Creating Our Own Purpose Driven Life

March 21, 2008

I don’t believe in an afterlife, so every second of my time on earth is precious. The years remaining in my life provide the only chance I will have to fulfill my potential and make a difference. The people I love are to be cherished in the here and now for there will be no reunions in another realm. The suffering and pain on earth must be alleviated today because there is no happy ever after in the sky. Beauty is to be admired and appreciated now because tomorrow it will fade away. I must make meaning in life every day, because there is no-one providing a purpose for me to fulfill.

When I was a Christian, I wanted to believe that God endowed the universe with purpose and my personal life with meaning. I spent time every day reading the Bible to discover God’s purpose in the universe. I spent time praying every day to discover God’s will for my individual life. I was not alone in my search. Similar beliefs were held by most people for much of history and went largely unchallenged until nineteenth century philosophers began to consider the possibility that the universe and human life had no built-in meaning. For centuries science had been moving humanity further away from its prized position at the center of the universe.

After Galileo discovered that the Earth is not the center of the Solar System and Darwin revealed that humans had evolved from earlier primate ancestors, it was no longer possible to consider that humanity deserved any special place of honor. The answers that satisfied ancient philosophers who had very little knowledge about the workings of nature are no longer relevant to those of us living in the twenty-first century. Even believers know this is true. Some subconsciously hide from this knowledge by burying themselves in a reactionary fundamentalism that claims to provide pre-packaged meaning in an attempt to fend off modernity, while others bravely face the future looking for ways to make meaning through their religion in the face of postmodern meaninglessness. Those of us who are not believers have it a little easier, but it is still sometimes difficult to face the fact that the universe exists for no reason.

If the universe has no ultimate purpose, does that render our individual lives meaningless? I must answer with a resounding “NO!” Although meaning is not provided to us, we humans are uniquely qualified to make our own meaning and to find fulfillment through the act of living purposefully.

Our most basic purpose is to survive, as individuals and as a species. Evolution has given us, as it has every other species, the tools and drive to pursue this purpose. But mere survival no longer satisfies our need for meaning. Both the beautiful and ugly sides of human nature are the results of natural selection and evolution. Consciousness and culture give us the ability to cultivate the beautiful and weed out the ugly.

Selfishness, sexism, racism, and even homophobia may have provided survival benefits to early humans living in small bands and tribes, when our numbers were so few that it was important for every woman to bear children and for those children to be fiercely protected against all possible forms of harm from outsiders. But generosity, selflessness, philanthropy, and community also provided survival benefits as culture developed and eventually became more important than physical evolution in humanity’s journey. These traits are rewarded by our own bodies, as the pleasure centers in our brains are activated when we cooperate with our neighbors and colleagues, bond with our partners, and nurture our children.

The evolution of these physical characteristics has led to our search for meaning and given us the ability to look beyond our basic biological needs and instincts to choose a higher path. There is always someone to help, something to improve, something to hope for. That’s why meaning will never run out as long as humanity survives as a species. If we get discouraged trying to save the world, we can help our neighbor’s daughter with her homework. If we feel useless stuffing envelopes for a political campaign, we can volunteer at a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving. If our children are grown and have moved away, we can give time and money to a local charity. As we move from helping ourselves, to helping our families, neighbors, and societies, finally to helping our species and even our world, we find that our need for meaning is met by our own choices and actions.

There are many worthy causes and many ways to find meaning in life. Eventually each one of us must come to recognize those causes that are closest to our own hearts and those issues that arouse our strongest passions. These may change many times over the course of a lifetime. Some people find meaning in raising a family, others in pursuing a career, and still others in charity work, volunteering, creating art, public service, and many other spheres.

Every day we must search our hearts to find out what it is that gives us meaning and to find a way to fulfill our purpose while we attend to the needs of our families, work to make a living, struggle to keep up with our daily responsibilities, and are bombarded with negative news.

- writerdd

Entry Filed under: writerdd. Tags: de-conversion, life, meaning, propose, purpose driven life, religion.

117 Comments Add your own

1. My name is Botha (as in Earl) | March 19, 2008 at 9:46 pm

If you don’t believe in afterlife you should be a vegetarian!! because you are robbing animals from their last and only life too.

You DO NOT have to read negative news — try it — you can survive without it, AND you will feel better.

As you move forward in life, it is ok to leave your religion behind. It helps to keep an open mind. Be receptive and patient — the truth will find you.

eklagvirjulle@live.co.za
2. Zachary Weber | March 22, 2008 at 1:29 am

What does searching our hearts lead to? At times it does lead to more momentary beauty which is mutable (left to it’s self all things mutable will be muted, otherwise you cannot say they are able to be mutible), but more often it leads to hate, uglyness, and suffering.

If life is empty, as you say then it doesn’t matter what you do, at all. Why should I obey instinct? Why should I want beauty? Why should I live? This life containts some good that passes away in an instant and is often overwelmed by suffering. Whatever love or beauty is, when it is lost it horibly increases our suffering.

The greeks understood what life is like for your world view.

After pandoras box was open, and let out all it’s suffering, at last Hope was sent to keep us from ending our lives, keeping us here to recieve the tortures that overwhelm life. even life at it’s best from that world view is torture, because all those wonderful things will be lost.

We look at the things at this world and suffer, we look at the frailty of our selves and suffer. What is that you have but suffering which is contiuously made greater by moments of pleasure which are forever lost.

Why not kill yourself and stop the pain? Why bother with killing yourself, your going to die anyway? Death wins over all.

So we come to place were in the bible were read: “everything is meaningless…”. Even what you do to ettempt to create meaning. You do not have the power to keep any beauty, good, or pleasure, they were never yours in the first place. Just a thing you got partisipate in for a short time.

In front of this overwheling meaningless Chriatanity dares to say that there is hope. And this is the hope of Chritainity, that you may have etternal life. John 17 says that eternal life in knowledge of God, and his son Jesus Christ (Knowledge being inttelegent interactive relationship).
3. Quester | March 22, 2008 at 1:29 am

Good article, writerdd! There is more than enough we can choose to provide meaning for our lives. I think we should remember to allow ourselves a little selfishness, though. As you say, we will never run out of people to help and things to improve. No need, then, to burn ourselves out trying to reach a perfection that will never come. We need to take care of each other, but we also need to take care of ourselves.
4. writerdd | March 22, 2008 at 9:15 am

Zachary asked, “Why not kill yourself and stop the pain? Why bother with killing yourself, your going to die anyway? Death wins over all.”

My life is not painful, for the most part. No more or less painful than the life of someone who believes in God for any rate. Why not kill myself? Because I like living. Yes, we all die. But before then we can do all kinds of beautiful and meaningful things. So although I accept that I will eventually die, I don’t have to look forward to it or yearn for death to come sooner.

I actually have the same question for Christians. Why not die now, since you think this life sucks so much, and go to heaven where you can take the eternal happy pill and live forever? Why not abort every baby so they can to straight into God’s loving arms instead of living a painful life on this crappy planet? I find the gloomy outlook of Christians, and their distaste for the only life we are certain to live, to be quite depressing.

I’m sorry that you have such a bleak outlook on life and humanity and I hope that you find some way to overcome your nihilism.
5. Frreal | March 22, 2008 at 9:36 am

“at last Hope was sent to keep us from ending our lives”

Hope or fear of hell?

Lovely post writerdd. I concur.
6. Born again Skeptic »&hellip | March 22, 2008 at 10:45 am

[...] as writerdd quite eloquently observes, this need not be the case. Acknowledge and celebrate your own meaning. « No, really– why are we [...]
7. Zachary Weber | March 22, 2008 at 3:35 pm

witerdd says “We can do all kinds of beautifull and meaningfull things”. You veiw, from my understanding reject actual meaning and beauty. You have no standard or principle to base meaning or beauty off of except poteintail and kentic energy (which from my view is a contridiction because you have energy with out a first Cause, or better said first Act, which is God. I.e. you can’t have a copy of a book to which there was no original).

You deny the prinicple of energy, meaning, and beauty yet you try to say you can have it sll of it. This is why the bible says the fool in his heart says there is no God. I am not just trying to be condeming, to just say you and your ideas are messed up. Still if you don’t see the hopelessness and emptyness in your beilef, so that you can really love true meaning and beauty and the principle of the two.

So whay should a christian not die now? Two things: (1) Suffering in life is for the better for “all things work out for good for those who love the Lord”. What do i mean by that? Even evil and suffering are given meaning and purpose. In fact, the are a type of purgitory, each suffering being a means of God’s grace. Romans address those people who say then why not do evil so that God’s grace abounds. The Good man is always victorious.

(2) simple to be a means of God’s grace to those that are living here and now. To be an image of God as much as we can (which is are pupose just look at the creation story).

Frreal says “hope or fear of hell?”
What is fear of hell? The etternal suffering is being left to your own choice seprated from the redeeming grace of God. Hell is you getting what you choose, and you choosing to live with out your humanity or as much of it as you can remove before death. No better Image of hell I have seen then the explanation of the bible in dante’s aligory and symbolism in the divine comedy which is largely missunderstood.

C.S. Lewis has a really great naritive book called “the great divorce” which blatently deals with this issue.
8. writerdd | March 22, 2008 at 3:38 pm

Zachary, obviously we disagree.

I’ve read lots of C.S. Lewis. He’s one of my favorite authors. But I disagree with a lot of what he has to say, too!

My favorite part of not being a Christian any more is the freedom to not have to read or think about only what the Bible says and to be able to enjoy reading different authors, even if I don’t agree with them.
9. writerdd | March 22, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Quester said, “I think we should remember to allow ourselves a little selfishness, though.”

Amen. If you don’t nurture yourself, there’s nothing to give to anyone else. Doing things for ourselves is not really “selfish” though. It’s necessary and healthy! I think being selfish is when you only do things for yourself and never think about others.

