Hello, Artgurl.

war and peace...love and fear....tomayto and tomahto....

Is that what you mean?

sort of ...

pick any concept and it has two ends of a continuum... to use one of your examples ... war and peace

One cannot exist without the other. Without one there is no frame of reference for the other.

We live in a universe that strives for balance. Even in the chaos ... a balance of sorts exists. Just like our bodies when they are sick ... there is still balance in the body although it is not a healthy or 'preferred' one.

It is our attachment to things that pulls the balance off of center.

In our example

WAR---------------PEACE


The more we attach ourselves to the notion of war ... the more calls for peace spring up around the world

WAR---X---------------PEACE


The more we attach ourselves to notions of peace the more violence and war erupts on the planet ...

WAR---------------X---PEACE


Like a giant pendulum the farther it is pulled in one direction ... the farther the opposite reaction has to be.

It would seem then that the only reasonable thing to do would be live in the balance ...

WAR----------X----------PEACE

Unattached to either side ... but observant and aware of both.


How can we ever find peace by investing in warring for it?

That is what I mean ... both are part of the same coin ... one side is light ... the other is shadow. And within them we find the balance.

sorry creativesoul ... this got off topic...not trying to hi-jack

In all actuality ArtsyGurl... it is a part of the very root of the topic at hand...

And your assessments concerning this "balance notion" very much may just seem to fly in the face of my notion(s) of "evil"....

However, I am always learning, and letting go of that which was believed at one time, but has since been clarified...

I do understand what you are saying here, and why...

I so believe that man has developed this "evil" concept... to the point of being truly unrecognizable...

Not that the possibilities for it were created by man... no, those conditions and/or probabilities were established long before, along with every other Universal Law...

MAN... not God... unless of course you believe that God has complete control OVER everything that "moves"... I believe that his control is rather THROUGH everything that "moves"...

I do not believe in this notion that "our" God is a seperate entity which knowingly created this "bad" angel who is now the "devil" who is battling with God over our souls' eternal life... the notion of light and darkness I have accepted...

This all-powerful omniscient being whom most Christians I have spoken with profess to worship, which can create whatever he so chooses, displays HUMAN behaviours that are riddled with HUMAN MISTAKES that are inherently NOT loving and/or peaceful... allow me to give just ONE of an infinite number of examples...


If he were indeed jealous(requiring exclusive loyalty), all-powerful, all-knowing, and in complete control OVER everything... the only way he would do anything such as knowingly create an angel that would turn on him to be his own competition... is if he were a drama queen... Which I do not believe him to be... That notion and every Christian explanation that I have heard for it does not rest well within me....

creativesoul,



Just curious, what doesn't make sense to you about freewill?

spider:

Ummmm...everything about "free will" makes perfect sense to me... right up until the point that I see or hear the notion being used as a blanket to cover up the true reasons for what I believe to be long-standing HUMAN mistakes which have been attributed to God...

I think that my question to you would be how would YOU define "free will"?

creativesoul,



If everything about about freewill makes perfect sense to you, then what don't you agree with about the fall of Satan? What mistake has been blamed on God? I am not aware of any Christian doctrine which teaches that God makes mistakes.



The ability to determine your own actions and make your own decisions.

spider:

If everything about about freewill makes perfect sense to you, then what don't you agree with about the fall of Satan? What mistake has been blamed on God? I am not aware of any Christian doctrine which teaches that God makes mistakes

<<<< No "mistake has been 'blamed' on God"... >>>>

<<<< And I am in absolute agreement with you... I also am not aware of any Christian doctrine which teaches that "God makes mistakes"... I also believe that... >>>>

<<<< "The fall of Satan", however is would be where our differences would lie, in this instance. >>>>

<<<< Simply put... I do not believe that it happened. >>>>


spider's definition of "free will":

The ability to determine your own actions and make your own decisions.

<<<<perfect!!!>>>>

The notion of Free Will is explained perfectly within Pantheism.

In the pantheistic view god created free will by rolling the universe as dice. It was the act of rolling the dice that gave rise to our free will. It produced “controlled chaos”, and we have even been able to verify via quantum mechanics that this is indeed how this universe works. Even the universe itself doesn’t know what’s going to happen next! How could its creator possibly know?

The pantheistic god is not like the God of Christianity. And this is why I always use a lowercase ‘g’ when I refer to the pantheistic god. It’s not a person-like ego. The pantheistic god does not know ever little detail of what will happen next. This is because the pantheistic god made the universe in such a way where the universe itself cannot know what’s going to happen next.

The old Newtonian clockworks picture of the universe is an invalid picture of reality.

