₦airaland Forum

Kay 17: Whenever I think about the personality of the Judeo Christian God, I feel the awe of his impressive and superpowerful being. An omniscient, omnipotent, all great, self sufficient, selfexistent, perfect being. And he is accepted by most as the best explanation for the world.

But I'm struck by his person, he is too perfect and too satisfied and too independent to create us, our creation would not add any more of his essence, it wouldn't make him any happier or any more perfect. Rather we'd be purposeless toys with zero value.

We'd be a waste of love, care, concern. We'd be insufficient. He wouldn't have created us at all.

@lord reed

From my OP, its clear I link creation to a deficiency and to dissatisfaction. Its both factors that drive the creator to create. God being a perfect being that lacks the 2 factors, obviously has no satisfactory need to create.

Pls relate your post to the OP.

^^

LMaO!!

[quote author=Lord_Reed]That is similar to saying because a man is single that precludes him from being a father.[/quote]Nope, not similar

Ihedinobi: As I already said, it is very possible and sensible to see Creation as a spillover of their Love. In fact, the Bible holds that Creation is the Father's Gift to His Son the Word.

Is the spillover a deliberate act OR incidental

Image123: What is a Creator without a creation, a King without subjects, and an Artist without art?

True. However God's nature precludes him from being a Creator!

Ihedinobi: "Space to build himself"? "Rebuild his father's empire?" I don't understand.



I don't think Budddha belongs in our discussion in the light of my earlier response.



Agreed. But what if He only shares His satisfaction? Would He be less God? Or more God?



Ah, but you see Yahweh is not one Person alone. From eternity, there has been the Father, the Word and the Spirit in perfect fellowship. They did not create out of the need for something to lavish their love upon, They had always been in Perfect Fellowship. You could say that Creation is just the natural fall-out from their bounty.

oh there are three persons under the umbrella Yahweh? A trivumirate?

If they have themselves to love, WHY do they have to share with Creations? What DRIVES them to act in that particular manner, rather than in the available alternatives?

Ihedinobi: Here's the core of the trouble with your question. You assume that the purpose of creating is to add some kind of value that the creator lacked without the creation. This is not necessarily true. With limited humans who need to increase ability in some direction, say, sight, a creation adds value to them, but necessity or need is not the only driving force of creation. An heir with pots of money and a large estate to his name could create art entirely because it is one way that he gives some of himself to the world, not because he gains something from it. His father's money and possibly his own genius at managing his father's enterprise would account for his sustenance, fame, respect, whatever needs he may have.

The same thing may be said of Yahweh, that he created in order to share Himself with other beings. And that would need a God Who needs nothing and has everything. That is, as you have said, the kind of God Yahweh is.



Insufficient for a God Who knows no need and is utterly perfect? I think that's contradictory. Yahweh's total perfection is the reason that He has love, care and concern to "waste" on an "insufficient" creation.

1. The heir that spreads his wealth does have a motive and satisfaction thereof. He creates the necessary space to built himself and declare his ingenuity by rebuilding his father's empire.

Same with Buddha, he stripped himself of all articles of materialism to satisfy his spiritual hunger.

Same with God, if God derives some form of satisfaction from Creation, it makes him less independent and less God.

2.If God JUST wants to share himself, and is brimming with so much love and yet as nothing to lavish these jewels on, then God obviously deficient, cos he NEEDS an object to love!

InesQor: Mohammed's sources in the Quran were ancient Arabian beliefs and practices, Sabian and Jewish beliefs and fables, Zoroastrian and Hanif elements, AND Christian and Christian Apocryphal books. We are here concerned with his Christian sources.

His main Christian source was his first wife Khadija's cousin Waraqa who was a Christian. He was also given a present: a Christian slave girl (Mary, an Egyptian copt who became his concubine and he married her after she gave birth to a son). His last main Christian source were Christians in the village of Najran, further south of Medina.

A distinguishing difference between this scenario and that of the early Judeo-Christians, however, is that Muhammad could not AT ALL read the books from which the Christians used. It was all hearsay, and he was not scholastic in his approach.

