Composed largely of layered polymers.
Posted on 03/03/2003 8:27:25 AM PST by general_re
I thought a new thread was a good idea, and here seems to be a good place to put it, so as not to clutter up "News". The only topic available was "heated discussion", though. ;)
If any clarification about the pictures is needed, just say so, and I will try to at least highlight the part that I am interested in for you. Remember that I'm interested in the objects or structures or artifacts being represented, so don't be thrown off if the illustrations seem abstract.
In short, it does not appear clear to me that such people had a strong enough self concept to understand their experience as something that could be understood. It was something that just "happened."
Do you think this makes any difference?
But of course, this is only a speculation....
Actually, I think the Bible is pretty clear about this. We have free will in that we are free to do/think as we please. This establishes the idea of choice, an idea which is repeatedly upheld as important in the Bible.
It is this very idea of free will which makes unbelievers culpable. And the fact that sinners freely choose to defy their infinitely holy Creator makes them infinitely deserving of punishment.
Without history the game is over.
I know you don't believe, but I do, so I pray for you a long life, love, health, happiness, success and epiphany.
I understand the doctrine and the righteousness of it. Nevertheless, I pray for mercy for all of us, including those who are deceived.
Yes Alamo-Girl -- that is my hope as well. Yet would it be accurate to say, for example, that Hitler was deceived? If so, is there any point in such a deception when a person can become morally culpable? I ask that, because it seems we are most easily deceived when the promises we are tantalized with are the things we really do want.
Which is why I am so happy simply to leave the judgment to God. He will save whomever He Will. Maybe even a Hitler -- for all I know. After all, we musn't forget Christ came to redeem sinners.
Regards and hugs
Frankly, no.
I also tend to agree with js1138 (although I readily admit that have not followed every nuance of that discussion) that these personal "experiences" are well within the generative capability of our material brains and indeed may be be self directed to a significant degree. And while that may not make them any less real to the person involved, it limits any real discussion of them to vague analogy and meaningless philosophical noise.
Don't take my comments to be insulting or derisive; it's just that I see no basis for meaningful discussion.
Composed largely of layered polymers.
Cordially,
Cordially,
P.S. Your latest pic looks like my neighbor's patio. Ugly! (And designed by an idiot.)
Yet would it be accurate to say, for example, that Hitler was deceived?
I don't know. I take hope in the passages in Romans and John which speak of God's mercy to those who didn't know better. Because of those passages, I wonder if willfulness will factor in the judgment somehow.
I don't see why not, so long as whatever conclusion is finally arrived at is defensible.
P.S. Your latest pic looks like my neighbor's patio. Ugly! (And designed by an idiot.)
That's right, smart guy, and if I catch you sneaking around my patio again, you'll be talking to Mr. 12-Gauge...
:^)
Alamo-Girl, my suspicion is: Willfulness is decidedly the key factor to be adjudged.
Will in and of itself is a neutral "force": It can be put to any purpose.
At the same time, will is also power, humanly speaking. Which suggests the next critical problem: To what purpose is will being put?
God gave man free will; so free will cannot be bad as a matter of principle. The problem of human will derives from the purposes to which it is put.
As to the question of divine judgment, I cannot pretend to know the Mind of God on this question. Yet I do know, to paraphrase Francis Schaffer, that: "God speaks to me truly; but He does not speak to me exhaustively."
Well, for heaven's sake, I give thanks to the Lord for leaving the human species something further to do within His Creation. Otherwise, we'd just be so many robots, or slaves....
Talk about "existence participating in Being," of a divine-human collaborative effort!
For some strange reason well beyond my ken, I am certain that God loves us humans -- His "sons". As improbable as that might sound.
Perhaps a viable civilizational basis can be formed around this proposition. After the impending war is over, that is. If ever.
People who read the Holy Scriptures probably have a leg up on that question. As strangely as that idea might sound in the post-modern ear.
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