Let's talk about God... - Page 2 - VGF

AJ Middleton · 05-04-2005, 08:59 PM

I think saying that it's a loss IS silly. Like, everyone has different views of happiness and whatnot, so I think it's ridiculous to imply that one is living a less satisfying life just because he/she doesn't believe in God. I could turn around and say one's at a loss for being religious too, and stuff.

Honestly, don't mind me.

Serial Miller · 05-04-2005, 09:19 PM

Perhaps, to me, it is your loss. You will not agree, nor shall you understand. Time does not stand still, life goes on.

imported_ · 05-04-2005, 09:34 PM

I disagree with the concept of it being anyone's "loss." I don't think he should have said it. But I'm saying you oughtn't to get mad about it or discuss it extensively or put a lot of thought or effort into it beause it is in the end a silly idea. Of course that purpose is defeated by now.

AJ Middleton · 05-04-2005, 09:56 PM

As I said, don't mind me. I'm putting off studying for a Calc test tomorrow. But actually, it got me thinking about something that John Stewart Mill wrote about the harm principle, which relates to negative liberty...

Bah. I'm rambling.

The Missing Link · 05-04-2005, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Erdawn Rockin Like A Hurricane:
I think Aldous Huxeley's Brave New World gave a better example, but yeah.

Zelda is so much more convenient a source though.

"There are some who call me... Link?"

"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

imported_ · 05-04-2005, 10:20 PM

Calc eh? I've got Linguistics tomorrow myself.

Also off-topic, Brave New World is not a good book.

**Wyborn** · 05-05-2005, 07:04 AM

Might as well throw in my two cents.

Being raised in a Baptist environment for as long as I can remember, if I were to adhere strictly to the beliefs that have been taught to me then I would be an extremely orthodox individual in every way, shape, and form. There are levels of madness to my particular sect of Christianity that other parts just don't even hear about, much less believe in. According to my own church I should believe that God is a vengeful God who will cast all sinners, pagans, and non-Protestant Christians (sorry, John Paul II) into the fiery depths of Hell forever and ever, and that He needs my money right the hell now. I'm supposed to believe that no only is God an absolute good but that Satan is the source of all evil, and that when we're born we're worthless festering pieces of dog crap because six thousand years ago a dude and a chick bit into an apple which granted them the ability to tell the difference between good and evil.

To make it clear, I do not believe in original sin, I don't even really believe in a devil, and my views on God (such as they are) are somewhat more...liberal than that.

For instance, I don't think of Him as being male; I don't entertain the idea that God is a big Jewish dude sitting on a clouds with a deitic phallus hanging between His legs. That's silly. One could say that we should use a non-gender-specific noun to describe God, but one can also justify calling him the Father: he plays the father's roll, as opposed to the mother's, in that He would be using a distant hand to care for us, teaching harder lesssons, instead of caring for us directly and fixing our problems.

I don't believe in Satan, or original sin - I think man is perfectly capable of committing evil on his own without any help from a supposedly fallen angel. The idea that we would be pushed towards evil by this modernized Loki is ridiculous, because evil in itself is a concept that's difficult to grasp at and rarely if ever concrete...and even when it is, I don't see any reason to blame it on anyone but people. We're flexible like that.

As for the question about whether or not God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, one could believe in both with the presence of evil; again, if He serves as a father figure to us, then our problems are our own to solve. If He stepped in and made everything perfect for us, it would leave us fat and lazy and stupid, unable to appreciate the beauties of the world because it would leave us without anything to contrast them to. I believe in free will more than I believe in Him; predestination, insofar as I am concerned, is a load of ... how would the professor put it ... "gobble-dee poop". Yes. Again, if our destinies were already mapped out by the Father then there's no point in us even being alive.

Hell, the entire nature of God is easily left up to question, and our own beliefs don't really matter because they will not change the reality in any way; in a certain way I don't believe in the traditional idea of God because I believe that every person has a spark of divinity in them, a shard of omniscience that, after death, becomes either part of a void or a greater omnipresence...I guess you could say I'm a heretical Christian in that I believe all people are God on Earth, or that people themselves are God. But if there is a one true God sitting up there somewhere, I don't think he's created a Hell for the sinners to burn in or a system of rules to take our money and subjugate all our people; I think those things are formerly vague superstitions instituted by men who wanted to control the population through the guise of the church.

