/lit/ - Literature

Whats there to explain? It simply doesnt make any sense.

It's good because, as christcucks will tell you, "God says so". He determines what morality is and what good and evil mean because he created the universe or whatever so anything he calls good isn't physically capable of not being good

Time to roast some orphans, it's what God says afterall

>>20073636
no-one can adequately explain that contradiction.

>>20073655
can you say that without satan's dick in your mouth?

Is any of that omniscience stuff in there? I've only read the first few books of the OT, but God there certainly isn't omniscient, he asks to send Angels down to check out what's going on in Sodom. Omniscience is a total narrative killer, so boring too. Homer wisely gave his Gods limits.

>>20073661
Yes I can because he's not fucking real he's a bedtime story character

God's omniscience is shielded by free will. Your soul is essentially a small piece of God, so you have a small piece of omniscience as well. It's just enough to allow you to decide your actions. We are here to create a diverse and interesting simulation, not to follow a script. God tells you to be good and make good decisions to create order, in contrast to the seemingly limitless chaos in the universe. You are free to choose chaos which is cheap and easy. God wants you to choose order because it makes for a more interesting simulation.

>>20073667
Good point. I thought of Isaiah 46:10 but it says he declares the beginning from the end, not knows.
So God can say what He will do from beginning to end but that doesn't mean He knows everything that people will do.

>>20073691
...but if you don't he'll send you to eternal torment? fuck that.

>>20073667
I believe omniscience stuff got stuck in later when the Jews were getting Hellenized (it fits better with philosophical styles), and it's very much arguable that it wasn't meant literally. The god of the OT is very clearly neither all powerful nor all knowing, you can see this on the first page.

>>20073667
I'm currently going through an online argument with references.
Another one is 1 John 3:20 where it is translated as God knows all things.
However the greek word, γινώσκει. Can also be translated as to come to know, recognize or perceive.
So you could say God perceives all things, which then doesn't mean he KNOWS all things.

>>20073701
It isn't result of God's decisions that you get sent to hell, it's your own doing.

>>20073691
You just made up your own head canon.

>>20073636
Calvinists just do away with thinking that God is nice and assume that God can arbitrarily pick who he wants to save and who he wants to damn to hell because, fuck you, he is God, he does whatever he wants. This also leads to a type of religious narcissism where you start believing that you are one of the righteous chosen ones and that everyone else is a reprobate who deserves every misfortune coming their way.

>>20073636
haven't read the bible and I'm not religious, but u can answer everything with "the actions of God are beyond human understanding", that's why the ultimate reason to believe is faith, meaning a blind belief without reason.
Also, u can just fuck around with the definition of "good", like saying that to stop existence, no matter if the being has a good or bad time while existing, is bad. It's God who we're talking about, he kind of defines everything, so there u have, he's good again.

>>20073701
Eternal torment is a bunch of crap, made up propaganda to scare plebs in to behaving. God is going to send a piece of himself to "suffer forever" because of choices it made in the simulation? Do you chop off your body parts when you're injured?

>>20073636
God can know but cannot will. Aquinas picks this up as a beautiful decision: He wills us into being, giving us free will, and then knows what happens. To be totally fair, I think finding a contradiction does not invalidate God or otherwise, but shows that these contradictions can be resolved spiritually. If you have free will, you decide if you go to eternity or not in your relationship to God via Christ. Additionally, while you're alive, you are more powerful than God in one concern: What happens to your soul. I think this is part of the weird contradiction - that being said, the alternatives of materialism, snuffing out the soul in nothingness, and the like are all, in my mind, equally humbling befote the cosmos. At the very least, Christianity's humbling in our fallen state is not without hope.

why do people ask extremely quotidian questions without simply referring to The Catechism?

>>20073636
Read Knowledge and Christian Belief by Platinga. Short book. Answers this.

Why do people make posts like 20073771 instead of simply answering the question and being on with their day. Instead of wasting the time of both themselves and others?
Why do they assume everyone follows the same doctrine as they do, especially when their doctrine can't even keep the most simple of commandments, worship on the Sabbath day, because the catholic "representatives of God" didn't want to "Judaize" and so decided to change the Word of God to fit their political machinations.

>>20073636
If we were squares living on the 2D plane, and someone came and said they had seen a new shape, one that had 6 sides and 12 lines, 8 vertices with 3 lines connected to each vertex, we would say that's a total contradiction. But on the 3D plane its quite obvious, that's just a cube.

In the same way, we are trapped on the 3D plane while God is n-dimensional, so we get trapped on questions like what you just posted. There are many things which would be contradictions in 2 dimensions but are resolved in the third dimension, like cubes. The contradiction you see between free will and omniscience may be totally resolved on the 4th dimension, especially considering that the fourth dimension is thought to be time.