Jesus, Others, You — or always putting yourself last — does not equal JOY.
10. Zachary Weber | March 22, 2008 at 3:41 pm

Well all have that freedom, the poiint is are you using it to deny reality or embrace it?
11. LeoPardus | March 22, 2008 at 6:26 pm

Zachary:

You work from a mindset that almost all the de-converts on this blog are completely familiar with. Most of us used to operate within the very paradigm you are now in. We could not conceive of existence, meaning, or much of anything in which God was not real and central. At some point though, we all found a way to look outside that paradigm.

You’re still very much in that mindset. Just as most of us once were. You can’t see without “God filters” over your vision.

You don’t have to adopt to the way we are now able to see the universe, but do please try to imagine it. We don’t believe there is a God or gods. We have good reasons for believing so. And none of us were happy to leave the faith, nor did we do so easily.

Please don’t give us the canned answers. We know them intimately. If you can’t at least try to understand, please don’t preach.
12. Quester | March 23, 2008 at 3:06 am

DD, I concede the point. I used the word “selfish” for sake of ease, rather than clarity. I couldn’t think of any other single word or short phrase that would be more appropriate.

Zachary, you said, You veiw, from my understanding reject actual meaning and beauty. You have no standard or principle to base meaning or beauty off of except poteintail and kentic energy.

Now, assuming that I’m parsing your spelling and grammar correctly, I think you’ve got things entirely reversed. What I hear you saying is that we can not recognize beauty or meaning unless we have accepted a standard of ideal beauty and meaning, which is your God. Please correct me if I’m wrong, and you are trying to say something else.

I turn it around; if you have some way to perceive, or even understand in a limited fashion, the ideal forms of beauty and truth, how can you appreciate the imperfect beauty and meaning of the everyday? Instead, all you need is to see ugliness and experience purposelessness to appreciate beauty and seek meaning. It is not the ideal that sets the standard, but the lack or insufficiency. One need not have all the money for another to appreciate wealth. Experiencing poverty can create all the appreciation of wealth a person needs.

I, too, truly enjoyed reading The Great Divorce. I received a lot of hope from it, but could never reconcile it to the fear I found in scripture.
13. Zachary Weber | March 23, 2008 at 3:24 am

I understand that you think your world view is better or clearer than mine but either of us beliving something does not make it true. I do think that you really have come from where I have, you might have, but logically it seems impossible.

The very fact that you deny God shows that you never really understood the fact that God is the great I AM. You may have had a vauger similair view, but If you really have that knowelgde ther eis no running away, it is a tidal wave that sweeps away everything at first slowly but contiously gaining speed.

I understand you belive in deconvertion, but from a truely christain perpective you were never converts in the first place or you are and it’s still being worked out in your soul.

My glasses or perspective is from being Himself. There is no truely logical argument against God. You can’t have logic with out Him. He is The principle of all things. I don’t know what you belive about what a God is, but if you don’t your in total self-contradiction. Your only option is to be nothing with out a God, or be something in God.

I am not sure what you mean by preachy. My guess is either that i am bible bashing or claiming knowledge that is against what you belive. If it’s the first, i am only quoting the bible to connect it with what i am saying not as an argument. If it’s the second well thats part of what comments are.
14. Zachary Weber | March 23, 2008 at 3:51 am

Quester says “Now, assuming that I’m parsing your spelling and grammar correctly, I think you’ve got things entirely reversed. What I hear you saying is that we can not recognize beauty or meaning unless we have accepted a standard of ideal beauty and meaning, which is your God. Please correct me if I’m wrong, and you are trying to say something else.”

Let me apoligize for the gramar but i am currently deployed in Iraq and the computer use has a time limit that i am ove so i could have to get off at any minute if someone else wants to use it.

Let me state it like this you cannot have meaning or beauty without obsolute meaning and beauty.

“I turn it around; if you have some way to perceive, or even understand in a limited fashion, the ideal forms of beauty and truth, how can you appreciate the imperfect beauty and meaning of the everyday? Instead, all you need is to see ugliness and experience purposelessness to appreciate beauty and seek meaning. It is not the ideal that sets the standard, but the lack or insufficiency. One need not have all the money for another to appreciate wealth. Experiencing poverty can create all the appreciation of wealth a person needs.”

It’s true that if a thing exist existance and non existence are possible. But It is only by the existance of beauty that you can even see non-beauty. A man can enjoy beauty but enjoy it even more when lost and restored.

That is the message of the bible, God made wills that could choose existance in God as wills or non existance outside of God rejecting will (sin), when they chose (sin) he restored there will and existance in God. It’s that simple.

You can know God through the way of admission, or the way of rejection and admission. Speaks only because of existance, and it speaks only existance.
15. Quester | March 23, 2008 at 4:10 am

I understand what it means to be under a time limit, but it does increase the chance of misinterpretation.

*shrug* I guess I’ll just have to try harder.

Does there have to be one perfect tree for us to understand what a tree is, or appreciate it as different than grass? I really don’t see why an ideal has to exist in order for something less than ideal to exist. I see no evidence for that.

I also see no evidence for God. I did once believe, and truly believe, that God is the great I AM. I believed in a just and loving creator, redeemer and sanctifier who created each of us with a purpose and desires that we freely choose to be in loving communion with Him, following His will as best we can. And I do not have a logical argument against God.

I just don’t see any actual evidence for God, either. That’s why I stopped believing.

I do see beauty, though, and meaning. Those can be considered evidence for God, but are circumstantial evidence, at best. Still, I can choose to admire beauty and pursue meaning. I am thankful for that.
16. Zachary Weber | March 23, 2008 at 7:16 am

Qyester says, “Does there have to be one perfect tree for us to understand what a tree is, or appreciate it as different than grass? I really don’t see why an ideal has to exist in order for something less than ideal to exist. I see no evidence for that.”

A tree by nature in not in perfection in it’s privation because it is mutable. So in a sense, no there can’t be a perfect tree, except what partisipated in the imutable Act which is God. Let me clarify, perfection is Act with no mutability or potency. God is the Original, Simple, Perfect, Act, that is Being it self. That what I mean when I say He is the principle of all things, there is simple nothing besides him that what is made gets it’s existance. Am I making sense?

Understand that imperfection is not sin. Sin is Knowedge (Intelegent Interactive realtionship with reality as it is) that not ordered from God. Hence the name of the Tree of Life(knoweldge arder from God), and the Tree of the Knoweldge of Good and Evil (good and evil because it is absured knoweldge that is in contradiction, you can’t have something that exist that is only evil, evil being a lacking of existance).

Perfection is act with out potency. To be perfect is growth in God to the point were you are at you highest form of action or better said knowledge which is as I keep on saying intellegent interactive realtionship ordered from God.

“I also see no evidence for God. I did once believe, and truly believe, that God is the great I AM. I believed in a just and loving creator, redeemer and sanctifier who created each of us with a purpose and desires that we freely choose to be in loving communion with Him, following His will as best we can. And I do not have a logical argument against God.

I just don’t see any actual evidence for God, either. That’s why I stopped believing.”

Movment is and has been in all thingsexept God. Movement is potential to act becoming potency by act. As i keep on saying, there can’t be a now if there is an infinite amount of events before now. So there must be original Act that is etternally, perfectly in Act.

“I do see beauty, though, and meaning. Those can be considered evidence for God, but are circumstantial evidence, at best. Still, I can choose to admire beauty and pursue meaning. I am thankful for that.”

That is my point of your self contradiction though. You cannot have anything beauty, meaning, truth, movement, or act with out Original Act. You can’t eat you cake and not have it too.

Don’t take my hastyness as a condeming to put my self up, I only am pointing out the problem, because i am moved to love you, because I my self am moved by a Love that moves the heavens, and the furthest stars. As cheezy as that is, it’s true.

I also do respect your choice because i wouldn’t want to force you in to anything you do not will.
17. writerdd | March 23, 2008 at 8:58 am

Zachary: “The very fact that you deny God shows that you never really understood the fact that God is the great I AM. ”

Sigh. Why do Christians always come back to this lame argument? And why do they think they can judge people they have never met?

Yes, I was a “real” Christian. Yes, I loved God with every fiber in my being, yes I understood everything that Christians understand about God. I thought about nothing else for many years; and I spent all of my energy praying, reading the Bible, trying to minister to others, and worshipping God.

Quester: ” And I do not have a logical argument against God. I just don’t see any actual evidence for God, either. That’s why I stopped believing.”

That’s exactly where I’m coming from! I wasn’t converted by apologetics and I wasn’t deconverted by anti-apologetics. I just learned more about the universe and eventually saw that there was no evidence for the God I believed in, and that the stories in the Bible did not match up to the realities of the universe. I didn’t choose to stop believing. I never would have made that choice. But one day I realized that I no longer believed, and was completely surprised that 1) I did not backslide into sin and become a hooker or a drug addict and 2) I felt more freedom, joy, and peace than I ever had as a believer.

Talk about a revelation. I was totally “surprised by joy”! (To quote from a popular apologist!)
18. Zachary Weber | March 23, 2008 at 9:34 am

Writerdd says
“Sigh. Why do Christians always come back to this lame argument? And why do they think they can judge people they have never met?”

I apoligise what i meant to say was that if what you say is true, then you didn’t know the I AM. I cannot know for sure if you did or did not but if what you say is true you never knew Him. If you did you would be face with the same overwheling power of the truth that I am. I am not argueing with you by saying this only stating fact according to reason and logic. If you deny Reason, well there is not much i can do about that.

What you quoted was no arguement at all. So please don’t missunderstand me, when i say things like that with out argument i am only showing you what I believe and the end to my arguement are trying to lead. Please respect that, and try to understand what i am using as argument and what i am stating as my belief.

“Yes, I was a “real” Christian. Yes, I loved God with every fiber in my being, yes I understood everything that Christians understand about God. I thought about nothing else for many years; and I spent all of my energy praying, reading the Bible, trying to minister to others, and worshipping God.”

