Would God trick you?

[poxpower]

Ok let's say you go to heaven and the person you love the most doesn't really want to be with you, but you couldn't be happy without that person in heaven with you ( and this is heaven, you should get whatever you want anyways ).
So what happens?
God can't fuck with free will, so he couldn't make her love you, nor could he make you stop loving her.

Of course, being God, he could "duplicate" her for you, thus deceiving you into thinking you're actually with that person, while in fact that person is off doing something else in heaven ( probably mini golf ).

Trickery if for the devil, of course.

So, what would God do? Could he trick someone if it meant having two people happy?

[cellardoor6]

Um...

The pretext of your question is based on things that may or may not even be true.

If we get to Heaven, how do we know that we'll be the way that we are now? What if in Heaven human beings are perfect and things like the desire for mates no longer exists?

Or, what if the universe is so perfect that you won't desire another person if they don't desire you because that would mean you're incompatible? You'd be smart enough and perfected so that you'd never want someone who wouldn't be content with you.

What if in Heaven only perfect matches exist, and therefore someone would never want someone who wouldn't want them back because it would go against their nature as beings in a perfect universe?

I don't like your question because it's just in that certain tone similar to "if God exists, why do babies die?" or whatever.

Or... what if heaven is similar to earth life and even though it is perfect, humans won't be so if someone wants someone who doesn't want them back then tough fucking cookies.

[SizZlE666]

At 11/15/07 11:25 PM, cellardoor6 wrote: If we get to Heaven, how do we know that we'll be the way that we are now? What if in Heaven human beings are perfect and things like the desire for mates no longer exists?

So when you go to heaven you no longer become human but become "perfect"?

[poxpower]

At 11/15/07 11:25 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

The pretext of your question is based on things that may or may not even be true.

Well, it's about religion.

If we get to Heaven, how do we know that we'll be the way that we are now? What if in Heaven human beings are perfect and things like the desire for mates no longer exists?

hell if I know, I'm just poking fun ( again ) at the Christian conception that God is good and perfect and would never do anything mean ever.

But let's say ( in christianity ) that when you go to heaven, you become "perfect", would that not be God influencing your free will? He robs you of all choices if he makes you perfect, since he would basically make you him ( because he's perfect, and two perfect things cannot have any differences, thus there would be two Gods ). So you would no longer be human anyways, he would warp your brain so that you would want what he wants.
Which is something he wouldn't do according to christianity's wacked-out ideas about everything.

I don't like your question because it's just in that certain tone similar to "if God exists, why do babies die?"

Yeah it's just "why god can't be all-loving and all-powerful" version 452342
You still have to wonder how BILLIONS of people never think about this shit while warping their entire life around religion ( or rather, not actually changing 99.9% of their behavior anyways thus ensuring they'll go to hell, but not according to their own personnal version of what they think the bible means ).

Reminds me, I was watching the Dr Phil show the other day and there was this psycho bible-thumping girl who was convinced everyone with tatoos and whatnot was going to hell. Also, she said if you swear, you could to hell, but they caught her swearing on camera, even though she said she never swears, so she's also a liar.
And if she was actually intelligent, she'd be scared as fuck, because she thinks she's going to hell FOREVER, which is the worst thing that could possibly happen to anything.
But being religious, she's obviously not too smart.

[SadisticMonkey]

What the hell kind of question is that?

[cellardoor6]

At 11/16/07 12:41 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/15/07 11:25 PM, cellardoor6 wrote:

The pretext of your question is based on things that may or may not even be true.

Well, it's about religion.

Yeah but the pretexts you based your question on were your OWN interpretation of religion based on how YOU see it.

If we get to Heaven, how do we know that we'll be the way that we are now? What if in Heaven human beings are perfect and things like the desire for mates no longer exists?

hell if I know, I'm just poking fun ( again ) at the Christian conception that God is good and perfect and would never do anything mean ever.

God can still be good and perfect, your analogy contradict that because you're excluding loads variables. The way you set up your question narrowed down the possibilities so that however someone answers it, it will create the illusion that the answer contradicts something that is claimed about God.

But let's say ( in christianity ) that when you go to heaven, you become "perfect", would that not be God influencing your free will?

No. You can't force become perfect. It's part of the plan, because perfection would come about from living a good life, and atoning for sins and so forth.

He robs you of all choices if he makes you perfect

No... you just stretched your logic pretty far then. How does someone becoming perfect get forced into doing it? How are their choices being taken away if they are choosing it, and are putting forth effort to do it?

since he would basically make you him ( because he's perfect, and two perfect things cannot have any differences, thus there would be two Gods )

Another wild stretch of logic.

So you would no longer be human anyways, he would warp your brain so that you would want what he wants.

Um no.

Being human right now is having our brains warped. Human understanding is only a tiny, narrow little perception of the universe. The way I see it, dying and eventually being resurrected will be like waking up from a dream, not the other way around. What we consider to be human traits, and consider to be fundamental to our existence are really just a byproduct of living in the world in our current, mortal, 3-dimensional state.

Which is something he wouldn't do according to christianity's wacked-out ideas about everything.

No, once again that's a stretch of logic. The pretext that you create, the scenario that leads to your conclusion that there is a contradiction, is all skewed from the beginning because you're using YOUR interpretation of things.

I don't like your question because it's just in that certain tone similar to "if God exists, why do babies die?"

Yeah it's just "why god can't be all-loving and all-powerful" version 452342

God can be all loving and all powerful.

You're thinking that just because there is suffering that this contradicts the concept of an all-loving God but this isn't true. The suffering and the hardships are required to bring about an eventual, greater good. If everything was always wonderful for everyone in this world, then we wouldn't learn from it and we wouldn't progress.