>>20073823
Where does the Bible say God exists outside of time in a fourth dimension?
Also we live in a 3D world and can quite easily imagine n-dimensional objects, hence the term n-dimensional, without any contradiction.

>>20073691
>God tells you to be good and make good decisions to create order
What do you even mean by this? The bible doesn't do much in the way of telling you how to live, it just gives you a (very unclear) list of things not to do with little instruction for what remains.

>>20073718
You guys say this shit but then turn around and tell random people on the street that they're going to hell, meaning you think that it's the *default position* and you think going to heaven is the special exception for people who have gone out of their way to obtain it. What this means is living as a natural, average person sends you to hell, and we were made that way.

>>20073866
We can imagine, but not comprehend them. We can create an approximation of a tesseract, but obviously not create one. The same way when one draws a cube in 2d, the lines intersect, because it cannot be comprehended in the 2 dimensional plane.

>>20073900
You wouldn't need to waste your time with these absurd statements if you accepted the first part of his post, that it's simply not in the bible.

>>20073739
Also it's not really in the bible. They had to horribly mistranslate it to even get it to a place where it was even arguable. The early Christians generally just thought everyone 'died' by default and getting to live forever in heaven was the rare and special exception. Also you might find this to be a petty issue but they didn't think even heaven-bound people went straight there, they still 'died' and had to wait in unconsciousness until the rapture when all the souls were taken up at once at, except for a handful of biblical characters and martyrs who went directly there (the significance of 'the Martyrs' is greatly diminished otherwise, in my opinion).

>>20073636
>each person having free will
>we have free will to accept Him or not
A totally “free” will would be the capacity to make choices without any external constraints or coercion. There is nothing in the Bible that teaches human beings have this type of free will—only God is perfectly free from all constraint. One difficulty in the discussion of predestination vs. free will is the common understanding of free will being the absolute freedom to do anything we choose. This is not how the Bible presents free will, nor does it match reality. Our freedom is always limited by our circumstances and our nature: e.g., we are limited in our “freedom” to fly because we are not, by nature, birds; and we are subject to physical laws such as gravity and aerodynamics. The Bible teaches that without Christ we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). If we are spiritually dead, surely that impacts our decision-making. John 6:44 says that, unless God draws, no one can come to Christ for salvation. If the decision whether to trust in Christ is impossible without God’s “interference,” our will is not totally “free.”

We have a free will in the sense that we are capable of making moral choices. Our decision-making is impacted by numerous factors, though: e.g., our sin nature, our upbringing, our intellect, our training/education, our biology, our psychology, etc. So, no, human beings do not truly have a free will, as popularly defined. We have a will. We can make decisions. Biblically speaking, we have the responsibility to respond to what God has revealed to us, including His call to believe the gospel (John 1:12; 3:16; Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9–10; Revelation 22:17). But, again, our will is not truly “free” because we have constraints that shape our decisions.

Predestination is an explicitly biblical doctrine. Free will is not directly taught in Scripture. If the question is predestination vs. free will, predestination wins decisively, biblically speaking. If the question is predestination vs. will or predestination vs. responsibility, that is more difficult. God is sovereign over everything, including who is saved. Concurrently, we are genuinely responsible for our decisions related to salvation.

>>20074130
Pretty rare to find someone so intelligent and nuanced who still drinks the Kool-Aid.

>>20073636
God's divine foreknowledge (he knows what you would do in a given situation) doesn't contradict your free will. He knows what you will freely choose to do. It's not as if, in a given situation, a person couldn't do otherwise. If they were to, God would foreknow.

Also you said something about God being non-causal, but that's not the case. God is the uncaused first cause.

Check out Molinism. William Lane Craig is a big proponent of it. Otherwise you can try to decipher Calvinism but I think it's inferior.

>>20074194
>He knows what you will freely choose to do. It's not as if, in a given situation, a person couldn't do otherwise.
This simply does not work. If he can 'know what you will do', then it was set in advance.

>>20074207
Well you changed the wording, and therefore the meaning, slightly. A Molinist would say God knows what you "would" do, in any given situation. If you couldn't do otherwise, your actions would be determined, but the Molinist holds that you could. The circumstances were set up in advance, but God did not make your decisions for you. Rather He knows what those decisions would be.

If that doesn't help maybe you could elaborate more on why this doesn't compute for you?

>>20074255
>If that doesn't help maybe you could elaborate more on why this doesn't compute for you?
I think we're just kind of at an impasse because I am so thoroughly decided against the concept of free will that I can't even consider it in a theoretical since (as I can with things like the existence of God). I legitimately don't know what you would mean by it, how would it work? I'm trying to find words to explain my issue with it but I'm struggling, it doesn't make sense that decisions could be completely autonomous and not even decisively knowable by an entity that knows everything going on right beforehand. I absolutely think that if you knew literally everything, you would know the decisions people would make in the future and there would be no variance at all.