That is a huge thing you say and I am sorry, but i do not belive it. I have never known a fully santified Christian, nore do I believe that there are many that have ever existed on earth in this life. I don’t belive you loved God with every fiber of your being, I don’t belive you spent all your energy praying and reading the bible. You may have spent much and loved much, but it’s extremly doubtfull you did what you say.

To love God with every fiber of your bieng is to be sinless. I have never known anybody with out sin except Jesus Christ. But Let me say this, beliving in a great I AM has nothing to do with the bible. It’s just plan reason. Hence Paul says in romans that he has been revealed to all by all creation (Via order, messure, and specificity).

Quester: ” And I do not have a logical argument against God. I just don’t see any actual evidence for God, either. That’s why I stopped believing.”

That’s exactly where I’m coming from! I wasn’t converted by apologetics and I wasn’t deconverted by anti-apologetics. I just learned more about the universe and eventually saw that there was no evidence for the God I believed in, and that the stories in the Bible did not match up to the realities of the universe. I didn’t choose to stop believing. I never would have made that choice. But one day I realized that I no longer believed, and was completely surprised that 1) I did not backslide into sin and become a hooker or a drug addict and 2) I felt more freedom, joy, and peace than I ever had as a believer.

Talk about a revelation. I was totally “surprised by joy”! (To quote from a popular apologist!)
19. Zachary Weber | March 23, 2008 at 9:36 am

sorry I sent that last message early, because i was bumped by another guy.
20. writerdd | March 23, 2008 at 9:53 am

Zachary, “That is a huge thing you say and I am sorry, but i do not belive it.”

Well, I have nothing more to say to you if you think I’m a liar.
21. karen | March 23, 2008 at 1:57 pm

I don’t belive you loved God with every fiber of your being, I don’t belive you spent all your energy praying and reading the bible. You may have spent much and loved much, but it’s extremly doubtfull you did what you say.

Well, guess what? I don’t believe that you’re a True Christian. I don’t believe that your name is Zachary Weber. I don’t believe that you’re deployed in Iraq. I don’t believe that anything you assert here is true, real or sincere.

How does that statement make you feel, Zachary? What use is it for me to respond like that in an online discussion? Does it promote understanding and conversation, or does it totally shut down the same?

If you want to converse online, there are some basic “rules of engagement” you need to learn. One is that you must try to respect what other people say, particularly about their own personal backgrounds and experiences. You may not agree with their conclusions, but there’s no use in telling them they are liars.

You won’t get far here coming in as a complete and total stranger and undercutting what people describe about themselves in all sincerity and honesty. And yes, I can say that about writerdd because I have “known” her online for many years now (not just from this board) and know a lot about her background and her deconversion story.

Rethink your approach, Zach, and you’ll be much more successful in your communications.
22. Zachary Weber | March 24, 2008 at 6:25 am

writerdd says, “Well, I have nothing more to say to you if you think I’m a liar.”.

It’s hard for me to understand, how a person can claim to have loved God with every fiber of your being. To my understanding, that is the same as saying you are without sin. Maybe that is a poor conclution on my part but it is founded in some logic even if what I say is logic in privation from true logic, but that another tangent. The point is that I thought that if i told you what i though you were saying stait out, (i.e you are claiming sinlessness) you would point out what you really meant to say. I was supprised to see you defend it.

I have been thinking about it, I am trying to be respectful, but God (in my world veiw) still has alot of work in me left to do. I am truely sorry for being a jerk by my lack of tact, in the way I talked to you. I understand i fell into a common mistake in pushing you a way by commenting on your character, in a disrepectful way. I see my mistake and i am really saoory. Understand it was more out of a lack of tact, then actual disrespect. I hnonestly was just trying to show you what I thought would be plan for you to see, but i was rude and I apoligize.

Also i have been thinking about it and it maybe be possible to be in a sense rejecting false christianity for true christainity, and merely think you are rejecting christanity. That may be the case here, I wouldn’t know. Don’t get in sulted when i argue and attack your idea’s, I am not attacking you when I do that, I know people are more than idea’s.

Still you don’t really answer the problem I have with finding purpose with out an obsulute purpose. Unless you what is mutable is apart of the immutable it dies, and only what was part of the immutible lives on.

karen says, “How does that statement make you feel, Zachary? What use is it for me to respond like that in an online discussion? Does it promote understanding and conversation, or does it totally shut down the same?”

Your right it doesn’t promote discussion, what I should have done is merely restate it in stead or restating it an say i think it is a lie. What i did was rude and i am sarry but try and bare with me that i am not trying to be rude.
23. roopster | March 24, 2008 at 7:54 am

Zachary,

It’s hard for me to understand, how a person can claim to have loved God with every fiber of your being.

The best explanation I could give for this is Santa Claus. There are kids who love Santa. They believe in him and think he’s the greatest guy in the world. However, one day they realize that there is no Santa Claus.

In regards to their previous feelings towards Santa - were they insincere? Were they lying? No way. There was genuine respect and affection there.

Well, there are many of us who have realized that there is no Elohim or YHWH. He (if you think they are one and the same god) is no different than all the other gods of mythology. YHWH was the warrior God of an tribe of nomads in the Middle East and he was not very nice at that (see this link) - even though Christianity has “redeemed” him. Most of the stories of this tribe date to within the 1,500 years BC (hardly… “in the beginning”).

I saw a very interesting chart the other day that showed about a couple hundred names of gods - on one side had a list of gods that Christians do not believe in and on the other side, gods that atheists do not believe in. The lists were exact except there was one more god listed on the atheist side - YHWH.

Paul
24. writerdd | March 24, 2008 at 9:11 am

“It’s hard for me to understand, how a person can claim to have loved God with every fiber of your being. To my understanding, that is the same as saying you are without sin.”

I didn’t say that. You did. I have no idea why having a huge amount of love for God would mean that a person is sinless. There is absolutely no logic connecting those two ideas. Loving something or someone doesn’t make you any more or less perfect.

At any rate, I don’t believe in sin or God. I do believe that human beings are imperfect and that we sometimes do bad things and some humans do horrific things. But sin is a concept that has no meaning for me because it means to perform acts that offend God. Since I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in sin. The only offenses I can commit are those against other living, conscious beings on this planet, be they human or animal. I do my best not to harm others, and to help alleviate suffering when I can. To me that is the core of morality, since there is no afterlife, we have to do what we can to improve this life.

I would like to elaborate on what I mean when I say “I don’t believe in God.” I know a lot of Christians say they don’t believe in astrology or witches or other things and they mean that they disagree with these thins, and in a way they are saying, “I know astrology and witchcraft are real, but they are evil, so I don’t ‘believe’ in them.”

That is not what I mean when I say I don’t believe in something. I mean it does not exist. God does not exist. He is not a real being. He is nothing more than a figment of human imagination–as Roopster says, God is no more real than Santa Claus or, I might add, Harry Potter.

I was in love with someone who did not exist. Alas, I wasted quite a few years of my life trying to please my imaginary friend. In the end, I finally realized I was wasting my time and now I try to help and please real, flesh and blood human beings, a much more worthy cause.
25. LeoPardus | March 24, 2008 at 11:16 am

karen:

Have you still got that list of convenient categories for Christians use for pigeonholing de-converts? If you can find it, I’d like to turn it into a post.
26. Notabarbie | March 24, 2008 at 11:59 am

Zachary, you said, “That is a huge thing you say and I am sorry, but i do not belive it. I have never known a fully santified Christian, nore do I believe that there are many that have ever existed on earth in this life.”

Well, Zachary, that’s because when you encounter one, you reject them and what they tell you out of hand.
I remember when I told my sister that I was no longer a believer and she said she had never ever met or even heard of a Christian leaving Christianity. I thought of d-C and others and smiled to myself. I said, “Oh, they are out there, believe me.” She didn’t. The truth is, she had never met or heard of one because she lives in a Christian bubble, seeing things only through Christian lenses…I know, because I wore them for over 40 years. I took them off…

I could get really pissed off at you for calling the posters here liars, but I won’t because, those of us who are de-converts are in a unique position; we have been on both sides of the religion fence…you have not. We know exactly where you are coming from…you don’t have that same insight…sorry…you speak from ignorance. It’s a simple as that.
27. karen | March 24, 2008 at 1:10 pm

karen says, “How does that statement make you feel, Zachary? What use is it for me to respond like that in an online discussion? Does it promote understanding and conversation, or does it totally shut down the same?”

Your right it doesn’t promote discussion, what I should have done is merely restate it in stead or restating it an say i think it is a lie. What i did was rude and i am sarry but try and bare with me that i am not trying to be rude.

Thanks for the apology, Zach. You seemed like a reasonable person, which is why I responded to you trying to illuminate how it feels to be on the other side of a post like yours. I’m very glad to see that you understand what I meant and responded graciously to Donna.

I think what happens is that some people post from their own viewpoint without stopping to think how the person they are addressing will feel and think about it. If you can keep an open mind here, and take what people say about their own journey at face value, I think you’ll get a lot more out of the interaction on this site.
28. karen | March 24, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Have you still got that list of convenient categories for Christians use for pigeonholing de-converts? If you can find it, I’d like to turn it into a post.

I certainly should have it, but at the moment I can’t find it. Which is weird because I recall looking for it before, finding it and putting it somewhere where I could easily locate it! Argh…

I think that post was in response to an essay by one of our female posters, writing about her mother’s reaction to her deconversion. Does that ring a bell with anyone?

If it doesn’t turn up, I bet we could all brainstorm and re-create the list, and probably come up with a few more reasons to boot.
29. Ubi Dubium | March 24, 2008 at 2:06 pm

Zachary,

I am curious. Were you born into a Christian family and raised as a Christian?

