Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 0:11:25 GMT -4
Con artist? Where did that come from?
Am I "conning" a five year old when I drive him to school, since he couldn't possibly drive himself there?
|
|
|
Post by trevor on Feb 14, 2008 4:31:18 GMT -4
I personally believe there is no such thing as 'supernatural' I think that if such labeled phenomena exist they are part of the natural world which we are unable to connect with using the technology or abilities of today. But I definitely agree with Jason that if God exists he would have to follow the laws of physics. If he does exist I would assume that they would be his laws anyway. How would Jesus' miracles have worked - with superior knowledge of the physical world or methods we have today which appeared in those days as miraculous? If you know what I mean.
|
|
|
Post by RAF on Feb 14, 2008 6:35:42 GMT -4
Jason...if you told your 5 year old that you were using your "god powers" to transport him to school, then yes, you would be "conning" him.
My point is that if you remove the supernatural aspect from god, then we are left with an ordinary being who deceives other beings into believing that he is someone "special" simply because he understands physics better.
If this being went further, and demanded that he be obeyed under penalty of everlasting damnation, then I must ask why anyone would feel the need to worship someone like that??
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 12:14:41 GMT -4
Jason...if you told your 5 year old that you were using your "god powers" to transport him to school, then yes, you would be "conning" him. But I'm not telling him "I'm using my god powers". I just tell him "I'm driving you to school." I could try to tell him exactly how I accomplish this, but it's not really something he can understand at this point in his life, so I ask him to just trust me instead, and he'll be able to learn how it works when he's ready. Read the scriptures and you'll see that God never says "I'm using my god powers." Whenever He gives any explanation it is what he's about to do, not how He's going to do it. He's not intentionally hiding things from us - He simply can't tell us how he does these things because we wouldn't understand at this point. Because of our familial relationship. God isn't just a very powerful "ordinary being" - he's our Father. He created us. And He is a Father who loves us and wants us to become like Him, so He tells us how we can do so. This involves self-discipline and learning to love others as He loves us. Worshipping God and following His commandments is for our benefit, not His. It's not an arbitrary judgement of God that damns anyone, it is simply the way the universe works. If you refuse to do good you simply can't gain the benefits you would have gained if you had.
|
|
|
Post by RAF on Feb 14, 2008 13:13:07 GMT -4
Never mind...
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 13:43:28 GMT -4
Why should the quality of being "supernatural" make a difference in whether a being is worthy of worship anyway?
|
|
|
Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 14, 2008 14:00:43 GMT -4
If God has supernatural abilities it means he is truly different than us and we can never hope to gain those abilities. Maybe that makes him worthy of worship, maybe it doesn't. But if he just has a better understanding of the laws of physics then we can eventually gain that same knowledge and become equals with God, which would mean he's nothing special and not worthy of being worshiped.
If we came across a primitive tribe who thought our technology made us magical, should they worship us or should we explain to them that without our technology we're pretty much the same as them?
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 14:10:33 GMT -4
The primitive tribe analogy isn't quite right, because our relationship to God isn't that He's just some random guy we met who happens to know more than us - He is also our creator and parent.
The awe that small children have of their parents is something very like worship. Are parents exploiting their children when they rely on the child's veneration of them to get them to learn, or to do right?
Is your mother or father and your relationship with them "nothing special" because you can eventually become like them?
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 14:13:46 GMT -4
If you removed the parental relationship you might have a point - what would we owe God then? But the parental relationship is there.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 14, 2008 15:30:20 GMT -4
Well that's not really how it works. He gives you a choice. You can choice Him, do what he wants and develop a close relationship with him and spend forever with Him, or you can reject Him, go your own way and spend forever with yourself. God doesn't force "damnation" on anyone, he gives them what they choose, to be separated from God. Now biblically speaking, separation from God was enough to kill Jesus, so for the ordinary person I can certainly under it being like an enteral fire and darkness which Hell is discribed as.
And what if it's a caseof his being constrained by the lawsof physics of a Universe that is larger than our subset of the universe. In other words, what if what we seen and understand is only part of the real universe, that there are parts of the universe beyond our ability to perceive it. We can't just "learn" what abilities God has if this were true because unless we could break out of our subset we couldn't explore the entire aspect of the Universe.