It really should be even more of a pickle for a religious person as you guys play up the "nothing can be self-caused" angle so much and free will inherently means self-caused decisions.

>>20074302
*theoretical sense

>>20073636
>How then, can God be Good, creating a person to sin and then damning them, knowing that it will happen
According to Romans 8:29-30, God predetermined that certain individuals would be conformed to the likeness of His Son, be called, justified, and glorified. Essentially, God predetermines that certain individuals will be saved. Numerous scriptures refer to believers in Christ being chosen (Matthew 24:22, 31; Mark 13:20, 27; Romans 8:33, 9:11, 11:5-7, 28; Ephesians 1:11; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4; 1 Timothy 5:21; 2 Timothy 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Peter 1:1-2, 2:9; 2 Peter 1:10). Predestination is the biblical doctrine that God in His sovereignty chooses certain individuals to be saved.

The most common objection to the doctrine of predestination is that it is unfair. Why would God choose certain individuals and not others? The important thing to remember is that no one deserves to be saved. We have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and are all worthy of eternal punishment (Romans 6:23). As a result, God would be perfectly just in allowing all of us to spend eternity in hell. However, God chooses to save some of us. He is not being unfair to those who are not chosen, because they are receiving what they deserve. God’s choosing to be gracious to some is not unfair to the others. No one deserves anything from God; therefore, no one can object if he does not receive anything from God. An illustration would be a man randomly handing out money to five people in a crowd of twenty. Would the fifteen people who did not receive money be upset? Probably so. Do they have a right to be upset? No, they do not. Why? Because the man did not owe anyone money. He simply decided to be gracious to some.

If God is choosing who is saved, doesn’t that undermine our free will to choose and believe in Christ? The Bible says that we have the choice—all who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10). The Bible never describes God rejecting anyone who believes in Him or turning away anyone who is seeking Him (Deuteronomy 4:29). Somehow, in the mystery of God, predestination works hand-in-hand with a person being drawn by God (John 6:44) and believing unto salvation (Romans 1:16). God predestines who will be saved, and we must choose Christ in order to be saved.

God I wish that guy on the bottom right was me

>>20074374
gay

>>20074370
>The important thing to remember is that no one deserves to be saved. We have all sinned
this doesn't work as a moral appeal when you (rightfully) reject the concept of free will. We sin because God built us to do it and we never had a chance to not.

>>20073636
God and any Demon / Angel cogitating on you will instantly be able to read your thoughts and infer your fate using angelic intelligence
Luckily the law of non-contradiction is a farcify developed by cartesian torture mind dynamos around 2000 BC. While our fate is instantly determined by the dual nature of chaos as rule and chronological "foam" we are also subject to the clause of infinite transcendtal poverty we are culpable to the most extreme harrowing at all moments as a sacrifice negative animas
As non-non-dualism counter-dictates we are congealed matter forces which may imagine "fate" or "decisions" or "differences" when such a reality is a farcical torture mill probably entropic in cause. As free will and determinism neither exist or are never ever present this is of no surprise. While anyone would conclude the maximization of violence is the quikest way to secede inplacementism one can also guarantee violencelessness (sloth) is an equally terrible solution.

>>20074302
Well your decisions are known to God, in the form of subjunctive conditionals. It doesn't mean God isn't sure how you will act in a given situation. He knows with 100% accuracy what you would do in any given situation. The state of affairs is simply such that God knows the decisions you would freely choose.

>>20074302
For a being to have free will doesn't mean that being makes decisions in a vacuum, so to speak. I believe humans have free will, but I also recognize that you can't sneeze with your eyes open. It's not like we aren't influenced by external circumstances. Maybe that makes the concept more agreeable to you?
Frankly, I think you actually might find Calvinism more agreeable due to your prejudice against the idea of free will.

I don't mean that

>>20074461
>It's not like we aren't influenced by external circumstances. Maybe that makes the concept more agreeable to you?
Well yeah of course there are things like "I don't want the teacher to hit me with the yard stick so I'll consider being a good boy" but I think it goes way, way deeper than that. It's not just responses to stimuli, it's responses to responses to stimuli, and responses to responses to responses to stimuli, etc. Everything is a chain reaction to influential factors, and different factors would absolutely put you somewhere else.

What would this 'free' part of you even be? How is it made? Because if God made it and gave it certain unique traits, you still aren't responsible for it. You aren't responsible for your birth.

