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GodHatesAmerica.com / Westboro Baptist Church

Well, he made "man" in his image, and everyone knows that every word in the Bible is factual, so.....
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
However, God exists outside of the space-time continuum, and thus He knows from the beginning what the results of every Free Will decision will be, and can act accordingly.

But that's not really free will, is it? Free will, by definition, demands a degree of unpredictablility. Otherwise, we're just going through a set of predetermined motions - which beggars the question as to why god should judge us upon something over which we have no control.

Yes, I think that's EXACTLY what it is.

According to Judaeo-Christian theology, God stands at the beginning, the middle and the end of time, at all points along the line, at any given instant. Thus he sees every free-will action I will make tomorrow, but he sees it from the distant past, from today, from tomorrow, from the end of time.
.
But how does the fact that God knows what action I am going to take interfere with my free will to perform it? It's STILL my choice. God merely knows from the beginning what my free choice will be.

P. S. This is getting off-topic on this particular thread. Mea culpa.
 
morningstar667 said:
"God" is a he? Prove it :lol:

I don't really want to get into an argument on this one, because it's not all that important to me, and I could live with "She" or even "It."

But Christians tend to feel most comfortable with masculine titles and descriptions and pronouns for God because those are the locutions Jesus used
 
Well Phelps comes from a long,long line of Christian bigots, it's hard wired into the religion. Just take a look at the "Church fathers (read bigots)" attitude to Manicheanism. Attacking them for being Gnostic Vegan Ascetics? Drivel!

"God" is a "HE"? Nonsense, this patriarchal viewpoint is hard wired into it too, Phelps doesn't surprise me at all. He's no different from the murderers of Hypatia in 415.
 
morningstar667 said:
"God" is a "HE"? Nonsense, this patriarchal viewpoint is hard wired into it too....

Excuse me, but all I said was that Jesus Christ used "He" in referring to the Godhead. If we're allowed to be Christians at all we surely must be allowed to quote the founder of the firm.
 
OldTimeRadio said:
morningstar667 said:
"God" is a "HE"? Nonsense, this patriarchal viewpoint is hard wired into it too....

Excuse me, but all I said was that Jesus Christ used "He" in referring to the Godhead. If we're allowed to be Christians at all we surely must be allowed to quote the founder of the firm.

The Firm, yep that about sums it up. Religious gangsterism hardwired into Monotheism. Also how does anyone know what Jesus (Yeshua?) actually said seeing that it was decided what was orthodox long,long ago. The equally ancient Gnostic texts are IMO, just as valid as anything in the bible, and more fun to read. Phelps could do with a look at them, maybe he'll get apoplectic and do us all a favor :)
 
RainyOcean said:
Well, he made "man" in his image, and everyone knows that every word in the Bible is factual, so.....

OH NO Rainyocean has eaten my brain. Gurgle 8)
 
According to Judaeo-Christian theology, God stands at the beginning, the middle and the end of time, at all points along the line, at any given instant. Thus he sees every free-will action I will make tomorrow, but he sees it from the distant past, from today, from tomorrow, from the end of time.

In which case, God would be aware that there are some people who will never ask his forgivess - which makes a mockery of one of the central christian tenets: that every person is blessed equally with a free will chance to attain god's mercy.

In effect, it means that some people are pre-destined as having no chance of entering the kingdom of heaven. Which leaves us with the question of upon what basis god is supposed to judge them.

Anyways, all this had been debtaed before on my 'The problem I have with God thread'. You're welcome to resurrect it, if you like ... ;)
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
In effect, it means that some people are pre-destined as having no chance of entering the kingdom of heaven. Which leaves us with the question of upon what basis god is supposed to judge them.

Yes, but they are pre-destined by their own choice. Knowing that a given event will transpire in the future is simply not the same thing as creating or even desiring that event.
 
I note that a dozen or so members of Fred Phelps congregation picketed Jerry Falwall's funeral, sending him off to Hell as "a friend of gays."

That ought to put Phelps' message in context if nothing else does.
 
That would be the Reverend Jerry "Gays caused the September the 11th Attacks" Falwell, would it?