If people are challenged, they don't overcome them and become better from it. So suffering does not cancel out the concept of a loving God. Hust like it doesn't mean your parents don't love you or aren't doing the right thing for you when they send you to school for the first day of kindergarten and make you stay even though you cry about it and hate it at first.

You still have to wonder how BILLIONS of people never think about this shit while warping their entire life around religion

Well that's your own logic, other people don't agree with your little analogy, they wouldn't even agree with the pretext of it so even though they think about it, they have answers for themselves that make your conclusion moot.

Reminds me, I was watching the Dr Phil show the other day and there was this psycho bible-thumping girl who was convinced everyone with tatoos and whatnot was going to hell. Also, she said if you swear, you could to hell, but they caught her swearing on camera, even though she said she never swears, so she's also a liar.

Yeah, and that crazy bitch doesn't represent all Christians or all religious people for that matter. She's using her own interpretation as the basis of her argument, yet her interpretation isn't solid. Just like you are using your interpretation as the basis of your argument.

And if she was actually intelligent, she'd be scared as fuck, because she thinks she's going to hell FOREVER, which is the worst thing that could possibly happen to anything.
But being religious, she's obviously not too smart.

Religious =/= not smart

[poxpower]

At 11/16/07 01:23 AM, cellardoor6 wrote:

Yeah but the pretexts you based your question on were your OWN interpretation

God is all-powerful and all-loving, that's the christian thing as far as I know.

it will create the illusion that the answer contradicts something that is claimed about God.

Yeah that's the point, and it's not an illusion, it will contradict it, because God can't both be all-powerful and all-loving, as it was demonstrated infinite times in infinite ways in infinite debates :o

No. You can't force become perfect. It's part of the plan, because perfection would come about from living a good life, and atoning for sins and so forth.

Yeah but God is still the one turning you perfect after you die, since he created whatever ways in which you would become perfect ( if that is the case with heaven, and who the fuck knows? I don't even know what the bible says ).

No... you just stretched your logic pretty far then. How does someone becoming perfect get forced into doing it? How are their choices being taken away if they are choosing it, and are putting forth effort to do it?

In the scenario I made, if you went to heaven loving someone and wishing to be with that person, and then suddenly God made you not want to be with that person, or not care about being with that person, wether it means he made you "perfect" or "happy" or whatever, is a violation of your free will ( unless you agree to it ).
But that wasn't the question, I was just asking if God would ever trick someone. Clearly, if I refused to let a loved one go, even if that person wasn't interested in me anymore ( as could happen for real ) then God would have no choice but to either trick me or change my mind to make me happy.

Another wild stretch of logic.

How can two perfect things be different? ( or, how can anything be perfect anyways haha but that's another funny debate )

Being human right now is having our brains warped.

So then God is restricting our free will right now? Or he's tricking us into believing we're just humans, just pick one, it's the exact same thing as my first question haha.
Assuming of course, that God is responsible for this.

is all skewed from the beginning because you're using YOUR interpretation of things.

That's what Christians believe, i.e. all-loving, all-powerful God who gave the gift of free will to humans.
DIDN'T YOU SEE THE MOVIE BEDAZZLED?

then we wouldn't learn from it and we wouldn't progress.

Well, he's God, so assuming he can do everything, he could instant-teach us whatever he wants, like in the Matrix, without restricting our free will more than he is doing now by placing us in a world of suffering to learn things that, according to you, won't matter anyways once we die since we are transformed into perfect beings. Beings that by definition, are all the same, while clearly everyone's life is different on earth.
So that's like 5 things that don't work if what you wrote is really what you think, which I doubt, I assume you're just yanking my chain, and it's awesome because I'm bored.

Anyways, back to instant-learn. Assuming God chose the perfect plan, then shouldn't everyone learn the same thing the exact same way? Is it fair for someone to learn that you don't touch the stove by getting a major burn in their face, while someone else was just watching and gains the same lesson? And in the case that the burned person's life's shittiness is to better him, then won't that make the watcher a worst person in the end, thus still making God a douche for giving one being a learning advantage?
And then, would you say that everyone's experience is both different, yet equivalent? Even, like a 2 year-old baby that dies in a car crash, which clearly makes him learn a lot of hard things about life.

And even then you could say that we are all part of a cycle were we are all actually just one being living every life there is to live, one at the time, but that's not Christianity, and my thread was more geared towards them, because they're crazy.

I can invent a millions ways to make God work, yet they cling to the one that makes sure they're always wrong.

they have answers for themselves

Which makes you wonder why they even pretend to follow a certain religion if they'll just pick what they want. Oh wait, they're tools.

Yeah, and that crazy bitch doesn't represent all Christians or all religious people for that matter.

Well I'm 99.9% sure that everyone who believes someone is going to hell is probably doing something themselves that will insure they go to hell one way or the other, according to their own beliefs. Of course when things make is seem lke they're not such great people as they claim, they are quick to bend their beliefs around so they won't end up in hell themselves, and the bending goes on and on as their resolves gets weaken.
I really have to hand it to crazy people who follow their religions to a tee, because at least they're honest, and it's really funny to see the other 5 billion religious people damn them to whatever version of hell they feel is real that day of the week.

What a fun crazy bunch. weee

And most religious people aren't really religious, i.e. religion doesn't really affect their daily life much more than being a vegetarian would, and they don't seem to be thinking about the afterlife all that much. Oh well.

[cellardoor6]

At 11/16/07 02:09 AM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/16/07 01:23 AM, cellardoor6 wrote:

Yeah but the pretexts you based your question on were your OWN interpretation

God is all-powerful and all-loving, that's the christian thing as far as I know.

