The True Nature of God

[Greatis]

good question Dev. I do believe that man's ways are actually predestined. If god is all knowing and he knows what will happen throughout your life then hey you don't really have choice. How are you gonna choose when he has already created you with the mindset to be a lawyer. He knows you will be a lawyer cause that's how he created you.

[wheelman]

Its funny you say that. This topic makes no sense in debating then.

If I choose to do something, I ultimately create my destiny so to speak, I choose my destination, where I want to go and what I want to do. It was NOT determined by anyone or anything but ME.

To debate this topic would be futile because you would simply be attributing your actions as being caused (destined) by someone else which isn't so.

God / Jehovah / Yahweh / YHWH interferes if he CHOOSES to do so. (Look at Abraham and what he would have done to Isaac)

[deakie]

you see when you look at it, how strange it can get.
no one likes the idea that they dont have choice.
but then, do you really have choice. lets look at it practically then.

someone once said something similar to this.
you narrow down their choices, then the only choice they have left, they will take. they will also think its their own descision to do so.

we continue to make choices everyday. at least we feel we do. its okay too that we believe that what we do is our choice. its not neccesarily the truth though. we just dont have the facts to prove otherwise or for the argument.

this discussion of the nature of god shows more clearly what i have been saying.
god does do as he wants. wether by will or choice. they are totally interlinked and cannot be seperated.
my point is this, throughout the bible, the scene is the same.
man is constantly sacrificed to death, wether he be good or not. he isnt perfect.
neither are a good few of the angels from the look of things. they are powerful, yes, but some not perfect.

so why the big argument throughout the ages. it has to have a point. we are living the argument. we dont have any choices in the argument as such. we hope for a promise. that it will be worth all the suffering at the end. that we would lose our imperfections, which causes all the problems.
even if you are good, your never gonna be good enough. christ illustrated that by saying, no one is good ecept that father. he alone is the benefactor. once you see this, then you will begin to understand the rest.

if now we are major screwups. then there aint no hope according to doing good works. the law would have you bound for death by the one mistake you make. your life would hang on tender hooks every year, week, day, minute, second. you are a screw up. yur gonna fail. its inevetable that you do.

however....lets look at the one who no matter what he does wrong, still go on living. yes thats right, the devil.
he enters into the house of god as he likes. he chats with god, even after dusting jobs family etc....he teases jesus to save himself and to worship him. he mocks all the works of god.
can someone point out a scripture where the devil actually curses god? i wanna remember.

then, through all this, god gets angry at times. he expresses regret. at what? the work he made? consider it.

christ, foretold, comes to save the world. the world? what about the ppl in the world? well, i guess they meant everything. which is what he says when hung on the cross.
father i have lost nothing except for that one (or the evil one). the devil.
even when tempted by the devil, christ at no time curses him. he urges him to leave him alone and to worship the father.

christ can save everyting cept the devil. i wonder why? why not minister to the devil and say to him, look, this is god's work, leave it nuh man. find a job and move on dude.
why wasnt it told that christ ministered unto him.

yet they say he is to be conquered through the blood of the lamb. made weak like men. without power. like christ was?

see, this is where i part from a useless church, filled with morons for teachers. he was right, they go heaping burdens and sayings on ppl without having a clue themselves. blind. not looking. teaching law and cover the truth about the good news. rejecting it without even a thought.

next post!

[deakie]

no disrespect intended against anyone....just my feelings about it.

so if man is imperfect and the work is for a purpose, then really, it isnt for us as such. its a lesson for someone. yes i know we are getting wised up too. but really, its for the prodigal son. a parable that didnt make much sense. not for man anyway. what lot did we get and go into the world with to squander? yu an i werent born perfect, were we? most of us aint rich. what were we given that we squandered.
the only thing we got is the good news. up to that point, there was no reward cause we stood condemned, no matter what. the good news frees us from condemnation, no matter what. hey, thats what makes it good news. everybody gets saved. the whole world in fact.

so who loses in this? well the one who the bondsman couldnt save at first. his equal. his powerful angel colleague. he doesnt die that he needs saving is it. he is at gods mercy.

so we conquer his wanton tricks, against us, through the blood of the lamb. we can no longer get in trouble. nothing he says or do will cause us to to fall short of life.

thats his first humiliation. he no longer has control over our destiny. hence why the part that says, we will listen for him but not hear him....ok, matrox and xeno, the words are not spot on and perfect. the gist is the same. his power to cause suffering has become irrelevant. he is made weak.
man is able to mock him....have you been made weak like us?
needing help? (what? like a prodigal returned?)