Honestly, there's no pleasing some people.
 
gncxx said:
Honestly, there's no pleasing some people.

Exactly. It shows how totally off the scale, over the edge, the Phelps crew is that they regard Falwell as having preached tolerence for and acceptance of homosexuals.

Which he did, of course, when compared to them.
 
Yes, but they are pre-destined by their own choice. Knowing that a given event will transpire in the future is simply not the same thing as creating or even desiring that event.

Could God therefore intervene and change said event, before it happens?

If so, then he is not truly possessed of omniscience, because something that he foresaw might not actually happen.

If he could not, then he is not truly omnipotent.

Could an omniscient god have the omnipotence to change his mind?

Or will we get another doubtlethink 'well-he-can-and-he-cannot-at-the-same-time-because-he-lives-outside-our-space-time-continuum-blah-blah' fudge as an answer?
 
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Douglas Adams, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', 1979.

PS. :D
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
Could God therefore intervene and change said event, before it happens?

Not without violating the very idea of Free Will, which God established..
 
barfing_pumpkin said:
So if he can't violate free will, he's not omnipotent, is he. :tongue:

"Can not" is the common locution. But the sense is WILL NOT.
 
To quote Epicurus:

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?”
 
"Can not" is the common locution. But the sense is WILL NOT.

I don't think so. If god is truly omniscient, and knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, then he CANNOT interfere without violating his own omniscience.

And it doesn't matter if you're Epicurean or not. If you believe in the omniscient, omnipotent, personal god of judgement and mercy, then you have to address those quandaries.

Or maybe you cannot - sorry, will not!
 
Moby wades in (sort of):

Moby: 'God targets American Republicans with natural disasters'


Moby 'believes' God destroys American Republicans with natural disasters.

The musician - who is a staunch Democrat - is enraged by religious extremists who suggest hurricanes and earthquakes are sent by God to destroy sinners, and has come up with a new theory about why the tragedies might occur.

Moby wrote on his personal website: 'You know how the religious right will every now and then say that some natural disasters - hurricanes, earthquakes, etc - happen because God is angry at secular sinners? 'I mean, personally, I tend to think that things like hurricanes and tornadoes happen for non-anthropocentric reasons and are, actually, just examples of extreme and arbitrary weather. 'But if natural disasters are, as the evangelicals maintain, a sign of God's wrath, then what does it mean that 90 per cent of the damage caused by tornadoes and hurricanes in the US happen in right-wing, Republican states that are heavily populated by evangelicals? 'Again, I'm of the 'weather tends to happen because of climatological factors' school of thought. 'But the evangelicals have on plenty of occasions tried to maintain that natural disasters are the products of God's wrath. For example, they said that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans because New Orleans was hosting a gay pride weekend. 'I'm not making light of the damage done by natural disasters in the US, I'm just trying to point out another small logical inconsistency on the part of our evangelical pals.'

http://www.24dash.com/showbiz_slapdash/21305.htm
 
Methinks Moby hath a point there!

And it utterly beggars belief that the Phelps gang would picket the funeral of Jerry Falwell, who as I recall cozied up with Pat Robertson in the aftermath of both 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina to explain to America that we were being punished for our sins by a mightily wroth God.

They sound more like (slightly, only slightly 8) ) saner versions of the good Rev. Phelps when they (Falwell and Robertson) start droning on with that drivel.

To think that anyone could "accuse" Falwell of being a "gay-enabler"!!! :shock: :shock: :shock: (Whatever the hell that means!)

If Falwell--or Robertson, or any of the rest of those right-wing Bible-thumpers--ever expressed any love for gays, it somehow escaped my attention.

In fact, if my failing memory serves, most if not all of them agreed that AIDS was God's way of rebuking gays. Why it took Him so long--and why He later decided to allow straight people, women, and even children to fall victim to AIDS--they never quite explained to my satisfaction.