Yes, and YOUR logic that you used as a pretext to create a situation that supposedly contradicts it doesn't, at all, in my view... as a Christian.

it will create the illusion that the answer contradicts something that is claimed about God.

Yeah that's the point, and it's not an illusion, it will contradict it, because God can't both be all-powerful and all-loving, as it was demonstrated infinite times in infinite ways in infinite debates :o

Actually God CAN be and the arguments that people provide to claim to the contrary are pretty weak. Where their logic breaks down is when they think that an all-loving God would stop all suffering, and that since there are people who are having shitty lives, that this somehow contradicts it.

Yet it doesn't. You fail to acknowledge that there is a possibility that what YOU think is awful and should be prevented by God is actually part of the greater good. Therefore an all-loving God is so loving that he allows humans to make their own mistakes and reap the consequences for themselves and inflict consequences on others sometimes as well.

No. You can't force become perfect. It's part of the plan, because perfection would come about from living a good life, and atoning for sins and so forth.

Yeah but God is still the one turning you perfect after you die

No, that's what YOU are throwing out there to fortify your argument. God doesn't make people perfect, God provides an outlet for people to become perfect, it's THEIR choice. God can't force people to be perfect because THAT would go against free will. It's not against free will if people take a helping hand that God extends in order to fight half of the battle themselves.

No... you just stretched your logic pretty far then. How does someone becoming perfect get forced into doing it? How are their choices being taken away if they are choosing it, and are putting forth effort to do it?

In the scenario I made, if you went to heaven loving someone and wishing to be with that person, and then suddenly God made you not want to be with that person, or not care about being with that person, wether it means he made you "perfect" or "happy" or whatever, is a violation of your free will ( unless you agree to it ).

God can't make people love or want to be with someone. Nor would he.

But that wasn't the question, I was just asking if God would ever trick someone.

No, because God is truth and light and so forth etc... God doesn't trick people, God reveals the truth and the truth in it's entirely, which is always better.

Clearly, if I refused to let a loved one go, even if that person wasn't interested in me anymore ( as could happen for real ) then God would have no choice but to either trick me or change my mind to make me happy.

No, because in Heaven, in a perfected mortal soul, you'd be content with it. You wouldn't long for someone who didn't want you, because you'd be wise enough to realize that if you aren't compatible with them, then they aren't compatible for you either.

Another wild stretch of logic.

How can two perfect things be different? ( or, how can anything be perfect anyways haha but that's another funny debate )

Two perfect things ban be different, because Heaven will be harmonious. Although it will be made up of multitides of different beings, they will all be so perfect that everything will be in sync, everyone will be exceedingly benevolent and so forth because in order to enter heaven they'd shed all possible evil and imperfection. Things like lust or covetousness were inventions by mortal humans due to having lack of perfection. These things won't exist in Heaven, they only exist among humans who are isolated in their temporary, 3-dimensional existence.

Being human right now is having our brains warped.

So then God is restricting our free will right now?

No, because we chose to come to Earth. But before we came to earth we weren't perfect either because we were just spirits, with no bodies. And part of the plan for us is to progress, and for that we need to gain bodies and to experience the relative misery that is our shitty lives. We NEED to feel pain and have hardships so that we can learn it for ourselves. God doesn't protect us from it, but that doesn't mean he's not all loving, because the harships are necessary.

then we wouldn't learn from it and we wouldn't progress.

Well, he's God, so assuming he can do everything, he could instant-teach us whatever he wants, like in the Matrix

God is all powerful but he still abides by the laws of the universe that he created, yet exists outside of. It's like a clockwork, he wound it up and let it go by itself, and only intervenes to do a little fine-tuning. He won't spin every single cog for us though, that's our job.

We need to experience things. If God just plugged us into some Matrix program to learn things, then THAT would contradict God because it would be a lie.

without restricting our free will more than he is doing now by placing us in a world of suffering to learn things that, according to you, won't matter anyways once we die since we are transformed into perfect beings. Beings that by definition, are all the same

No, there you go basing your arguments on your own opinions. Perfect doesn't mean all things that are perfect are identical. Perfection is due to a harmonious, perpetual ascent. If things stayed the same, they wouldn't be perfect, if things were ALL the same, they wouldn't be perfect either because there would be no harmony, it would just be monotony.

And then, would you say that everyone's experience is both different, yet equivalent? Even, like a 2 year-old baby that dies in a car crash, which clearly makes him learn a lot of hard things about life.

If a 2 year old baby dies in a car crash, then that would come as a result of the free agency of others. Whether or not the baby is reincarnated or returns to the spirit world and learns there, I don't know.

And even then you could say that we are all part of a cycle were we are all actually just one being living every life there is to live, one at the time, but that's not Christianity

Whoa there. Actually there are some people who believe that we ARE God, that heaven is like a hivemind. God hears our prayers and knows everything we're doing because he is experiencing us, yet we can't do the same with God because we're the lower levels of him, like the extensions.

Christian scholars has dabbled with that idea; that our individual egos are just temporary, and that God is multiplying himself (as we are multiplying ourselves) by perpetuating life. That the life on earth is just a certain stage of all of those egos taking a journey upward through the dimensions, eventually merging again with God, as other spirits are created and begin the journey form the bottom up... in a continual cycle.

It's an abstract idea.

and my thread was more geared towards them, because they're crazy.

You're crazy.

I can invent a millions ways to make God work, yet they cling to the one that makes sure they're always wrong.

Always wrong in your eyes.

Yeah, and that crazy bitch doesn't represent all Christians or all religious people for that matter.

