02 November 2005

GOD

I had an epiphany today. I talked to Ishmal for a few hours about Christianity. It's come to my attention that I understand the Bible more than most Christians I know. When making arguments, I provide quotes from the Bible, and I provide logical reasoning. Most Christians do not. My epiphany was much more brilliant and elaborate when it came into my mind, but like all great things, it dissolved before I could put it into words. Like a great and powerful dream, it melted off my mind just as quickly as it formed. The remnants of the epiphany, what I could gather, are as follows:

....If our destiny is known, as it must be since God is all-knowing, then there is no action we can make to yield an alternate destiny. This is because actions that would yield a destiny unknown to God would mean that God is not omniscient, which is impossible.

It is a prerequisite that God is omniscient, so doing something or having a destiny that He would not know of is impossible. That means that the only possible actions we can make are actions that coincide with what will yield the destiny He knew we were going to have.

Our actions are predetermined, they follow a set path that God already knows about. We are unable to change our actions into anything unknown or against God. Therefore, we do NOT truly have free will in the sense that our Destiny is in our own hands. We follow a set path, the path God is said to have set for us. If all actions are done through, by, and for God, we have no means of changing our path to conflict with His will, and our acts and end is known, then there can be no such thing as free will in context to Christianity.


This proves that there is no such thing as free will. If there is no such thing as free will, that means all sin was forced to occur. This follows the Bible exactly:

"For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. ~Jude 1:4"

"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: ~Eph 1:11"

Another thing to consider:
If God willingly and purposefully creates human beings to go to Hell(as the Bible says people are made that will go to Hell, and God knows they will go to Hell, they had no free will- as I just proved) then that proves God is not all-loving. You cannot love a creature and then have its ultimate end be in Hell. You cannot love a creature when it's sole purpose is to suffer. So, upon analysis, God is not all-loving, but the Bible describes Him as being such. Therefore, the deduction is that this all-loving God described in the Bible does not do all-loving things, therefore He is either flawed(He is supposed to put forth a certain quality but does not), or He is flawfully described(which means the Bible, His Word-is wrong, which means He is flawed or that religion as a whole being based on the Bible is flawed). This disproves the Christian God's existence in context to the Bible.

And I'll go ahead and post a wonderful Bible quote that prove the common Christian ideas wrong. Most Christians say that all sins are equal, this is not true.

"Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee HATH THE GREATER SIN." John 19:11

I'm going to end this entry with a few questions.
1. What makes Christianity superior to any other religion? Why is it that religions such as Greek Mythology, Buddhism, Wiccanism, etc are all wrong, but the Bible is right? No religions have proof of existence or validation of any sort, so why do people choose to believe in Christianity over any other religion? If you choose to believe in Christianity, why don't you believe in Apollo? What makes your religion right over other religions?

2. How can people reconcile glaring overisghts in the Bible? How is God perfect if He says He makes mistakes?

“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth...And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them” (Genesis 6:5-7)

God is all-knowing, He knows what his works will do, so why would God repent for one of his own actions? Did he not know what would happen? To repent is to admit a mistake, how can God be perfect and make a mistake?
http://www.livejournal.com/users/swinger1988/2004/05/05/


The above link is to a prehistoric Swinger post about Bible contradictions. Another interesting contradiction is this:
"So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." (John 8:7)
--"CRY aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." (Isaiah 58:1)
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and doctrine." (2 Timothy 4:2)

3. Why did Adam receive punishment for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Without the knowledge to discern good from evil, how can one be held responsible for actions that are evil? To receive a punishment, one is to have known that an action was wrong before hand. Adam did not know his actions were wrong, because he did not understand right from wrong, he had not been given that knowledge, but he was held accountable for failing a test on knowledge and information he was never given. You might say that God told Adam not to eat from the tree, but without knowing right from wrong, eating from the tree was just as right or wrong as listening to God's word. If Adam had no knowledge of good from evil, could not discern the two, how is he to be held responsible for commiting evil? Adam coudn't have known it was evil without the knowledge of good and evil.

All that aside, if he DID know it was evil, somehow, why did God seem to entrap Adam? Why create Eve to lure Adam? Why put the tree there in the first place? If it is to provide a test, why test at all? God knows the actions that are going to take place, so why choose to punish Adam when he knows he was going to do wrong? What does that prove?

4. Why are people created to suffer? Why are people created to go to Hell? God knows the destiny of all, why does he set into motion the creation of beings when he knows they will suffer, or knows they will end up in Hell? What purpose is shown, other than that God is not all-loving.

