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Why God Wants Praise [W:65]

blarg said:
so you can ignore the god and choose to avoid hell?
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No, acknowledging God is essential to choosing salvation. You have to acknowledge where salvation is coming from.
 
LowDown said:
No, God does not demand praise so that we won't get hurt. We should praise Him so that we and others will know to choose to accept the gift of salvation. The death of hell is something we choose for ourselves.
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A man goes to your house and says, 'worship my friend, or he'll shoot you'.

Did you 'choose' to be shot because you didn't worship him?
 
LowDown said:
The whole comparative religions approach is secular and has nothing to do with Christian belief.
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Comparative religions approach? I'm just saying that you would very obviously judge the words of the bible differently if you weren't busy trying to obfuscate whats clearly being said. There's no denying it.

LowDown said:
What's in the Old Testament is beneficial for teaching, but we are not bound by any of that as Christians*. God turned over a new leaf, so to speak, with Christ. We got a new rule book, and it is this: Love God and Love One Another.
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We aren't talking about what you are bound by. This is the problem here. You have a canned response for when anyone brings up the old testament and you just lay it down without any regards for context. I'm not saying "why don't you stone people LOL". I'm saying that the description of god as an egomaniac is a very easy conclusion to reach if you read the old testament. And I'm not hearing any argument against that. It seems that your only point is "God turned over a new leaf". Well, either he's a jealous god or he's not. He's either a god that threatens people for not worshiping him or he doesn't. If you want to argue that he used to be that god but isn't anymore then that goes against the very common definition of an "unchanging" god.


LowDown said:
There is some ambiguity about the fire and brimstone thing. Jesus himself referred to Hell as a place where people are consumed body and soul. In other places in the Bible it is referred to as a "second death". So it may be that there is no eternal fire. We just die and cease to exist. This is pretty close to the secular concept of death, I think. In other words, it's not eternal life vs eternal damnation, it's eternal life vs death, i.e., ceasing to exist.



*Of course, there are many laws in the Old Testament that we follow, but those laws are all subtended by the new law.
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Then maybe it would have been wise of god to include an actual direct reference to what hell is. Don't you think? If I were god I'd certainly be mad that Christians have been screaming fire and brimstone at people for almost 2000 years if that's not at all what I meant.
 
LowDown said:
No, acknowledging God is essential to choosing salvation. You have to acknowledge where salvation is coming from.
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ok now this sounds like god demanding praise in exchange for not hurting you again

unless maybe god did not have the power to make sure you could be ok without doing so
in which case it may be doing its best for you
 
Nilly said:
A man goes to your house and says, 'worship my friend, or he'll shoot you'.

Did you 'choose' to be shot because you didn't worship him?
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Exactly. It's like creating a computer program that has free will VIA a random number generator. 99% of the time it will return the message "I praise you" and 1% of the time it returns "I don't praise you" and then I get mad and angry when this object, that I designed as imperfect, dares to do something I don't like. It's a ludicrous proposition on its face.
 




 
Nilly said:
A man goes to your house and says, 'worship my friend, or he'll shoot you'.

Did you 'choose' to be shot because you didn't worship him?
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God created us with the intention that we'd be saved. But he also gave us free will. Free will means nothing if there's no wrong choice.
 
LowDown said:
We still have to accept the gift. We are creatures of free will. We can choose. Good PR helps people make the right choice.
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With an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent being, that would not be necessary.
 
LowDown said:
God created us with the intention that we'd be saved. But he also gave us free will. Free will means nothing if there's no wrong choice.
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Really? Fascinating.

Tell me something, did this god create Hell?

A simple yes or no will suffice.
 
I don't understand the fuss. If you don't believe in God, what are you worried about, and conversely, if you do believe in God, what are you worried about? If you don't believe in God, you believe salvation is not necessary. If you do believe in God, salvation is yours for the asking as long as you acknowledge the source of it, which is implicit in the stated belief to start with. The religious constructs of human kind get in the way here. Best to avoid them. For believers, no intermediary is needed. For non-believers, nothing is needed. Simple.
 