However, as I already said earlier on in the thread,



Repeat: The account of the Muslims is authoritative to THEM and holds precedence FOR THEM.

Now, you ask:


No, No and No again. How can there be an authoritative Christian understanding of a Muslim religious text?

As I said, I say again:

Authority refers to an official, administrative or definitive exercise of dominant control or a potency of ideals within an association, organization, group or other collective. An authority is always restricted in its scope of office.

Which means your riposte is just another non-sequitur.

I find your exposë agreeable only to some extent.

However Christianity is intended as a continuing episode of judaism, in that Jesus accepts the precepts and authority of Jews and therefore uses such precepts as a foundation, a launching pad for his theology/religion. Because without judaism there is no Christianity, and a poor understanding of Judaism will render Christianity inadequate.

This problem affects Christianity only, other religions despite their borrowed contents lean on their own authority/force.

Looking forward to it.

My conclusion thereof is:

God is incomprehensible OR

God was lonely and unsatisfied OR

Creation was an automated character of God.

*yawns*

Still waiting a justification.

ArQueBusieR: Quit jumping about. Just tell God about your situation. This is too petty for him sef.

The hyperinsensitivity of some Christians sef. Doesn't God know?!

InesQor: But a "true free willed being" with no moral compass whatsoever, and who honours no agreements (even the ones that he made in his freewill, e.g. giving freewill to angels and man) is a tyrant.

However he can choose to either break or be bound by whatever agreement he has with anyone.

I think Uyi Iredia IS taking the path of challenging his faith and its very brave.

The incompatibility of God's acts in the OT and Concept of love might probably lead you to see the Bible as a lens of man in understanding God rather than being God's actual fingerprint (of which invalidation invalidates God), just as Jesus did. He saw the Mosaic laws as laws from Moses.

InesQor: @Muskeeto:

Imagine I had a large poultry farm and I'm developing a special breed of layers in a section. So promising that the yield from those few premium layers far surpasses that of the rest of the lot in thousands.

Now, an enemy of progress introduces a deadly virus strain into my poultry farm and the contamination is rapid, they are dying off in all directions. What is my best bet?

Quarantine. That's my best bet. Quarantine of the promising breed. My priority is to increase profit, so my preoccupation would be to stop the spread. Even at the painful loss of thousands, I will keep few.

In similar regard it is my understanding and belief that from the days of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, God quarantined Israel from all sorts of pollution to ensure that Jesus, the special breed, can be born out of it. He did WHATEVER it took to ensure that by saving THAT chance of Jesus being born, he can save everyone else from ruin. He made the promise since the beginning, and the enemy knew this special breed: Jesus, will bring his doom so he did ALL he could to spiritually contaminate Israel, to politically extinguish them, etc. God had to quarantine them by all means, even if it meant destroying some of them or crushing their enemies.

And finally Jesus was born. There was no longer any need for the quarantine.

It is my belief that this is the reason why the OT God seems different from the NT God in the Bible. His work of quarantine was done. Now, over to Jesus to influence the world and bring back the profits.

Most atheists like me can't grasp/understand an argument that forces on God a necessity. God ought to be the only true free willed being.

Another reason why NYSC should fail. The woman's faith and conscience was assaulted. She doesn't wear trousers simple! It doesn't matter if all the girls in nigeria, its a conscientious issue.

But nigerians don't respect human rights.

^^

There are credible thoughts out there that posit space and time are articles as a result of human consciousness. We apparently view the world via our consciousness and as a lens, thru which we must describe our experiences through.

Immanuel Kant expressed his beliefs that space and time and external intuitions of the mind, which we can't shake off. Of course, this gets in trouble with objectivity.

^^^

Looooool!! It is a terribly written OP.

*yawn*

davidylan: this is amazing idiocy really.

Inesqor gave a brilliant analogy: a computer programmer can design a program such that it spews out a particular outcome regardless of your input. Now you are at liberty to determine what your input will be... the output from the computer merely flows as a consequence of your own choice. But it is not farfetched to reason that the programmer is quite able to know what all possible outcomes could be based on the choices available.

So what exactly was your question? I cant seem to understand it at all.