When I was an infant, my father would lay back in his recliner and let me sleep on his chest, resting my head on the dip in his sternum - if there is a God, and we meet Him after death, I think He is more like that; a father figure who will grant us rest. If He isn't...well, who cares? Like I said, my idea of God is ill-defined and transient, and if people are God then I'm cool with that, and if there is no God I'm cool with that. I can admit that my beliefs are based largely around what makes me comfortable, but they're also about what feels right and natural, acertain order that I think I can feel in the human consciousness as much as anything.

Uh....yeah. That's it.

***CaptHayfever*** · 05-05-2005, 09:30 AM

Quote:

predestination, insofar as I am concerned, is a load of ... how would the professor put it ... "gobble-dee poop". Yes. Again, if our destinies were already mapped out by the Father then there's no point in us even being alive.

Stinkin' awesome, man.
Heh, "gobble-dee poop." [img]smile.gif[/img]

And remember, "I'm-a Luigi, number one!"

Nick · 05-05-2005, 04:33 PM

Like much of corporate America, I worship Pan, the goat-god.

The Missing Link · 05-05-2005, 06:14 PM

I may be a little bit different in my thinking--heck, so far I'm about the only person that has a lot of my stances on this board--but I'm actually a proponent of predestination. Now before the pitchforks and torches come out to maim me, let me clarify that I support it only to some degree, that free will does exist and indeed coexist with destiny. Almost seems sort of paradoxical, but I have a good analogy.

I like to think about it in terms of how I write books. When I write, I do not know precisely what's going to happen; I don't plan everything out to its most minute detail. I do however know the general overview of what's to happen as well as a few specific plot points that need to be factored in somewhere along the road. To me, those prefabricated plot points are moments where destiny takes your hand and leads you along, but I really only consider them to be events in your life, a choice that is to be made. Free will decides how to connect those events together, what we will learn from them, how we will proceed after they happen.

In short, you may know exactly how you're writing the story, but in general the nitty-gritty details of how the story will unfold is left up to the individual characters.

"There are some who call me... Link?"

"Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!)
Zelda: The Grand Adventures | Triforce MUCK
ザ行方不明リンク
悪いユウモアの賢人

imported_ · 05-05-2005, 07:18 PM

I think there are environmental factors that may push us in one direction or another, but ultimately we lead our own lives.

Lurch: Good choice. Pan is a quality god.

Nick · 05-05-2005, 11:29 PM

**L007 is Undecided** · 05-07-2005, 10:48 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Shadowking/Darrin - interchangable:
All I know is, God doesn't control everything.

He can control all of us at any point he wants. The thing is, though, is that God gave us free will, to act out how we want to. If you want to believe in other gods, Yahweh could send a tornado down and slam you endless times against Mount Rushmore. But he doesn't, he made us to make sure that we would believe him in an essence of faith. Even so, there have been so many miracles, including his Son coming down, that God could easily of ignored the cries of people and people would still believe in him.

The Missing Link · 05-07-2005, 01:03 PM

Quote:

What do you get if you multiply six by nine?

uh, 54?

[ May 07, 2005, 09:50 PM: Message edited by: The Great Tyrant ]

Sen. Brak Obama (FACE) · 05-07-2005, 02:36 PM

I think Luigi007 has had some good points, but Wyborn had an excellent point.

The way some churches try to lure in people is crazy, I do believe I should spread the word of God around, but I don't believe in scaring people into it. I've never really had to do such a thing, because most of my friends are in one way or another Baptists, or Methodist, or Christain in some way.

God knows what you are thinking and what you are going to do before you do it. He put us here, told us about him, and sits back, tossing help in, or miracles, or help every now and then, and tests our faith, in the end, I believe that if you have believed in him, and have had faith, and accepted him, you can get into the gates.

