Calling all Christians!

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15 Jul 2002, 11:50 AM
Captain Vegetable

Quote:

Originally posted by Brotherman
Hmmm... I don't remember that book of the Bible existing? What Bible were you looking at?

The Gospel of Thomas does exist, but not in the Bible. Many gospels exist outside of the four found in the Bible. The gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Mary Magdelene are two such books. The gospel of Mary Magdelene, FYI, is the gospel tenaciously held on to and believed by the Masonic Order (aka Masons). In that gospel, it names Jesus offspring, and the Masons use it to trace their liniage back to Christ. It involves the Scottish Rite and the Knights Templar, but that is neither here nor there.

Besides, that verse he used is in the Gospel of Luke 12:51-53:

"Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to bring strife and division! From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against--or the other way around. There will be a division between father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law."

In this passage it speaks of division in the family caused by a belief in Jesus as the Son of God. Nowhere does it make mention of physical conflict. Division and war are two different concepts that you seem to be confusing, MrKasulUltra. The physical conflict comes in when men distort the words in the Bible. In John 18:36, when Christ is before Pontious Pilot and Pilot askes if He is a King, Christ replies He is, but:

"Then Jesus answered, "I am not an earthly king. If I were, my followers would have fought when I was arrested by the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world."

His kingdom is not of this world, and as such, does not use worldly methods. Worldy kingdoms use warfare, and need physical defences, and all such manners of polotics. God's Kingdom was never meant to exist as a political entity (The Vatican), nor was it meant to pick up arms to force it's beliefs down others throats (The Inquisition, the Crusades, etc.). For Christ also says in Luke 9:4-5:

"When you enter each village, be a guest in only one home. If the people of the village won't receive your message when you enter it, shake off its dust from your feet as you leave. It is a sign that you have abandoned that village to its fate."

Christ said this Himself, and as such, anyone who behaves in a manner contrary to this obviously does not act according to the Spirit of Christ, but rather their own will. Christ was gentle, and He knew all things were in His Father's hands. No force was needed, and so Christ spoke out against it.

Don't blame God and Christianity for what man has done through trickery, manipulation, and an evil heart.
15 Jul 2002, 11:54 AM
Captain Vegetable

Quote:

Originally posted by MrKasualUltra2000
perhaps you should read you Bible a little more carefully...

Or perhaps you should...
15 Jul 2002, 12:35 PM
Brotherman

Ah. Thanks Capt. Looks like I've still got a ton to learn.
15 Jul 2002, 12:45 PM
Captain Vegetable

Quote:

Originally posted by Brotherman
Ah. Thanks Capt. Looks like I've still got a ton to learn.

We all do, Brotherman. ;)

And you're quite welcome.
15 Jul 2002, 12:49 PM
Saint of Killers

Quote:

Originally posted by Captain Vegetable
Don't blame God and Christianity for what man has done through trickery, manipulation, and an evil heart.

Say I made a robot, purely for home-defense. Now say it went haywire and escaped, and slaughtered half the city. Can I claim that I'm not to blame for the murders committed by my creation, because I didn't intend for the robot to go around killing? So why does god get off the hook for making man such a mess?
15 Jul 2002, 01:06 PM
Captain Vegetable

Saint:

First, you're making a deadly assumption. God is our creator, and as such He holds us accountable and determines the laws we are made to adhere to...laws that He doesn't necessarily have to adhere to Himself. You're putting God under mans judgement by assuming he must adhere to our definitions of morality. He defines perfection, and we are imperfect, so how is it we can judge God, who is perfect, with our imperfect and limited understanding of Him?

That robot you made, are you subject to his definition of moral or correct? Not at all. And neither is God subject to our definition of moral and correct.

So, let's say you create an entire planet filled with these robots. A.I. is advanced enough so that you, the creator, can just about leave them be. You did, however, create them with a purpose. That purpose doesn't have to be defined, so we'll call it the "purpose" (tricky, huh? ;) ). If you exterminate an entire serial type of robots, does that make you immoral? Certainly not! It makes you the creator, and you act as you see necessary. That serial type of robot had stopped preforming it's predetermined task, and so was chosen, by you, to be exterminated. Did you love them? Most definatly. They were your most advanced creation among the other robots. But you still had to do away with them. Now, what if you had used another set of robots to do the exterminating? Are you immoral? No. Are you "right?" Yes! Because "right" isn't defined by your creations, but by you the creator.

To say God's ways are incorrect and immoral when compared to our standards is nonsencical. Why? Because what we think doesn't matter...

Good enough explanation?
15 Jul 2002, 01:10 PM
Captain Vegetable

Besides that, you're comparison doesn't float. Here's why:

You, as a human, are a creator. Your robot is a creation. Your robot didn't kill another creation, which would be another robot, but it killed a creator, a human. Get it? Different situation.
15 Jul 2002, 01:14 PM
Saint of Killers

If the robots stopped performing their predertimined tasks, I would consider that my fault, as I created them. If they started doing something I didn't want them to, I obviously didn't design them correctly. And if I claimed to love them, as many religions assert god loves us, I wouldn't just destroy them, I'd try to fix them.

And I think the 'god's on a whole other level than you, so you don't get to judge him' argument is a cop out. But my heart's not really in this right now. I can't debate religion while sober.
15 Jul 2002, 01:16 PM
Saint of Killers

So if I killed god, everything would be dandy?
15 Jul 2002, 01:40 PM
Captain Vegetable

Quote:

Originally posted by Saint of Killers
If the robots stopped performing their predertimined tasks, I would consider that my fault, as I created them. If they started doing something I didn't want them to, I obviously didn't design them correctly.

This is all well and good;however, you're not perfect, and you know it. You have the luxury of blaming yourself. You can say, "I did something wrong!" But, God is perfect, and He knows that. So He also knows that He never does anything wrong.

Besides...you can't blame yourself. Why? Because you knew they were going to crap out on you. How? You made them that way...

Quote:

And if I claimed to love them, as many religions assert god loves us, I wouldn't just destroy them, I'd try to fix them.

Well, you're not Him. So, nyah! :p

This really is the perogative of the creator; in this example you. And your perogative would be to fix them...unless you created them to be destroyed at a later date. God's mechations are much more complex than many people, even Christians, would give Him credit for. He doesn't decide on a whim to whipe whole peoples out...he had (past tence) decided before those people were even around.

Our existence is a finely tuned machine (to further your illustration). Everything that happens happens for a reason. Everything begets something else. God made this machine, perfectly, so that all things happen when they do, how they do, and why they do because there are functions which are crutial for the machine's opperations that wouldn't happen otherwise.

So, your most advanced robots that stopped preforming their purpose? You knew they were going to crap out on you. And, not only that, but you designed them that way. Why? Because you knew that a certain function that could only be triggered by their eventual disoibedience and destruction was necessary in the furtherment of the machine as a whole. It wasn't a flash-in-a-pan decision. You didn't act based on what your creations had done, but on what you had designed them (chosen them) to do. You designed it that way. So, they're really not acting outside of their purpose at all...but they had more than one purpose, as dictated by you, the creator.

And, yes, love most definatly is a factor. Even if predetermination exists, God still loves all of His creatures...even the ones He knows will do wrong, even the ones He has selected a negative (in our eyes) purpose for. He loves them all. He loves us all.

Quote:

And I think the 'god's on a whole other level than you, so you don't get to judge him' argument is a cop out.

Not a cop out. I don't cop out. But it is the truth. And as such I doubt you can find a way around it.

Just as your robots cannot judge you, you cannot judge God. You can try...but that won't make you successful.

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