yu see the vision of the temple and the city. it having light. this light is shined upon all. we see the robes of the ones washed clean. too numerous to mention.
it says, outside are the ones who just cant see the liberty. it calls them disbelievers.
he did say it would be harder for some. i guess it would take longer.
he closes his work by saying the tent of god descends and makes its home amongst men. there is no more a vision of hell. all have learned. the former things are long gone.
everyting moves on.
the devil is humbled......possibly there will be a party....could it be that he does see the pointless struggle of thinking himself whole, when detached from the very god that made him? all because he thought it too much to serve man. that he was so important, he shouldnt be looking after them. so he hatched a plan, to make them self reliant.

im sure god saw this before he did. he prolly just wanted him to realise the foolishness of it all.

it was christ who said, everthing in heaven is worth more than us. he said it to show the power and role they have over the work. their appointment. the ones who desert, he keeps locked in a place. they werent allowed to interfere with the lesson. not till it becomes time for the devil to face the truth. they will have to witness it then. all along, the devil is described as being the one of darkness. ignorance? lacking in understanding? you tell me......its how it reads really....
by the way, wasnt he the one that walked amongst the precious stones. ruler over the earth. gods most trusted work.
he must have had some serious favour or capability. or was god just being unfathomable as usual.

[deakie]

so i have to ask myself this....what choice i make, what effect does it have......christ told us that we would moan about our lot......he told daniel that he would recieve his lot too......if now god predicts the future and tells us of things to come.....that he himself does it.....what about the wicked rulers he calls forth? they had no choice did they?

i know, its a dangerous thought isnt it.....that even the wicked seems to get in....but the workers in the field did complain to the master about the pay.....where some worked harder than the others who just came.....he showed they had all bargained for the same price......i guess this price is the same....its life......what else would you want if given the choice?

i think though there is other pay.......its the pay that attaches itself to the according to your works you will get pay......

i think that pay is the things he listed....power, glory and honour......it seems those were the things the disciples were slaving for......but there is the argument about choice.....

[wheelman]

you see when you look at it, how strange it can get.
no one likes the idea that they dont have choice.
but then, do you really have choice.

There is and will always be choice. Don't let some fancy sentence about illusion and power fool you. You yourself made a decision to do what you want to do, no one else.

someone once said something similar to this.

you narrow down their choices, then the only choice they have left, they will take. they will also think its their own descision to do so.

It is their own decision to do so

we continue to make choices everyday. at least we feel we do. its okay too that we believe that what we do is our choice. its not neccesarily the truth though. we just dont have the facts to prove otherwise or for the argument.

HAHA, This boils down to what I said in the post before yours. Anyone can simply state (just to win the argument) that whatever we do is foreordained or predestined. In other words this discussion makes no sense.

this discussion of the nature of god shows more clearly what i have been saying.
god does do as he wants. wether by will or choice. they are totally interlinked and cannot be seperated.

Thats True, God does or chooses what he wants to do.

my point is this, throughout the bible, the scene is the same. man is constantly sacrificed to death, wether he be good or not. he isnt perfect. neither are a good few of the angels from the look of things. they are powerful, yes, but some not perfect.

All of gods angels are perfect Deakie.

so why the big argument throughout the ages. it has to have a point. we are living the argument. we dont have any choices in the argument as such. we hope for a promise. that it will be worth all the suffering at the end. that we would lose our imperfections, which causes all the problems. even if you are good, your never gonna be good enough. christ illustrated that by saying, no one is good ecept that father.

Faith and Hope Deakie, Faith and Hope. God knows we are imperfect so he will never expect from us what we cannot give him, all he asks of us is our best, serve him with our whole heart, mind and soul. He knows our limitations.

if now we are major screwups. then there aint no hope according to doing good works. the law would have you bound for death by the one mistake you make. your life would hang on tender hooks every year, week, day, minute, second. you are a screw up. yur gonna fail. its inevetable that you do.

Repentance Deakie, Repentance. This doens't mean that you can sin and repent sin and repent. God can examine your heart to see if it is set toward doing right and that the wrong you did is truly by mistake.

however....lets look at the one who no matter what he does wrong, still go on living. yes thats right, the devil. he enters into the house of god as he likes. he chats with god, even after dusting jobs family etc....he teases jesus to save himself and to worship him. he mocks all the works of god.

Just a little while longer and the wicked one will be no more.


More to come....later on

[Xenocrates]

Devnull, even though I should be sleeping, I am compelled to respond. You see, Deakie is speaking quite bluntly the truth here. Whether you choose to accept it or not is rather inconsequential. But I will seek to as best as possible illustrate something very simple to you.

There is and will always be choice. Don't let some fancy sentence about illusion and power fool you. You yourself made a decision to do what you want to do, no one else.

- What exactly is a choice Devnull? Is it the ability to choose from an infinite number of possible paths, or a finite number of paths? Are there an infinite number of things you can do with your life or a finite number? If you think carefully, you will realize that there are only a finite number of things you can choose to do. As such, reduce the scale of perception for a minute, to that of a lab rat in a Skinner box.