What I do not believe entirely, though it is in the Bible, is the 144,000. If God loves all of us so much, why would he eliminate us off round by round like some kind of reality show? I do believe in heaven and hell, and the second Earth, second coming, all that, I don't think this will happen for another 500 years or so. People say he is coming soon, well in Earth time, 500 years is soon.

</rant>

**L007 is Undecided** · 05-07-2005, 03:03 PM

No, it's how many roads a man must travel...

Quote:

Originally posted by The G.O.O.D D.I.E Mostly Over Bull:
What I do not believe entirely, though it is in the Bible, is the 144,000.

That's a different set of people, I believe. Those who have been truly faithful. Before, everyone whom was still faithful - yet had sins, nonetheless- will gather before him in shining white clothing.

Otherwise, who knows.

Erdawn Il Deus · 05-07-2005, 03:41 PM

Damnit Wyborn, there you go, taking the words out of my mouth. Our idea of God is so smiliar it's scary, you jyst managed to express it better than I ever could! Rawr!

I do prefer to believe that there is a God, or we are Gods, or whatever, in favour of being atheistic in that sense, because I don't like the idea of death being the end. At all.

The Joker · 05-07-2005, 03:52 PM

I know god and he's a cool guy, he has a thing for bright lights and loud music though.Oh and you should see how he acts when Sammy Davis Jr starts up his old dancing routine! Good times I tell ya, Damn good times !!

Koga · 05-07-2005, 04:07 PM

Quote:

because I don't like the idea of death being the end. At all.

Me neither, but it's the only idea that makes sense to me. It's just as before you were born.

The Yoshimaster · 05-07-2005, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Wyborn:
Might as well throw in my two cents.

I'm not quoting the entire post for obvious reasons, but this is in response to it nevertheless.

Nothing personal, but it's that kind of belief that I believe is, aside from the "Church-State" controversy, gradually weakening the Christian world. The idea that God is basically a big teddy bear in the sky who's nice to everyone and thinks that all people are good is shared by most of the media, resulting in craptacular shows like Joan of Arcadia and Touched by an Angel, which are more insulting than they are spiritual.

I don't recall you stating whether you believe in the Christian faith or not, but that sort of belief would be what the Bible calls "lukewarm," which, again according to the Bible, is the kind of faith God hates the most. Now, to avoid being struck by lightning for hypocrisy, I must admit that I don't exactly have a burning faith myself... but then, that's between me and God.

It's because of this new trend that I think preachers like Jonathan Edwards are so awesome, regardless of whether I believe everything they say. His messages delivered an almost rude awakening to the realities of God's divinity and wrath towards man's sinful nature, which were much closer to the God described in the Bible than the one Hollywood and most of society chooses to embrace.

05-05-2005, 11:29 PM	#32
Nick Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 10,122.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 10,622.00 Donate	42.

05-04-2005, 08:59 PM	#21
AJ Middleton Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 2,131.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 2,631.00 Donate	I think saying that it's a loss IS silly. Like, everyone has different views of happiness and whatnot, so I think it's ridiculous to imply that one is living a less satisfying life just because he/she doesn't believe in God. I could turn around and say one's at a loss for being religious too, and stuff. Honestly, don't mind me.

05-04-2005, 09:19 PM	#22
Serial Miller Retro Nintendo Supermod Art & Literature Mod Metroid Mod Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: I rub my tilde all over your asterisk Gender: Posts: 15,679 Thanks: 416 Thanked 1,046 Times in 585 Posts Points: 14,115.59 Bank: 1,556,398.07 Total Points: 1,570,513.65 Donate	Perhaps, to me, it is your loss. You will not agree, nor shall you understand. Time does not stand still, life goes on.

05-04-2005, 09:34 PM	#23
imported_ Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 4,161.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 4,661.00 Donate	I disagree with the concept of it being anyone's "loss." I don't think he should have said it. But I'm saying you oughtn't to get mad about it or discuss it extensively or put a lot of thought or effort into it beause it is in the end a silly idea. Of course that purpose is defeated by now.