>>20074441
oh, okay

>>20074434
>We sin because God built us to do it and we never had a chance to not
Sin had its beginning with Lucifer, probably the most beautiful and powerful of the angels. Not content with his position, he desired to be higher than God, and that was his downfall, the beginning of sin (Isaiah 14:12-15). Renamed Satan, he brought sin to the human race in the Garden of Eden, where he tempted Adam and Eve with the same enticement, “you shall be like God.” Genesis 3 describes Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God and against His command. Since that time, sin has been passed down through all the generations of mankind and we, Adam’s descendants, have inherited sin from him. Romans 5:12 tells us that through Adam sin entered the world, and so death was passed on to all men because “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

Through Adam, the inherent inclination to sin entered the human race, and human beings became sinners by nature. When Adam sinned, his inner nature was transformed by his sin of rebellion, bringing to him spiritual death and depravity which would be passed on to all who came after him. We are sinners not because we sin; rather, we sin because we are sinners. This passed-on depravity is known as inherited sin. Just as we inherit physical characteristics from our parents, we inherit our sinful natures from Adam.

Because we have inherited a sin nature from Adam, we commit individual, personal sins, everything from seemingly innocent untruths to murder. Those who have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ must pay the penalty for these personal sins, as well as inherited and imputed sin. However, believers have been freed from the eternal penalty of sin—hell and spiritual death—but now we also have the power to resist sinning. Now we can choose whether or not to commit personal sins because we have the power to resist sin through the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, sanctifying and convicting us of our sins when we do commit them (Romans 8:9-11). Once we confess our personal sins to God and ask forgiveness for them, we are restored to perfect fellowship and communion with Him. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). We are all three times condemned due to inherited sin, imputed sin, and personal sin. The only just penalty for this sin is death (Romans 6:23), not just physical death but eternal death (Revelation 20:11-15).

>>20074696
absolutely none of that does anything to rectify the dilemma, it actually makes it even worse because it holds us responsible for things we didn't even do

Protestant hogwash.

>>20074704
>holds us responsible for things we didn't even do
We are all sinners because Adam passed on his sinful condition that leads inevitably to our personal sin and death. All share Adam’s death sentence as an inherited condition (the “sin nature”) that is passed down to and through the human race and that every child brings into the world. Even before a child can be held accountable for personal sin, he or she is naturally prone to disobey, to tell lies, etc. Every child is born with a sin nature.

“The Lord looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God” (Psalm 14:2). And what does the all-seeing God find? “All have turned aside, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one” (verse 3). In other words, all have sinned.

>>20074766
Yeah, you already said that.

One theory regarding this says that in order to not violate free will, which is a biblical principle of God, we needed to choose to sin, to do good, to believe or not. God knew what we would all choose, but we still had to exist and make those choices. I think it's call pre-election? It's been a while since I cared about this stuff and really I think Kierkegaard answered this best in illustrating that God's righteousness and ways are above our own and we must abandon the human aesthetic, i.e. Abraham killing his son.

>>20074781
Most incoherent post in this whole thread

>>20074771
I was trying to answer your objection as best I could. My response is probably an oversimplification but what you are objecting to never really bothered me much.

>>20073661
Based

>>20074825
You're not bothered by the fact that the whole "beautiful, perfect" world God made and operates sends babies to be burned forever by default? I'm pretty sure you're a troll using copypastas (/lit/ is way smarter than /his/, after all), but if you are somewhat sincere about this then you really have issues.

Also, it's unlikely that whatever church you're a part of actually thinks it works this way. If you seriously grill Christians, almost none of them will agree that this is the system.

>>20074130
>can't fly so my decisions are not free
This is what Calvin does to a nigga.

>>20074878
That was clearly on the 'there is something like free will' side, he was saying that would *not* be a requirement.

>>20074843
>You're not bothered by the fact that the whole "beautiful, perfect" world God made and operates sends babies to be burned forever by default
In a way it does, but I think the blame rests on us and not God. It's fine if you disagree with me on that. What you believe/think about sin/original sin has a big impact on your general worldview.

>I'm pretty sure you're a troll
Not really, just a lay philosophy/theology nerd with no life.

>>20074959
In this system we literally never had a chance to avoid sin. God doesn't even entertain it as a theoretical possibility for there to be one exception, it was foregone conclusion. It would be like holding you morally responsible for the fact that tou have to go to bathroom (and being held that way by a being who could have made it so that was not the case, or simply never made you to begin with).

>>20073709
>>20073667
I agree with the limited omniscience of God, it seems textual, but this REALLY bothers fundamentalists. Christians want all the benefits of a personable human-like relatable God and the argumentative infallibility of the cosmic God-is-everything-spanning creator.
God clearly has constraints, for one, he cannot reach back in time to mend things after they have happened. Nothing in the Bible has ever come close to supporting this, but this mindset beaten into Christians is "God can do it."
>>20074130
>freedom of choice is akin to ignoring physics
This is a false equivalency and anyone with a brain can call it out. People chose to rebel Biblically, that's the point of the stories. You have some counterpoint stories like Job, but the point of those is that Job-like-figures CHOOSE to serve God.