I ask, because that was the case for many of us here. And I would hazard a guess that most of the Christians in world were born and raised in Christian families. And most Muslims were born and raised in Muslim families. Same for the Jews. And Hindus. And Taoists. (etc. etc.)

There are over 10,000 religions in the world. Almost all of them declare that they know the truth, and that all the other religions have it wrong. They cannot all be correct! (It is, however, possible for all of them to be mistaken.)

So, Zachary, if you had been born into a Muslim family, would you now find yourself as fervent a Muslim as you now are a Christian? It is a useful exercise to try stepping out of your box for a moment, and looking at all the world’s religions with an open mind. (If your religion is true, this will not harm you.) If you had been born to a family of another faith, what would the attraction of Christianity be? And if you were born to a family without a faith, and found yourself trying to choose among more than 10,000, how would you select one? By the fervent devotion of true believers? By the inspiration believers find in a holy book? By how long it has been around? By the comfort and ritual and community the religion provides? Christianity has no exclusive lock on any of these things.

Since you have come here to speak with us in this place of reflection, I challenge you to try it also. Try asking a true believer of another faith (no lack of those in Iraq) about what he gets out of his religion, why he follows it, and how he perceives yours. Don’t preach, just really listen! Read a holy book from another religion, and look for the reasons that its followers find it powerful and truthful. Try to see your religion the way an outsider would see it. Open your mind, take off the Bible goggles for awhile, and think. If Christianity is genuinely true, such a journey will lead you right back to it. Don’t be afraid. Many of us here have taken that journey, and God didn’t strike any of us down. But most of us wound up in a different place than where we started, and we are better and happier people for it.
30. karen | March 24, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Okay, LeoPardus, I’m reconstructing a partial list here just based on a post in another thread:

You’re looking for an excuse not to believe
You’re being manipulated by satan
You’re indulging your desire to live hedonistically
You want instant gratification
You’re not thinking about the future/afterlife
You never had a true personal relationship with Jesus
You never experienced/received the holy spirit
You weren’t in the right sect/denomination
You were “religious” but not born again
Your decision is based on other Christians’ behavior, not on Jesus’ teachings
You were hurt by your pastor/other Christians
You were in the “wrong” denomination or sect
People disappointed you and so you “threw out the baby with the bathwater”
You quit seeking
You’re angry and resentful and taking it out on god
You’re mad at god for some misfortune in your life
31. LeoPardus | March 24, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Thanks Karen. Y’all pitch in any more you know of. I already added some (and removed one that was redundant). Here’s the updated list:

1. You’re looking for an excuse not to believe
2. You’re being manipulated by Satan
3. You’re indulging your desire to live hedonistically
4. You want instant gratification
5. You’re not thinking about the future/afterlife
6. You never had a true personal relationship with Jesus
7. You never experienced/received the holy spirit
8. You were “religious” but not born again
9. Your decision is based on other Christians’ behavior, not on Jesus’ teachings
10. You were hurt by your pastor/other Christians
11. You were in the “wrong” denomination or sect
12. People disappointed you and so you “threw out the baby with the bathwater”
13. You quit seeking
14. You’re angry and resentful and taking it out on God
15. You’re mad at God for some misfortune in your life
16. You were never saved/Christian to start with.
17. You’re harboring sin in your heart.
18. You’re too prideful/arrogant to humble yourself before the Lord.
19. You have a rebellious spirit.
20. You didn’t pray/read the Bible enough.
21. You forsook assembling together.
22. You can’t accept authority.
32. Rachel | March 24, 2008 at 10:13 pm

How about, “you have legitimate questions and Christianity hasn’t met your conditions for belief.”

Give us a little credit!
33. HeIsSailing | March 24, 2008 at 10:17 pm

C’mon Karen, how could you possibly forget:

“You were a carnal Christian”??
34. Zachary Weber | March 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm

roopster says “The best explanation I could give for this is Santa Claus. There are kids who love Santa. They believe in him and think he’s the greatest guy in the world. However, one day they realize that there is no Santa Claus.”

I because of a lack of time i wil have to wait alittle longer to respond to some of these post but i will because I think this is a really good discussion. Right now my plt is doing gaurd shits but tomorrow we will be on a three day mission. so understand if i don’t respond for awhile
35. HeIsSailing | March 24, 2008 at 10:21 pm

“Right now my plt is doing gaurd shits but tomorrow we will be on a three day mission.”

huh?
36. HeIsSailing | March 24, 2008 at 10:43 pm

Rachel:
“How about, “you have legitimate questions and Christianity hasn’t met your conditions for belief.” Give us a little credit!”

I would love to hear a Christian friend say that I left Christianity because I had legitimate doubts that were left unfulfilled by the teachings of my Faith. But that will never happen. I mean, that is pretty much what I tell my old Christian friends, but they seem to know better than me. Because one-by-one, my Christian friends have claimed:

I left Christianity because I am having a mid-life crisis,

I am harboring secret sin

I am wanting to serve myself

I was never a Christian in the first place

I am shutting my eyes to the obvious truth of God

I served science more than God (I am a physicist)

I was unequally yoked (my wife is Catholic I was Protestant Baptist)

I was letting my will and emotions get the better of me

I hate religion (from my mother-in-law)

Because I did not remain a Christian, my friends have told me:

I am a gutless wonder because I did not stare my doubts down and claim them by the Blood of Jesus (I swear I don’t even know what this means)

Because my marraige vows were made to a God I don’t believe in, my marraige is invalid, and God does not honor it (this was insulting to me and painful for my wife - and this came from an asst pastor of my church!)

In other words, Christians ignore the reasons and make up their own for me. You see, the Christian crowd cannot, and I mean CANNOT even hint that thier Faith may be wrong. That is a sore they dare not aggrivate. That is what “you have legitimate questions and Christianity hasn’t met your conditions for belief” would do. No faithful Christian would do that. No Christian that I know would say ‘HeIsSailing left Christianity because he had too many nagging questions that the Bible could not answer and that prayer did not satisfy.’ That would mean that they might also possibly have questions that would be equally unsatisfied by the Bible and prayer, and no faithful Christian would *dare* do that.

Yes, I know your younger generation may not do that, but every Christian I know would. I don’t ever expect to be treated with that tiny bit of respect that a Christian would actually believe me when I tell them why I left. To them, I am willingly rejecting an obvious truth and spitting in the face of Jesus.
37. Brent | March 25, 2008 at 1:12 am

HeIsSailing,

I think Zachary was saying that his platoon is pulling guard shifts right now.
38. Quester | March 25, 2008 at 1:27 am

Karen, LeoP, HIS,

I think a compilation of those lists would make a great article on their own. Perhaps as a Frequent Accusations list we can direct people to as they come onto this site and claim one or more on the list to be true.

Rachel,

Skim the archives a little. Read the comments. This list isn’t being created out of thin air as an insult to Christians. These are comments frequently made by Christians visiting this blog.
39. HeIsSailing | March 25, 2008 at 7:24 am

“I think Zachary was saying that his platoon is pulling guard shifts right now.”

Oh, plt. I thought he typed pit. Understand now. My apologies.
40. writerdd | March 25, 2008 at 8:44 am

I think it’s a great list. I’ve been told most of these things at one time or another, and some of them (like I never was a real Christian and I’m lying to say that I was) come up over and over again.

It might be interesting to compare it to the reasons Christians say that they believe and the reasons unbelievers think that Christians believe. I read an article about that once, and there was probably an equal amount of misunderstanding going in both directions.

Those who have de-converted are probably the only ones who can truly relate to both groups based on personal experience. We have to ask as a kind of interpreter. I am not always successful and sometimes I don’t even come close, but one of my goals is to be able to help believers and unbelievers to understand each other at least a little bit.
41. LeoPardus | March 25, 2008 at 11:24 am

Thanks to HIS the list is now 29 items long. One more and we’ll have an even 30.

I am planning to make an article of it as Quester suggests. Just waiting a few days for any more additions.

It will be interesting to develop responses to all of them, but I don’t think I’ll do that on my own.
42. notabarbie | March 25, 2008 at 2:29 pm

Here are my contributions:
1. I took philosophy and it poisoned my mind
2. I’ve become “wise in my own eyes.”
3. I had a “said faith, not a real faith.”
4. I’m going through “a phase.” (As HIS said, a mid life crisis)

Also, I told my sister that it was when I was in “the Word,” daily, and praying my hardest, that I felt challenged to examine my faith with the same fervor as I had other religions. I asked her why she thought that might be and she said, “I’m sorry, but it was Satan tempting you.” Then she acted all shocked when I got a bit offended by her explanation….sheesh, I ask you, wouldn’t anybody be offended by that?
43. Quester | March 25, 2008 at 2:56 pm

When it comes to “the list”, I’ve often received a slight adaptation of the tempted/manipulated one. “The closer you come to God and who God wants you to be, the more Satan and his minions will attack you to sow seeds of doubt.”

Another one I hear that I don’t think is on the list is, “You’re trying too hard to see God, and your own efforts are keeping you from success. You have to ‘let go and let God’.”
44. LeoPardus | March 25, 2008 at 3:20 pm

YeeeHaawww! We got 35 now! Thanks to all contributors. I’ll post all 35 below so you can see what we have now. If anyone spots a couple that are highly redundant, or if you know one that is missing. Let me know.