An input branching/flowing out to numerous possible outcomes follows the thread of linear TIME! That's not coherent with the timeless God!

Davidlyan pls explain further.

davidylan: Frankly ridiculous to be honest.

Inesqor said - Omniscience cannot be divorced from being outside time... Omniscience MUST be expressed outside of time because according to fundamental epistemology, knowledge is progressive. Over time, more is known about an event or abstraction. This means that for one to know all, that one must exist outside time. Surely it's basic!

I said (the post you quoted) - Omniscience means having ALL knowledge including the future. It is not the same as merely predicting the future...
To know the future presupposes that you have SEEN the future - i.e. you are essentially timeless.

What is the difference? Again it seems you merely wanted to abuse me just to get it out of your system.

Yet you are the same person advocating the molinists' view of multiple outcomes/events which are possible from a decision. How do you reconcile that with timeless knowledge compressed into a present (now) view??

@strikl

Not simply doing good. Goes beyond good.

^^^

I think its beyond doing good. Its more an appreciation, a treasure, an object of topmost priority.

davidylan: All his actions are foreknown by God so the question is mute.

Then how then can a man outside that, even with the knowledge of God's foreknowledge about his actions??

davidylan: you're arguing a straw man here.

He knows what route you take does not mean you didnt make the choice to take that route.

For example, as a teacher... i knew which student would fail his exams because he chose not to study (i am also well aware that an alternative ending exists if he made a different choice i.e. if he chose to study he will pass). Does that mean the student had no choice but to fail? Was i the one who made him fail by force?

His question was: can he act contrary with God's foreknowledge.

The New Testament was born right into the Roman world and probably had such influences. NT verses in promoting and advocating for submission to slave masters of the roman world, is definitely for slavery in those harsh terms.

@greatgenius

The truth is there are other alternate choices.. in fact there is an infinite amount of choices.

Really?! What about necessities?

I never see reply to my scenario.

Eratosthenes: In discussing the supernatural, one must be careful not to fall into one of these 2 categories:
1. Those who believe science can disprove the existence of God. The problem with this position is that science can not by investigate the supernatural because a scientific fact should be observable, verifiable, falsifiable and reproducible or predictable.
2. Those who want to use reason and logic to prove God's existence. The pitfall of this school of thought is that the belief in God is based on faith not on reason or logic. A god whose existence can be logically proven ceases to be a god.

Thumbs up for point 2. But note that faith is limited to christianity and islam.

On point 1, Science disregards the supernatural, as incapable of truths or as a nature of truths and is unintelligible.

You obviously don't understand Slavery in Roman times.

Check this:http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome

TV01: The OP was a ruse. It was posted in an attempt to marry - excuse the pun- the biblical narrative regards slavery and homosexual practice and suggest that as slavery had ultimately been discontinued, the prohibitions against homosexual acts should likewise be considered outdated. Even as the OP' premise was doomed to fail, it was actually designed to plant the seed of doubt and and raise questions, ultimately making people more receptive to and moving further along the path of acceptance of homosexual acts. Fail!

This was an obvious false dialectic, so I chose not to take the bait.

It would have been infinitely more honest to parallel it with other prohibited sex acts such as incest or bestiality and see if parallels could be drawn there. Slavery was a man made condition from which the bible immediately gave succour and ultimately eradicated. As noted it was nothing like, nor did it justify the trans Atlantic slave trade.

People are happy to piggy back off, and at once belittle the historical suffering of Afro-Americans, in both slavery and the fight for civil rights, in order to push this abominable behaviour. Doubly repugnant

Strangely enough it is the AA that is suffering most from sexual licentiousness and the erosion of the moral fabric in society. It's estimated that 60% of pregnancies (for AA'in New York city) are aborted. 60% of kids are born out of wedlock and more than 1 in two marriages end in divorce - do the math. If such trends persist, soon there will be very few AA families and little or no AA community - not substantively anyway.

God have mercy on us all
TV

Pls refer me to the verses in the bible that abolished slavery. Also tell how the Slavery in the Roman World, wasn't as horrific as Trans altantic slave trade?