If anyone has any interesting historical heresies, give them here I want to look at them.

>>20074990
This. The literal first page of the bible makes it clear that god has to take at least some amount of time to get things done, and then stops and thinks whether or not he did a good job. These are not traits of a perfect being, it would be all at once without doubt.

And the most sensible heresy I know of is that the burning bush Moses spoke to was actually the devil (or the demiurge, a demon, moloch, etc.) Definitely a pretty weird situation for a 'goodboy' sort of God to take part in.

>>20074971
>In this system we literally never had a chance to avoid sin
Yes, and we also are offered salvation for those sins and are then able to have eternal life in heaven with God.

>>20074959
>It's fine if you disagree with me on that.
This is the sort of 'Freudian Slip' that shows that people like you don't really believe this stuff. No, it would not be fine in this system if I disagreed with you. I would be tortured forever for it.

>>20073636
accepting god of our own will is superior to being made with a nature that necessitates you accept him
the latter would be akin to god making sycophantic toys to play with. The former is what you do when you truly love something

>>20075008
If you've seen the "burning bush" in another text you know what it is, and then the wheels within wheels makes sense, then the mysterious figure seen only by Jesus makes sense. Even the pillar of smoke and fire makes sense if you think about it in the context of making a covenant. The only conclusion is too extra-biblical to do anything but hint at.
-TW

>>20075035
>it would not be fine in this system if I disagreed with you. I would be tortured forever for it.
You don't have to though, I hope I'll get to see you in heaven but I cant force you.

>>20075029
Which, again, is the exception rather than the rule. About 30% of the world's population classifies themselves as Christians, and I'm sure you think many of them are not sincere about it. Pick any random baby, the safe bet is that they will be tortured forever.

Furthermore, the sort of logic you used is about the highest possible form of nihilism I could think of. You literally think the existence of human life is wrong, not just 'painful' like anti-natalists believe, but actually morally wrong on some metaphysical level. This is the world God made for you.

>>20075047
That doesn't make it "fine", obviously. Would it be fine if I raped and murdered your family?

>>20074003
What is absurd about the argument? To my knowledge, no tesseract has been seen or created by humans. Do you have some classified information you can share?

Also, I'm not a Christian, so somebody else can supply specific quotes or references. But the idea of God being of a higher dimension is actually present in all the religions which I have studied. Obviously, they do not use modern technical parlance.

>>20075063
>To my knowledge, no tesseract has been seen or created by humans. Do you have some classified information you can share?
Obviously it's non-visibility is not the part that I'm calling absurd, jesus fucking christ.

>>20075039
Feel free to elaborate, but I understand if you want to leave it cryptic.

>>20075075
Ok, what is absurd, please share

>>20075063
There's a functional model of quantum physics with 9 non-time dimensions, 3 of which are experienced easily like depth, height, width, and the other six would comprise "near spaces." It's called M theory, some take on super-string theory. It's a field of research I've been putting off a little.
There's clearly more to reality than d/h/w, perhaps like the "sea of crystal and fire" featured in Revelations.
>>20075082
Nobody would really believe it anyway.

>>20075055
>Would it be fine if I raped and murdered your family?
Plenty of murderers will be in heaven, Paul killed multiple Christians before his conversion, King David committed some pretty atrocious crimes. That is why repentance, properly defined, is necessary for salvation.

>>20075106
Ridiculous answer for so many reasons. So, something is "not fine" only if it stops you from going to heaven, and we've established that my opinion will stop me from going to heaven, thus it is not fine.

>>20075092
Saying something can violate the laws of logic is pretty much the dictionary definition of absurdity

>>20075125
Please read my post more closely my friend! I did not say that the laws of logic can be violated, but that what we perceive to be logical can be incorrect, just as how the idea of a cube is illogical in the 2 dimensional plane. I think this example is easy for everybody to understand.

Or you can even look at many examples in science. For example, the value of the Higgs Boson had the potential to invalidate the entire Standard Model of particle physics, though it didn't. People in science know that what we consider to be an irrefutable law of logic is always vulnerable to the next great discovery.

>>20075050
No, the Garden of Eden was the world before sin entered the picture

This is, as Mere Christianity puts it, "enemy territory", yes babies are born here just as they're born during famine and war, this isn't ideal nor the original plan

All the bible seems to really ask for is humility, humility in knowing we will never comprehend the nature of God, humility in our responsibilities, humility in our limits.