5. Why am I to believe in religion, or anything at all? The only thing I can prove is my own existence, whatever existence that is. The next best thing I have is science and mathematics, which thus far have been shown to be true through obserations which may or may not be true. Science and mathematics, then, are as true as anything can be. I can use science and math, I can see the existence in front of me, I can manipulate it, test it, see it. Religion, on the other hand, is not nearly as tangible. Religion, to me, seems as true or as tangible as a children's story. I see and read some absurd tale that goes against testable and observable truths, just like in fairy tales, where frogs turn into princes, witches cast spells, etc. Jesus walks on water, fish and bread multiply, and water turns to wine. Sounds like a fairy tale if I ever read one.

Believing in the Bible is the equivalent to believing in something that goes against everything you see and observe, the very laws of nature that govern the surroundings. If I told you that the sky was purple, why would you not believe it? It seems more credible than a book written thousands of years ago by people you've never met, and in languages now dead, re-written over and over by fallible hands and bent to support leaders at the time. My word seems more plausible and possible than the Bible. What prevents you from believing fairy tales, believing that the sky is not purple-while believing the Bible is true?

I would like for someone to explain to me how they believe something written by flawed humans thousands of years ago, written to reflect the old society and laws which are now outdated, over any other absurd story, and even over science and mathematics? It doesn't seem logical.

And remember, kids, if God gave us the wisdom and ability to question, think, and reason, why would He not want us to use it? If I am too inquisitive, too harsh, too brutal, too logical, it is because God created me in His image, for His purpose. I'm merely doing what He wanted me to do.



~the manic expressive
~Ryan Vergel

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

why does it seem lately that you are attacking christianity? you said that you accept all people for what they are- why are you trying to prove them wrong?

non serviam said...

This was Ryan's post, but I agree with him on most of it.

While I can't speak for him, I would say that this post isn't attacking Christianity persay, it's merely displaying some of the inherent flaws of the religion that most 'Christians' ignore because they don't care to ponder their religion in any kind of rational manner.

While you may say, 'but that isn't what faith is about,' I would say you're wrong. Faith is an EDUCATED guess. It isn't just something that you fart out one day because you want to believe in something. The post displays a contempt I have (and I think Ryan shares) for people who don't think before they make decisions, regardless of whether they're faith-based or not.

I would say that Christians should follow Kierkegaard's model. But most Christians don't read any kind of literature that analyzes their religion in any way shape or form.

ryan said...

I do accept them, and I love everyone. But with my compassion and caring, I want to give out understanding. I don't like to see my fellow man making big decisions and defending big things with little or no education.

I'm not saying Christians are bad, or Christianity is bad, everything has its flaw. The only truly proveable thing, like I said, is one's existence. Beyong that, everything is a guess or a deduction; religions, especially Christianity, seem to be the least-educated guesses one can make to assess reality.

Does that make sense? I see people's guesses, and I want to help them. If they're going to believe in Christianity, like I used to, they should know about it. And yes, a lot of these questions are there because they're the exact questions I asked Christians I knew, and none of them could answer the questions. Very few Christians seem to know the Bible whatsoever, they spit out trite phrases that gain the most attention because they seem to be positive. They only listen to what a preacher or parent say, both of whom ignore the darker side of the Bible.

Women can't teach, men are made to go to Hell, homosexuals are hell-bound, there are very dark sides to Christianity which no one reads about or talks about.

Why choose to make an entry on Christianity?

Christianity is the largest religion in the US. To make a topic on religion, I need to both have its targeted audience be large(check), and I need to know a lot about it(check). Christianity fits the criteria perfectly.

I argue and think about the origin of existence everday, it never escapes my mind. Why was I created? What is the origin of my life? What will happen if or when I die?

Yes, the last post on swinger's livejournal, and the first major entry on this blog were religiously based, however, the most controversial entry as of late is the race entry on swinger.

It's not that I'm stuck on Christianity, it's just that was this month's theme. It went from racism, to pre-marital sex in Christianity, and that led to a discussion with Ishmal which led to this entry.

I think my next entry will be about the US Pledge of Allegiance, and I'll throw flag burning in there for good measure.

By the way, who was the anonymous posted?

I turned on non-blog user comment capabilities so people could comment, but I was hoping they would at least leave an identity.

Anonymous said...

anonymous was me, Justinm87, the COI.

you just seemed caught up on the whole christianity is contradictory, etc. blah blah. you sent me links or something that had shit in there talking about how God writes in parables to confuse people and make them go to hell, and other stuff like that. you were crowding my religious affiliation, and it made me uncomfortable. then you post this, and because of the prior crowding, i assumed you were attacking it.

Anonymous said...

Just because God knows what you will do, does not mean that you didn't deciede to do that via your own free will.

Anonymous said...

yes, it does mean you didnt decide.

god knows everything.

you making a choice is something.

thus god knows the choice you make.

making it not a choice at all.


assuming you believe in god, believing in free will is
1) a blatant insubordinate act to your own god
2) disproving the god that you believe in

--designated randy--