Well I'm 99.9% sure that everyone who believes someone is going to hell is probably doing something themselves

Of course, except they think they repent daily for their sins through Jesus. Yet heathens like you live without Jesus and continue to sin without repenting for it, lol.

that will insure they go to hell one way or the other

Meh, if you want to get in depth about this interpretations of what "hell" is are varied that make that argument (both theirs and yours) moot.

[lumpypaint]

Lesson learned from this thread:

Dont bother arguing with cellardoor... you might as well be trying to put out a fire with gasoline.

[Thread-Killer]

No, He would not need to trick us. The Bible says we will receive a new body. I can surmise that we would also receive a new attitude and perspective. In order to create your dilemma, you assumed we would enter Heaven with the same character flaws that we had on Earth. I think that is unlikely.

[poxpower]

At 11/16/07 03:15 AM, cellardoor6 wrote:

Yes, and YOUR logic that you used as a pretext to create a situation that supposedly contradicts it doesn't, at all, in my view... as a Christian.

But you just said that I forced it to contradict itself. Either you believe in this, and it's a contradiction, or you believe something else.

Actually God CAN be and the arguments that people provide to claim to the contrary are pretty weak.

Read on I guess...

No, that's what YOU are throwing out there to fortify your argument. God doesn't make people perfect, God provides an outlet for people to become perfect, it's THEIR choice.

Ok, then you asume that you know exactly what comes after you die, i.e. either you go to hell, or you become perfect ( paradise), right?
So again, if you end up in heaven, you could "choose" to not be turned into "perfection". You might think it's pretty stupid, but humans are pretty stupid. I don't see how you can't imagine a case were a dude would be a good guy, make it into heaven and demand to be with his teen crush or whatever crap.
Unless you're saying that if I go to heaven, I don't have a choice but to be turned into something I might not want to be...( even if it would be stupid to decline the offer )

God can't make people love or want to be with someone. Nor would he.

Ok so then he couldn't make that dude be with his teen love. Unless he tricked him. Like I said. Which according to many Christians, he wouldn't do, because trickery is not nice and God doesn't do things that aren't nice.
I mean, the guy is in HEAVEN, and God would deny him something? So that would make God either a douche, or not all-powerful, because what reason would an all-powerful God have to deny you anything if he promised eternal bliss and yaddi-yadda when you get to heaven?
And side note: can you be a glutton in heaven? Like, can I eat a millio burritos with my giant magic stommach? Or how about fucking 20 sheeps. He better not deny this to me!

No, because in Heaven, in a perfected mortal soul, you'd be content with it. You wouldn't long for someone who didn't want you, because you'd be wise enough to realize that if you aren't compatible with them, then they aren't compatible for you either.

Right but that assumes that my mind was suddenly altered ( even if for the better ) after I died ( by God ) which is infringing on my free will. Sure, you can say "but you just realised it YOURSELF, but then if I'm suddenly 200 IQ points smarter, I'm no longer myself, am I?
Unless nothing defines oneself to you.
And of course then it just begs more questions, like, if I am a perfect mortal soul, then why would I need love? Or, if I need love, who would I love? I would need to love the equivalent of me, since all souls would be perfect "mortal" souls ( which is already a contradiction I guess. Unless you're God, you're not really "perfect", you're just "as good as God will let you be, which again makes him sound like a douche ).
Every soul would be an exact duplicate of the other, unless you're saying that one characteristic is equivalent to another, which nullifies the word "perfection", i.e. the assumption that there is one thing that is the best of everything and without flaws ( which is also open to suggestions. I think pedophilia is a flaw, but then again, it makes some people happy ).

Things like lust or covetousness were inventions by mortal humans due to having lack of perfection.

So either no one ever made it into heaven, or when you get there, you can get ready for one hell of a brainwashing. And like I said, what then defines an individual? On earth, it's the sum of your flaws and qualities, but if everyone has the same qualities in heaven,and no flaws, then everyone is the same :o
Yeah it works really well when you say it in a really abstract way like "everyone will be super-happy" but when you think about the details, it just crumbles and starts being wacked-out.

No, because we chose to come to Earth.

Well I don't remember that, so he's erasing my memory too? If I still had my memory, I would make different choices, that's for sure.
Also fun to know: Muslims believe the same thing as you, i.e. before coming to earth, everyone signed a contract with God that said "I'm a Muslim, and judge me by Muslim standards no matter what I say, think or do on earth. p.s. wipe my memory so I can go to hell like a moron".

He won't spin every single cog for us though, that's our job.

Well that's your opinion, because there's millions of people who are convinced that praying will make God change something in their daily routine. So either they're wrong, or you are.

And I still don't see the need for Hell. Humans could litteraly not imagine something worse to do. I wouldn't send ANYONE to hell, not even Hitler. Especially considering his memory has been "wiped", as you say, and he doesn't even believe he's goind there.
Man, that's a really assholish thing to do, sending a dude for ETERNAL PAIN AND DAMNATION because he ordered people gased so they would go to heaven and learn valuable spirit lessons like "starving is gay" and "humans need sleep, but I'm a spirit now, so why should I care?"

then THAT would contradict God because it would be a lie.

How is it more of a lie than earth? He can wipe our memory, but he can't add to it?

it would just be monotony.

Right you need to seriously think about the idea of "perfection" more than just on the surface and realise how impossibly human-shaped it it. What's better, being black or white? Man or woman? Neither? What should we be then? Name one thing we should actually be. Like, should we be curious? And how can one set of perfect beings be curious, while other are not, while still all being perfect?
Anyways, to me, "perfect" is just a pretty meaningless word that lends itself to tons and tons of funny semantic conversations.