The rat can either choose to press the lever and feed himself with food pellets, or starve to death. Two choices. The rat WILL get hungry, and in fumbling around for food, the lever will be pressed, and food pellets will be launched into the Skinner Box. It was all predestinated in the very architectural design of the Skinner Box. Therefore, the mere fact that the rat will inevitably discover the lever's pellet producing capabilities, tells us that the rat's choices are nothing but an illusion to him. He is not intelligent enough to know that he is in a Skinner box and that he is being experimented with. The rat's circumstance and situation can be predetermined by eliciting conditioned responses in the rat's psyche - hence solidifying the fact of predetermination.

[Xenocrates]

Now let's expand back to a macroscopic scale.

This entire universe is a Skinner box. The universe itself is not infinite. It's still a finite realm of reality. There are only a finite number of things you can choose to do. Just because the scale of reality is far beyond your scope of imagination doesn't mean that it doesn't end. Since God sits on the outside of this glass box we call a universe, it's only logical to deduce that everything that is happening inside this box must have been predetermined. You can choose to do this or that. You may even say "if the Lord wills". But consider this:

The simulacrum is never what hides the truth - it is truth that hides the fact that there is none. The simulacrum is true.

- In other words, this universe is not merely a veil over our eyes for another realm of reality we cannot see. Rather, the mere fact that we are inside this finite universe, dictates a plain and simple truth:

We are simulacra living inside a simulacrum, all a part of God's gradiose simulation that we call the Universe.

You're part of the clockwork Devnull. It's an undeniable fact which you must accept. Christian or not. Even Christ was predetermined to die on the cross from the very outset of creation. You cannot deny this fact. It is in plain black and white in the bible.

On a more microscopic scale however, this doesn't mean that you should consider just dropping everything because your future is already determined, (in fact, the very act of dropping everything was also predetermined). You still have to live your life the way you think you want it to go, even though it's still part of the simulation.

I will admit though that there are some things that mortals were never meant to even attempt contemplating. This is one of those things.

So live your life the way you want, because there's no point in even having this discussion if you are not willing to accept the truth; that there is no truth...

...except however you love contemplating higher things like Godkid, me, Gillion, Deakie and others love to. ;D

[deakie]

actually i find that both dev and matronxy have very sharp and acute minds.....me love the way they zero in pon the heart of things too.....

see, im not disagreeing with you about what you say dev...its not my intention....im just detailing, as you know, what i see....i agree with the points you have raised...im not taking away from them...in fact, what im doing is showing the things that others tend to leave off....to me, they are the most important bits....

so only on a couple of your points then....

All of gods angels are perfect Deakie

and as such, they are like god? unable to commit sin?
for it is breaking the rules that makes sin becomes apparent right?
1/3 of heavens angels were with the devil in not accepting what god had to say.....for this they get thrown out.....but who does the throwing? were it not other 'perfect angels'? there is no mention that god threw them out....it says room wasnt found for them anymore and michael was the one that warred with them......it seems more likely, not a battle of swords but one of thought.....the rest is conjecture....

so we have the first of those in darkness....being cut off from a truth they werent party to......oh you think they were?
hey, why do all in heaven stands anxious, well thats a bit strong, eager then, to hear what is written in the seven sealed scrolls....scrolls written before the founding of the world.....like the author knew what was gonna happen...eh?

so what is this sacred mystery......long made...privy to none....the angel declares the mystery belongs to god.....he declares it in mid heaven, is this so that all of those above and below will hear it? the final declaration? that the work is now finished?
then you mean to tell me all along, the work was still being made, like in not finished....
then how could we possibly draw conclusions about it....seems to me that those perfect beings are in the dark just as we are....

Repentance Deakie, Repentance. This doens't mean that you can sin and repent sin and repent. God can examine your heart to see if it is set toward doing right and that the wrong you did is truly by mistake

.

like an act of baptism.....we do something that we are really unsure of what we are doing.....we do something symbolic for our sins really arent washed away are they?

we repent when we realise that we have erred....we cannot repent before then, it would have no meaning.....
this i said before with the opening and closing of eyes.....if you see your sin, it remains...i figure that if we percieve it to be sin, it remains as such....so we get given a new tool of guidance...the law is to be written on our hearts....the true law....the law of conscience perhaps? to urge us to do to others as we would hope for them to do to us.....so repentance comes in when we feel sorry and bad for what we have done according to our conscience...isnt that also a human trait....unless what we do that is considered wrong, is not held as wrong by us....like in the differing cultures....whats the solution.....build a global culture and then sieze it and make it right? sounds like a plan to me....

Just a little while longer and the wicked one will be no more.

no one said what would become of them eventually. would they disappear...no mention of that...just that they are around forever.....or could it be simply that they are no longer wicked....that they have become righteous like the rest.....having learned the lesson....
i havent the right to block anothers hope do i? i also have faith that all things will be united....in some way.....

i look forward to the rest.....

[wheelman]

This is like trying to explain colour to a blind man.