₦airaland Forum

NerdCat:
Can you articulate a reason why we can't discuss both? Go on.

Because one is an already answered question while the other is a question yet to be answered

Kukutente23:
Because one is an already answered question while the other is a question yet to be answered

Answered by whom, exactly? Because from where I'm standing, you've been dodging both with considerable effort.

NerdCat:
Answered by whom, exactly? Because from where I'm standing, you've been dodging both with considerable effort.

I'm not talking of you
You've not asked any reasonable question
Christianity ha an already answered question
While the general philosophy of the supreme being is a question that continually seeks answers

Kukutente23:
I'm not talking of you
You've not asked any reasonable question
Christianity ha an already answered question
While the general philosophy of the supreme being is a question that continually seeks answers

If Christianity has already been solved, then why do forty thousand denominations exist, each furiously disagreeing with the others about those very same answers?

DeepSight:
Does watching the many extreme infirmities, indignities and vulnerabilities of old age not take away in many cases the joy of living a long and ripe life and lead many to question the mercies and intentions of our creator?

Not sure if you're trolling or being serious, but your post seems to directly contradict what you've consistently argued here on this board.

You have previously declared that the body is just a vehicle, not the real human being. The soul is what you are, the body is temporary instrument to experience life in the material plane.

Now you're questioning the "creator's" mercies and intentions simply because the body decays in old age. But if the body is only a vehicle, why would its inevitable wear and tear make you question the "creator" at all?. (I put soul in quotes because it is not a created thing) .Your post can only make sense only if you're deeply attached to the body as your true self, which undermines your earlier position

A person operating from the position of soul maintains the vehicle while it serves, and exists without blame when it no longer does.

So please let me know what has changed in your thinking?

NerdCat:
I don't need omnipotence to identify a logical contradiction. Beyond your suspiciously breezy "nope," you've essentially agreed that suffering exists and mercy doesn't explain it. It is what it is.

Why would I deny suffering exists? Your understanding and expectations are yours. I dont see mercy as having to explain in the way you do, or suppoe that any suffering means an absenc eor failing of mercy.

NerdCat:
Allow me to stress-test that thesis with a child's brain tumor, thank you very much. Now, you tell me, whose actions specifically caused that one? Harm and suffering from purely human conduct is one conversation, but metastatic cancer in a seven-year-old is structurally another one entirely. Keep in mind - an omnipotent deity who permits the latter while possessing the power to prevent it is morally indistinguishable from its architect.

Sin and corruption are with us. Literally our inheritance through our first father Adam. That God does not del with things in a manner not to your liking or understanding means nothing. You are literally setting your expectations (based on literally nothing) for Omnipotence that you have no regard for and at once shaking your fist when they are not met.

Why in your worldview is is suffering bad - how do your quantify it?


TV

DeepSight:
Oh like it was eventually set right for Job by ensuring that he had fresh children as though that would wipe away the grief over those who were lost in what was a mischievous and sadistic gambling game between Yahweh and the Devil?

Again, your limited take and desire to cast God of evil. In what sense where they lost. As far as you can tell, only in a temporal sense. Omnipotence doesn't gamble .


TV

triplechoice:
Not sure if you're trolling or being serious, but your post seems to directly contradict what you've consistently argued here on this board.

You have previously declared that the body is just a vehicle, not the real human being. The soul is what you are, the body is temporary instrument to experience life in the material plane.

Now you're questioning the "creator's" mercies and intentions simply because the body decays in old age. But if the body is only a vehicle, why would its inevitable wear and tear make you question the "creator" at all?. (I put soul in quotes because it is not a created thing) .Your post can only make sense only if you're deeply attached to the body as your true self, which undermines your earlier position

A person operating from the position of soul maintains the vehicle while it serves, and exists without blame when it no longer does.

So please let me know what has changed in your thinking?

Not much has changed in my thinking save a much stronger commitment to the admission of knowing little to nothing. A stronger agnosticism if you like.

You seem to say mere aging. No. It is not mere. And your saying that makes me wonder if you have had first hand (close) experience with many of the pathetic conditions that tend to regularly accompany old age. And not just conditions of the body - conditions of the mind.

I think many people who speak lightly of these things have either never come close to them or had a loved one pass through them in close living proximity. Any one who has will be sober about the subject. Extremely sober.

