Does Yahweh prefer a troubled and suffering humanity?

Several others have described their God as perfect, creator, all good, all wise, etc. Yes, you can point out flaws, but no God is unique in this respect.

If anything, the logos of Heraclitus and the Stoics pass muster much better than the God of Christians, Jews or Muslims. At least he never insecure enough to command religious intolerance, and just allowed his power to speak for itself.

 

Disregarding your personal opinion on the Abrahamic God, I'd like you to elaborate on this concept of logos, and how such a concept can equate to God, who is unlike anything.

 

If God is perfect then she is necessarily female, as the female embodies perfection. The female alone can reproduce and only requires a male because sexual reproduction would not have any function otherwise. Biology also proves this; all start as female in the womb but some of us are fated to wimp out and become males. Why do you think males have nipples?

 

Well, God isn't human, so I don't know what nipples have to do with anything. Nevertheless, consider the fact that females do not have the same exact qualities and capacities that males do. Thus, females are not perfect, as they are deficient in some ways when juxtaposed against males, and vice versa.

More so, God created things in pairs (male and female). God is unlike anything, and thus cannot compared to His creation.

 

Christians have the New Testament which provides God's rules for living in this world. That indirectly gives some insight into God's intentions and motivations, but the New Testament is not an all inclusive tome on God, its just a manual for living in a manner that is in accordance with Gods desires.

Based on the New Testament, I can guess. How accurate that guess is unknown, but its also irrelevant. To a person who believes the New Testament, living the way God intends a person to live is the critical issue, a full understanding if Gods mind is not necessary (or possible).

You did it again, you started out #3 with a great premise in red. Then you followed with your own biased question.

For the part in red, if God just wants followers, then why give people free will? Why not just make a universe full of perfect worshipers instead of a world full of flawed people and then create difficult situations to force those people to worship Him? Life is a test, it winnows out the faithful from the faithless, and it builds strength in the faithful. Exactly why that is important to God and how that prepares people for life after death is unknown, but its not necessary to know it either.

 

We are made in God's image, of course he is human. Females have all the capacities and abilities of males and the ability to reproduce, which they can, theoretically, do without males, (look up parthenogenesis). They are perfect and complete, as is God., God must be female.

 

But females and males are not equal (physically and mentally).

Humans are imperfect creatures of God. God is in no way a human.

 

The logos is the generative principle of the universe, the creator and organizer of all that you see, the embodiment of all universal laws and the only constant in existence. All other things change in relation to it, while it remains unchanging. It contains and defines all abstract truths: arithmetic, geometry, logic, morality, etc. The Greeks taught it for centuries before Abrahamic philosophers, starting with Philo, highjacked it for their own purposes.

 

Thank you. Since the Qur'an says that God sent prophets to all the nations of the world; and that the belief in God is something innate to all humans, I'm not really surprised with the description of logos.

I'll simply argue that what's missing here is 1) God's Will; and 2) the fact that it fails to fully encapsulate the perfect attributes of God. And the Qur’an is the perfect encapsulation of God.

 

any god's so called qualities are merely those which humans have attributed to them. saying a god has certain qualities is not the decider, since it would mean many many gods are perfect and all powerful. you yourself don't even accept that standard of evidence for perfection, since you dismiss it as merely words when it's applied to any god but your personal favourite.

I don't bother naming gods because the name of the god isn't the thing which makes the difference. If you had a consistent standard for evaluating the merit of gods, fair enough, but you don't. you apply an incredibly low standard of evidence for your preferred god, and an incredibly high standard for all others. Your god is perfect because you say so (or an old book says so), but other gods aren't perfect despite believers saying so, and their respective old books saying so. double standard?

 

1) so the New Testament is no different to any other treatise which loosely encourages 'the golden rule', with varying flavours of icing?

2) are you entirely satisfied with the idea that you can't understand or ever hope to know the motivations of the deity you worship? you say it isn't necessary, but how are you to know if the person driving the bus isn't at some point going to drive it off a cliff for their own amusement? if you can't possibly know the motivations, and only have the word of the 'driver' himself telling you otherwise ... well ...

3) please explain how you have free will when your deity planned everything that you would ever do.

 

This is your own opinion.

Of course it is not the only decider. However, you have so far failed to provide me with a single example of a god who can equate to the One God. Every god you have so far mentioned are merely pagan deities who are lacking in many areas. Thus, none are perfect.

Nothing to do with personal favorite. For the hundredth, point me out to a god who is worthy of worship besides the One perfect being who is the Creator of everything. You can't do that, because all you have is pagan deities to offer.