Quantum Mechanics has replaced that picture, and quantum mechanics has shown us that even the universe itself does not have a predetermined trajectory. This is what gives rise to our free will.

Because this is the nature of the universe, it would be impossible for even a God to know what the future holds. This is not a denial of God’s powers, but rather it is simply to say that this is the way that god herself has DESIGNED the universe!

This ‘controlled chaos’ is necessary to give rise to free will. This is the essence of free will. This is the mechanism that god used to bestow us with free will.

There are things that are impossible even for the Christian God. In fact, the Christian God is necessarily a naïve concept - it's a God who can do ANYTHING! That's simply not possible for ANY god.

Even Spider had pointed this out in another thread when he suggested that God does not know ‘everything’, God only knows what is ‘true’. Although, that’s not quite right because even humans can know things that aren’t true (or at least they can imagine them).

However, the basic point is that even for God there are things that are impossible. For example, God cannot both create man, and not create man simultaneously. He’s got to make a choice to either create man, or to not create man, he can’t do both simultaneously.

There are certain things that God simply cannot do because they conflict with each other. Another example is to create an immovable object that God can move. It’s either immoveable or it’s not. It can’t be both simultaneously.

God must necessarily ‘give up power’ in some area in order to create anything. And this is also true of creating Free Will. In order for god to create free will she had to give up knowing the precise details of exactly how things will unfold. This is a requirement of free will. You can’t give someone free will and simultaneously know precisely what they are going to do with it. That’s an oxymoron to the very idea of what it means to have free will.

However, God did not give up ALL control. We don’t have absolute full Free Will. Our free will is quite restricted actually. We can’t fly away without using artificially created technology. We can’t jump over the moon. We can’t breathe underwater without the assistance of technological devices. If fact there are a lot of things we do not have the free will to do!

One might claim that in principle we have the ‘free will’ to do them, we just physically pull it off. But that misses the point. If there are things that our physical form prevents us from doing then we have no free will to do those things. Or at least if we attempt to do them we will fail and die. We might have the free will to drown ourselves, be we have no free will to breathe underwater, for example.

The point of all this is that while god gave up having all knowledge of the future when she gave us free will, she didn’t do this in a completely chaotic way. On the contrary, she gave us only a restricted form of free will. While she may not know precisely what will happen in every detail, she DOES know the boundaries of what can and cannot happen. She knows what numbers can come up on the dice of the universe, and waht numbers can never come up. There are no surprises for her even though she doesn’t know the details.

It’s just like when we roll dice. We have no clue what numbers will come up! But we know what numbers can’t up! We know we’re never going to roll a 13 using only a single pair of dice! Nor are we going to roll a number one. Nor are we ever going to see a fraction come up as the result of the roll.

Yet even though we know what the constraints are, we have no idea which numbers actually come up (or in what sequence they will come up in multiple rolls).

This is the way that God works. God knows what’s possible, but he can’t possibly know every detail. He forfeited knowing the details when he created our free will. This was a necessary tradeoff. He cannot both, give us free will, and not, simultaneously. He had to make a choice.

Even God cannot have his cake and eat it too.

That's true, but God is only limited by paradox and character. For example: God cannot lie, but only because it's against his nature.



"Even Spider"? I wrote a thread on this topic many months ago. I stand by my statement, God only knows those things which are true. I don't believe God has or needs an imagination. The imagination is used to think of things which may be possible. God knows all things which are possible and does not need to think on things which are not. God doesn't ever think "What if I lied...", because God it is not in God's nature to lie. The imagination is a great thing, but I don't see how the Christian God or any other god could benefit from imagination.



It is also explained perfectly in Christianity. It seems that the your belief is that free will is an accident or "controlled chaos". In Christianity, free will is given so that we can love God, a being without free will cannot feel love or any other emotions other than those it is commanded to feel.



Christianity teaches that God is the creator and that the creator is greater than the creation. God's position outside of space and time allows God to know the future, because to him the beginning and the end are as one. God opened the book and God closed the book. What God starts, God finishes.



Didn't you tell FeralCat that everyone worships the same god in another thread?

Abracadabra wrote...


Perhaps you mean "The pantheistic understanding of god is not like the Christian understanding of God"?



God's foreknowledge of our actions in no way limits our free will. Because of paradox, we must live, but God already knows what actions we will perform and what decisions we will make.

Very interesting way to put it Abra...

Not sure about the parallel... however, interesting contemplation, none-the-less...

No it is not explained in Christianity.

It is not explained HOW god implemented free will. Pantheism explains HOW free will as implemented.

Moreover, the Christian point of view seems to be that free will is totally about whether or not people will choose to love God. Therefore thus must be a consequence for those who do not choose to love God. Thus hell is required.