>>20075253
I'm pretty sure you're a different person, that really didn't follow at all.

>>20075097
That sounds really interesting, what do you mean by near spaces?

>>20073691
>Your soul is essentially a small piece of God, so you have a small piece of omniscience as well.
Uhhhhh chapter/verse??

>>20075328
Something like an expanded Kaluza–Klein model. The usual "parallel universe" you hear about is just unfalsifiable theorizing about how given enough space (which there is plenty of), you will get similar places at a distance, perhaps with similar events.
If you in fact lived in nine spatial dimensions, three of them are dedicated to the immediate world you can see. The other six would be "near" you, existing in tandem, but largely inaccessible. If any particular thing had three dimensions for it's standard mass and volume aspects, but reality has it that extra information regarding the object must exist somewhere close by. Any angel/demon nonsense or "dimensional aliens" could easily be imagined in these hidden spaces. The math is there to back it up, western science is just conditioned against the concept ever since that Galileo affair.

>>20075380
Can you explain the symbolism behind the image? I see the figure on the left is the "Sultan of Satans" and he is holding a flask that says Life, Death, and Sleep. Is it gnostic/satanic imagery?

>>20075414
It's some artists' take on Lovecraft's "Deam quest of Unknown Kadath." Beyond that I'm not sure.

>>20073871
10 commandments, "do unto others as you would have done to you". Then Jesus comes along and tells you to turn the other cheek.

If you're reading the Bible literally for instructions on how to live you will have a bad time. It's a collection of semite poetry that is a starting point. You must analyze the world around you. We are in a chaotic universe with small pockets of order. You will not make it out without experiencing chaos no matter what you do, but you are still supposed to fight for order as best you can

>>20075566
https://www.jp2parish.org/blog/the-deeper-meaning-turn-the-other-cheek
>Did Jesus mean that we should allow others to bully us? NO!

>>20075566
Just because jesus said "you should turn the other cheek when somebody slaps you" doesn't mean that you should ALWAYS do that. Jesus didnt say "you MUST ALWAYS turn the other cheek", he just presented it as an option (which at the time, was pretty damn alien as a moral principle) and as the most peaceful option. It's sort of the progenitor to the modern "the customer's always right" moral code for fast food workers (while you COULD yell back or even beat the shit out of the fat retard insulting you, it's better and easier for everybody you to just take it and ban that fucker from the store).

Jesus wouldn't tell you to turn the other cheek, when your enemy is threatening your life. He didn't say "between saving yourself and letting yourself die, just let yourself die". That's fucking stupid. There's a time for everything, and some times it's best to turn the other cheek, and other times it's best to defend yourself. Never strike back in retaliation, only in defense

>>20075745
Is this still the "let him slap you twice" way of thinking?

>>20075803
Yes. "Let him slap you twice" =/= "Let him stab you twice". There's a difference between a physical attack to hurt your ego, and a physical attack against your life.

>>20075566
>>20075745
So, like all philosophies that don't commit to being autistic, it comes down to "just use common sense, bro!"

>>20073718
But god knows my decisions already, doesn't he?

>>20073636
It's a plot hole. The jews were bad writers who didn't understand what omnipotent actually means. Take the whole Noah story for example.

>>20073871
Trust me, you NEED to mutilate the healthy genitals god gave you

protestant niggas think life is a mathematical equation, thank God we won't be seeing their kind in the clouds playing harps and shit

>>20075856
They hadn't put that in yet. Early Judaism was clearly just a slightly evolved tribal pantheon, it wasn't until Hellenization that they entertained these grandiose ideas and it wasn't until Christianity that they really let them take over.

>>20075825
No you stupid nigger. "Turn the other cheek" isn't common sense at all, not in Jesus' time, not now. If somebody slapped you, your common sense would scream at you to either beat then fuck out of that person, or to run away, not to just accept it. And "common sense" doesn't exist in some people, and as a whole it changes throughout time. For example, the common sense amongst governed men in is to not rape. The common sense amongst poorly governed men is to rape. The common sense is to go with the crowd no matter what the morality of the crowd is. Basing your moral choices on common sense alone has always been a bad idea, because your common sense is concerned with indulgence and individual survival, NOT with proper morals or the survival of humanity

>>20075823
read
>>20075583
It means "demand the person treat you with respect" you silly fool

>Jesus was telling them not to retaliate by returning violence for
violence. Instead, stand your ground and challenge the bully by turning your head
and inviting them to strike you on the left cheek, forcing them the use the back of
their unclean hand. This would have been an inappropriate use of that left hand
according to their culture, and would create a dilemma for the bully.
>So, you see, Jesus wasn’t telling his listeners, and us, to acquiesce to injustice.
Jesus was encouraging us to refuse to cooperate with violence, and to challenge
an injustice by using a creative response.