05-04-2005, 09:56 PM	#24
AJ Middleton Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 2,131.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 2,631.00 Donate	As I said, don't mind me. I'm putting off studying for a Calc test tomorrow. But actually, it got me thinking about something that John Stewart Mill wrote about the harm principle, which relates to negative liberty... Bah. I'm rambling.

05-04-2005, 10:20 PM	#26
imported_ Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 4,161.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 4,661.00 Donate	Calc eh? I've got Linguistics tomorrow myself. Also off-topic, Brave New World is not a good book.

05-05-2005, 07:04 AM	#27
Wyborn Zelda Mod Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: All over the place Gender: Posts: 12,325 Thanks: 85 Thanked 439 Times in 270 Posts Points: 13,443.55 Bank: 67,396.13 Total Points: 80,839.68 Donate	Might as well throw in my two cents. Being raised in a Baptist environment for as long as I can remember, if I were to adhere strictly to the beliefs that have been taught to me then I would be an extremely orthodox individual in every way, shape, and form. There are levels of madness to my particular sect of Christianity that other parts just don't even hear about, much less believe in. According to my own church I should believe that God is a vengeful God who will cast all sinners, pagans, and non-Protestant Christians (sorry, John Paul II) into the fiery depths of Hell forever and ever, and that He needs my money right the hell now. I'm supposed to believe that no only is God an absolute good but that Satan is the source of all evil, and that when we're born we're worthless festering pieces of dog crap because six thousand years ago a dude and a chick bit into an apple which granted them the ability to tell the difference between good and evil. To make it clear, I do not believe in original sin, I don't even really believe in a devil, and my views on God (such as they are) are somewhat more...liberal than that. For instance, I don't think of Him as being male; I don't entertain the idea that God is a big Jewish dude sitting on a clouds with a deitic phallus hanging between His legs. That's silly. One could say that we should use a non-gender-specific noun to describe God, but one can also justify calling him the Father: he plays the father's roll, as opposed to the mother's, in that He would be using a distant hand to care for us, teaching harder lesssons, instead of caring for us directly and fixing our problems. I don't believe in Satan, or original sin - I think man is perfectly capable of committing evil on his own without any help from a supposedly fallen angel. The idea that we would be pushed towards evil by this modernized Loki is ridiculous, because evil in itself is a concept that's difficult to grasp at and rarely if ever concrete...and even when it is, I don't see any reason to blame it on anyone but people. We're flexible like that. As for the question about whether or not God is omnibenevolent and omnipotent, one could believe in both with the presence of evil; again, if He serves as a father figure to us, then our problems are our own to solve. If He stepped in and made everything perfect for us, it would leave us fat and lazy and stupid, unable to appreciate the beauties of the world because it would leave us without anything to contrast them to. I believe in free will more than I believe in Him; predestination, insofar as I am concerned, is a load of ... how would the professor put it ... "gobble-dee poop". Yes. Again, if our destinies were already mapped out by the Father then there's no point in us even being alive. Hell, the entire nature of God is easily left up to question, and our own beliefs don't really matter because they will not change the reality in any way; in a certain way I don't believe in the traditional idea of God because I believe that every person has a spark of divinity in them, a shard of omniscience that, after death, becomes either part of a void or a greater omnipresence...I guess you could say I'm a heretical Christian in that I believe all people are God on Earth, or that people themselves are God. But if there is a one true God sitting up there somewhere, I don't think he's created a Hell for the sinners to burn in or a system of rules to take our money and subjugate all our people; I think those things are formerly vague superstitions instituted by men who wanted to control the population through the guise of the church. When I was an infant, my father would lay back in his recliner and let me sleep on his chest, resting my head on the dip in his sternum - if there is a God, and we meet Him after death, I think He is more like that; a father figure who will grant us rest. If He isn't...well, who cares? Like I said, my idea of God is ill-defined and transient, and if people are God then I'm cool with that, and if there is no God I'm cool with that. I can admit that my beliefs are based largely around what makes me comfortable, but they're also about what feels right and natural, acertain order that I think I can feel in the human consciousness as much as anything. Uh....yeah. That's it.

05-05-2005, 04:33 PM	#29
Nick Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 10,122.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 10,622.00 Donate	Like much of corporate America, I worship Pan, the goat-god.

