Death Thread II: The Second Death.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Straight ahead looking at the advertisement. No eye, eye or eye contact.

edit: Crap, RD thread. Bailing out!

 

[Borachio]

Hey! Not to worry.

We can still play the old "Wages of Sin is Death" card (covers just about everything imaginable: including urinals, shower rooms and where to look) and get out of jail free. No problemo.

 

[Tigranes]

Really? I'm totally lost now. You're no better than I am but I'm 1000 and you're 1001? Ooer!

Do you see I have there "But even if I am" part?

 

[Borachio]

I do see.

I wouldn't have gone for the "even if" bit, myself. And it's a bit of a giveaway, don't you think?

All I'm saying is forget all this "being good" business. No good (ahem) will come of it. It's a blind alley.

 

[Tigranes]

I didn't get any of that

Are you able to do good things? Yes. Are you able to do bad things? Yes. Why? Because you are a sane grown up human. Not a lion, not a carrot, not a gun. Not a biological robot. Not a toddler. Not mentally disabled.

Can I make you to be perfect? Yes, if I am Omnipotent. No, if I am Holy and you don't want to do anything with me. Reconciliation? Asking you to trust me, to trust my will. Faith is the written consent on the path towards plus infinity. While you live you will never get there, the final result of your Ziggy function can still be a negative number, but your steps in the right direction created positive slope. Omnipotent God can now extrapolate your function to plus infinity without doing something unholy to you.

 

[Tigranes]

"Having 7 deaths is impossible, having 1 is inevitable." (a saying)

I think that when a person dies, he/she dies. That's over then for that individual. I don't believe in afterlife or bodiless consciousness.

However, there are similarities between parents and children. So, the individual's offspring is that individual's extension/prolongation in life.

Generations of my ancestors made this world for me, their extension, to live in and they contributed to its advantages and flaws with their deeds, thoughts (or thoughtlessness and inactivity). I, in turn, contribute to thoughts, deeds, thoughtlessness and inactivity of my generation that will form the future world for my successors to live it.

I see. There is problem with this theory, though. Lets extrapolate this to nations, say "cowboys" and indians. Before 1492 and now. One can end up in "heaven" by pushing others to hell. How can your mind be content with this reality without searching beyond what you can see with naked eyes?
And I think saying says двум смертям

 

[Borachio]

I missed this one.

Why she? Irony, neglect?

Good point! Neither irony nor neglect.

Why "He", eh? Can you tell me?

Habit? Or more likely patriarchy?

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? from where then has it tares? He said unto them, An enemy has done this. The servants said unto him, Will you then that we go and gather them up?
But he said, Nay; lest while you gather up the tares, you root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather you together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

Imagine your head hurts. You are a 'god" for your head. Would you prefer to cut it and get rid of the suffering? Or try to cure until it's cured?

Yes, I know this parable. [Tell me about the sheep and the goats. Both the sheep and the goats are stupid. But the goats smell bad as well.]

Doesn't even begin to address the Problem of Suffering, imo.

Do I need to restate it for you? Have you forgotten it already?

Quite what you mean by me being a god for my head escapes me. I've never claimed to be either benevolent or omnipotent. And I'm certainly neither with respect to my own head.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'd have to say, the Problem of Evil was a foundational step in my apostasy. I have other reasons now, but I've not seen any solutions for the problem of evil that doesn't suggest a weaker God than Anselm asked for.

 

[timtofly]

Isn't suffering just the potential from not making the most efficient choice? God it would seem does not make any choices. He is just the arbitrator of how far satan and humans are willing to go in their own limited knowledge. To top that off we live in a universe that has it's own set of pecking order and survival of the fittest.

 

[Borachio]

Sure. The Buddhists maintain that the cause of suffering is ignorance, I think.

So, the God you're describing there is the God of "light the blue touch paper and step well back", Mr Fly?

Doesn't square well with the omnipotent, benevolent personal God, who tracks the fall of every sparrow, of the Christians, though, does it?

 

[Tigranes]

I missed this one.

Good point! Neither irony nor neglect.

Why "He", eh? Can you tell me?

Because it is customary to use He when referring to God? I honestly did not understand why you had to say she just out of blue? It was not funny, it was not smart, it was not insulting, it was not making any point, it was just being random without any apparent reason.

 

[timtofly]

Sure. The Buddhists maintain that the cause of suffering is ignorance, I think.

So, the God you're describing there is the God of "light the blue touch paper and step well back", Mr Fly?