Let me go back to my hypothetical (and perhaps not so hypothetical) 4 deminsional being. To those of us living in this 3 dimensional world (we'll ignore time and string theory for a moment) it would be impossible to see and understand everything that 4-D being could do, nor could we ever hope to learn what such a being could do, it simply isn't learnable. However such a being would still be constrained by the physics of such a 4-D Universe even if they could do things in our 3D world that would seem to us to be miraculous and supernatural.
|
|
|
Post by LunarOrbit on Feb 14, 2008 15:33:21 GMT -4
So basically God is just a scientist who understands physics and genetics better than we do. How would we even know God really created us and isn't just taking credit for something that happened naturally? Do we take his word for it? "Believe me... or else!" seems to be Gods standard response to questions like that.
Being a "parental figure" or creator shouldn't allow someone to have complete control over someone else's life. I would have ignored my parents if they wanted control my life too strictly, no matter how much I cared for them.
If you were a clone would you worship the scientist who created you? Would you obey every request he made of you (ie. "let me cut your skull open so I can study your cloned brain")?
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 15:40:31 GMT -4
Well that's not really how it works. He gives you a choice. You can choice Him, do what he wants and develop a close relationship with him and spend forever with Him, or you can reject Him, go your own way and spend forever with yourself. God doesn't force "damnation" on anyone, he gives them what they choose, to be separated from God. Now biblically speaking, separation from God was enough to kill Jesus, so for the ordinary person I can certainly under it being like an enteral fire and darkness which Hell is discribed as. That is pretty much the LDS position. Hell is not a real physical place where burning hot pokers are shoved into your various orifaces by cackling, barbed-tail demons. It is your own pain at your realization that you have failed in your potential through your own choice, and the lack of what you might have gained otherwise.
|
|
|
Post by PhantomWolf on Feb 14, 2008 15:48:35 GMT -4
So basically God is just a scientist who understands physics and genetics better than we do. How would we even know God really created us and isn't just taking credit for something that happened naturally? Do we take his word for it? "Believe me... or else!" seems to be Gods standard response to questions like that. Being a "parental figure" or creator shouldn't allow someone to have complete control over someone else's life. I would have ignored my parents if they wanted control my life too strictly, no matter how much I cared for them. If you were a clone would you worship the scientist who created you? Would you obey every request he made of you (ie. "let me cut your skull open so I can study your cloned brain")? You still seem to think that it's a case of "Beleive me or else I'll do nasty things to you." it's not. God says "You can either do this and what is best for you will happen, choice me and try to live the way I want for you and you'll get the best out of yourself, the best out of our relationship, now and forever, or you can reject what I'm telling you is best for you, you can reject me and choice to do things your own way, but be warned that if you do, you're going to be without me forever which is like being in eternal fire. What you choose is up to you."
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 15:52:51 GMT -4
So basically God is just a scientist who understands physics and genetics better than we do. As far as how God works miracles, basically yes - it is through his greater knowledge and ability, and we may one day be able to acquire such on our own, but not without His assistance. How does a child know who his mother is? Doesn't he have to take her word for it? God does not want complete control over our lives. If He did, we coudn't stop Him from doing so. Instead He wants us to learn to control our own lives, and learn to chose good on our own. He gives us a helping hand in that direction without forcing us into it - the choice is always ours whether to follow His advice or not. In fact He's so devoted to this principle of allowing us to learn for ourselves to chose good that He's willing to also allow us the freedom to chose evil, even when it harms us and others. Again, not a valid analogy. He's not a scientist working an experiment, He's a parent creating a child. There is a significant difference.
|
|
Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
|
Post by Jason on Feb 14, 2008 15:57:21 GMT -4
You still seem to think that it's a case of "Beleive me or else I'll do nasty things to you." it's not. God says "You can either do this and what is best for you will happen, choice me and try to live the way I want for you and you'll get the best out of yourself, the best out of our relationship, now and forever, or you can reject what I'm telling you is best for you, you can reject me and choice to do things your own way, but be warned that if you do, you're going to be without me forever which is like being in eternal fire. What you choose is up to you." Exactly. It's like a parent saying "don't touch that waffle iron - it's hot, and if you touch it you'll get burned." If the child touches the waffle iron anyway and gets burned, it would then be incorrect to say the parent burned the child with a waffle iron.
|
|