05-05-2005, 06:14 PM	#30
The Missing Link Professional Lurker Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: New Hyrule, Washington, US Gender: Posts: 15,573 Thanks: 80 Thanked 183 Times in 110 Posts Points: 5,506.15 Bank: 51,115.11 Total Points: 56,621.26 Donate	I may be a little bit different in my thinking--heck, so far I'm about the only person that has a lot of my stances on this board--but I'm actually a proponent of predestination. Now before the pitchforks and torches come out to maim me, let me clarify that I support it only to some degree, that free will does exist and indeed coexist with destiny. Almost seems sort of paradoxical, but I have a good analogy. I like to think about it in terms of how I write books. When I write, I do not know precisely what's going to happen; I don't plan everything out to its most minute detail. I do however know the general overview of what's to happen as well as a few specific plot points that need to be factored in somewhere along the road. To me, those prefabricated plot points are moments where destiny takes your hand and leads you along, but I really only consider them to be events in your life, a choice that is to be made. Free will decides how to connect those events together, what we will learn from them, how we will proceed after they happen. In short, you may know exactly how you're writing the story, but in general the nitty-gritty details of how the story will unfold is left up to the individual characters. "There are some who call me... Link?" "Carpe Gaium Domesticum!" (Seize the Cucco!) Zelda: The Grand Adventures \| Triforce MUCK ザ行方不明リンク悪いユウモアの賢人

05-05-2005, 07:18 PM	#31
imported_ Banned Join Date: Dec 1969 Posts: 0 Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts Points: 4,161.00 Bank: 500.00 Total Points: 4,661.00 Donate	I think there are environmental factors that may push us in one direction or another, but ultimately we lead our own lives. Lurch: Good choice. Pan is a quality god.

05-07-2005, 02:36 PM	#35
Sen. Brak Obama (FACE) Polk/McLaughlin '08: The Greatness You Already Knew Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Birmingham, AL Gender: Posts: 12,901 Thanks: 909 Thanked 646 Times in 378 Posts Points: 45,670.71 Bank: 436,098.14 Total Points: 481,768.85 Donate	I think Luigi007 has had some good points, but Wyborn had an excellent point. The way some churches try to lure in people is crazy, I do believe I should spread the word of God around, but I don't believe in scaring people into it. I've never really had to do such a thing, because most of my friends are in one way or another Baptists, or Methodist, or Christain in some way. God knows what you are thinking and what you are going to do before you do it. He put us here, told us about him, and sits back, tossing help in, or miracles, or help every now and then, and tests our faith, in the end, I believe that if you have believed in him, and have had faith, and accepted him, you can get into the gates. What I do not believe entirely, though it is in the Bible, is the 144,000. If God loves all of us so much, why would he eliminate us off round by round like some kind of reality show? I do believe in heaven and hell, and the second Earth, second coming, all that, I don't think this will happen for another 500 years or so. People say he is coming soon, well in Earth time, 500 years is soon. </rant>

05-07-2005, 03:41 PM	#37
Erdawn Il Deus Senior Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Threading the jeweled thrones of earth under my sandalled feet Gender: Posts: 2,952 Thanks: 4 Thanked 37 Times in 32 Posts Points: 21,333.47 Bank: 646.80 Total Points: 21,980.27 Donate	Damnit Wyborn, there you go, taking the words out of my mouth. Our idea of God is so smiliar it's scary, you jyst managed to express it better than I ever could! Rawr! I do prefer to believe that there is a God, or we are Gods, or whatever, in favour of being atheistic in that sense, because I don't like the idea of death being the end. At all.

05-07-2005, 03:52 PM	#38
The Joker So a gun walks into a bar.... Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: The Planet of Eternal Darkness Gender: Posts: 9,921 Thanks: 1,065 Thanked 243 Times in 178 Posts Points: 7,205.81 Bank: 2,301.90 Total Points: 9,507.71 Donate	I know god and he's a cool guy, he has a thing for bright lights and loud music though.Oh and you should see how he acts when Sammy Davis Jr starts up his old dancing routine! Good times I tell ya, Damn good times !!