TV01:
Again, your limited take and desire to cast God of evil. In what sense where they lost. As far as you can tell, only in a temporal sense. Omnipotence doesn't gamble .


TV

Nothing can justify the sadistic barbarity and immorality of the book of Job. It is a book that reveals the stark cold immorality and dark evil of the pagan mountain deity of the Jews.

DeepSight:
Nothing can justify the sadistic barbarity and immorality of the book of Job. It is a book that reveals the stark cold immorality and dark evil of the pagan mountain deity of the Jews.

Oga, it's not God that needs justification, it's you!


TV

DeepSight:
Does watching the many extreme infirmities, indignities and vulnerabilities of old age not take away in many cases the joy of living a long and ripe life and lead many to question the mercies and intentions of our creator?

Probably to some degree, so what? It's all explained.

Mostly here

MaxInDHouse:
Old age wasn't part of God's purpose for us {Job 33:25} it came along with sin {Romans 3:23} so long or short life means nothing to the true God {Genesis 5:23-24} because this is not what real life means to Him! 1Timothy 6:19
What God promised His worshipers is everlasting life! Psalms 37:29; John 3:16

TV

TV01:
Oga, it's not God that needs justification, it's you!


TV

How so. Whatever I am is a consequence of the work of the creator.

TV01:
Why would I deny suffering exists? Your understanding and expectations are yours. I dont see mercy as having to explain in the way you do, or suppoe that any suffering means an absenc eor failing of mercy.

So mercy means nothing, explains nothing, and guarantees nothing - correct?

Sin and corruption are with us. Literally our inheritance through our first father Adam. That God does not del with things in a manner not to your liking or understanding means nothing. You are literally setting your expectations (based on literally nothing) for Omnipotence that you have no regard for and at once shaking your fist when they are not met.

Note that inherited corruption still requires an architect who designed the inheritance mechanism, approved the terms, and chose not to revise them.

Why in your worldview is is suffering bad - how do your quantify it?


TV

I'll oblige your deflection for now. In my worldview, suffering is bad because conscious beings experience it as bad, report it as bad, are affected by it and are subsequently destroyed by it - which is rather the point of the word "suffering." I quantify it the way any non-lobotomised observer does: by its effects on actual persons.

DeepSight:
How so. Whatever I am is a consequence of the work of the creator.

...and your own free-will choices and actions .


TV

TV01:
...and your own free-will choices and actions .


TV

Not according to your scripture.
BTW, can you clue me in on this wonderful ability to blatantly ignore verses in a document I swear by? Such a skill should come in handy.

NerdCat:
So mercy means nothing, explains nothing, and guarantees nothing - correct?

Perhaps your insistence of what mercy means, explains and guarantees is what requires re-visiting?

NerdCat:
Note that inherited corruption still requires an architect who designed the inheritance mechanism, approved the terms, and chose not to revise them.

And who clearly stated what the consequences for mis-use would be. And who has an unfolding plan to restore all things to plan.

NerdCat:
l'll oblige your deflection for now. In my worldview, suffering is bad because conscious beings experience it as bad, report it as bad, are affected by it and are subsequently destroyed by it - which is rather the point of the word "suffering." I quantify it the way any non-lobotomised observer does: by its effects on actual persons.

So if there is any pain, harm or suffering by conscious beings, God is at fault? So death itself falls into that category. Are you charging that to God as well?


TV

DeepSight:
Not according to your scripture.
BTW, can you clue me in on this wonderful ability to blatantly ignore verses in a document I swear by? Such a skill should come in handy.

I didn't feel the need , or have the time to debunk your position on predestination\freewill. I falsified your reading of Romans 8:28-29 to show your error.

I have provided a short précis on how to approach Christianity, but you insist on your own distorted reading. Love demands freewill. Which is why God in love went ahead with His plan to create man (the apex of His creation). Knowing at once that man would get it wrong, God also made a way to restore all things through the giving of Himself, when He could have just chosen to start over. The only choice now is ours. Choose wisely sir.


TV

TV01:
I didn't feel the need , or have the time to debunk your position on predestination\freewill. I falsified your reading of Romans 8:28-29 to show your error.

I have provided a short précis on how to approach Christianity, but you insist on your own distorted reading. Love demands freewill. Which is why God in love went ahead with His plan to create man (the apex of His creation). Knowing at once that man would get it wrong, God also made a way to restore all things through the giving of Himself, when He could have just chosen to start over. The only choice now is ours. Choose wisely sir.