In pantheism free will is just that. We are free to love god or to not love god without any eternal consequences based on our choices. Pantheism is not all about loving god. Pantheism is about loving LIFE!



Yes. There can only be one creator of the universe. That is the only real god. I worship the creator of the universe, and imagine that she does too.

I still hold to that. I think that you confuse religion with God. You think that your religion IS God.



The religions are different no matter from which perspective you choose to look at them.

We both worship the same god, we simply have differnet ways of understanding what we believe god to be like. But the important thing is that god MUST KNOW this!

God cannot possible be reduced to any single religion. God would not put himself in such a tiny box.

Just because the religions may not be accurate does not change the nature of god.



The Bible clearly denounces this idea. For example, God would have no need to test Job if he already knew what the outcome would be.

There would be no reason to even bother with the physical world at all. All choices have already been made as far as God would be concerned. Let’s just move on to the judgment stage then. No need to play these silly games of pretending there are choices when there are none. If what you claim is true the was outcome is finished before it ever got underway. Your fate was predetermined before you were ever even born!

Can you not see the problem with this? Even a God could not set up such a paradoxical situation. Even God must forfeit something in order to create something. Even God cannot have his cake and eat it too!

No God can.

You acknowledge this yourself, but then you go on to contradict your very own proclamation.

You’re always asking us to point out your contradictive style, where he you go,…



In your very own words you say that it is true that God is limited by paradox,… but then you go on to say,…



And here you are claiming that it is INDEED a paradox.

You have contradicted yourself Sir! And I have kindly pointed out your precise contradtion as you have requested so as not to frustrate you.

In his best "sports announcer voice"....

"Well, there ya have it folks, it is quite obvious that there is a major lack of communication between the coaches... it seems as if the signs are getting all mixed up... which is, in turn, confusing the players... OH - OH - WAIT ONE MINUTE... Rodriguez has just taken off for third!!!! Here comes the throw from the pitcher!!!... and HE IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS OUTTA HERE!!!!!

I love baseball!!!

No, you just didn't understand what I was saying, there is no contradiction. "Because of paradox, we must live"...You seem to think that is a contradiction, it's not. If we didn't live, then God couldn't judge us, because it is not Just to judge someone for a crime that they didn't commit. That is why "Because of paradox, we must live", because if we didn't live out our lives, then God couldn't judge us to give us our punishment/reward.



You make me laugh. I quoted you, to show that you said you don't worship the same god as Christians in one post and that all who worship god worship the same god in another post. It's not my fault that your beliefs and posts are so contradictory.

Read it here:
"The pantheistic god is not like the God of Christianity."
"We believe in the same God Feral, we simply understand God in different ways. "

You contradicted yourself. I assumed that it wasn't intentional, so I asked if you meant to say "The pantheistic understanding of god is not like the Christian understanding of God"? Your response was to attack me, so I must assume I just found a sore spot. Why is it that you had to insult me when I asked a question? I think any reasonable person would be forced to admit I was polite in pointing out that contradiction and that I assumed that you simply misspoke.



God allows us to think and make our own decisions...What more do you need to know? That's a pretty complete explaination right there. Your explaination is "It was an accident", that's not a better explaination. But then you continue to say that in patheism free will has a purpose...An accident with a purpose? Sounds like a contradiction.



It would be a paradox for God to know something that Job was going to do, if Job never performed said action. This goes back to my first answer to your post. You aren't grasping the concept of paradox. If something never happens, God can't know it happened. That would mean that God believed a lie. Sorry, but my God is not fooled by lies. God knows all things which are true, everything that has, is or will happen. God doesn't need to know what "might" happen, because God knows the future. God doesn't need an imagination, because there is very little that God cannot do and those things which God cannot do are either evil or impossible.

Abra Thinks:

Pantheism is the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God; or that the Universe, or nature, and God are equivalent.

Answer for Debbie I don't think like this at all.....I am not God, you are not God, The trees are not God, the flowers are not God....They were all created by God....

abra believes:

The idea that natural law, existence, and the Universe (the sum total of all that is, was, and shall be) is represented in the theological principle of an abstract 'god' rather than a personal, creative deity or deities of any kind. This is the key feature which distinguishes them from panentheists and pandeists. As such, although many religions may claim to hold pantheistic elements, they are more commonly panentheistic or pandeistic in nature.

Debbie Belives:

Thats a bunch of poppy ****. I believe that God/Christ are deities.....That God my God created all the world....meaning every living thing including us in it. I believe that when God felt it was good it was done. He then created man to watch out for this world that he created.

