quote:I think that the amount of prompting and light we do get from the light of Christ is plenty enough to show the way to doing good acts if we want to.
If we want to, why do we need the prompting, again?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:If people have to take the blame for when they choose to bad things, they should likewise get the credit for the good things they choose to do. God shouldn't get the credit unless he took away the choice altogether and made you do the good thing.
You are right (edit: in that people do deserve credit for the correct choices they make, and God specifically says rewards are both here and forthcoming), but for many the ability to be proud of one's own choices comes pretty easy, while the desire to acknowledge God comes with difficulty. God takes credit insofar that he helped make you who you are. Our spirits were created by Him, how we act brings glory or shame to God.
quote: What about when God intervenes in human affairs? Do those people still have free will?
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: If tell your child once to say please and thank you, or you remind them every time the opportunity arises to say please and thank you, it is obvious that the stronger prompting will produce better results, even thought you never once remove the child's free agency in the matter.
If a parent only told their child once to say please and thank you, and the child thereafter didn't say them, it seems clear to me that more prompting on the part of the parent would have produced an equally free yet more polite child.
Leaving aside everything but the metaphor here, I have to say that it is clear you have no kids.
No, reminding your kids every time certainly does NOT produce "better results" by any measure I can think of: sincerity, spontaneity, child's attitude, likelihood of appreciation by the recipient, or affect on future behavior.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:If people have to take the blame for when they choose to bad things, they should likewise get the credit for the good things they choose to do. God shouldn't get the credit unless he took away the choice altogether and made you do the good thing.
Sure. When people make good choices, there's credit enough for everybody - the Lord, the person, their mother, etc.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Again, impulses is not the word I would use and I don't agree that it is applicable to what I'm talking about.
I see a difference between the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can (and will sometimes) withdraw, but the light of Christ never goes away.
The light of Christ is like the background radiation in the universe - it's always there. It is enough for everyone to know the difference between good and evil. The influence of the Holy Ghost is much more...dynamic. It is the Holy Ghost that comforts, answers prayers, and that may withdraw if we offend or reject the Lord.
So...it's like asking if we would stay on the earth without gravity. It's not a situation that occurs.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: God takes credit insofar that he helped make you who you are. Our spirits were created by Him, how we act brings glory or shame to God.
People seem much less willing to blame God for human failings, even though our flawed spirits were created by Him as well.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hmm...I think we are flawed because we are young, eternity-speaking, and not that the flaws were deliberately introduced.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
So the only reason why humans are able to do something good is because of the light of Christ and without the light of Christ in the universe, humans could only be evil all the time?
When an atheist does something good, is it because he is unknowingly listening to the light of Christ?
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
What about someone, such as myself, who consciously rejects the light of Christ. Do we not have the free will to do that or are the people who do just doomed to be evil?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:So the only reason why humans are able to do something good is because of the light of Christ and without the light of Christ in the universe, humans could only be evil all the time?
Absense of the light of Christ in the world? I'd say amoral rather than immoral. If there is no goodness, there is no evil. No light, there's no absense of it.
Also, I never said that humans are only able to do good because of the light of Christ.
quote:When an atheist does something good, is it because he is unknowingly listening to the light of Christ?
I think when someone does something good, it is because he chooses to. However, if he determined it was good, he knew it was good because of the light of Christ.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Leaving aside everything but the metaphor here, I have to say that it is clear you have no kids.
No, reminding your kids every time certainly does NOT produce "better results" by any measure I can think of: sincerity, spontaneity, child's attitude, likelihood of appreciation by the recipient, or affect on future behavior.
I don't have my own children, but I do recall from my childhood that being taught anything generally involved the teacher being willing to put some effort into my education.
Since I'm unqualified to discuss children, let's change it to adults. If an adult, in college for example (which I have attended) is shown a series of slides about a subject vs. carefully and thoroughly told the ins and outs of a subject, I think any rational person could agree that giving someone more intense education would tend to give a greater number of people a greater ability to correctly understand and perform the subject at hand.
Maybe children don't learn things, they simply know them based on their temperament or some magical tendency to Know, but to the best of my understanding, adults often learn things better when they're taught better.
Maybe the holy spirit should spend more time educating people who need more help, rather than retreating from them because they offend it. It would be a poor teacher who gave all students the same background attention, rather than helping those who needed some extra attention.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
MC, rivka's pretty much right, but I think you may have misunderstood the point of her criticism. Kids don't generally behave better if you prompt them every time.
Your mistake was the every, not the suggestion that more prompting often gets better results than less.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Okay, I think we've pretty soundly proved the philosophical emptiness of the "all goodness comes from God" claim, except in those cases when "God" is defined as "all things which are good" instead of an actual entity.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think when someone does something good, it is because he chooses to. However, if he determined it was good, he knew it was good because of the light of Christ.