TV

How did you falsify the verses. I set out about eight verses. You simply put the Romans one in bold, said nothing about it and ignored the rest.

Is this the intellectual rigor you have been claiming for yourself. Disappointing.

Secondly.

As to your claim. Do I understand you to be summarizing Christianity by saying that God created a flawed mankind and then decided to save that mankind from his error by becoming a man then killing himself to appease himself over his flawed creation? Is that it?

DeepSight:
Not much has changed in my thinking save a much stronger commitment to the admission of knowing little to nothing. A stronger agnosticism if you like.

You seem to say mere aging. No. It is not mere. And your saying that makes me wonder if you have had first hand (close) experience with many of the pathetic conditions that tend to regularly accompany old age. And not just conditions of the body - conditions of the mind.

I think many people who speak lightly of these things have either never come close to them or had a loved one pass through them in close living proximity. Any one who has will be sober about the subject. Extremely sober.

You've misrepresented me. I never called aging "mere" or even suggested it. I asked a logical question: If the body is only temporary vehicle, why would its inevitable wear and tear make you question a creator's mercies and intentions?. I didn't dismiss suffering but only asked for consistency .

Now you say you're a strong agnostic who knows little to nothing. But you have argued that the body is not the real human being, that soul or spirit is what you are. The two positions don't sit together. Agnosticism suspends judgement on the existence of the soul or a creator. It doesn't claim the soul exists while questioning the creator. So where do you stand?

You're wrong that I haven't witnessed the pathetic conditions of old age. I have cared for the aged whose minds and bodies had broken down, firsthand, in close living proximity. The experience didn't lead me to blame a creator. It taught me to pay close attention to my body so it doesn't degenerate from neglect, and when disease strikes to do everything possible to migitage it , without forgetting who I truly am: I'm not a body.

And that's the difference between those who can bear pain and those who cannot. Someone operating from Soul -based view recognises the infirmities, feels them deeply, cares for love ones through them, but doesn't question the "creator" for a body that was always mortal and will surely decay. That doesn't mean berating others who haven't reached that understanding. We should show empathy and share in their pain, just without getting lost in the process.

triplechoice:
You've misrepresented me. I never called aging "mere" or even suggested it. I asked a logical question: If the body is only temporary vehicle, why would its inevitable wear and tear make you question a creator's mercies and intentions?. I didn't dismiss suffering but only asked for consistency .

Now you say you're a strong agnostic who knows little to nothing. But you have argued that the body is not the real human being, that soul or spirit is what you are. The two positions don't sit together. Agnosticism suspends judgement on the existence of the soul or a creator. It doesn't claim the soul exists while questioning the creator. So where do you stand?

You're wrong that I haven't witnessed the pathetic conditions of old age. I have cared for the aged whose minds and bodies had broken down, firsthand, in close living proximity. The experience didn't lead me to blame a creator. It taught me to pay close attention to my body so it doesn't degenerate from neglect, and when disease strikes to do everything possible to migitage it , without forgetting who I truly am: I'm not a body.

And that's the difference between those who can bear pain and those who cannot. Someone operating from Soul -based view recognises the infirmities, feels them deeply, cares for love ones through them, but doesn't question the "creator" for a body that was always mortal and will surely decay. That doesn't mean berating others who haven't reached that understanding. We should show empathy and share in their pain, just without getting lost in the process.

Being an agnostic does not come with a specific doctrinal creed as to what one believes or does not believe. Indeed there are things I believe, but I still have the overall attitude that we know little to nothing.

DeepSight:
How did you falsify the verses. I set out about eight verses. You simply put the Romans one in bold, said nothing about it and ignored the rest.

Please read my response again. I added v28 (in bold) to be read in conjunction with the verses you posted (29-30), to show your cropping of the scriptures was misleading. Your hatred is blinding you . "Those who love God". Love can never be anything other than by freewill. God knows all, including those who will requite His offer of love and then predestines them.
https://www.nairaland.com/8659388/old-age-god/2#139238791

DeepSight:
Is this the intellectual rigor you have been claiming for yourself. Disappointing.

You are not even properly reading or comprehending responses. You do actually sound like one who is just regurgitating - i.e. lacking freewill .