No, other gods are not perfect because they are inherently imperfect based on how the they are represented in their respective religions.

However, I didn't even bring up religion- yet. Indeed, as you remember, the first step is determining which god is worthy of worship (and that is God). The details come later.

 

1 - no, there are fundamental differences between the major religions. There are many good books which detail the beliefs of the dozen or so most prominent religions. Or even better but more time consuming, read the New Testament and the Koran to see 2 religions with conflicting and mutually exclusive beliefs.

2 - yes, I am satisfied. Once a person believes God exists and that particular philosophy is the Truth, then a full understanding of the mind of God is irrelevant. The assumption is that the mind of God is reflected in the teachings God has provided to people (the New Testament for Christianity).

3 - Because God knows what a person will do does not mean the person does not have free will. The person does not know the future, the person is acting on her own initiative with no knowledge of the actual result of her actions. As an analogy, in a card game, if you stack the deck of cards, you know what will happen but the other players do not, for them its still a game of chance with risk and unknown reward, in their minds nothing is predetermined and their actions have meaning, and their choices have consequences.

 

The "devil dilemma" makes more sense if one understands how war was a presumption for most of human history and still is for many people, although emasculated westerners who allow their government to cause war consider themselves to be "above war" and thereby try to condescend towards things like the devil, it's a fundamentally puerile mentality.

 

Okay. What is Yahweh to you? Or, "Ai"? Or Jehovah? Please explain.

Oh and connect the Thread Title Does Yahweh prefer a troubled and suffering humanity?
to your intro.
I got lots to say but, can't figure out at what to say it.


Moi
Islam and Christianity
are Jewish heresies.
[video=youtube;Jygf609u_g8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jygf609u_g8[/video]

r > g

​

 

Can you choose something your god isn't expecting?

 

That's irrelevant. I can choose something and receive a result I am not expecting, and that's what matters.

 

You're still missing the point. What you or I (or some old book) say about a god is simply that. Words. Opinions. The precise wording of the claims is not the decider - and you know it. Else anyone could claim a god is numero uno and you'd have to accept it. YOUR OWN standard of evidence - not accepting mere assertions and/or the claims of old books.

 

It's VERY relevant. If you cannot choose something your god isn't expecting, you have no free will - only the appearance of free will.

This god allegedly planned everything you would ever do, remember. If that's not absolute predetermination, I don't know what is.

 

Free will means a person has the ability to make a decision and control the direction of their life. The fact that God knows what choice you will make has absolutely no impact on you making a choice. God is not making the choice for you or giving you knowledge of the future to bias your choice, you make your decisions independently of God's knowledge of your future.

If you watch a child playing, you might know exactly what the child will do next. If you do not act on that knowledge, then the child acts based on its own independent thinking despite the fact you know what the child will do. Your fore-knowledge has no impact on the childs free will. Its the same with God.

 

If there is a god
And he has some purposes
I see no evidence that we humans understand his purposes

And, imo, people who claim to understand the purpose and will of god
Are projecting their own thoughts as divine will
And using the ultimate appeal to authority to validate what they say

So, imo, most people who teach the importance of gods will
Are really mostly proclaiming their own importance
Since clearly we simply do not know the will of god
Why some children are born horribly deformed
Or why a tsunami kills so many, or a tornado destroys a town,
Or why a man walks into a church and kills nine people
Or why the holocaust happened
Or the killing fields
Etc etc etc

 

I didn't bring up any books. I'm simply asserting that there can be only one god that can be worthy of worship.

 

Christians tend to rely on the bible - they think it's the evidence, when it's merely the claim.

And perhaps there is only one god worthy of worship, but if 100 different people say "it's my god", and attach the usual claims of perfection and creation etc, who is correct?

Your only grounds for saying you are correct and everyone else is incorrect, are vanity, and a desire for it to be true. If all tgose others indulge the same vanity and desire regarding their own gods ... this becomes 'even more true'. And repeating "but they're wrong" will not change reality to better reflect your desires.

 

Christians are always asserting that Yahweh planned everything that would ever happen. So, did he plan it all or not? If not, then he has 'mysterious ways', and is effectively a passive observer who may or may not be interested in us. if yes, then you do not have free will. It's logic 101.

 

And you'll see them thanking God for the good things without any evidence of divine involvement in their affairs.
And you'll see them pray even though it clearly makes no difference.

Religious people are funny like that.

- - - Updated - - -

I knew it. God did 9/11.