Doesn't square well with the omnipotent, benevolent personal God, who tracks the fall of every sparrow, of the Christians, though, does it?

A really efficient being does not have to make choices do they?

 

[Tigranes]

What is your source for satan creating hell? God did not create it, but Jesus said in Matthew 25 that fire was prepared for satan and his angel followers. The point where death is torment was established by Jesus in the circumstance of two humans going there (Luke 16). Abraham had a conversation in a place where there was fire separated from a place that did not, but both individuals where able to communicate with each other. I am not sure how one would take this figuratively. The best figure we get is that there is suffering in the afterlife for some and not for others? Even if hell is not real, the story is the first example of virtual reality where those involved with having physical bodies were able to experience existence as if they did have. Thus, at it's worse, the concept is re-enforced that God does allow suffering to go on forever. At it's best would be total separation from life and God. In Revelation 20:14 we get to the final step in the lake of fire, the second death. The picture being painted is the earth being swallowed up by the sun. The next chapter talks about a new heaven and a new earth.

In about 5 to 6 billion years, the Sun will have depleted the hydrogen fuel in its core and will begin to expand. At its largest, its surface (photosphere) will approximately reach the current orbit of the Earth. But exact details are not relevant. Essence is. Hell is a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.

Source for satan creating hell? Romans 6:23+1 John 3:8. Wages of sin is death+the devil sinneth from the beginning. Death, what death? The second death, which I call hell in this thread. Which event has brought second death into existence? The sin of the devil.

 

[Kyriakos]

You see, the essential conundrum the convinced theist has to answer is the Problem of Suffering.

Put concisely, this is: how does a benevolent omnipotent God allow suffering in the world? Or, indeed, anywhere.

I've yet to see anyone answer this convincingly. (Which isn't to suggest it can't be answered, of course.)

I doubt a god, if it exists, is conscious in a manner similar to humans (or conscious in a way to be produced by altering human consciousness as a basis). It would not make sense. A human exists as part of a species. While we have the ability to be introverted (and some are very much so, such as people with a schizoid personality), ultimately we would die if we lost contact with basic functions in our external world.
A god is not likely to have need of the external world, unless that god somehow is tied to it, in a manner which does not hinder or nor does it place it in hierarchies with that world.

In my view a god may exist, but it won't communicate with humans in a more defined manner than ants communicate with humans. Eg even a god which would be everything else in the universe other than humans, would still be nearly EVERYTHING in the universe, and still would not be communicating.

 

[Borachio]

Because it is customary to use He when referring to God? I honestly did not understand why you had to say she just out of blue? It was not funny, it was not smart, it was not insulting, it was not making any point, it was just being random without any apparent reason.

You miss the point about patriarchy, then? You consider that to be irrelevant?

I don't think it is. I think it explains much.

I wasn't trying to be funny, far from it. (I'll admit I do sometimes try. But this time wasn't one of them.)

I've absolutely never entertained any illusion about being smart. (I especially don't claim to be the possessor of "special" knowledge. Unlike you, maybe, Mr Granes?).

And I was certainly not trying to be insulting? Why would you suppose I was? Have you anything invested in calling God "Him" by any chance?

If it's simply a matter of convention, I do think it's a good idea to challenge every convention at every opportunity. That way is the only chance we have to re-examine our preconceptions and maybe have a stab at the truth. I'd have thought you'd applaud the effort. (Actually, I wouldn't at all. I suspect your claimed love of truth is merely nominal.)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Link to video.

 

[Kyriakos]

^That's ironic, Alanis Morissette (edit: but it is an RD thread :\ ).

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

She keeps using that word ...

 

[brennan]

Hell is a state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed.

So i'm in hell now? It's not all it's cracked up to be - the music is excellent for a start, food's pretty good...

According to some religious teachings, existence here on Earth is a practice run for an eternal existence, whose nature varies between two polar extremes depending upon our behaviour here.

Some obvious contradictions: the deity responsible is allegedly 'infinitely just, wise and merciful' but is perfectly willing to condemn us to an eternity of suffering.

He wants us to do this on the basis of totally inadequate evidence, with brains he himself created to be inadequate to the task, or which, so far as they are adequate and gain more and more relevant information seem apt to conclude that this is all nonsense.

The most rational thing to do here is in fact to not believe in this delinquent, stupid, morally questionable being or his heaven and hell.

 

[El_Machinae]

Of the Christians, I think it's the Mormons who describe us as being currently separated from God, but also insist this life isn't the only shot. They get around the Problem of Evil just by reducing God's omnipotence