Convenient categories into which Christians can shoehorn or pigeonhole ex-Christians:

1. You’re looking for an excuse not to believe
2. You’re being manipulated by Satan
3. You’re indulging your desire to live hedonistically
4. You want instant gratification
5. You’re not thinking about the future/afterlife
6. You never had a true personal relationship with Jesus
7. You never experienced/received the holy spirit
8. You were “religious” but not born again
9. Your decision is based on other Christians’ behavior, not on Jesus’ teachings
10. You were hurt by your pastor/other Christians
11. You were in the “wrong” denomination or sect
12. People disappointed you and so you “threw out the baby with the bathwater”
13. You quit seeking
14. You’re angry and resentful and taking it out on God
15. You’re mad at God for some misfortune in your life
16. You were never saved/Christian to start with. (Calvinism)
17. You’re harboring sin in your heart.
18. You’re too prideful/arrogant to humble yourself before the Lord.
19. You have a rebellious spirit.
20. You didn’t pray/read the Bible enough.
21. You forsook assembling together.
22. You can’t accept authority.
23. You never dealt with sin in your life. (i.e. You were a carnal Christian.)
24. You are having a mid-life, or some other life wide, crisis, or you’re, “going through a phase”.
25. You are self-centered/serving yourself.
26. You are shutting my eyes to the obvious truth of God.
27. You love/serve science/job/hobbies more than God.
28. You were unequally yoked (e.g. wife is Catholic, you were Protestant).
29. You looked to your own will/emotions instead of God’s will.
30. You’re mind was poisoned by man’s philosophy.
31. You became “wise in your own eyes.”
32. You had a “said faith, not a real faith.”
33. You were trying too hard to see God, and your own efforts kept you from success. (Or, said a little differently,) You never “let go and let God.” (Or, said a little differently,) You depended too much on your own strength/intellect.
34. You stopped “growing in the faith”, or allowed your faith to become stagnant.
35. You didn’t “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
45. karen | March 25, 2008 at 5:05 pm

C’mon Karen, how could you possibly forget:

“You were a carnal Christian”??

ROTFLMAO!! How could I forget that one!? Shame on me.

Those who have de-converted are probably the only ones who can truly relate to both groups based on personal experience. We have to ask as a kind of interpreter. I am not always successful and sometimes I don’t even come close, but one of my goals is to be able to help believers and unbelievers to understand each other at least a little bit.

I agree, and I have the same goal. There are a lot of major misunderstandings about religious people coming from those who were never religious, and I can try to “translate” some of the religious lingo to help them understand where they are missing the mark.

The biggest one I’ve seen is “How can such a smart person possibly believe that nonsense?”
46. writerdd | March 25, 2008 at 8:33 pm

The biggest one I’ve seen is “How can such a smart person possibly believe that nonsense?”

I still ask myself that question about myself all the time! Oh my.
47. Quester | March 25, 2008 at 8:59 pm

“How can such a smart person possibly believe that nonsense?”

In my experience, that one gets asked by theists and non-theists alike.
48. Zachary Weber | March 28, 2008 at 12:11 pm

roopster says”

It’s one thing to argue about something that may or may not exist, but to argue that Being Himself doesn’t exist seems pretty crazy though in my mind, though i can understand how rationally (in it’s privation), some one could thin God Doesn’t exist or that this God is not Being Himself.

writerdd says, “I didn’t say that. You did. I have no idea why having a huge amount of love for God would mean that a person is sinless. There is absolutely no logic connecting those two ideas. Loving something or someone doesn’t make you any more or less perfect.”

Loving God, is the fulfillment of the of the law essentially. Thats why when you say you loved God with every fiber of your are saying to me you are without even the stain of sin. Understand where i am coming from now?

“The only offenses I can commit are those against other living, conscious beings on this planet, be they human or animal. I do my best not to harm others, and to help alleviate suffering when I can. To me that is the core of morality, since there is no afterlife, we have to do what we can to improve this life.”

Where do you get any standard of what is harming or what is suffering if there is not God and therefore no absolutes? Or Do you belive in absolutes and no God?

Secondly what is love, if you reduce thing to chance and nessecity you have no such thing as love, because there is no you (I amsuming you belive only in chance and nessecity because I don’t know what you really belive). Love requires intellect and will, which is not chance nor nessesity. So I am not sure what you mean by love?

It would make more sense if you belived in a God, just not the biblical one, thats understandable, but to say love with out a God, well understand that just doesn’t make sense to me from my possition.

26. Notabarbie | March 24, 2008 at 11:59 am

I could get really pissed off at you for calling the posters here liars, but I won’t because, those of us who are de-converts are in a unique position; we have been on both sides of the religion fence…you have not. We know exactly where you are coming from…you don’t have that same insight…sorry…you speak from ignorance. It’s a simple as that.

My argument is you really haven’t felt both side you felt only a lie that probably was given to you (there are many not-so-christians or christains that really know nothing about what they believe, so understand where i am comeing from on my side).

karen says “I think what happens is that some people post from their own viewpoint without stopping to think how the person they are addressing will feel and think about it. If you can keep an open mind here, and take what people say about their own journey at face value, I think you’ll get a lot more out of the interaction on this site.”

It’s worse then that, it’s an ettempt to abuse other peoples free will. To not try to help, or talked to people as they are, and make rude claims to try and get people to understand what is true. It’s offencive to me so I can tottally understand how it’s offencive to others, it’s something i slip in to time to time though. Again sorry

Ubi Dubium says:
“Zachary,
I am curious. Were you born into a Christian family and raised as a Christian?”

Yes I was, though amongts the christain jargon I wasn’t raised christian, but I came to it my self in high school, by my parents putting me in a great books program, and the gaints of old witnessed to me past the jargon that has been made in the modern church.

“There are over 10,000 religions in the world. Almost all of them declare that they know the truth, and that all the other religions have it wrong. They cannot all be correct! (It is, however, possible for all of them to be mistaken.)”

So very true! I have no argument to stand on against christainity, not one that by passes all the reason for. The other relgions I have problems with, essentail problems.

“So, Zachary, if you had been born into a Muslim family, would you now find yourself as fervent a Muslim as you now are a Christian? It is a useful exercise to try stepping out of your box for a moment, and looking at all the world’s religions with an open mind. (If your religion is true, this will not harm you.) If you had been born to a family of another faith, what would the attraction of Christianity be? And if you were born to a family without a faith, and found yourself trying to choose among more than 10,000, how would you select one? By the fervent devotion of true believers? By the inspiration believers find in a holy book? By how long it has been around? By the comfort and ritual and community the religion provides? Christianity has no exclusive lock on any of these things. ”

Most likely i would be muslim in nominal or practically, I really don’t know cause i am not n that situation. But just saying i could believe on thing doesn’t make it true, and I think you know that. The argument is that christanity is the only religion, that fits with reality as i can see it.

believe me i have looked for other religions that speak reality and have debated alot. The more i know the more they don’t seem to fit with reality. If their is they have to provide a strong argument why cchristanity is wrong, but it has to be darn close to christainity. The Closest I can think of is a deist, but I cannot belive a God that would make the universe would not interact with it tangible.

To all :

I am truely sorry for the rudeness of Christians, it is an avious shame, and there is no one to blame but our selves. But I do not think it is because of Christainity that people do this, or if it is it’s by a privation of some christain pricible.

As i have said i am not here to bager you, but I really want to ask what do you belive reality is with out God? Because you may not be as far from christianity as you might guessm in fact probably closer then most “Christians”. But i do belive in God (the God of the bible), though I do not know if you know what i mean by that except a I am not a sure how to say it ofther then I believe in the I AM (which is a perfect, simple, eternal, infinie, imutable, Active I AM, not just a I exist. I think you all know that but this is for some reading this who may not.).

I am not saying i have all the answers, but still i would like you to argue with my why do you not believe in a God? Then from there we might move in to why don’t you beilieve in Christianity. But first lets stick with the simpler God. Is that to much to ask?
49. Zachary Weber | March 28, 2008 at 11:28 pm

I will make this quick. For some reason my other post didn’t load.

1. I I apoligize for Christians and nonminal christians acting so rude. It is there fault but not because of thir christianity, or if it is it is it in it’s prrivation from it’s fullness.

2. If I were born in to a muslim family i would probably be what ever the culture was i was born into. So if i was born in say germany I would probably be an athiest or maybe a deist. America, i would have more of a chance of being muslim but still more probably not, Iran i would probably be muslim nonminally or practically. What I believe doesn’t change fact, if it’s true it’s true with out with out me beliving it.

3. Santa has the posibiblity to to exist or not exist, but auing about being Himself creates some problems. I am not arguing about something that can or cannot exist but something that has to exist.

4. loving God with every fiber of your being is the fullfillment of the all the law. Thats why i was saying, it seems you are telling me that from my perspective you were saying you were, or were for a time, without sin.

5. I am guessing that you only belive in chance snd nessesity.
You can’t have reall love with those princibles by them selfves. Only mater in potency and act. Love is not a material substance of of a material substance, but of spiritual substance. it requires an intellect and a will, which is by no means material.

6. How can you get a standard by what is suffering and what is not suffering? Or what is harmfull and what is not harmfull? If you have not absolutes (God). Then you have no nothing to base an though off of. If you do have an absolute then you must have a God.

7. I would like you to bring to me your problems with christianity to me, not that I have all answers, but I see no reliable reason that it is not true and many that it is. Before that though, I want to just talk about the existance of God and find out why most of you don’t believe in one. You all seem really smart and reasonable, it Just doesn’t make sense from my perspective.
Do you mind tellign my why you don’t believe in God?
50. LeoPardus | March 28, 2008 at 11:42 pm

Regarding your number 7. Look in the archives for a series of articles I wrote called “Reasons I can no longer believe”. Others around here can point you to their stories and reasons.

Really short answer to why I don’t believe. I’m just like the apostle Thomas. He said, “Unless I see the nail holes in his hands, and place my finger in the wound his side, I will not believe.” If that’s good enough for one of the original 12 apostles, who lived with Jesus, it’s good enough for me.
51. Frreal | March 28, 2008 at 11:50 pm

“I would like you to bring to me your problems with christianity to me……….”

