God Owes Us Big Time

beanieboy

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Knight said:
It would make me SERIOUSLY question a person who promoted calvinistic theology. I do not.
.
:poly:
I had to go look up Calvinism :)


I know I'm going to regret this, but what, specifically is your problem with calvinism.
In a nutshell. And my advance apology for ever having asked the question. Just trying to understand your theology.
 

Nathon Detroit

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beanieboy said:
:poly:
I had to go look up Calvinism :)


I know I'm going to regret this, but what, specifically is your problem with calvinism.
In a nutshell. And my advance apology for ever having asked the question. Just trying to understand your theology.
No problem.

But maybe this question should wait for now.

I want to see how you respond on the other thread.
 

beanieboy

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Knight said:

The good news: God won.
The bad news: there were only 8 people remaining.

How did God "win"?
If God destroyed al the evil people, Satan won by a longshot, taking all of those souls to hell, right?

And come to think of it, God also destroyed the other evil monkeys, and sheep, and giraffes, and llamas, etc.
 

allsmiles

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Poly said:
So you think He should have just let man go forever in his wickedness. Real nice attitude you have there.

What you call wickedness I call natural. I don't think there's anything wrong with the way we are, I do think that some of the things humans are capable of doing are wrong. There's a difference and I think it's significant. I like my attitude a lot, I think very highly of humanity, you denegrate it. Why are you so ashamed of your nature? If god didn't want you to be this way he wouldn't have allowed it or preordained it or whatever.

If life is so bad it's because man chose for it to be this way.

Life is this bad because this is the way life is, we as humans simply react to the environment.

Why don't you try getting over being so mad at God because He didn't preprogram everybody to be nice. If He did, and everybody loved him because He made them to do so, is that really love?

I'm not angry with god, I think he's great. And no, that wouldn't be love, and the fact that reality dictates that we have the ability to do as we wish is evidence enough that god gives us whatever leeway we would like. Frankly I think that that is the least he could do.

It isn't really love unless you have the choice not to. If parents had the option to pre-program their children into loving them, would that be a healthy thing to do? What parent would want the love of their kid because they were programmed to do so?

Good point, I agree with you. If god wants us to love him despite the mediocre and painful environment that we have to experience, than maybe he should try relating to us, like, by experiencing the pain himself. Wait! According to your bible he did! Jesus and god are one in the same and jesus suffered tremendous pain and torment.

What's so far fetched in believing that it was a gesture on god's part to experience what we have to go through to relate to us, to know our pain and to suffer in order to make things right between us.

I want to be a good parent to my kids, teaching them what's right so that they make right choices on their own and love me because they want to and because they choose to.

You sound like an excellent parent. I know good parents because of my own.

Life is painful and god doesn't have to experience it. You believe in a god that places us here, allows horrible things to happen to us, and by the way, if you don't kiss up to him he'll let you go to hell after you die as if life wasn't hard enough. Why? For his own glory. Reality and nature do not point to this, the only thing that indicates that god's nature is this sadistic is the bible.
 

allsmiles

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Knight, I believe god owes us help when we ask for it, room to breath and a comfortable place to go when we die, even if that means our personalities are annihilated, though I don't believe that that is what will happen. I believe the myth of jesus points to life after death, I see it in jesus, mithra, even the setting and rising of the sun. I don't think it's far fetched to believe that god manifested himself in the form of jesus to experience the pains and joys of life so that he might relate to us and in a small way, share our suffering and joy as a peace offering to us.
 

Justin (Wiccan)

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Knight said:
God knows everything KNOWABLE. He chooses NOT to know the future actions of His creation because He wanted to create us in a way that we had our own freewill. He wanted to create us in a way so not to coerce our love for Him.

Greetings, Knight,

As much as I disliked Calvininstic theology before I left the Church, I do have to point out that Jer 1:5 gives some real difficulties to your view. However, I don't want to disrupt the current convo into a Calvinist-Arminianist debate, so....

Justin
 

Poly

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
Greetings, Knight,

As much as I disliked Calvininstic theology before I left the Church, I do have to point out that Jer 1:5 gives some real difficulties to your view.

Not really. This passage speaks of God knowing Jeremiah before he was born. There are certain things that God purposed to come about or to know but they are few. He can do this and still allow creation to run it's course giving man the ability to make his own choices without being the kind of God that's found in Calvinistic theology.
 

Nathon Detroit

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beanieboy said:
The good news: God won.
The bad news: there were only 8 people remaining.