Whether or not the baby is reincarnated or returns to the spirit world and learns there, I don't know.

Well Christians believe we have only one life ( except Jesus ). So that's a pretty pointless life there. Also look under: dead at birth.

Christian scholars has dabbled with that idea; that our individual egos are just temporary, and that God is multiplying himself (as we are multiplying ourselves) by perpetuating life.

Yeah I thought about that too ( by myself actually, this is what happens when you think about this stuff too much ).
But again, that's not really what's in the bible. Of course, you can stretch the bible as much as you want. Like the "burning bush" was actually a chick with herpes. And "40 years in the desert" is actually dog years.

Of course, except they think they repent daily for their sins through Jesus. Yet heathens like you live without Jesus and continue to sin without repenting for it, lol.

Right but there's people who are sure that you're going to hell even though you "repent to Jesus" when you sin, because you're just a douchebag using Jesus as an excuse to keep up your bad behavior. And then there's people who think you'll go to hell if you have sex before marriage. And then there's even funnier people who think you'll go to hell if you're not a Jew. Or a Jew. Either way, someone's going to hell and they're going to be really surprised.

[Brick-top]

Does this mean God invented cloning?

[bomarc]

Why would I be tricked by something that doesn't exist? (I'm agnostic, so please leave me be.)

bomarc

[EnzeruAkuma]

At 11/15/07 11:14 PM, poxpower wrote: Ok let's say you go to heaven and the person you love the most doesn't really want to be with you, but you couldn't be happy without that person in heaven with you ( and this is heaven, you should get whatever you want anyways ).
So what happens?
God can't fuck with free will, so he couldn't make her love you, nor could he make you stop loving her.

Of course, being God, he could "duplicate" her for you, thus deceiving you into thinking you're actually with that person, while in fact that person is off doing something else in heaven ( probably mini golf ).

Trickery if for the devil, of course.

So, what would God do? Could he trick someone if it meant having two people happy?

That's depending on if by happy you mean the fulfilment of temporal desires. The situation you described is an obsession, not love in how i see it at least. Love is willing to let go. It would be wanting of the happiness of the object of the affection, even when that object must not be yours for that to happen. It is the ability to object to the obsessive side of love.
Obsessions, no matter how much they fill the mind of a person, can be undone and put behind. It's really no different from "needing" to watch a particular tv show every night. Even if you don't get to do so you'll live on and learn that it isn't neccesary for your happiness. Joy is the result of perception and fulfillment of particular parts of ones perceptions. Perceptions however can be changed at the drop of a hat.
Heaven according to the bible however isn't about getting what you want. It's about the problems of this life not being present in the next. If right now part of your pain is in not getting what you want then in the next life perhaps you will understand that what you want was a minor detail anyway, and you will want other things instead.
Personally i think conjecture on how exactly heaven would play out is about 90% asumption anyway. Even if you are a christian and you're crazy about the bible you have to admit that we aren't given all that much detail. And perhaps that is because heaven is not this physical reality that we know, it is an entirely different plain of existance and as such we have very little basis upon which to understand it. Because our understanding is based on what we know of the physical realm.

Also what is free-will? It is but the ability to make a choice depending on your current perception and understanding. Which is the culmination of previous choices and outside influences. Free-will and our ability to choose is still influenced no matter how much we may think we are free of it. It's like coming to a fork in the road; something in your past makes you want to take the road on the right, or something in the past makes you want to take the road on the left. Or something in the past makes you decide to go against your leanings for going to the right, or something makes you rebel against wanting to go left. It is not to say that you are not making a choice though. Because free-will at it's basis is simply the ability to make a choice, however to actually make a decision one has to have something to give them a reason for making the decision. That is the part of free-will we overlook i think.

[EnzeruAkuma]

At 11/16/07 12:41 AM, poxpower wrote:

:( because he's perfect, and two perfect things cannot have any differences, thus there would be two Gods ).

Or one. There are sects of christianity that believe we become a part of God in the next life. Enveloping into the being that is God.
Going off this thought what if God is actually the culimination of humanity's essence that exists beyond the physical realm? And everything is simply a loop of us creating us and becoming the us that is God? One could even say that good God that everyone likes is the positive influence of the collective humanity and the bad things we see are the collective negative influences of humanity.

I think i should stop before my or someones else's brain implodes though...

[JerkClock]

At 11/15/07 11:14 PM, poxpower wrote:
So, what would God do? Could he trick someone if it meant having two people happy?

He could create another good person who you would like, but would like you too.

[Brick-top]

Here's a random picture.

[SmilezRoyale]

This depends entirely on what heaven you are talking about. If you are referring to the Judeo-Christian heaven, souls who are in gods paradise are no longer weighted down by the banes of vice; and as a result a dead couple who's souls are in heaven would most likely not have to worry about being turned off by each other.

maybe this all depends on how people view heaven, based on what you talk about, it sounds like to me that your envision-ment of heaven is a place where human emotions still exist, but people are imortal and god can perform his magic for you. in which case i don't think he would make you a fake wife just to be happy, that's much to human. The God of the Bible sounds more like an 'Accept Fate / The Truth and get on with your life' I also don't recall of any bible stories where god tricks people into doing things, I know he has told people to do weird things, but that's not a trick, that's just a stupid command.

[Ravariel]

God has tricked me. And many others. He has convinced us by his own creation that he doesn't exist.

[poxpower]

At 11/16/07 04:12 PM, EnzeruAkuma wrote: Love is willing to let go.

Why would you have to let go of anything if you can get whatever you want in heaven?
Assuming of course that heaven is a place where you get anything you want.