>>20074572
>What would this free part of you even be?
The rational soul.

I think you're right that we would not be responsible for the qualities of our souls, their designer would be. However, I don't agree that just because you didn't design yourself, you aren't responsible for anything you do. Most people know right from wrong and will often admit to knowingly choosing to do the wrong thing. It's not as if people want to do right, but their bodies prevent them!

>>20075888
>he just presented it as an option
It absolutely is common sense to see it as "an option", and you are extremely retarded if you have fallen for some meme that before that time everyone just beat the shit out of or killed anyone who pissed them off. There have always been moderate and even full-blown pacifist ideas in society, and removing the important/forceful element in "turn the other cheek" reduces it to just another bit of hot air that your mom might tell you.
>And "common sense" doesn't exist in some people
Obviously that was my point, so any philosophy that ultimately comes down to "just use common sense, bro!" is useless.

>>20075889
>Getting your understanding of biblical verses from others
Also from the article itseld:
>Jesus was not telling his listeners
to be passive. Jesus was telling them not to retaliate by returning violence for violence. Instead, stand your ground and challenge the bully by turning your head
This is very similar to what I said (our points about retaliation are the same, word for word), though the problem with this line of thinking is that you're not challenging them at all if you turn the other cheek, they're just gonna slap you again. Thats not a challenge, its just being passive. Standing your ground is to say "I know I can beat the fuck out of you. But I won't immediately retaliate, because I'm not a wuss, I can take that first slap. But if you slap me again I will beat the fuck out of you", which to be fair isn't immediate retaliation. And sometimes that truly is the best option, because in some situations if you DON'T do that you'll just be slapped over and over again in individual situations in the future. But sometimes, being passive is truly the best way to deal with such a situation, like when you KNOW that the person who slapped you is gonna get arrested for assault now. And other times, immediate retaliation is the best way to resolve the situatuon, like when you DON'T know if you're going to be alive if you don't fight back.

Jesus was presenting passiveness and withholding of retaliation as a better option for altercations, than immediate retaliation.

>>20075959
Shit, my bad. Aftwr saying "Also from the article itself" the following should've been quoted:
>Jesus was not telling his listeners
to be passive. Jesus was telling them not to retaliate by returning violence for violence. Instead, stand your ground and challenge the bully by turning your head

Weird formatting error

>>20075866
>protestant niggas think life is a mathematical equation
no, you just think that mathematical equations aren't like life.

>>20075939
No you stupid nigger, it was presented as "the best option" when getting slapped once. That's the difference. That specific verse was detailing the appropriate response to all isolated attacks against your ego. Not the response to all attacks in general.

>>20073636
>contradiction
You dumb fuck

>>20075922
>The rational soul.
You realize this is not a useful answer, right? It's just a restatement of the concept.
> However, I don't agree that just because you didn't design yourself, you aren't responsible for anything you do.
I don't mean that you should use this as an excuse as far as other people go, it just doesn't matter if you're responsible in a metaphysical sense when there are practical issues at hand.
>Most people know right from wrong and will often admit to knowingly choosing to do the wrong thing. It's not as if people want to do right, but their bodies prevent them!
This really suggests that you're missing the point. I'm not saying that you have a free will that gets taken over by other parts of you (what you're describing is some part of your consciousness), I'm saying you don't have one at all, it doesn't exist anywhere.

>>20075968
>Jesus was not telling his listeners to be passive. Jesus was telling them not to retaliate by returning violence for violence. Instead, stand your ground and challenge the bully by turning your head and inviting them to strike you on the left cheek, forcing them the use the back of
their unclean hand.

>>20075984
Seethe harder, low IQ spring breaker. You're making random declarations that fit with nothing else in your religion.

>>20075994
dumb phoneposter

>>20076028
Im not even Christian you mong I just like the Bible and I read it like any other book. Never get your understanding of the bible from others

>>20076037
Yeah, I like to post on 4chan when I take big shits in my home. So what? My laptop is in my room but I already started pooping

>>20076046
Apparently you read other books like a retard, too.

>>20073636

You underestimate divinity's respect for free will/election, along with the importance of everything that it entails for the ontology of the subject.who exerts it.

>>20076054
I do the same thing but I know how to get away with it. The issue is that you formatted the post in a disgusting manner that made it clear you're on your phone.

>>20076056
No I like to read other people's understandings of other books. But since the bible and Christians claim it to be God's word, I will read it with only my autism, and rub my greasy nuts all over everybody else's interpretations just to highlight how fucking retarded it is to believe that God really thinks the best way to communicate to everyone is through prophets, and not just directly. Also at the same time the bible contains truth just like any other well-written book, but its antiquated prose makes it supoer obfuscated. So it's a fun exercise to interprete the bible's messages and then share my interpretation with others to see close/far my interpretation of God's moral commands is with others

>>20076073
No one asked, faggot.

