- #1
Saint
- 437
- 0
The Revelation says, Satan will be jailed 1000 years, after that it will be released to confuse nations.
Why like that?
Why like that?
Because without somebody to tempt us to do wrong (or bad), then it would not "expose" us to our weaknesses, and we would not inquire (of God) about how to grow beyond it, "spiritually."Originally posted by Saint
The Revelation says, Satan will be jailed 1000 years, after that it will be released to confuse nations.
Why like that?
Originally posted by Saint
The Revelation says, Satan will be jailed 1000 years, after that it will be released to confuse nations.
Why like that?
Phobos, you may have seen it already but you might find an answer to that question in my first post in this thread:Also, why was the devil allowed to exist in the first place?
Yes, it is. I'll make an atheist out of you yet!Originally posted by Saint
According to bible, God wants everone to believe in Jesus and saved, but Satan wants people to disbelieve God and sin.
If without Satan's influence, there should be more people to believe in Jesus and do less sin. However, God seems do not know this fact and allow Satan to work freely on people.
Isn't this ridiculous ?
The Revelation says, Satan will be jailed 1000 years, after that it will be released to confuse nations.
Originally posted by Zero
IT IS A FAIRY TALE!
Originally posted by hypnagogue
I think the basic idea is that the devil was initially an angel with free will. This angel used its free will to disobey God and so was banished.
Originally posted by Iacchus32
Because without somebody to tempt us to do wrong (or bad), then it would not "expose" us to our weaknesses, and we would not inquire (of God) about how to grow beyond it, "spiritually."
Originally posted by Laser Eyes
Phobos, you may have seen it already but you might find an answer to that question in my first post in this thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=829
Originally posted by Zero
Yes, it is. I'll make an atheist out of you yet!
Actually there are people discussing these issues intelligently, although some of us would rather fight it out in the trenches I guess? And hey, don't forget to tell Brian I referred you.Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I continue to despair over seeing, on the one hand, diligence toward understanding science issues by members here, and on the other hand, such utter carelessness toward understanding the history of the God concept.
Tell me please . . .what possible excuse is there for sloppy scholarship in a science-oriented, public forum?
What I wouldn't give for some participation by members who've thoroughly studied the archeology, history, anthropology, literature, etc. of God belief, and who offer up for everyone actual, genuine, real informed opinions rather than the superficial knee-jerk opinionated crap prevalent here.
If you understood the spiritual implications here, that all outcroppings of evil are due to man's ignorance, and that yes, the Devil is in fact man (gone to hell), then human nature would suffice.Originally posted by Phobos
Human nature is not enough? I don't think Judeo-Christian beliefs are such that all sin is due to a devil.
Too bad you don't actually know what Atheism means, or you wouldn't have posted teh way you did.Originally posted by hypnagogue
This is a charming sentiment. Too bad the position of atheism is just as logically flawed as the position of theism; belief in the non-existence of God has no more justification than belief in God. I'm all for questioning beliefs in the spirit of open discussion, but what amounts to nothing more than simple meme machines on either side of the equation are generally not very conducive to open discussion.
Uh huh...for instance, most respected Biblical scholars laugh at the idea of taking the Bible literally.Originally posted by LW Sleeth
I continue to despair over seeing, on the one hand, diligence toward understanding science issues by members here, and on the other hand, such utter carelessness toward understanding the history of the God concept.
Tell me please . . .what possible excuse is there for sloppy scholarship in a science-oriented, public forum?
What I wouldn't give for some participation by members who've thoroughly studied the archeology, history, anthropology, literature, etc. of God belief, and who offer up for everyone actual, genuine, real informed opinions rather than the superficial knee-jerk opinionated crap prevalent here.
Originally posted by Zero
Uh huh...for instance, most respected Biblical scholars laugh at the idea of taking the Bible literally.
Originally posted by Zero
Too bad you don't actually know what Atheism means, or you wouldn't have posted teh way you did.
Originally posted by LW Sleeth
When people sit around talking about God allowing evil, hell, heaven, sin, miracles, and the whole list of stuff people have made up or figured out, they don't even know if it is from the acknowledged masters like Jesus or Moses or the Buddha or whomever . . . or if it is myth or dogma or some pope's proclamation a thousand years ago, or Dante's Inferno . . .
For the most part, what started the major religions was an individual's personal experience. It is my opinion that that experience is the only thing worth investigating in religion, yet it is just about the last thing anybody, whether believer or athiest, is trying to understand or experience.