It would be wanting of the happiness of the object of the affection, even when that object must not be yours for that to happen.

And seriously, that doesn't happen in a human life. Who the fuck would go "man I love you, but I can clearly see you don't love me, so I will just live the rest of my life alone and miserable, knowing that you hate me and are happy with someone else, cause I love you".
Most likely, that person would find someone else to love, which puts in question the first love, because, what kind of lame love was it that makes it so easy to just abandon it?

Perceptions however can be changed at the drop of a hat.

Well if you don't do it yourself, and God does it for you, then he's altering your mind, and thus, your free will.
And again, in heaven, you could watch your favourite show all the time. In fact, why wouldn't there be infinite episodes of your favourite show?
Let's go crazy here, if we'll pretend there's a heaven, we should make it kick ass.

And more to the point: let's say that you want to watch your show, but a person who loves you a lot, in heaven, wants you to come play baseball with them in the magical unicorn field. then who gets his wish? Clearly if heaven is perfect, both people should have the maximal amount of instant gratification ( why wouldn't they? ) but that is not possible infinite scenarios that I can make up all day long.

Heaven according to the bible however isn't about getting what you want. It's about the problems of this life not being present in the next.

If you say so, I haven't actually looked into the details. If you ever find a place that explains it in great detail, it would rule, but just saying "your problems are over" is so vague that heaven could actually be your existence ending, which doesn't sound too great too me at the present. But then again, an eternity of anything doesn't sound pleasant to humans... Gives me chills just thinking about it.

Personally i think conjecture on how exactly heaven would play out is about 90% asumption anyway.

You'd think God would have specified the details in his brochure.

That is the part of free-will we overlook i think.

Well if you have thought about it in more details, remember that humans are just brains, and brains are made of atoms, which are all interconected through physical chain reactions. So technically, everything has been set exactly this way since the beggining of the universe.
I haven't heard any proof of anything being random in this universe, only of being impossible to determine by humans ( or even God, I don't remember the name of that "if you look at it, you change it" theory ).
Anyways, it is entirely possible that there is no free will of any kind, not just religiously speaking. That we are all just drones ticking along like clockwork until whenever.

It's funny to think about stuff like that and then care about actual politics or wonder what you'll eat for supper.

At 11/16/07 04:24 PM, EnzeruAkuma wrote:

Or one. There are sects of christianity that believe we become a part of God in the next life. Enveloping into the being that is God.

But wouldn't that make the current God imperfect, since he's waiting for us to get back to him?
Although, this is just the same shit as with the concept of "infinity". "infinity +1 = infinity". Of course, you're not really supposed to use "infinity" in equations like that.
So can you say "me + God = God" still? Of course that's always assuming the word "perfect" actually means something, but it's just as subjective as the word "beautiful" and much less cool than the word "gnarly".

Going off this thought what if God is actually the culimination of humanity's essence that exists beyond the physical realm? And everything is simply a loop of us creating us and becoming the us that is God? One could even say that good God that everyone likes is the positive influence of the collective humanity and the bad things we see are the collective negative influences of humanity.

Yeah I thought about it. Again, there is no way to prove any of this, but if I had to pick something to believe in, this would be higher on my list than "you will burn in hell if you don't worship Jesus".

At 11/16/07 05:06 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: not have to worry about being turned off by each other.

But let's say one dude is divorced and really wants to get back with his wife, and that wife is married to another guy, they can't have a threesome.
Anyways, I don't really know what "version" of heaven I'm talking about here. I'm just saying, let's say that heaven is this place where you get whatever you want and where God has to do everything he can to make everyone happy. ( God being the christian "all-powerful" "all-loving" "can't touch free will" "smells like febreeze" one)

in which case i don't think he would make you a fake wife just to be happy, that's much to human.

The God of the Bible sounds more like an 'Accept Fate / The Truth and get on with your life'

But isn't that a cop-out, I mean, YOU MADE IT TO HEAVEN. Unless you're saying a guy who loves someone who doesn't love him back wouldn't make it into heaven. Which douchifies God again :O
Poor God, he's got to do so many complicated things.

At 11/16/07 06:56 PM, Grammer wrote:

There's a lot more qualifications to be a deity than just being perfect.

Well if "perfection" is "the best of everything" then whatever thing you could get, you would have to have to be perfect. So if you say someone is perfect yet not a God, then that person is not perfect ( because they're not a God ).
So yeah, being perfect in a scenario where you could be a God, would automatically make you a God. And whatever qualifications you would need to be a God, they would obviously be included in the "perfection" clause.
Like "has big penis".

[Draconias]

At 11/15/07 11:14 PM, poxpower wrote: So, what would God do? Could he trick someone if it meant having two people happy?

It's called Instancing. There's no reason not to make up a heaven for every single individual and just trap them inside their own sphere--any omnipotent or even half-decent God could make passable illusions of people. There is no real conflict here.

[EnzeruAkuma]

At 11/16/07 11:47 PM, poxpower wrote:

At 11/16/07 04:12 PM, EnzeruAkuma wrote: Love is willing to let go.

Why would you have to let go of anything if you can get whatever you want in heaven?
Assuming of course that heaven is a place where you get anything you want.

Which is one that doesn't even have so much as a biblical basis. It's purely conjecture.

It would be wanting of the happiness of the object of the affection, even when that object must not be yours for that to happen.

And seriously, that doesn't happen in a human life. Who the fuck would go "man I love you, but I can clearly see you don't love me, so I will just live the rest of my life alone and miserable, knowing that you hate me and are happy with someone else, cause I love you".
Most likely, that person would find someone else to love, which puts in question the first love, because, what kind of lame love was it that makes it so easy to just abandon it?