Now abra you can think that we believe in the same God, but when I referenced you before that I get you....did not in any way make me beieve the crap your trying to get others to believe. I believe that first and foremost my God is a HE not a she......because the Bible tells me so. as I told you just now in the other thread. I believe that science, and all the world is due to God.....PERIOD

Religion is a man thing PERIOD....and as I have said many many times before....I don't care what religion people want to be.....For me if you believe that Christ (God's Son) died for our sins so that we may have everlasting life.....then thats all I need or want for the masses. And you can disagree which is fine......but I will be right after you with another way for people to see things....because that is what my GOD has asked me to do.

abra said

No it is not explained in Christianity.

It is not explained HOW god implemented free will. Pantheism explains HOW free will as implemented.

Moreover, the Christian point of view seems to be that free will is totally about whether or not people will choose to love God. Therefore thus must be a consequence for those who do not choose to love God. Thus hell is required.

In pantheism free will is just that. We are free to love god or to not love god without any eternal consequences based on our choices. Pantheism is not all about loving god. Pantheism is about loving LIFE!

answer for Debbie.......That is just taking what God intended and re-writing it to fit the pantheism need. Of course God has to have consequences abra or this world would still be a caotic mass and mess before he started. As a child has consequences for his actions while growing up, the same is for God's people. The free will comes because God wants the people to choose...whether they follow him, whether they make right choices, whether they put God before everyone else....You see it has to be a freewill choice. And if you believe in our God....it comes naturally to love life...the only difference is that we also love those less fortunate then ourselves and seek to help our fellow man...

Where did everybody go? I thought you guys wanted to point out more "contradictions" in my posts. Too bad every contradiction you guys find is actually a misunderstanding on your part. Anyways, it's friday, so have a drink on me.

lol kisses spider on the cheek....have a wonderful friday mr.

How on God’s green earth did you twist this into a personal insult?

All I said is that there is only one creator of the universe and we all can only worship that one god. And that our religions are merely our view of what that god might be like.

How can you POSSIBLY take that to be a personal insult?

You just seem to love to scream ‘personal foul’ at the drop of a hat. Especially when you feel a need to distract from your own contradictions.

There is also nothing paradoxical or in contradiction to make a distinction between religion (man’s idea of what god might be like) and what god is really like.

Nothing I have stated is in contradiction as you claim. You’re just trying to swerve attention away from your paradox!



Here you go again, round and round in circles. You claim that there is no contradiction yet you insist that there is a paradox!

Excuse me Spider, but a paradox IS a contradiction!

The bottom line is that the pantheistic view does not require any paradox in the topic under discussion while, by your own admission (which you insist on persisting with), the biblical view of God does require a paradox to exist.

This seems pretty cut and dried to me, and trying to distract from it by claiming person foul, or claiming that I’m being paradoxical in my recognition of the difference between religion and god does not change the fact that the view you have presented requires a paradox (a contradiction) to exist.

If you don’t believe that you are part of God then you must believe that you are a separate entity in your own right and that you can exist without God.

Seems to me that would make you a God of your own.

I cannot exist separate from the pantheistic god, that would be impossible.



Feral totally misunderstands pantheism. She views it from her own perspective and ideals. She simply can’t imagine the idea of a God that doesn’t have an ego.



I know what you believe. But that doesn’t make I so. And I also know that you believe my religion is ‘crap’ and you feel that it’s PERFECTLY OK to say so.

But let me suggest that your religion might be in error and you scream bloody murder and disrespect!

People like you seem to be able to dish out disrespect by the truckload but then become personally offended should anyone return the favor.





You don’t care what religion people are as long as they believe that Christ died for their sins so that they may have everlasting life!!!

What kind of an oxymoronic statement was that????

Abra, you have a very selective memory and you very selectively review what you wrote. Perhaps you should read what you wrote below.



You are suggesting that I worship religion and not God. Call me crazy, but that is somewhat insulting.



You aren't understanding what I'm saying. You REALLY need to slow down and re-read what I have written, but you are flat out NOT understanding it. I'll try again...

I am not insisting that there is a paradox, I am insisting that we must live a life on earth to avoid paradox. (READ THAT LINE 10 TIMES)

God can't judge us for something we haven't done, that is not just. That is why life is on earth, as a test. If God knew everything, then we wouldn't have to live and God could create us and say "This one will be bad" / "This one will be good". But that's a paradox, because if we don't get a chance to live a life, how can God know who will be bad or good? MY POINT is that God is only limited by paradox and His Character. And that it would be a paradox for God to know what our actions will be if we never get the chance to perform those actions.



Excuse me Abra, but I already know that. If you would stop trying to punch holes in my posts and actually read them, you would learn something.