That is why I continue to complain about the quality of research and thought behind most of the comments in the religion forum.
Atheism is much less than this, as reading a tad further down at the dictionary.com website goes on to explain;Originally posted by hypnagogue
From dicionary.com:
atheism
1 a. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
1 b. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
disbelief
Refusal or reluctance to believe.
From Merriam-Webster:
atheism
1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
disbelief
the act of disbelieving : mental rejection of something as untrue
Atheism is the simply the philosophical stance of disbelief in God; in other words, it is the rejection of the existentence of God as untrue. There is a separate term for doubt or skepticism of the existence of God, without the distinct belief that God must not exist. It's called agnosticism.
Furthermore, if an agnostic does not deny the existence of God but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not such a thing exists, then as an atheist I have to disagree because there are many people who seem to know for certain that such a thing exists, haha. In that case it might be construed that agnostics, not atheists, have a ‘belief’ after all.
Now, I have no magic crystal ball granting me power to view the future, but I do believe that sufficient subjective evidence can and does present itself to an individual such that he/she may become 100% convinced that god(s) exists. Therefore I prefer to say that evidence does exist, but this ‘evidence’ is valid only for that individual and not for me. Unfortunately, rarely does this doesn’t satisfy the theists.
Read the second half of 2 again and you can see that agnostics can indeed assert a believe that God does not exist.Dictionary.com:
agnositicim
1. The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge.
2. The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist.
---
That doctrine which, professing ignorance, neither asserts nor denies.
And I simply do not agree for the reasons already stated.All I am saying is that 'agnosticism' better captures the views of those (on this forum at least) who present their arguments against theistic belief than 'atheism.'
I didn’t say I was skeptical on merely scientific grounds. I have other grounds too.Insisting on the use of the word 'atheism' as opposed
to 'agnosticism' when you are skeptical of God's existence on scientific grounds, but when you simultaneously don't have a definite disbelief in God, only confuses the issue by making your stance unnecessarily ambiguous.
The bold text is what you say, the normal text is what I would say providing we have an agreement on the definition of the word ‘objective’. Langauge is a tricky thing and it can be difficult to get your meaning across.In other words, you hold that there is no objective, physical evidence for the existence of God. You furthermore characterize whatever subjective evidence that may exist as that which is sufficient to convince an individual that God exists, while refraining from granting this subjective evidence any real objective truth value-- you say that it convinces the individual, not that the individual really knows the truth of the matter (ie, has 'ultimate knowledge'). This is a very agnostic position.
Because I do not hold the same definition as you.I'm sorry if it seems like I'm just haggling over definitions here, but I think I have a valid point. Why use an ambiguous word that inevitably causes confusion and misinterpretation of your beliefs when you can use a more precise one that better captures the essence of your stance on the matter?
See what I mean about language being tricky? I was not thinking about your religious views at all, merely stating what my own non-religious views are. In other words it was a general statement.edit: Just to clarify my own stance in case I have been ambiguous, I myself am an agnostic. I say this because I caught something in a previous post that could be interpretted as implying that I'm a theist and I'm not sure, BH, if you were referring to me specifically as one of these theists or if you were just making claims about theists in general.
Originally posted by BoulderHead
The bold text is what you say, the normal text is what I would say providing we have an agreement on the definition of the word ‘objective’. Langauge is a tricky thing and it can be difficult to get your meaning across.
I agree that the author has a responsibility to put their thoughts across as clearly as possible.Originally posted by hypnagogue
Well, the trickiness of language can be the only explanation, since the bold text was just an explication of what you directly implied with the language that you used. If the bold text doesn't agree with your philosophy then you should have worded your statement more carefully.
Really, I wonder why there is so much haggling over definitions of words in the philosophy forum, in that case, haha.The information on the history of the usages of the words is insightful but not really relevant. All that matters is how the words are defined nowadays.
I though I had, but I’ll try again;You still haven't explained yourself well enough to convince me that 'agnosticism' does not better capture your beliefs than 'atheism,' but I suppose this is a moot point.
That is precisely the case.…I will just respectfully recognize that the labels 'agnostic' and 'atheist' in common usage do not hold as much meaning as their formal definitions might imply and that there are gray areas in any case.
In real life they always come in pairs as well (good/bad, strong/weak, etc). I won't argue that the Bible is real, its not relevant to the general point: EVERY coin has another side created just out of opposition from the front side. Someone will always argue the other side and a leader of that other side will emerge.Originally posted by Zero
See, in a fairy tale, you have to have the good guy and the bad guy.