Didn't say you'd tell them.
I never did. But real love is selfless; and you're living in a dreamworld if you think it's always returned. It's also not abandonment. If you love them that isn't going to change. You may love others, you may be able to put it aside in your mind, but love is an emotion and a mental committment that once manifested doesn't go away easily. However you are still plenty capable of going against the first reaction which is the desire to retain the object of love.

Perceptions however can be changed at the drop of a hat.

Well if you don't do it yourself, and God does it for you, then he's altering your mind, and thus, your free will.
And again, in heaven, you could watch your favourite show all the time. In fact, why wouldn't there be infinite episodes of your favourite show?
Let's go crazy here, if we'll pretend there's a heaven, we should make it kick ass.

And more to the point: let's say that you want to watch your show, but a person who loves you a lot, in heaven, wants you to come play baseball with them in the magical unicorn field. then who gets his wish? Clearly if heaven is perfect, both people should have the maximal amount of instant gratification ( why wouldn't they? ) but that is not possible infinite scenarios that I can make up all day long.

I wasn't speaking to the heaven scenario you portray at that point. But this is a perfect example of how free will works. A perception can change at the drop of a hat or it can be retained. Yet this is solely dependent on the desires of the person. Which desires are subject to many things, however you control by the force of your will how the desires are responded to. Which is also influenced by past and present thoughts and happenings, however there is still the choice and the possibility. The infuence is merely a nudge toward one way or another. And often there are conflicting influences which begs the question of why we choose one over another.

Heaven according to the bible however isn't about getting what you want. It's about the problems of this life not being present in the next.

If you say so, I haven't actually looked into the details. If you ever find a place that explains it in great detail, it would rule, but just saying "your problems are over" is so vague that heaven could actually be your existence ending, which doesn't sound too great too me at the present. But then again, an eternity of anything doesn't sound pleasant to humans... Gives me chills just thinking about it.

Precisely what my point was; there aren't many details about it. An like i said, and as you give an example of, the reason for this is perhaps the lack of ability to perceive it. Eternity seems out of bounds or even preposterous because we understand things in terms of a temporal universe. Eternity is a concept that basically has no place in understanding based on that. So we have mere inklings of what eternity is. Perhaps it's the same difference with heaven.

Personally i think conjecture on how exactly heaven would play out is about 90% asumption anyway.

You'd think God would have specified the details in his brochure.

Eh, i don't care. I can't do anything about what heaven or eternity is, so i might as well concentrate on the present.

That is the part of free-will we overlook i think.

Well if you have thought about it in more details, remember that humans are just brains, and brains are made of atoms, which are all interconected through physical chain reactions. So technically, everything has been set exactly this way since the beggining of the universe.
I haven't heard any proof of anything being random in this universe, only of being impossible to determine by humans ( or even God, I don't remember the name of that "if you look at it, you change it" theory ).
Anyways, it is entirely possible that there is no free will of any kind, not just religiously speaking. That we are all just drones ticking along like clockwork until whenever.

It's funny to think about stuff like that and then care about actual politics or wonder what you'll eat for supper.

Ah but i think there are still variables not accounted for. Unexplained instances of choice that one isn't able to make sense of. If we are simply playing out things then logically we would choose whatever has the most sway. However we constantly do the opposite.

At 11/16/07 04:24 PM, EnzeruAkuma wrote:

Or one. There are sects of christianity that believe we become a part of God in the next life. Enveloping into the being that is God.

But wouldn't that make the current God imperfect, since he's waiting for us to get back to him?
Although, this is just the same shit as with the concept of "infinity". "infinity +1 = infinity". Of course, you're not really supposed to use "infinity" in equations like that.
So can you say "me + God = God" still? Of course that's always assuming the word "perfect" actually means something, but it's just as subjective as the word "beautiful" and much less cool than the word "gnarly".

Exactly. Depending on your deffinition a God made up of humans that is both positive and negative in thought could actually be the very deffinition of perfection in terms of being balanced.

Going off this thought what if God is actually the culimination of humanity's essence that exists beyond the physical realm? And everything is simply a loop of us creating us and becoming the us that is God? One could even say that good God that everyone likes is the positive influence of the collective humanity and the bad things we see are the collective negative influences of humanity.

Yeah I thought about it. Again, there is no way to prove any of this, but if I had to pick something to believe in, this would be higher on my list than "you will burn in hell if you don't worship Jesus".

Hey, not all christians believe that either. Really when you get down to it people who think that aren't even worshiping Jesus. They're just begging a get a jail free card.

[Musician]

the concept of god and heaven make no sense because they are FABRICATED. they are NOT REAL. they are dreams and delusions to help those who fear death to sleep at night.

[bobomajo]

If you are talking about the middle eastern god of creation GOD, then of corse he would trick you "he" is apparently the only god according to middle eastern monothestic teaching so "he" has to be both the bad guy and the good guy, he is the god of war and the god of peace, sickness and healing, nature and wealth.
Who ever thought this up wasnt very bright, if you like complete contradiction then middle eastern monotheism is for you.

Also the bible is so vague and broard that the "devil" (probly gods justifaction for doing cruel things) himself could cite scripture to do his bidding, (Not sure about Judaism, Islam, and all those other minority middle eastern religions but im sure their holy texts would be quite similar)

What about right now GOD talks to Bush its aparently Bush's devine purpose is to bring justice to the Infidels, but wait what about Islamic guerilla cells god talks to them and they also need to bring justice to the infidels. I don't know but I think GOD is fucking with us.