For starters,

God/Jesus commanded his followers to slaughter the children of his enemies, the elderly, the handicapped and the pregnant. Why does Jesus need to have babies slaughtered? Is the slaughter of babies a moral absolute? Can you reconcile the command to kill babies with omnibenevolence? Which person would have been more moral in God/Jesus’ eyes … the obedient man that plunged a sword into the belly of a toddler clinging to the lifeless body of his mother or the disobedient man that said “NO God/Jesus! It is wrong to kill the children of my enemies. ” Which man is more moral in your eyes?
52. Spirituality Without Supe&hellip | March 29, 2008 at 12:16 am

[...] out of human consciousness. Three and a half billion years of evolution has built the need for meaning and purpose into human beings. It is as real as our need to breathe. The word spirit comes from the Latin word [...]
53. Zachary Weber | March 29, 2008 at 11:08 am

I said, “Before that though, I want to just talk about the existance of God and find out why most of you don’t believe in one. You all seem really smart and reasonable, it Just doesn’t make sense from my perspective.
Do you mind tellign my why you don’t believe in God?”

I ment what i said, i think we will end up going in circles if you don’t have the belief in God to base my arguements off of. It will take a whole lot longer. But if you do belive in a God and just want to grill me on my christian beliefs, that is fine to, just please try to metion that you do before you grill me on christianity.

to LeoPardus:
sure i will get reading on those when i can k? I am in iraq though, but lately i have had some good computer time.

50. Frreal says:

“God/Jesus commanded his followers to slaughter the children of his enemies, the elderly, the handicapped and the pregnant. Why does Jesus need to have babies slaughtered? Is the slaughter of babies a moral absolute? Can you reconcile the command to kill babies with omnibenevolence? Which person would have been more moral in God/Jesus’ eyes … the obedient man that plunged a sword into the belly of a toddler clinging to the lifeless body of his mother or the disobedient man that said “NO God/Jesus! It is wrong to kill the children of my enemies. ” Which man is more moral in your eyes?”

This is a though part of the bible and i have had to think about it alot but i came to a few conclutions:

1. Is it nessisarly wrong for God to end life “early” (whatever that means cause who know when mean die naturally) people to save more people then He would of without killing them? I am not sure you can prove it’s nessisarly wrong. It by simply being a possible for it to be good is all I need to use.

2. But just filling the nessesity argument rarely satisfies so: Secondly, there is no modern tech, no modern governments. Everything is mob rule. If they let the childern land women live, what do you think would happen in a few years? War again. It’s quick, it reduces suffering, and it brings basic peace in that area. It’s not like they were capible of rasing and re-educating the rest. It would have probably caused alot of suffering if they had not. Brutal but true, freedom has not yet prevated enough to allow anything else (or the defence of it). Just look how hard Iraq has been and this is some where about 3500 years later. Our Government, economy, our wealth of knowledge through things like the internet, allow so much more possibilities then they had at that time. It’s hardly the same thing as if you did it now. And it’s not like the people they were doing anything better, just look at their religions. God chose a nation of slaves. Slaves. It’s not like they could do a whole lot. The would have died out with out God whathing overthem and leading them.

3. Speaking of which, God wanted to use a nation of slaves to shame greatness that is with out God. So He let them send their armies at God’s chosen, and God shamed them and made an example by fear, fear because there is nothing else he could really use at that time to ward off other mobs. It is in fact what we still use. It also turn others towards surender, because it’s not like the jew are forcing others to be immoral more than they already or. Infact their laws were very morally advanced in most ways. In some ways because of the time no they couldn’t be. Remeber there are 2 laws, laws for all men and laws for jews goverment which God extablished.

Honestly, It’s not completely fulling as a probability argument, but it does answer the nessisary one. It’s not like I know everything about what is right at all times. So it is enough for me.

51. Spirituality Without Supe&hellip says,

“[…] out of human consciousness. Three and a half billion years of evolution has built the need for meaning and purpose into human beings. It is as real as our need to breathe. The word spirit comes from the Latin word […]”

Can evolution come with out a God? Can existance be without a God? That is my problem with your argument because reasonable i can’t belive in any absolutes with out God, yet that requires the absolute.
But i wont get in to that it’s easier to use the second law of thermodinamics. The univers is going towards disorder, if it has existed infinitely then it what be in total disorder. It is not in total disorder, so there fore it does not exist infinitely, therefore it had to have a begining. what ever is brought into existance had to have a cause, this cause is what we call God.
54. Zachary Weber | March 29, 2008 at 11:27 am

49. LeoPardus read your arguments. Their are reasonable arguments, though i dissagree with them. I will address as soon as I get time, I am going to be at another fob or “base” for all you none military, for a two weeks and aI have no idea if they have computers or if i will get any down time between patrols.
UTM,
-Zach
55. Quester | March 29, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Zachary:

48iii) Why does God have to exist?

48v) Love is an act of will. I see no reason that will can not come from that which is material, though it is in itself immaterial. I am not a neurologist, but see no reason to assume that chemical and electrical interactions of sufficient complexity are not all that is required for reason, will, emotion and love.

48vi) One only has to experience different degrees of suffering to understand what suffering is, and imagine what not suffering would be like. No absolute, nor God, is necessary.

48vii) What causes me to doubt God’s existence is the complete lack of a clear revelation of God’s existence.

52i) When God could have killed the people painlessly in their sleep, or not caused them to be born, then yes, it is necessarily wrong- and evil- that God should order them slaughtered in agony, raped or enslaved.

52ii) Nothing was mob rule. It was all monarchy. God could have sent prophets. God could have raised prophets amongst the people already there. God could have revealed Godself to the monarchs. God could have simply not chosen already occupied land as the Promised land for “His” specially chosen people. God could have chosen all the people He created, as all were equally unrighteous, instead of selecting one group and having them slaughter those He did not choose.

52iii) God did not let the others “send their armies at God’s chosen”. He sent His chosen to attack and slaughter. You say, “God shamed them and made an example by fear, fear because there is nothing else he could really use at that time to ward off other mobs.” Is He not God? Is He not all-powerful? If all He could use is fear, He is not worthy of worship, for He is no more powerful nor capable than a human leader.

You say, “Remeber there are 2 laws, laws for all men and laws for jews goverment which God extablished.” Why, then, did God not reveal these laws He established to the nations?

I’m not a physicist, either, but I’ve heard the second law of thermodynamics often brought up in these sorts of discussions, and quickly dismissed. Here is a website describing why it does not work as an argument. Here is another. If it helps, here is a video; it doesn’t matter if you do not have speakers on your computer- it’s just music in the background of displayed text.

Once again, no God is required.
56. Zachary Weber | March 30, 2008 at 1:29 pm

1. What i am saying is that God is existence or being (though probably not as you understand it, the common idea of it is usaully far to privated from the fullness). All things that exist get there being by partisipation with his being actually (intellectual wills that are in unity with his will), and acciddently(things with out intellectuall wills or that regect them by failing to properly use them.).

2. Nessesity privated from existance of inttellect is incompatible with form. So you aren’t really you, you are just what is nessesity. With out you, there can’t be love because love requires a you, it requires specific form in it’s simplicity, not just it’s mutliplicity. If there is specificity, there is form. If there is form there must be intellect or intent. Intent has to be prior to the thing. There you get nessesity in it’s true form unprivated, which is order or another word direction. Both require a director to exist before the thing directed to derect the thing. I.e. God.

3. Just having something happen to you in different ways does not mean you can know it. If i have a thousand thing happening to me in a thousand ways and degrees and I don’t know they are happening to me or I don’t know anything about them how can i know them just by them happening?

4. God has to hide Himself from those who aren’t seeking Him. If He didn’t, He would either so ravish those that would serve Him that they would really not have the ability to choose because they are so overwhellmed by thier senses, (which is exactly the way he does not want us to love Him), or those that would never choose to love Him would be in a state of utter weakness(for lack of a better word) that they gcould not be used to help those that would choose to love God. So He has to stay hidden. Also i don’t know if He could truelly reveal Himself in His fullness in the naturall anyway. He has to constantly use the way of affermation (knowledge of Him by things in thier likeness) and the way of nagation (knowledge of Him by things in the matterial world lacking being like Him). Namely evil or corruptability or mutability or what ever you want to call it. Hense He has to stay hidden to show Himself.

5. Now i have no idea where you keep gettting this whole raped thing. i never have heard any logical arguement for the bible saying God told them to rape or enslave. My understanding is that he told them to kill and be done with it. If God just killed them in there sleep how is he etteblishing israil as his choosen people? He isn’t, for all they know it was some sickness, and it give no meaning to them being choosen to the world.

6. It was far more tribal than monarchy and what was monarchy was still far more like mob rule.

7.God Could have sent prophets to everynation but He didn’t. Can you prove that He should have? But romans says he did go out to all nations and reveal Himself.

and i got cut short I will respond futher tomorrow my time hopefully. Later
57. Frreal | March 30, 2008 at 2:20 pm

Zach there is a descriptive phrase for what you are doing. It is called mental gymnastics. Yet another believer that must distort reality to make it palatable. You so want to believe that the being you worship is righteous and good that you spend inordinate amounts of time defending the indefensible.

Plunging a sword into the belly of a newborn baby still held in its mothers arms…. or did the Israelites burn them to death? behead them? drown them? throw them from a cliff? or perhaps just leave them to starve at their dead mothers side?

These acts are acceptable to you? The God of the Bible commanded the slaughter and rewarded the slaughter according to that very same Bible. These stories are plausible coming from the minds of men but outrageously unbelievable to have been inspired from a being that is considered the foundation of morality.

Think about it Zach.
58. Brent | March 30, 2008 at 2:39 pm

Zachary,

The problem with your argument is that it defines God in such a way that no matter what happens, you can use it as evidence for his existence. You talk about actual and accidental will–no matter what happens, God wills it, either actively or passively. How do we know he wills it? Because it happens. Good people exist? Evidence for God because they show us what he is like. Bad people exist? That’s evidence for God, because they show us what he isn’t like.