So goodness (and therefore evil) exist independent of the Lord or the light of Christ. However, the light of Christ is necessary to determine the difference between good and evil, like a conscience of sorts, and whether [edit]a person views that as the light of Christ or not is a separate matter? So when people thank God for goodness, they are really thanking God for the ability to recognize what is good?
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Is this "Light of Christ" the same thing as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:So goodness (and therefore evil) exist independent of the Lord or the light of Christ. However, the light of Christ is necessary to determine the difference between good and evil, like a conscience of sorts, and whether he views that as the light of Christ or not is a separate matter?
Hmm...yeah, this is about what I think.
quote:So when people thank God for goodness, they are really thanking God for the ability to recognize what is good?
The ability in themselves and in others? Hmm...I wouldn't limit God that much (more direct influence through the Holy Ghost is possible, usually when sought) but that's a good description of the everpresent minimum.
Noemon: I don't know - that's never occurred to me. Can I think about it/look things up and come back?
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm a little confused. Does the light of Christ just grant the ability to determine good from evil, or does it impel a person towards doing good?
Also, is it forced on people against their will?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:18 And now, my brethren, seeing that ye know the light by which ye may judge, which light is the light of Christ, see that ye do not judge wrongfully; for with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall also be judged. 19 Wherefore, I beseech of you, brethren, that ye should search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.
As for my thoughts, I have to admit that I'm less sure about what exactly/literally happened in the Garden of Eden than I am about the light of Christ. It kind of looks like the same thing, though. For reference, I'm more using what I know/feel about the light of Christ to explain the fall from Eden than the other way around.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
I didn't necessarily expect you to see that it's been proven. But it has.
Unless your definition of "God" is "all good things," the idea that an active prompting from some aspect of God is responsible for all good has been demonstrated in this thread as being completely incompatible with free will.
Now, it's fine to think of "God" as some passive reservoir of "goodness" on which people can choose to draw, but implying that this reservoir actively pushes itself on people runs aground almost immediately on the Problem of Evil.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Is this "Light of Christ" the same thing as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?
One of the interpretations of that account that I've heard was that the tree symbolized God's right to determine good and evil and that right was forbidden to Adam and Eve. Thus, the eating of the fruit symbolized Adam and Eve's desire to decide for themselves what good and evil is instead of listening to God, in essence trying to usurp God's position.
Posts: 1256 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Neither of the above statements is an accurate description of what I have been saying. That's why you're wrong - you're refuting the wrong thing.
camus: Hmm...while I haven't worked out everything that I think about the Garden of Evil, I don't think that.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Is the light of Christ culturalyl specific or a more general thing?
It would seem to me that people's knowledge of what is good and evil is based strongly on the culture in which they were raised. Different times and cultures blithely accepted things that we now consider barbaric and evil. Was the light of Christ just insufficient to overcome their cultural conditioning such that they really didn't have a problem with evil, or does it embrace the culture in which people are raised?
---
quote:One of the interpretations of that account that I've heard was that the tree symbolized God's right to determine good and evil and that right was forbidden to Adam and Eve. Thus, the eating of the fruit symbolized Adam and Eve's desire to decide for themselves what good and evil is instead of listening to God, in essence trying to usurp God's position.
But the immediate change that came from eating the fruit was knowledge, not judgement. They suddenly knew they were naked. They didn't know they were naked all along and then decide for themselves that this should not be.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I'm a little confused. Does the light of Christ just grant the ability to determine good from evil, or does it impel a person towards doing good?
Also, is it forced on people against their will?
The way I see it, is that since we are created in God's image and likeness, we are imbued with a sympathy towards what is good. The light of Christ is that sympathy, that spark of the divine by which we partially base our decisions on. By listening to it it remains there for us, if we deceive ourselves or actively go against it, it grows weaker until we just can't feel it anymore.
Also I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the phrase, "I conciously deny the light of Christ."
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Perhaps, just as Javert Hugo has been telling us what she means for two pages and some of us just can't manage to tell it back to her correctly, the Light of God might tell some people how to behave correctly, and they can't manage to understand what it's saying either.
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Also I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the phrase, "I conciously deny the light of Christ."
No offense Mr. Squicky, but I hope it means you grow horns and a tail and start breathing smoke. That would rule! Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:That's why you're wrong - you're refuting the wrong thing.