How did God "win"?
If God destroyed al the evil people, Satan won by a longshot, taking all of those souls to hell, right?

And come to think of it, God also destroyed the other evil monkeys, and sheep, and giraffes, and llamas, etc.
You are now proving my point about your intentions here on TOL.
 

Nathon Detroit

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
Greetings, Knight,

As much as I disliked Calvininstic theology before I left the Church, I do have to point out that Jer 1:5 gives some real difficulties to your view.
No, actually it doesn't.

Is it possible you know very little (if any) about my "view"?
 

Justin (Wiccan)

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Poly said:
There are certain things that God purposed to come about or to know but they are few.

This view is a bit out of the norm for "average" Christianity--not abberant or heretical, just a bit odd. However, I've already hijacked the thread enough ... I really didn't want to disrupt it beyond the brief mention.

Sorry about that.

Justin
 

Poly

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
This view is a bit out of the norm for "average" Christianity--not abberant or heretical, just a bit odd. However, I've already hijacked the thread enough ... I really didn't want to disrupt it beyond the brief mention.

Sorry about that.

Justin

You might want to check out some of the threads in the "Dispensation" forum. There are a lot in there for and against Calvinism that you might find interesting.
 

Crow

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Justin (Wiccan) said:
This view is a bit out of the norm for "average" Christianity--not abberant or heretical, just a bit odd. However, I've already hijacked the thread enough ... I really didn't want to disrupt it beyond the brief mention.

Sorry about that.

Justin

The majority of "average" Christians have very little knowledge of the Bible. They learn piecemeal platitudes and cannot see the forest nor the trees--they just keep staring blankly at the map waiting for the truth to jump out and identify itself in bumper sticker sized bytes.
 

Agape4Robin

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Crow said:
The majority of "average" Christians have very little knowledge of the Bible. They learn piecemeal platitudes and cannot see the forest nor the trees--they just keep staring blankly at the map waiting for the truth to jump out and identify itself in bumper sticker sized bytes.
:BRAVO:
 

allsmiles

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Crow said:
The majority of "average" Christians have very little knowledge of the Bible. They learn piecemeal platitudes and cannot see the forest nor the trees--they just keep staring blankly at the map waiting for the truth to jump out and identify itself in bumper sticker sized bytes.

So what would be the solution? How do you better educate christians on the bible, especially with so many conflicting sects and denominations?

Little off topic, but that's all right.
 

beanieboy

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Knight said:
You are now proving my point about your intentions here on TOL.

It's an honest question.

There were, who knows? Thousands of people on earth, all of them evil except Noah and his wife and kids.

Satan: 1000
God: 8

How did God win?
Isn't Satan's goal to win souls away from God?
Killing someone isn't a way to win them to heaven?

In my opinion, if the sacrifice of Jesus did happen, that is actually how God won - the act of trying to kill Christ was actually the very thing that saved everyone.
Do, Christ actually conquered death, whether we want to believe it or not. It's just a matter of time before we find God now.

But if you walked in the Pearly Gates and God said, "look! We won! 20 People!!" wouldn't you kind of think of that as a huge loss?
 
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Nathon Detroit

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beanieboy said:
It's an honest question.

There were, who knows? Thousands of people on earth, all of them evil except Noah and his wife and kids.

Satan: 1000
God: 8

How did God win?
God thwarted the attempt to corrupt the plan of redemption for mankind.
Isn't Satan's goal to win souls away from God?
Killing someone isn't a way to win them to heaven?
Apparently the earth had become so wicked that wiping them out was the best solution.

You can reject the story if you like but certainly it isn't illogical or irrational.

In my opinion, if the sacrifice of Jesus did happen, that is actually how God won - the act of trying to kill Christ was actually the very thing that saved everyone.
Do, Christ actually conquered death, whether we want to believe it or not. It's just a matter of time before we find God now.

But if you walked in the Pearly Gates and God said, "look! We won! 20 People!!" wouldn't you kind of think of that as a huge loss?
Actually you said "actually" too many times for me to understand your point.
 

beanieboy

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Semanitics? Really? I used actually twice. That's extremely petty.

This is why I think people here don't really want to answer, nor care about the unsaved.

My point is, that unless Christ saved us all (which is a radical viewpoint), he hasn't won. If the devil can destroy or mislead the majority of souls, the devil has won. That is the point of the devil - to lead as many souls away from God as he can. If he leads more away than are brought to God, how has God one? Sure, God is the last one standing, but he's also lost the souls he loves.
 
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