As far as killing everyone in their sleep, which do you think would display supernatural support more? An entire city dying in their sleep, or being beaten by sword-wielding humans? I don’t know of many illnesses that kill entire populations overnight, and given the nature of ancient superstition, I don’t think an illness that does so would be attributed to anything else but a god.

There are indeed a great number of instances where the Israelites are instructed to “utterly destroy” everyone–man, woman, and child. However, I’d call your attention to Numbers 31, where the Israelites defeat the Midianites and killed all their males. They took the women and children captive. When Moses found out he was upset and instructed them:

31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.
Moses tells the Israelites to kill every male and all the non-virgin females, but to keep the virgins for themselves.
Is it wrong to commit adultery?
31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

“Keep alive for yourselves?” Hmmm…wonder what that means? Now you could make a case that God isn’t actually quoted as giving Moses that instruction, but neither does he condemn the action, instead instructing Moses to make sure he gets his cut. (Comes out to 32 virgins according to v. 40)

As far as slavery, how about Leviticus 25:44-46:

25:44 Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.
“Of them shall ye buy, and of their families … inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever.”
Buy some heathen neighbors for slaves. They are to be your possessions forever.
Does God approve of slavery?
What the Bible says about slavery
25:45 Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.
25:46 And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.

or Joshua 9:21-27, where God curses the Gibeonites by telling them that they would be slaves of the Israelites.
59. LeoPardus | March 30, 2008 at 3:19 pm

Zachary:

5. Now i have no idea where you keep gettting this whole raped thing. i never have heard any logical arguement for the bible saying God told them to rape or enslave.

Then you should pay attention to what’s in your Bible.
In Numbers 31:1-18, God commanded the Israelites to kill the Midianites — all except the female virgins, whom the Israelites were to “save for themselves.”

4. God has to hide Himself from those who aren’t seeking Him. If He didn’t, He would either so ravish those that would serve Him that they would really not have the ability to choose

Utter hogwash. He revealed himself numerous times in the Bible. Once again you find yourself just needing to cover up for the fact that your invisible, inaudible, intangible, undetectable friend only does anything in your imagination.
60. Zachary Weber | March 31, 2008 at 1:13 am

1. God did reveal the laws to all creation by creation, because they existeded by natural reason. The Law being a benovolane toward being in genral. This law can be seen by actual and accidental created things purpose by there cause. Actually things can only intend what exists, and every thing exist is consitent because it is from a simple prinicple, so to will one thing is to will every thing it’s true benevolence or nothing by willing it’s privation

I’m not a physicist, either, but I’ve heard the second law of thermodynamics often brought up in these sorts of discussions, and quickly dismissed. Here is a website describing why it does not work as an argument. Here is another. If it helps, here is a video; it doesn’t matter if you do not have speakers on your computer- it’s just music in the background of displayed text.

2. Ok though i admit not fulling understanding what was argued (there were terms i weren’t familair with like “Q 0″ or “P 1″ ). It still doesn’t change the fact that the universe will be eventually all get suck out into the vacume of space completely seperate from each other. It has to happen with an infinite vacume. If infinate amount of time has passed we would be in the vacume seperated, so it is a finite movement. If it’s a finite movment it had a start or should i say an act with no potency which is God. So God is required.

3. Frreal, telling me your ussumtion that i am wrong and that i am just making up reasons for my beliefs is very rude and unprodutive to conversation. It may be try but it’s still rude in this enviorment. Please don’t comment on the person but the idea. Though i admit it’s a good mental workout or better said tempering.

4. I am pretty sure it was put them to death by the sword, but any way. The problem with your argument is that you argueing from your own morallity with is possible flawed. I am not arguing from my morality or it directly in the same way. I agree that people shouldn’t do these things at all now days, but i can’t argue for all time all situations that people shouldn’t do this becaue i don’t know the implications. Now, arguing from a God, if He existed He would know ther eis a right time to do it.

5. Yes it does define God in such a way that no matter what happens i can use it as evidance for his existance. Thats the point, thats what God is. The only thing that God does not will directly is for wills, that he has made that get there existance in partisipation with his will, to love privation or inttend privation. So yes God made evil as a possiblility (lacking exitance) but actual things must choose there lacking while accitdental things exist by partisipation in actual.

6. The point is suppernatural support. If it’s Just God doing it he is not supporting them so much as doing it for them. The point is God want to make us stand up on our own to legs so that we can do great things with out Him directly interfering. He wants to support us and make us useful not over power us and make use useless.

7. As far as raping the women, i can only reach that this means as slave because rape is punished by death in the old testment. Your assume base of what you don’t know. I am am arguing off what i know. I think that they were taken as slaves is a better argument.

8. Your right i had forgotten about those verses. Again though while i do disagree with slavery as end, i have no problem with takeing away power from certaint people. That it essetially what slavery is. Though i do believe the end Goal should be to give all people power in ther proper use but it must be given in does that they wont lose control, or that isn’t to more then what he is ready for. That is freedom given properly, when it’s given in a way that they can use it for good instead to destroy it.

9. God only showed him self in power to those who were already seeking Him.
shoot cut short again gtg
61. Quester | March 31, 2008 at 2:43 am

Zachary, in response to your points in #55:

1) If God is being, than God must exist. Fair enough. I simply see no reason to assume that God is being, nor am I able to define being in such a way that it can also be understood as something one can develop a relationship with. If God is being, I see no reason to pray; though I can understand expressing thanks, any response expected would have to come from something more than just the essence of being.

2) You seem to be defining necessity, simplicity, multiplicity and form in ways I’ve never heard before. In what ways does form imply intent or intellect? Water falling can form a puddle without intending to, and no intelligence is required to make water fall while in a gravity well (ie: on a planet).

3) By training your perception and using your reason. I assume you can figure out when you are wet and when you are dry, even if you are never either in their ideal or complete state. In the same way, I can figure out when I am suffering.

4) If God hides completely from those who are not seeking Him, He is not giving them a free choice for you can not choose something you have no reason to believe exists. I am not asking God to reveal Himself in His fullness, just as something that is clearly God and not a false idol.

5) You’ve seen by now where I get “the whole raped thing”. Perhaps it didn’t happen. Slavery and slaughter certainly did. Both are evil. Both were commanded by God. This may be the only way to establish the Israelites as God’s chosen people; I’ll concede that. That means, however, that it was an act of evil for God to make the Israelites His chosen people (evil to those God created but did not choose).

6) Could be. It doesn’t matter. Mob rule or monarchy: doesn’t limit God’s choices substantially if God is all-powerful.

7) Can I prove God should have revealed Himself to every nation? No. I can say that hiding Himself from people, then ordering those people killed for not following what they could not see and had no reason to suppose existed is evil. But I can’t prove that God shouldn’t be evil. If He is evil, though, we should oppose Him, not submit to Him.

Now, for your comments in 59:

1) What laws are revealed in creation or natural reason?

You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you (Genesis 17:11).

If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible (Exodus 21:28).

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent (1 Timothy 2:12).

I don’t see how natural reason would would draw anyone to those commandments.

2) Who is to say what was required as an action before there was time or space to act in? Maybe a god, maybe not. If God, in what way do you consider God to be an act with no potency?

3) I’ll let Frreal respond.

4) Yes, if God exists, He could know if there are circumstances that would justify an evil action. That would not make the action good, but perhaps less evil than that which would have happened if the action was not performed. Of course, if God existed, He could have chosen a good act, instead of one that was simply less evil than another.

5) I’ll assume this is addressed to Brent.

6) Then why isn’t God supporting His chosen in good actions instead of evil ones?

7) Taken as slaves may be a better argument, but it still an immoral action for God to be commanding His chosen people to perform. God could have chosen these people as well, instead of enslaving them. That you have no problem with God choosing as He did is a disturbing comment about your priorities and ideas of what is moral.

9) I see you were cut short, but hope you will provide lots of evidence for this point. I see no reason to assume Abraham or Moses, for example, were seeking God when God revealed Himself to them. How about the twelve apostles? On what evidence do you assume they were seeking God when Jesus chose them?
62. Zachary Weber | March 31, 2008 at 5:18 am

1. God is being is what i mean by God is Act, it is the principle from which all creation gets it’s existance by partiscipation. So how do you have realtionship with this Act? Three ways: To see it, intend it,(this is what i mean by exiting actually) and to be caused by it(this is what i mean by accidentally).

2. Let me say this to avoid some confusion. Any act requires proirspecificity. In moving bodies, a thing with kenetic energy is a certaint way, can only be that way it it has the potential or potency to be that way. It also must be moved by an act or kentic energy that brings that potency in to act. Thats in a small way how we get the word director and direction. Both imply each other nessisarly. Breaking down act I have three things: The Actor or Act (the thing in it’s simplicity), the Acting (The direct relationship between simplicity of the Idea and the mutiplicity of the thing cause by the Action), and the Action (the relationship between the Act and the Acting). This is the trinity, none are created by each other but the same thing beggoton or exstended by each other.

3. Original Act cannot create Original Act, but it is the only principle that it can create by. So what is created must in one way be and not be Origional Act. So things are made in mode or messure, specificity or multiplicity, and order. Messure being the amount of God or Act in the thing made in it’s simplicity, specificity being the amount in it’s muliplicity, and order is the relationship between the two. None of these things can exist etternally by themselves (eternity is restricted to act without potency) or else they would have to be God, so the messure, specificity, and order implies also corruptability in all of those principles.

I got cut short again gtg
63. Quester | March 31, 2008 at 6:41 am

Zachary,

1) If existing is our relationship to god, then we can toss out scripture, prayer, worship, ritual, faith and everything to do with religion. This God you are describing has nothing to do with any of it.

2) Not sure I follow, but I’ll play along.