LowDown said:
God created us with the intention that we'd be saved. But he also gave us free will. Free will means nothing if there's no wrong choice.
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saved from what so far it looks like your god built people to worship it or suffer endlessly why?

id be perfectly happy if both people who believe in god and those who dont wear not hurt becase of that choice existence would not seem any worse ther woudl still be things i like and dont to give life and choices meaning
 
humbolt said:
I don't understand the fuss. If you don't believe in God, what are you worried about, and conversely, if you do believe in God, what are you worried about? If you don't believe in God, you believe salvation is not necessary. If you do believe in God, salvation is yours for the asking as long as you acknowledge the source of it, which is implicit in the stated belief to start with. The religious constructs of human kind get in the way here. Best to avoid them. For believers, no intermediary is needed. For non-believers, nothing is needed. Simple.
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well this not being dead forever thing sounds good but the explanations for why any one should believe it and how it worcks seem really shaky

and also pointlessly evil and cruel

and its a bit concerning that people seem to embrace this stuff and that this kind of faith can influence the world
 
LowDown said:
God created us with the intention that we'd be saved. But he also gave us free will. Free will means nothing if there's no wrong choice.
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supposedly you praise your god becase your greatfull to it and love it not to avoid being hurt which you will be if you dont

why would your will and feelings lack meaning if people who dont worship your god dont suffer for it and jsut happen to get a possibly pleasant and endless existence as well?
 
LowDown said:
The whole comparative religions approach is secular and has nothing to do with Christian belief.

What's in the Old Testament is beneficial for teaching, but we are not bound by any of that as Christians*. God turned over a new leaf, so to speak, with Christ. We got a new rule book, and it is this: Love God and Love One Another.

There is some ambiguity about the fire and brimstone thing. Jesus himself referred to Hell as a place where people are consumed body and soul. In other places in the Bible it is referred to as a "second death". So it may be that there is no eternal fire. We just die and cease to exist. This is pretty close to the secular concept of death, I think. In other words, it's not eternal life vs eternal damnation, it's eternal life vs death, i.e., ceasing to exist.



*Of course, there are many laws in the Old Testament that we follow, but those laws are all subtended by the new law.
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o um thats still paints god in a horible light
 
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LowDown said:
God created us with the intention that we'd be saved. But he also gave us free will. Free will means nothing if there's no wrong choice.
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You're dodging the question.

If a man goes to your house and says 'worship my friend or he'll shoot you'.
Did you choose to be shot because you didn't worship him?

Alternatively:

A man goes to a shop and says, 'hand over all the money in the register or i'll shoot you'
Did the shopkeep choose to be shot because he didn't hand over the money?

Fairly straightforward.
 
blarg said:
or if you go in for the many worlds theory then everything that can exist has to so no chance just worlds without end maybe with a lot of copys to
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That is circular logic.

but god or no god in the end your always left wit a kind of an unsatisfying becase thats how it is.
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I am quite satisfied.
Sure there are things I would like to own, but they are not something that I have to have.

now if you have gods that actuly has truly free will your also back to chance since ther not under any pressure to do things a certain way you could have a god that wanted any possible creation
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I have free will to choose what I want that doesn't mean that is the choice He would have me make, but He allows it.
 
blarg said:
well this not being dead forever thing sounds good but the explanations for why any one should believe it and how it worcks seem really shaky

and also pointlessly evil and cruel

and its a bit concerning that people seem to embrace this stuff and that this kind of faith can influence the world
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Get over it. Faith will always influence people. It's influence will rise and diminish over time, but it will always be there. Whether or not your soul, if you think you have one, survives after physical death shouldn't be a concern to you, given your belief. And it is a belief. Nobody knows how life after death works. That should be obvious. Anyone who tells you how it works is blowing smoke in all the wrong places. That's part of the reason such beliefs are described as faith. So, either you believe in God based on faith or you don't. There is no middle ground.
 
LowDown said:
Of course, a person who believes that there are other gods or no god isn't going to be interested in or understand a discussion of the Christian God. Except, of course, to be critical or derisive of the whole idea.
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Oh, did you specify the christian god? Which sect? When you say "god", I don't know from that which unique version of the supernatural you're referring to. I assumed it was a general question about why a god would need to be praised.

There's a lot, either way, to be critical of. The aspect of worship that demands the most obvious question is, why are questions themselves so offensive to religion but credulous faith is not? Can faith be both sincere AND a product of censorship? Science can't be, so how is faith different?