>>20076063
>I do the same thing but I know how to get away with it. The issue is that you formatted the post in a disgusting manner that made it clear you're on your phone.
You actively HIDE the fact that you phonepost when you do so? The fuck is wrong with you, nobody worthwhile cares. Just don't shit up boards with slide threads, that's all you owe anybody

>>20076091
I don't owe anyone shit, faggot.

>>20076097
And yet you're scared of people knowing you post on your phone?

>>20075959
This is the same Jesus that told his followers "sell your cloak and buy a sword." This is the same Jesus that wrecked the temple's moneychangers. Total pacifism at every turn of life was not something Jesus advocated.
I read the book "Jesus Christ on Killing" years ago, still have it.

>>20076098
I'm not pretending to be a robot who doesn't care when I look like a zoomer retard. If I had no feelings towards 4chan, I wouldn't come here at all. This clearly got under your skin so "why do you care what people thing?" is a pretty dumb card to play.

Plus, it's really just about not making posts that look like shit. You did the same thing here and it actually messed up the flow of the post >>20075959

>>20076113
>This is the same Jesus that told his followers "sell your cloak and buy a sword."
The obvious point to take here is that the new testament is a sloppy account decades later of some things one guy may or may not have said while juggling a bunch of different interests and often speaking non-literally. What do you think that line is even supposed to mean? He obviously didn't lead an uprising. You can't really cite it as an example if it isn't incorporated into your view.

>>20076127
You committed the greatest offense in a Biblical discussion, questioning the legitimacy of the Bible. Even if you doubt the Bible, you have to discuss it with believers as if every word is complete, absolute truth.

>>20076142
Lol, good one. The bible legitimately doesn't even work as something to 'believe in' or reject. I don't think The Odyssey actually happened but if someone told me if did I would at least be clear on what they meant, and I don't know of any gaping internal consistencies in it. This is not the case with the bible, it is made by a bunch of different authors with totally different views and thus isn't a singular thing that you can take or leave. You might as well ask me if I believe the entire canon of western philosophy is "true" or not.

>>20076159
>the Bible doesn't work as something to believe in
>there are gaping inconsistencies with the Bible
>those may or may not be the words of Jesus
>but I'm sure Jesus absolutely meant "let them slap you repeatedly"
Anything else you would like to add?

>>20076175
>>but I'm sure Jesus absolutely meant "let them slap you repeatedly"
never said this, retard

>>20073636
there is no contradiction, only the perception thereof. your mistake is that you try to apply your limited human reasoning to something that infinitely exceeds your understanding. God knew everything from the beginning, everything is God's will, God gave us free will and the capacity to sin, we are responsible for our own actions. it's difficult to understand but it's true

>>20076184
>your mistake is that you try to apply your limited human reasoning to something that infinitely exceeds your understanding
>*proceeds to prove the point by using his limited human reasoning to bring him to an absolutely retarded conclusion*
good job, anon

>>20076177
I thought you were
>>20075566
>>20075745
This guy
>Just because jesus said "you should turn the other cheek when somebody slaps you"

>>20076197
That guy's a dumb faggot and also doesn't believe in God. I'm sure there is a single christian here right now, making the question of "what it means" kind of ridiculous.

>>20076208
*I'm NOT sure

>>20073636
google alvin plantinga free will defense he essentially solved the problem of evil, at least with regards to human evil (natural evil is another topic)

>>20076184
> god gave us free will
> we are responsible
Wow I guess rape victims really ARE to blame, eh? Fucking spastic logic.

>>20073667
Yeah lots of things in the Bible argue against God's omniscience, and rather for creating human beings that make their own choices. Like Noah's story. God saw humans were fucked up so he drowned them all.

In my interpretation, we are like God, created in his image after all, in that we can see the difference between good and evil, yet we freely choose evil for our selfish sake. Freedom is incongruent with a God who has determined everything we do in advance.

>>20073636
Boethius explained this in Consolation of Philosophy over 1,000 years ago. This settled the apparent (for brainlets) contradiction for centuries. No one re-asked this already answered question till iqs started falling, people stopped reading entry level books, and education in christian countries got subverted by people who hate jesus and (especially white) christians.

God's foreknowledge in an eternal now has no effect on how individuals choose to exercise free will in 4d time. E.g. if you see someone walking down the street, he necessarily is walking because you see him walking (like god's foreknowledge), but your observation had no contingent effect on his decision to take that walk. He could've stayed at home to fap.

Read consolation of philosophy book 5 for a longer explanation.