I'm refuting the idea that all conscious good deeds are a consequence of active prompting by a God who respects Free Will. If you're not saying this, I'm not refuting what you're saying. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Perhaps, just as Javert Hugo has been telling us what she means for two pages and some of us just can't manage to tell it back to her correctly, the Light of God might tell some people how to behave correctly, and they can't manage to understand what it's saying either.
This is entirely possible. It's not as if the light of Christ always spells out specific action (though it certainly can), it just helps you think. But it like any attribute grows when it is exercised, and I am convinced that not everyone experiences it to an equal degree initially.
edit Javert Hugo: In fairness to Tom I think I agree with his last statement. Think of Christ's statement on the cross, "Father! Why has thou forsaken me?" Clearly, at least to me, Christ was left on his own to determine whether He would actually chose to be an agent of good unto himself without having the luxury of His father's will constantly in his mind, something He had spent his entire life basing his decisions on.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Also I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the phrase, "I conciously deny the light of Christ."
Explain it to me, than. I strongly doubt you know my moral state or what I base my decisions on better than I do.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Also I don't think you truly understand the magnitude of the phrase, "I conciously deny the light of Christ."
Explain it to me, than. I strongly doubt you know my moral state or what I base my decisions on better than I do.
Oh I don't doubt the latter statement. We will make this simple. Can you agree with this statement?
"I wish to inflict suffering and misery on all who are good at all times and through all eternity. I will do this so that they can all be miserable, as I am."
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
BB, I think it's safe to say that Squicky's point was that consciously rejecting "the Light of Christ" did not have "inflict suffering and misery on everyone who is good" as a necessary consequence. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: BB, I think it's safe to say that Squicky's point was that consciously rejecting "the Light of Christ" did not have "inflict suffering and misery on everyone who is good" as a necessary consequence.
If that is true, then I am right to say he does not understand the magnitude of the statement, as that is what it MEANS when it is said.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:"I wish to inflict suffering and misery on all who are good at all times and through all eternity. I will do this so that they can all be miserable, as I am."
If that's who I really am, then yes.
I don't want your descolada. I don't desire misery or evil...just freedom. But if I can't be good without your god forcing it on me, I don't want it. I am completely serious about that.
---
edit: I've got to wonder, does consciously rejecting Christ's light also destroy my ability to reason? Because I rest a significant part of my morality of reasoning out the effects of my actions, and this is inconsistent with what you are describing as the necessary effects of my desire.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:"I wish to inflict suffering and misery on all who are good at all times and through all eternity. I will do this so that they can all be miserable, as I am."
If that's who I really am, then yes.
I don't want your descolada. I don't desire misery or evil...just freedom. But if I can't be good without your god forcing it on me, I don't want it. I am completely serious about that.
Could you elaborate? I don't see why you think God is forcing you to be good. God simply embodies all that is good, while Satan embodies the opposite. You choose which force you are going to support as you cannot support both. God did not create the force we call good, he has simply attuned himself to it perfectly. That is it, the end. If you chose to support God you become an agent unto yourself for good (is that not freedom?). If you support Satan he dominates you and makes you his slave in misery.
As far as I know there is no third option where you reject God and Satan and move out to some other universe and live by your own rules.
edit: and if you truly were evil you would deny that that statement applies to you, as anyone who is truly evil knows that deception is the name of the game when it comes to destroying the good. You're too honest to be evil Mr S Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: BB, I think it's safe to say that Squicky's point was that consciously rejecting "the Light of Christ" did not have "inflict suffering and misery on everyone who is good" as a necessary consequence.
If that is true, then I am right to say he does not understand the magnitude of the statement, as that is what it MEANS when it is said.
Presumably this is only true if the Light of Christ exists and is what you think it is.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: BB, I think it's safe to say that Squicky's point was that consciously rejecting "the Light of Christ" did not have "inflict suffering and misery on everyone who is good" as a necessary consequence.
If that is true, then I am right to say he does not understand the magnitude of the statement, as that is what it MEANS when it is said.
Presumably this is only true if the Light of Christ exists and is what you think it is.
No, presumably this is true if the Light of Christ exists and the description as given by the person who named that principle Light of Christ is to be believed.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I am not supporting either. My life is not dedicated towards their purposes, but rather an expression of who I am.
I reject God and his interference with who I am. I reject Satan and his interference with who I am.
If who I am without their interference aligns with what they want, then I'll go along with them, but this choice is driven by who I am, rather than choosing one of them and letting them control who I am.
If morality to you is a matter of picking a side and doing what they tell you, how do you know you've made the right choice? As I've said before, it seems, based on their beliefs and behavior, more likely to me that most Christians are worshipping Satan than they are worshiping a benevolent deity.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't understand how, if God is not influencing me, I'll obviously turn to evil, unless my base nature is evil. If that is true and God is the embodiment of all that is good, then did Satan make me? It doesn't seem that the God that you are describing would create me evil.