If gods existed mabye they would have formed an organised system, you know minor gods for harvest weather etc. Then you would have a leader of those gods in a geographic area mabye your all powerful GOD is just the leader of the middle east, the Amercian spirit gods must be very angry seeing how that cocksucker middle eastern GOD is getting all the credit, mabye they thought "well you know what if your not going to acknolodge our work then I guess you wont mind if we do nothing". I'm just jokeing around I just find it amazing that people can adopt a spiritual belief that origionates in the middle east and have no problem bombing the shit out of the holy lands of your god.

[Shaggytheclown17]

I really dont think partnership would be important after we die, if there is a heaven.
God tests us to see which of us have the faith and the obedience to his laws, think of it this way, if you were immortal and you knew you would live forever, you would be more tempted to do bad things because you would know that no one can hurt you or kill you. That is why I believe God created mortality, mortality teaches us right from wrong and the basic rules that God wants us to learn, you do bad things and you will hurt, do good thing and you will feel good.

You may got through life in pain because of the conditions of the place you were born in and people may wonder if there was a god, why would he let such bad things happen?
This is a test of faith, to trust in God that he will punish the evil in due time with whatever means he can, I believe he cant enter the physical world for fear that if we were to be too close to him, we would all die. Like a big magnet attracting little chips of magnet, our souls i believe would be ripped form our bodies and we would all be dead.
So to spare us from premature judgment, to give us time to decide for ourselves, because I believe Jesus died to save us, we were given an unlimited amount of chances to redeem ourselves worthy of God's love, God loves everyone I believe even the people damned in hell, they are being punished and I do believe people in hell wont be there forever.

And so in short you must show faith in God, obey the laws of relatively good, and apologize for your sins and know that you do not deserve to be with God, to fear God. These things Ive learned and they seem pretty easy to follow, with these things I truly believe we will move on to wherever we go when we die, instead of dieing eternally in hell.

[Shaggytheclown17]

Oh and another thing guys, religion has different variations but we can all agree that being good, believing there is a higher power that created us all, trusting, loving, and fearing God will help us go to wherever we believe we go after we die.

[bluedemonspeedracer]

At 11/15/07 11:14 PM, poxpower wrote: Ok let's say you go to heaven and the person you love the most doesn't really want to be with you, but you couldn't be happy without that person in heaven with you ( and this is heaven, you should get whatever you want anyways ).
So what happens?
God can't fuck with free will, so he couldn't make her love you, nor could he make you stop loving her.

Of course, being God, he could "duplicate" her for you, thus deceiving you into thinking you're actually with that person, while in fact that person is off doing something else in heaven ( probably mini golf ).
?

God, would then create a "Stepford" version of your lover, while your real lovers soal enjoys being away from you. Just like you said.

[poxpower]

At 11/17/07 01:13 AM, EnzeruAkuma wrote:

Which is one that doesn't even have so much as a biblical basis. It's purely conjecture.

Well I've been reading more and more of what "heaven" is supposed to be like, and it's truly ridiculous in its vagueness. Like, impossibly vague. But yeah there is no mention of "getting whatever you want", though there is plenty mention of "being happy" which I imagine is either getting what you want or getting a lobotomy.

However you are still plenty capable of going against the first reaction which is the desire to retain the object of love.

Well in that case there are degrees and no real "true love" unless true love is just two people loving each other ( though humans can't do that for more than a couple years anyways ).
But whatever, no point defining this if you don't want to imagine heaven as a place where you get whatever you want :o

And often there are conflicting influences which begs the question of why we choose one over another.

I don't see your point about free will. I know what free will is. ( or rather, what it seems to be)

An like i said, and as you give an example of, the reason for this is perhaps the lack of ability to perceive it. Eternity seems out of bounds or even preposterous because we understand things in terms of a temporal universe.

I don't want to sound pretetious, but I think I can safely say I have caught a glimpse of what "infinity" would be like and it scares me as a human... I can't always think about it enough to realize it, but if you try hard enough to think about it until you fully understand what it means, you'll jump out of your chair, I swear it :O
The only "eternity" scenario that sounds good to a human is one where you get your memory wiped and then get to start over. Of course "eternal bliss happiness blabla" could be whatever you imagine it to be...

If we are simply playing out things then logically we would choose whatever has the most sway. However we constantly do the opposite.

Give one example. Just you try, I guarantee you'll be wrong. Humans are inherently incapable of doing random things ( i.e. something without reason ). Humans see, then react. You cannot do otherwise, it's not physically possible for you or me.
Strangely, that never bothered me. I guess it's because we can still be happy without the ability for free will, or free will more complex than we can comprehend. We think we choose, so we're happy with it.
I know I am.

Exactly. Depending on your deffinition a God made up of humans that is both positive and negative in thought could actually be the very deffinition of perfection in terms of being balanced.

Well the good and the bad don't even-out and turn into "perfect". "Perfect" assumes that only the good stuff is there. Or does it? Who knows! That word is impossible to define.

Hey, not all christians believe that either. Really when you get down to it people who think that aren't even worshiping Jesus. They're just begging a get a jail free card.

Maybe. The only constant I ever found in religious people is that they are convinced they are the ones who are right about their faith, which is again an impossibly human trait to have.
Every christian is sure that they are a christian, even if they all have wildly varying definitions of what to do to be one.
It's like when two countries are at war, they both think they're right.

[Lucy]

No, I dont think he would. God would see that as decieving and wrong. He wouldnt like too see the person unhappy and suffering, but I dont think he'd like to trick that person into thinking they are happy. He'd probably just let time be the healer.

[S3SS1ON]

I dunno.

I think God would deliberately trick me, seeing how I am a Atheist. lol.