But then, what do I know. I'm a lefty pinko socialist liberal--and God help me, a Catholic. (In their opinions--and I betcha the Rev. Mr. Phelps's--that alone will leave me roasting for all time.) :twisted:
 
Everyone is doomed except for the" Westboro Baptist Saints". Robertson and Falwell are/were gay-enablers by spreading the belief that "God loves Everyone." Apparently this is an untruth and they are dooming the people who believe what they are saying. :roll:

I sent them an email a couple of weeks ago asking them which version of the Bible they use. I've got an old King James version that is missing the entire New Testament. Before you ask, yes, I was polite. I did mention that I have a problem with God saying "Dude,..." I very much doubt that I'll ever hear from them as I am , no doubt, just another doomed gay-enabler as I haven't gone out and killed any gay people.
 
synchronicity said:
In fact, if my failing memory serves, most if not all of them agreed that AIDS was God's way of rebuking gays.

The version of this I've heard most frequently (especially during the early 1980s) is that "AIDS is the price we are re-paying, with compound interest, for the sexual revolution of the 1960s."

But that's not neccessarily a religious view, since I've even heard it from atheists.

But then, what do I know. I'm a lefty pinko socialist liberal--and God help me, a Catholic. (In their opinions--and I betcha the Rev. Mr. Phelps's--that alone will leave me roasting for all time.) :twisted:

As far as Phelps is concerned that goes without saying. I'm sure he'd have me riding that same Hell-bound train, burning coals spraying back along the nighttime tracks. (Weeee-oooh!-woooo!) But for the vast majority of modern Evangelicals the Reformation was over a long time ago.

The current view seems to be that God, in his great mercy, gave us both the ritualist and the Calvinist routes to salvation. Both, of course, through Jesus Christ.
 
squarepeg1 said:
I sent them an email a couple of weeks ago asking them which version of the Bible they use.

The King James Version, based on the only Phelps sermon I've ever listened to. (Recorded around 1982, when his theology was slightly less icy-cold than it later became.)

And in typing the above paragraph I just formalized what scares me the most about Phelps' doctrines. Pentecostals speak of "preachin' the hot Gospel" or even "preachin' some hot Holy Ghost." G. K. Chesterton maintained, both as an Anglican and later as a Roman Catholic, that the Christian Gospel "is hot enough to boil this modern world to rags."

Phelps' religion would turn Venus into Yuggoth.

P. S. One of the leading Evangelical Christian cult-watch lists has described Phelps as "an enemy of the Cross." Man, that's CONDEMNATION!
 
I guess if anybody understands condemnation, it's the Rev. Mr. Phelps and his pack of rabid--umm, sorry, I meant to say, his congregation. :p
 
squarepeg1 said:
Everyone is doomed except for the" Westboro Baptist Saints". Robertson and Falwell are/were gay-enablers by spreading the belief that "God loves Everyone." Apparently this is an untruth and they are dooming the people who believe what they are saying. :roll:

I sent them an email a couple of weeks ago asking them which version of the Bible they use. I've got an old King James version that is missing the entire New Testament. Before you ask, yes, I was polite. I did mention that I have a problem with God saying "Dude,..." I very much doubt that I'll ever hear from them as I am , no doubt, just another doomed gay-enabler as I haven't gone out and killed any gay people.

Well, how very remiss of you! Haven't you at least gone out of your way to make life utterly miserable for any gay people in your community? What are you, some kind of heathen?? LOL! (Just kidding, you know! ;) )

Yes...imagine the nerve of some of these so-called Christians going around telling folks left and right that God loves them. The very idea!! :p

I love the idea you sent them an email! If you were polite you've got me beat--I was once on a site where the unlovely Mrs. Phelps was present (for the life of me I can't remember the name of that site! :roll: ) and it pains me to say that she and I exchanged some less-than-loving words. :twisted: However, in my own defense it must be said that Mrs. Phelps is rather like her husband--not the kind of person who exactly inspires a feeling of loving-kindness!!

These people really are astounding. They treat other people like dirt (to put it mildly), they curse and rail at anyone who objects to their vitriolic brand of "Christianity"...and then they get upset when people don't like them. :shock:

Oh, and I meant to add--welcome to the Forum, squarepeg!

We're all at least moderately mad, but we're harmless! :lol:
 
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