Also, is the whole world naturally evil without God's influence? If so, did Satan create it all? But if so, then wouldn't God's claim to have created everything be a iie?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:If who I am without their interference aligns with what they want, then I'll go along with them, but this choice is driven by who I am, rather than choosing one of them and letting them control who I am.
I think we are in agreement on this point. According to our theology you are in fact espousing God's view while rejecting Satan's. It was Satan's plan to simply force those who live on earth to do good. It was God's to make us agents unto ourselves and give us the right to choose.
quote:If morality to you is a matter of picking a side and doing what they tell you, how do you nkow you've made the right choice?
Decide on the effects of your choices. Me, I've found that righteous choices empower me and make me ultimately happier, while wicked ones make me weak and miserable.
quote: As I've said before, it seems, based on their beliefs and behavior, more likely to me that most Christians are worshipping Satan than they are worshiping a benevolent deity.
Again deception is the name of the game when it comes to destroying the good. Nothing is more potent in its destruction then to convince somebody that God wants them to do something evil.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It sounds to me like worship isn't really a conscious act in this paradigm. If I kick a puppy, I don't first think, "I praise you, Dark Lord Satan, Prince of Midnight, Lord of Liars, and to you I devote this act of sin and wickedness. Hail Satan!"
Each time I make an incorrect moral choice, am I literally rejecting God and joining Team Satan? If so, it seems that we all worship Satan on a frequent basis, especially with that bit in the Bible about how if you think about something sinful, you've already sinned.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:I've found that righteous choices empower me and make me ultimately happier, while wicked ones make me weak and miserable.
You can tell good from evil because it makes you feel good? To me, that's an awful standard to use. If your nature is evil, then satisfying it would make you feel good. Also, were I actually a sneaky, conniving deity intent on tricking people into my service, I would go about making them miserable when they were in the entry stages. I'd make them feel good, so that they would keep doing, focused on the fact that it makes them feel good rather than the morality involved.
Is your version of Satan really, really supid?
---
edit:
For that matter, am I? If doing the right thing makes me feel good and doing the wrong thing makes me feel bad, why would I, absent outside interference, constantly choose to do the wrong thing? It seems to me like I'd prefer feeling good over feeling bad. Or does this preference rest on having God's interference as well?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
The other theists currently participating in this discussion have a rather different view of how God interacts (a somewhat misleading term in my view) with us. I am torn between wanting to leap in and clarifu points of difference and being concerned that it would be too complicated to discuss different ideas of God at the same time.
I'm willing to wait to answer some of these questions if we think that would be easier with the caveat that these answers are not what I would say. And to say again that thinking of God as something apart from oneself is misleading.
Does that make sense?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Again deception is the name of the game when it comes to destroying the good. Nothing is more potent in its destruction then to convince somebody that God wants them to do something evil.
That's kind of my point. Many, many Christians do and have done terrible things in the name of God (edit: and thought they were happy doing so - check out some of the Crusader/pogrom poetry for example)*. So, obviously, they were worshipping Satan who said he was God. How do you know that you are not?
---
*Actually, caveat, no one answered my question before about the possibly cultural specific nature of Christ's light - maybe what they did wasn't terrible because it was accepted by their culture.
I'll ask again, is the moral perception granted by Christ's light culturally specific or general? If it is general, how can so many people have done so many things we now see as evil with clear consciences?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Each time I make an incorrect moral choice, am I literally rejecting God and joining Team Satan? If so, it seems that we all worship Satan on a frequent basis, especially with that bit in the Bible about how if you think about something sinful, you've already sinned.
Very well put.
quote:You can tell good from evil because it makes you feel good?
No, I said because it makes me HAPPY. All that makes me happy makes me feel good, but all that makes me feel good does not make me happy.
quote:Also, were I actually a sneaky, conniving deity intent on tricking people into my service, I would go about making them miserable when they were in the entry stages. I'd make them feel good, so that they would keep doing, focused on the fact that it makes them feel good rather than the morality involved.
Satan strictly speaking is not a deity, though he does have power. And your summation of one of his strategies is aptly stated.
quote:Is your version of Satan really, really stupid?
I must be mistaken in my interpretation of your remarks as your, "What I would do if I were the devil," matches what Satan actually does.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:And to say again that thinking of God as something apart from oneself is misleading.
boots, Yuo're talking about the difference between an immanent (your view) and a transcendent (the separate entity thing) god. I understand that very well.
I understand that you don't subscribe to the theology being dicussed here and I agree that, while you have interesting contributions on related issues, they don't really fit into the current conversation.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