DeepSight:
As to your claim. Do I understand you to be summarizing Christianity by saying that God created a flawed mankind and then decided to save that mankind from his error by becoming a man then killing himself to appease himself over his flawed creation? Is that it?

No, mankind was created perfectly for their purpose. Mankind chose to ski off-piste with devastating consequences.


TV

TV01:
Please read my response again. I added v28 (in bold) to be read in conjunction with the verses you posted (29-30), to show your cropping of the scriptures was misleading. Your hatred is blinding you . "Those who love God". Love can never be anything other than by freewill. God knows all, including those who will requite His offer of love and then predestines them.
https://www.nairaland.com/8659388/old-age-god/2#139238791


You are not even reading responses. You do actually sound like one who is just regurgitating - i.e. lacking freewill .

No, mankind was created perfectly for their purpose. Mankind chose to ski off-piste with devastating consequences.


TV

What then about the several other verses I cited which explicitly made it clear that there was nothing like free will in the destiny of man.

Secondly a perfect creation cannot fail.

DeepSight:
What then about the several other verses I cited which explicitly made it clear that there was nothing like free will in the destiny of man.

In your eyes, predestination is there, and you will refuse any other explanation. Why sould I even bother? If you claim all 250m odd Nigerians are as pure as the driven snow and I find one, just one, who isn't, job done. The other 249,999,999 do not matter

DeepSight:
Secondly a perfect creation cannot fail.

Only the Creator is perfect.


TV

DeepSight:
Being an agnostic does not come with a specific doctrinal creed as to what one believes or does not believe. Indeed there are things I believe, but I still have the overall attitude that we know little to nothing.

You are redefining agnosticism to avoid the contradiction. You have in the past argued passionately for the soul or spirit, and that's a belief, not agnostic uncertainty.

Saying you "know little to nothing" while holding a strong positive belief about the soul or creator doesn't make you agnostic , it makes you inconsistent.

TV01:
In your eyes, predestination is there, and you will refuse any other explanation. Why sould I even bother? If you claim all 250m odd Nigerians are as pure as the driven snow and I find one, just one, who isn't, job done. The other 249,999,999 do not matter

This is just lazy. Anyway fine by me cos I know it's impossible to answer those verses. They are too explicit. They say that man can do nothing but for God who directs what he does. In fact, they take away any culpability from man.

Only the Creator is perfect.


TV

A perfect creator cannot make an imperfect creation. That's illogical.

triplechoice:
You are redefining agnosticism to avoid the contradiction. You have in the past argued passionately for the soul or spirit, and that's a belief, not agnostic uncertainty.

Saying you "know little to nothing" while holding a strong positive belief about the soul or creator doesn't make you agnostic , it makes you inconsistent.

Perhaps I am inconsistent. Perhaps that inconsistency is a sign of not really knowing anything.

But to be honest, I am simply generally agnostic, not absolutely. In other words, I will not say there isn't anything at all that I claim to know for sure.

At the minimum, I know I exist. Corgito ergo sum.

DeepSight:
This is just lazy. Anyway fine by me cos I know it's impossible to answer those verses. They are too explicit. They say that man can do nothing but for God who directs what he does. In fact, they take away any culpability from man.

You are blinded by your own insistence on projecting your desired reading and reject unconsidered any other. I can't help that.

​Proverbs 19:21: "Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails."

Pray tell, how does a man who does not have free will plan anything? If Israel and Iran go to war, whatever their plans, what will happen will fit God's unfolding purpose - IFF it touches on it.

I choose to eat healthily - am I predestined not to eat junk food. Are thieves predestined to steal? So yu rclaim is that God predestines people to sin, then punishes them for it?

DeepSight:
A perfect creator cannot make an imperfect creation. That's illogical.

Only God is perfect. Making man, even in God's image, does not make man God The creation was perfectly fit for purpose at the point of creation.


TV

TV01:
Perhaps your insistence of what mercy means, explains and guarantees is what requires re-visiting?

Whatever we call the attribute in question, an omnipotent being who observes preventable child suffering and observes it anyway still has an explanation problem.

And who clearly stated what the consequences for mis-use would be. And who has an unfolding plan to restore all things to plan.

What kind of restoration plan requires centuries of children dying as operational overhead? Also, announcing consequences in advance doesn't absolve the designer who made the consequences disproportionately heritable by innocents.

So if there is any pain, harm or suffering by conscious beings, God is at fault? So death itself falls into that category. Are you charging that to God as well?


