We Are All Pagans Now

The Spectator ^ | December 18, 2004 | Mary Wakefield

[Petronski]

Thank you for that.

[stuartcr]

Yes, I believe with God, anything is possible.

[stuartcr]

Just think, if there were none, there would be no deaths tied to religion or someones view of what God wants them to do.....

[stuartcr]

If God knows all, including the future....why test Abraham? Wouldn't God already know what Abraham's decision would be?

[stuartcr]

If there is only one God...how can anyone worship a different or wrong God? When a prayer goes up to God, doesn't the only God hear it?

[stuartcr]

What exactly is worshipping man?

[Just mythoughts]

"If God knows all, including the future....why test Abraham? Wouldn't God already know what Abraham's decision would be?"


Ah, Paul tells us these things (ensamples = examples) happened and are written for our admonition (warning) to us.

Abraham was not about what God knew and when he knew it.

Abraham was not required to sacrifice his son, yet Christ would come and willingly become the final shedding of blood sacrifice.

[stuartcr]

That's not really an answer.

[orionblamblam]

> Completely and utterly wrong!


OK, so you're saying that when someone uses a few bits and pieces from Norse heathenry in the furtherance of their racist notions, that that means that Norse heathenry is itself racist? That's not jsut bunk, it's massively ignorant.

The very basis of Norse hethenry, the myths and sagas, debunks that nonsene right off the bat. There are many gods... from *two* separate races. And while these two races of gods, the Aesir and the Vanir, start out fighting, they not only make peace, but they intermarry... and interbreed. With no further "race" issues. What's more, a *third* race, the Jotun (giants) also sometimes marry and breed with the gods, with again no racial stigma attached to the marriage or the offspring.

Compare that the the easy racism that has been read in the Bible by groups such as the Klan and Christian Identity.

[Just mythoughts]

Got to start somewhere "IF" I gave you the whole answer we would have to start at the beginning. Why man was created in the flesh.

What kind of answer are you looking for? Jeremiah was told "Before I formed thee in the bely I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Two places it is written that even while in the womb Jacob I loved and Esau I hated. So given these three examples these people have a history before they were ever born in a flesh body.

Yet we are also told that some have 'freewill'.

[mike182d]

The fundamental flaw in your argument is that in order for there to be knowledge there must be a true state of events. In other words, I cannot "know" something that is false or nonexistant.

Therefore, God's "knowing" what the serial killer is going to do is dependent upon that actually being true and thus the mere "knowledge" of it happening is not the cause of it happening. God "knows" what the serial killer is going to do because he actually did it and it is a true state of events. Prior to the serial killer killing someone, it is not true that he is a serial killer and this fact cannot be "known" about him until it is a true state of events.

So, in other words, by saying God is all-knowing, it only means that God knows all that is true. How did we then get to this idea that God knows of the future? God exists as immaterial and "outside" the confines of time, necessarily; He is unaffected by change (time) as He is the unmoved mover. Because of this, He knows at the beginning of time what is going to happen because He also exists simultaneously at the end of time after it all happens. The whole of time is a single moment in the eyes of God and thus his ability to "see the future," as we and the prohpets perceive it from our linear, time-bound perspective, is merely God bestowing a glimpse of what actually has happened in God's eyes.

This is also the answer to the infamous "Problem of Evil;" it is necessary for a state of affairs to actually happen in order to be true. Ergo, if it is not true, given the definition of knowledge, it is not something that can possibly be "known."

God: 1 Problem of Evil: Nothing. :-D

[stuartcr]

That still doesn't answer why God tested Abraham...unless it was just to teach him a lesson.

[mike182d]

"Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:

First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire...

Second, that all their books—their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible—be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted...

Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country...

Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it..."

Ok....guess who the author of this quote is?



Martin Luther: On the Jews and Their Lies

[stuartcr]

I have no arguement, just a belief.

I believe that since God knows something will happen, and He is all-powerful and the creator of everything, past and future, then He knows the event will happen and the outcome...mainly because He created everything that was, is, and will be. I believe nothing can happen without His say so.

I do not believe that God operates under the same rules of logic as we do, but I will no longer question someone that states that he knows as much about God as you do.

[bigLusr]

If God knows all, including the future....why test Abraham? Wouldn't God already know what Abraham's decision would be?

Good question. Now... I'm not a biblical scholar. I don't have all the answers... not by any means. But perhaps God was sure that Abraham trusted Him enough to sacrifice Isaac.

But how sure was Abraham?

[mike182d]

I am a Catholic, I was an altar boy.

John F'n Kerry

[mike182d]

See post 211 as I think it is relevant to your question.

[stuartcr]

I already replied to your #211. I only present what I happen to believe in, and I have no proof, nor do I require any. I do not know how to have a discussion with someone that appears to know so much about the nature of God.

[stuartcr]

What would it matter how sure Abraham was?

[mike182d]

lol, my apologies. I did not realize the two statements were of the same person. I need to read these posts more thoroughly :-)