfortune to witchcraft. In saying so, I've acknowledged the concept of misfortune - misfortune is a completely irrational concept with no scientific basis whatsoever, but we don't criticize anyone who wishes someone else "good luck", or describes someone who has a number of bad ('bad' is also a pretty subjective - and very Western-Eurocentric - concept) things happen to them as "misfortunate".
Apologies for the little rant there. I'm doing anything I can to avoid writing this sociology essay due tomorrow, so the obvious thing to do was to write another, completely unrelated, sociology essay that nobody asked me to do. Oh, self.
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But I am not accepting the existence of one without the other! I am explicitly assuming, for the sake of the argument, that God exists and is omnipotent and incomprehensible and absolutely everything Christian mythology claims him to be. I completely agree that you can't sensibly criticize one aspect of a belief system using assumptions that don't hold true in that belief system, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking critically within a belief system, which is exactly what I'm doing.
My point is that God being able to omnipotently make me like heaven (which I am accepting for the sake of the argument) does not mean I, right now, like the idea of being forced to like heaven (by an omnipotent and incomprehensible God or not). If God is able to omnipotently make everyone get along while still having free will, well, that's great, but I'd like to have the kind of free will that has not been manipulated by (omnipotent, incomprehensible) God. I am nowhere saying "But God can't do that!"; I am saying "I don't like that God does that."
I am perfectly willing to accept if Christians just find that God's incomprehensibility makes it perfectly nondisturbing and my mind just can't understand why, but I am really curious to hear if that is actually the case, because my intuition would be that most people would find this thought uncomfortable, Christian or not - much the same way most Christians would never actually say yes if you asked them, "Would rape and murder be okay if the Bible explicitly encouraged them?"
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Phantom
Uh, I didn't do it.
I just can't see that happening. I believe that some people naturally don't get along, and at that point any kind of "getting along" would be a failure and God would have to intervene, therefore removing free will.
First off my feelings. It would terrify me. The fact the existence, as you said saying God exists for the discussion, of a completely all powerful being that can control the universe is completely terrifying. Delving into the idea of heaven, then you think of the alternate. That keeps you in line. But I don't see that as free will. I think of it as an extreemly forced concept of free will.
And for that last bit, that's why religion is dangerous. Look at the old testament, which we know is one of the bloody accounts...ever. Blind faith is dangerous.
Eloi
Member
Who says They have to manipulate your will for any of that to happen? Who says you just don't eventually choose to?
How many people do you think would be a part of a religion that said that in the first place?
Phantom
Uh, I didn't do it.
Haven't read much of the Old Testament have you? There's a reason some call it the bloody Bible.
Numbers 31:7-18 NLT said:
A handful of others.
Exodus 12:29-30 NLT
Exodus 21:7-11 NLT
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT (Quite literally the law for rape)
Deuteronomy 22:23-24 NAB
Judges 21:10-24 NLT
2 Samuel 12:11-14 NAB
2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB
Jeremiah 48:10 NAB
Zechariah 14:1-2 NAB
Bit 'O Slavery In New Testament:
Luke 12:47-48 NLT
1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT
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Eloi
Member
I have, actually. Personally, I don't think the Old Testament is relevant to anyone outside of the ancient Hebrew people, and even then it was just a history book. I believe the teachings of Christ replace the teachings of the Old Testament, tho' I don't really think they "replace" it so much as the Old Testament is just the cultural background of Christ. *shrugs*
That was a metaphor, and slavery was perfectly fine back then, but even so, this is not condoning it, just making an analogy of it. As well, Roman slavery was much different than the slavery practiced by Europeans and Arabs during and after the Renaissance.
Here, the slaver is the aggressor that must not be resisted, and in this passage its suggesting a pacifistic course of action. This doesn't condone slavery at all, it just backs up these verses in a specific way:
—Matthew 5:38-42, NIV
-Luke 6:27-31. NIV
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If that were to happen by non-omnipotent means, sure, but I don't think all human beings ever could get along perfectly without manipulation of any sort. You say they'll work out their problems, but like I said, you don't need to have problems, per se, to disagree with another person. And what about before you've worked out your problems.
Not a lot! But that's the thing: a lot of Christians say things like "Murder is wrong because the Bible condemns it", and that really opens the question of "So would murder not be wrong if the Bible encouraged it?" That's when most people, forced to think about their statement, will squirm and say, "Well, no, not exactly..." My point is just that people claim a lot of things about their beliefs when in fact they don't like the logical consequences one bit, and I believe the whole idea of Heaven is one of those things.
Eloi
Member
True, but whatever problems one might have with heaven would probably be resolved, because an all-powerful God would know what your problems are before you exist, and thus many manipulate the scenario of heaven (and not yourself) to make you happier until you can adjust.
Well there is a distance in time between the current afterlife and the second judgement.
I am not one of those Christians, and one of the only ones here, so yeah.
I think a lot of people like to dissect conjectural models and ideas not based on Jesus' teachings but the most common interpretation of them, which may not always be the most logical interpretation, and use that as grounds as why Jesus, and not the interpretors, are incorrect. And then, when these people try to argue with said common interpretors (i.e. the majority of Christians, in this specific argument), the interpretors like to think their interpretations are the only correct ones, so the opposing party falls into this trap as well unaware that there is more than one interpretation (or perhaps they do and just don't want to mention the fact because that would sabotage their argument), and thus no one gets anywhere in understanding, and thus most of these debates are completely pointless.
The main this is that whole mechanics of souls, soul universes, and interactions there of are not fully known, thus we can't really discuss the logic of anything but the most common interpretation, which again, gets you no where because you can only prove the most common interpretor incorrect and not the originator of said text being interpreted.
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But the point is a large part of the scenario of Heaven is the other people in it. Are they manipulated? If not, there will be conflict. If they are, well, then you'll be manipulated to make other people happier. If there are no real people there and all you see are figments that look and behave like them, that's a Truman Show-like thing.
Well, I'm sort of trying to argue that no matter how you interpret it Heaven can't be as perfect as it's made out to be. I'm not trying to argue Jesus is wrong or that Heaven is actually this way or that way or whatever; that's irrelevant to this discussion.