TV

Don't go rolling off the cliff now. Let's take it from the top once again - I charged an omnipotent deity who permits preventable suffering with moral responsibility, which is categorically not the same as blaming God for every scraped knee. Piggybacking on that, death as a natural biological phenomenon is a separate conversation entirely from a child's brain tumour.

TV01:
You are blinded by your own insistence on projecting your desired reading and reject unconsidered any other. I can't help that.


Pray tell, how does a man who does not have free will plan anything? If Israel and Iran go to war, whatever their plans, what will happen will fit God's unfolding purpose - IFF it touches on it.

What it shows is that you can imagine and plan all you want, but the only thing that happens at the end of the day in any instance is what the Lord wills. This absolves man of any guilt. It is completely in tandem with the Islamic view that all that happens is the will of God.

Explain away these verses -

Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."

​Isaiah 46:10: "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'"

I choose to eat healthily - am I predestined not to eat junk food. Are thieves predestined to steal? So yu rclaim is that God predestines people to sin, then punishes them for it?

Your scripture says so, not me.

And there are instances of it - for example, where he instigated David to conduct a census and then killed 70, 000 Israelites for the conduct of the census. How absurd is that?

Only God is perfect. Making man, even in God's image, does not make man God The creation was perfectly fit for purpose at the point of creation.

TV

Then it must be presumed that what happened (the fall of man) was designed by the designer - God.

DeepSight:
What it shows is that you can imagine and plan all you want, but the only thing that happens at the end of the day in any instance is what the Lord wills. This absolves man of any guilt. It is completely in tandem with the Islamic view that all that happens is the will of God.

Happy for you to continue to be incorrigible. The bold sums up your error. Yes, Gods will always prevails, but that is primarily at a macro-level.

God's unfolding plan and purpose cannot be thwarted by anyone or anything - that does not stop them trying. The fact that Gods will always prevails, does not mean that individual cannot act out the free choice expression of their own wills.

Peter decried and tried to stop the Lord going to the cross. Can't happen. Didn't stop Peter from trying. Individual day-to-day choices, decisions and actions remain within individual purview. Where you forced to become a lawyer Was it God that made the Nigerian authorities open fire on SARS protesters?

DeepSight:
Explain away these verses -

Ephesians 1:11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will."

​Isaiah 46:10: "I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, 'My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'"


Your scripture says so, not me.

And there are instances of it - for example, where he instigated David to conduct a census and then killed 70, 000 Israelites for the conduct of the census. How absurd is that?


Then it must be presumed that what happened (the fall of man) was designed by the designer - God.

Nothing needs "explaining away".
What happened - the fall of man - known to the omniscient God and factored into His plan. And the price for all mankind was paid in full, by God. It's certainly a legit question to ask why that way? I don't know, there are various attempts to figure it out, but scripture is not explicit.

The scripture does say this though
1 Corinthians 1 - 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” 20 Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the [h]disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Your - freewill - choice.


TV

^{...ah! comparing the Everlasting God to mohammeds alter-ego. Low blow bro'}

NerdCat:
Whatever we call the attribute in question, an omnipotent being who observes preventable child suffering and observes it anyway still has an explanation problem.

I said previously, perhaps consider your own finiteness and limited understanding. Maybe revisit your own contextualising mercy as an attribute of God.

Is mercy God's sole or primary attribute? What of Holiness, Justice and other attributes. Your wanting an explanation and your dissatisfaction with what you can fathom about how God dispenses mercy does not make you righteous, just or merciful. Nor does it legitimise how you choose to understand it and demand that God apply it.

NerdCat:
What kind of restoration plan requires centuries of children dying as operational overhead? Also, announcing consequences in advance doesn't absolve the designer who made the consequences disproportionately heritable by innocents.

As above, what makes you think you are able to perfectly take the measure of what is proportionate or not?

NerdCat:
Don't go rolling off the cliff now. Let's take it from the top once again - I charged an omnipotent deity who permits preventable suffering with moral responsibility, which is categorically not the same as blaming God for every scraped knee. Piggybacking on that, death as a natural biological phenomenon is a separate conversation entirely from a child's brain tumour.

In light of omnipotence, all suffering is preventable. Could God not have excluded death from His creation? Is death not, suffering, harm or pain? Why focus on an emotive user case. Why do you limit your demand to "suffering children"?


TV