3a) I do not see why the Original Act, acting as it does unconditioned by time, can not create the Original Act. I’m not saying it did. I just can’t see why it can’t.

b) Eternity, simply meaning “unconditioned by space or time” cannot act, in and of itself. If what you mean is “an infinite amount of time”, I see no reason why the Actor cannot Act out the Action in all its specificity and multiplicity for an infinite amount of time. The Actor is simply changed by the Act of Acting until it has, ultimately, given itself the potency to Act out its own Action.

c) What, in your theory, created the Original Act? If nothing did, why assume the universe was? The mutability of the universe does not prove, in and of itself, that it was created, nor that it could not have created itself, nor that it will not create that which will have originally created it (sorry for the confusion of tenses- grammar was not built to discuss a non-linear view of time). If time was created, then there exists that which is unconditioned by time (eternity). Within eternity, the concept of mutability, and indeed the concepts of cause and effect, are inapplicable. The need for an Original Actor, separate from any mutable Action is no longer obvious. There may be one, but it is not necessary to assume there is.

God may exist, but does not necessarily.
64. Frreal | March 31, 2008 at 11:11 am

Zach you asked for reasons for unbelief. You agree that killing children is wrong yet somehow you want to justify it as righteous and good because it is God’s will and God is righteous and good. How do you know God is righteous and good? Because God wrote the Bible and he tells us he is righteous and good. How do you know God wrote the Bible? Because he tells us he did.

Here inlies the problem. God tells us he is righteous and good and merciful and says read my book so that you will see evidence of my good works. So I read the book and what I see is the slaughter of infants, incest, slavery, rape, genocide, torture. And I see ALL of these behaviors REWARDED.

I see where God calls Lot a righteous man after he offers his daughters up to be raped by a mob to save God’s angels from being sodomized. I see where God calls David a most favored after he has a woman’s husband killed so he can marry her. I see God’s law where a women is to be executed if she was unable to cry out while being raped in a city. I see where God sends a bear to eat children for calling a bald man bald. I see where God allows a righteous man’s family and life to be destroyed merely to prove a point to Satan only to provide him with prettier children and more wealth in the end.

I see evidence of God and his chosen people taking delight in the dashing of little ones with stones. Psalm 137:9

I read these portrayals of God’s favored people and can only conclude that these are NOT righteous behaviors. Righteous people do not throw babies off a cliff or throw rocks at their fragile bodies, crushing their skulls and breaking their bones all the while rejoicing and praising God for their latest military victory.

It saddens me that you can so easily dismiss the horrifically graphic depictions of killing infants. That it doesn’t even generate thought provoking emotion is something I find profoundly disturbing. Could you possibly be more cavalier?

” I am pretty sure it was put them to death by the sword, but any way. ”

I am sorry you feel offended by my use of the term mental gymnastics. But that is what it is. You are defending the slaughter of babies by God’s people even though you believe (I hope) that killing babies TODAY is wrong. You feel compelled to provide reasons and rationalizations for acts you know are dispicable to people like me to justify that the God you worship (as I once did) is in fact truly righteous, good and merciful. You are asking me to disregard what is evidenced by God’s own testimony (The BIBLE). You are telling me to deny my internal moral compass(which you say by the way is God given). You are telling me that yes those acts seem bad but in fact they weren’t evil because of this and that poor excuse after poor excuse because in the end God is good because He says He is good so everything He does must be good even if it doesn’t seem to be good and who are we to question anyway.

No…..you don’t question atrocity but you will surely defend it even if God won’t.
65. Brent | March 31, 2008 at 8:06 pm

Zachary,

59.4) You could take that reading, but I think it is avoiding an problem. Why only take women who had not been with a man? Why say to take them “for yourselves?” Why not say to take them for slaves. Admittedly, the language is not specific. Either way, though…I can just see the defense in a court of law. “Honest your honor, I didn’t rape the girl in question…I only took her as a slave!”

59.5) In essence, what we have is a gerrymandered deity; he gets all the credit for good things, takes none of the blame for bad things, he’s “proved” by every piece of evidence, and the whole conversation becomes pointless.

59.6) I understand your point, but this is ambiguous as proof of supernatural support. A clearly supernatural act such as a city dying in the night would not be attributable to Israel’s military prowess, while victory in battle can. I don’t understand how this illustrates divine support better than some other action (for either party.)
66. Brent | March 31, 2008 at 8:21 pm

Frreal,

“It saddens me that you can so easily dismiss the horrifically graphic depictions of killing infants. That it doesn’t even generate thought provoking emotion is something I find profoundly disturbing. Could you possibly be more cavalier?”

There is a HUGE blind spot that issues from accepting the Bible 100% literally. I know…I’ve been there. Ironically, the best illustration I can think of comes from Jesus himself:

Matthew 7:3) And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
67. Zachary Weber | April 1, 2008 at 10:02 am

I think we are getting a bit to unfocused. So if you don’t mind I would like to re summarize the points of disagreement and my arguments. Please understand I that I am not using this to try and avoid answering some of your counter arguments. Our focus is getting so broad that I keep getting cut short.

1.Points of disagreement on the existence of God are:

a. “God” doesn’t really mean anything.

b. God is not necessary for the universe

2. Points of disagreement if the Christian God is the true God:

a. He seems far to immoral to be God when he orders the killing of many nations by the Israel, and by approving of Israel taking slaves.

b. He is far too in effective at changing sinful hearts in reality.

c. God is a no show. If He exists he should be more prevalently revealed in creation.

If there are any other major points I missed, go a head and I will put them in, but these seem plenty enough for now so unless you have a major one to put in, let just work with these for now.

I will try to summarize my arguments:

1a. It’s true that when we say God is not “A” in this way, in a sense we are not saying anything about what God is (like when we say God is higher than material substance, or beyond time), except by un-equating an example of what God is. It’s the allegorical nature of language i.e. an apple is red. What I do not mean is that an apple is the wavelength of the photo that is red, but that it has a likeness to it. When it comes to God, He is defined by all things that are of Him as He is Principle Being, yet He is none of the things of Himself as Principle Being, because He is not of Principle Being but is Principle Being. So God does mean something, it is just the He is not = to anything of Him. This is what is meant by the way of affirmation and the way of negation.

1b. God is necessity. Necessity is boiled down to the Acts prior specificity and the Act bringing into act what was specified prior. In this case, nothing had the potential to be something not of it’s self but by God (Original Act). In any system this can be seen by potential and actual energy, and as always the process of what is potentially act, becoming act, by priorspecificity of the previous act cannot be infinite or else there would be an infinite about of acts before now and we would never get to now. So far this all I mean by God. Now do you agree that God exists like this (if I define Him as Original Act, Necessity, and Being)? I am not asking you if you yet believe in a God you can pray to or have a relationship with, just that based of this definition do you agree.

2a My argument for God not being too immoral by calling for killing and slavery of all these people is that, first, there is no proof so far that it is necessarily wrong. You can’t prove that at all times, in all situations it is wrong. You all so can’t know for sure that this situation it was wrong, because you are fallible and not always right. Where is he were God, He would always be right. So that deals with the necessary problem. So now it is possible that the Christian God is the true God, though not yet shown as probable in this case. Even so, it is possible to make the Christian God probable by other means.

The probability argument for the Christian God seeming to inconsistent and immoral to be God in these verses are strong, but very subjective. Still my argument for why it doesn’t seem completely immoral to me is that slavery of the body is ok if it is seen as means to free the soul (or more souls then would have without), with an end goal of freedom for the bodies of any souls that are free. Second, God knows how to give the most souls possibility to choice that would choose to love Him, which may mean, that to do so, He must not give choice to some (Keep in mind that all men are begotten of Adam as Eve choice, so to give the choice to them, the effect of choice in their nature, or that is them, has to be taken by God in a way that does not remove what was chosen, and be given the ability to choose again that does not counter the old choice.). As for killing, all men die, we all know that, and that was the effect of the choice, privation from God who is Life. Knowing this, if by a few dying many more were saved from death or something worse then physical death, then those that died did so for good, though not intentionally.

2b. Changing heart and sinful souls is a long process, but it happens by necessity. Eventually, the person has to face every sinful part of himself with His choice that God is his ruler, it must happen because it is potentially to happen, and when you live endlessly every thing potential to happen must happen except if it contradicts what already happened. So, it a process of plugging in every habit and act back into God as it’s cause. Now, this is very hard if one is not very aware of his habit contradicting his Love for God. That why you will get some men who turn to God and become better men faster from doing horrible things, then men who do evil that is seemingly respectable, or simple unnoticed as either. This is what is meant by the war between the spirit and the flesh (the ideas of the world and the devil take advantage of the habits of flesh and exasturbate them ). The old habits are the cause of sin which can pervade in anything not directly connected to the submission to God. But the New habits of the love and submission of the will to God are necessarily good (submission not absorption).

2c. God is hidden because he can’t show himself in His fullness by nature, so there still exist the possibility to love the thing show instead of God and the more powerful the act the more potentially mistakable it is for God. God does and did show Himself in two ways, one by wooing the other by ravishing. The first he uses very little so as not to hinder human choice or overwhelm it, the second, after God is sought, God will sometimes do to any He chooses but those who God does choose to do it to, participate less in God intentionally, and more accidentally. So the preferred way is with as little of God’s help as possible. He wants you to learn to stand on your own to feet to love Him, not to baby you if possible. God did show Him self in power to many who were seeking Him in the bible but only to those who were seeking Him in some way already. Adam, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ruth, David, Solomon, the apostles, Paul, and many others through history have seen God act powerfully but were all seeking God in some way first (if you have one you don’t believe they were I would like to argue otherwise, with the exception of those who were blatantly against Him and His people.). Most of His power shown to myself has been subtle but viable. I don’t know how many time I prayed for something to small to happen that had very little chance of happening and it did. Like for example, stopping rain out on mission of in training. I would pray and it would stop right then and there. I would lose my keys and I would pray and right there I found them. More often it doesn’t happen than it does, and I have to give my frustration to God and submit to reality. I am not