It's strange to me that faith must be practiced in an environment of special consideration and that so many faithful allow the stacked deck to prove their magic. How can god trust our worship to be genuine when even rational objections and opposing opinions are filtered out by the thought police of that particular sect?

I understand that you're saying that worship is good for the worshiper, not the worshiped. God being an abstract, it would have to be.
 
humbolt said:
Get over it. Faith will always influence people. It's influence will rise and diminish over time, but it will always be there. Whether or not your soul, if you think you have one, survives after physical death shouldn't be a concern to you, given your belief. And it is a belief. Nobody knows how life after death works. That should be obvious. Anyone who tells you how it works is blowing smoke in all the wrong places. That's part of the reason such beliefs are described as faith. So, either you believe in God based on faith or you don't. There is no middle ground.
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Seeing how Christianity has surived for 2000 years and the early church underwent some of the worst torture that one could imagine
it isn't going anywhere.

Matthew 24:35
heaven and earth will pass away but my word will never pass away.
 
D_NATURED said:
Oh, did you specify the christian god? Which sect? When you say "god", I don't know from that which unique version of the supernatural you're referring to. I assumed it was a general question about why a god would need to be praised.

There's a lot, either way, to be critical of. The aspect of worship that demands the most obvious question is, why are questions themselves so offensive to religion but credulous faith is not? Can faith be both sincere AND a product of censorship? Science can't be, so how is faith different?

It's strange to me that faith must be practiced in an environment of special consideration and that so many faithful allow the stacked deck to prove their magic. How can god trust our worship to be genuine when even rational objections and opposing opinions are filtered out by the thought police of that particular sect?

I understand that you're saying that worship is good for the worshiper, not the worshiped. God being an abstract, it would have to be.
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I think you are in the wrong forum.
God might be an abstract to you but to believers He is not.

He has a defined nature and characteristics.
 
ludin said:
I think you are in the wrong forum.
God might be an abstract to you but to believers He is not.

He has a defined nature and characteristics.
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Gosh! Really?

What are they, in that case? Please be very, very specific.
 
roughdraft274 said:
If god wanted good PR I think it might be a good idea for him to stop it with the whole hell fire and brimstone thing.

Just be honest LD. If I were to hand a christian any number of the books from the old testament and tell them that this is a book out of the koran they would likely say/think something like "no wonder so many of them try to justify their horrific actions. This is what they believe."
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I'm a follower of Christ. I know the Old Testament. I would never deny any of the things that God did or said. He's still the same God. Three things that He's pretty consistent on are that (1) He demands our obedience, (2) He promises judgment and follows through, and (3) He is a loving and patient God as is evidence by His gift of grace and the fact that since the sacrifice of Christ (propitiation for sin), He's withheld judgment upon the sinful world for quite a while.
 
blarg said:




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I think perhaps you should go to the top of this forum and read the "Sticky." If you don't believe in supreme beings....fine, I think everyone gets that. You don't like people of faith?....great, that's your prerogative. If you want to have meaningful discussion about what others believe or ask them questions about their beliefs....well that's fine too. But that's not what you're doing, is it? When you want to start baiting, trolling, posting cartoons, etc in order to poke fun at, criticize, or to insult those of faith for their beliefs....well then if you don't want to get reported, I think you should take that junk to the "Philosophical Discussions" forum. That's kind of the rules. :shrug:
 
ludin said:
That is circular logic.


I am quite satisfied.
Sure there are things I would like to own, but they are not something that I have to have.



I have free will to choose what I want that doesn't mean that is the choice He would have me make, but He allows it.
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so what if it is circular logic im not saying it has to be so just 1 way to remove chance and god at he same time by having to express evry possible state of existence under all posble sets of physical laws at once

ok your satisfied but still all the ultimate cosmic answers are going to boil down to becase x

um not talking about your will which may or may not be free you had issue with he idea of people existing by cahnce im just saying a god wont immediately take that away this relates to the ultimate becase x i was referring to in his case why did god want the universe the way it is even if you get an answer you still going to crash into becase and that will still be arbitrary and random wiht an unrestrained truly free god

no 1 has free will under an omniscient god not even the god what it sees is and must be
 
Tanngrisnir said:
Gosh! Really?

What are they, in that case? Please be very, very specific.
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https://carm.org/topic-god

There are just a few with scripture support not that you will read it.
The bible contains great detail in who God is.

If you would like more read the parables of Christ
 
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