Belief in God

[KevinSim]

Jesus did it all. When we trust in Jesus as our propitiation, we have peace with God and live eternally with Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.

So, Msnobody, are you saying that after Jesus saves us, our consciences don't require us to do anything?

[Some Schmo]

It seems callous to me discount the pain and trauma that some folks experience by claiming it isn't a "crisis."

Yeah, I'm glad I didn't.

[Some Schmo]

Because there seems to be an inordinate amount of pain, inequality, and tragedy in this world for something purported to be omnipotent and loving to be running the show.

Purported to be omnipotent.

Yes, everything about the various gods people talk about is purported. I've been saying this for quite some time.

Some Schmo, how do you know that God is omnipotent?

I don't. I make no claims about any gods (except that they are all the product of people's imaginations). In fact, I doubt all claims about deities. My baseline doubt is that any gods exist in the first place, so anything one might say about any god seems silly when it's likely they're describing a figment of their imagination and asserting it as fact. As many have mentioned many times before, even if there was a god, there is nothing we could accurately say about it because no gods have ever made themselves available to humanity.

Like I alluded to, if a creator did get this started, it's impossible for me to believe it would be omnipotent and loving.

Then don't believe God is omnipotent, in the sense that Biblical Christians think God is omnipotent. I don't. I haven't thought God was for years now. Believe God is loving; I don't think a deity that isn't loving is worth worshipping; but I see no reason to believe God is omnipotent.

I would have to get to believing there was a god in the first place. And if I did, I would be wondering about that god, and why it seems the very opposite of loving. At best, I could only reasonably imagine an indifferent god.

I guess I'd like to know why you think that your god is loving. I suspect it's because you need it to be, and not because you've got any direct experience with your god's love (except to the extent you love yourself).

[Some Schmo]

I didn't ensure that my question actually reached that in-tray. But if that deity's in-tray doesn't let in any individual's desperate plea for an answer to that individual's question, when there's no other way for that individual to get that answer, then we're all screwed, aren't we?

Depends on what you mean by screwed. Would you feel screwed if your god didn't exist? If so, why?

What other way can we get answers about God?

That's the problem with god belief most nonbelievers have: there are no answers about a god from a god.

So I have faith that if someone ready to change the whole rest of that someone's life based on God's answer, asks God a question, God will answer that question. What other way is there to find out what our obligation is to the rest of humanity?

In other words, the god you've invented must be the kind of god who answers earnest, sincere questions, but that is only one of many possible attributes people have assigned to their personal gods to make them believable and acceptable to them personally.

[msnobody]

Jesus did it all. When we trust in Jesus as our propitiation, we have peace with God and live eternally with Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost.

So, Msnobody, are you saying that after Jesus saves us, our consciences don't require us to do anything?

I’m saying that you don't need the LDS church, the temple, the LDS prophets. Every spiritual blessing is obtained through the sufficiency of Christ alone.

Ephesians 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

Heb. 9:14
how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our
conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

Ephesians 2
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with
him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

[KevinSim]

To go along with the question in my post of a few hours prior:

I think, deep down, we have an obligation to provide service for everybody.

How did you reach that conclusion, and what type of obligation does ‘provide service’ entail?

Each person in the world has as much right to happiness as you and me. And that applies to someone born ten thousand years ago and someone born ten thousand years in the future (and someone born a hundred thousand years in the future, etc.). They're all real people, with hopes and dreams just like you and me. I don't see how, if we think about it a little bit, our consciences can let us pretend we don't owe them anything. "Provide service" means help them achieve that happiness to the extent that we can.

[Physics Guy]

If Christian apologists jump too quickly from an ultimate being to their specific deity, then I think this criticism can be applied to a lot of assertive atheists, too. They make the same jump, just in the opposite direction.

Oh - them. That weird straw-man sect of atheist people.

Try me, on the other hand. I listen to people talking their various deity-talks, and I think "Does adding that stuff to what I say or think add anything to my understanding of the world about me? Nope. So deities are just not part of my tools for making sense of things.' So far I have seen nothing to make me change my mind.

You OK with that?

Far be it from me to be OK, or not, with what others believe, or do not, about God. If I thought you gave even a slight bit of damn what I thought about your views on this subject, I would try to discourage you from giving that damn. No damn at all should be given.

A particular logical fallacy had just been attributed to Christian apologists, and I said that the same fallacy is committed by a lot of assertive atheists. Do we disagree about that?

I'm sure we agree that not all atheists commit the fallacy. I didn't even mean to imply that a large proportion of atheists made it. Enough people are atheists that even a small proportion of them can still be a lot of people. You do run into the folks I mean, now and then, so they can't be too few.

[KevinSim]

And if I did, I would be wondering about that god, and why it seems the very opposite of loving.

Some Schmo, why do you think "that god" seems to be the very opposite of loving?

I guess I'd like to know why you think that your god is loving.

The Big Bang occurred roughly 13 billion years ago. I believe God has existed ever since then. I don't believe anyone can stay stable that long without a clear conscience. And I believe a clear conscience implies God is loving.

[KevinSim]

I’m saying that you don't need the LDS church, the temple, the LDS prophets. Every spiritual blessing is obtained through the sufficiency of Christ alone.

Msnobody, what does this, or any of the scriptures that followed, have to do with anything that has been brought up in this thread?

[KevinSim]

Depends on what you mean by screwed. Would you feel screwed if your god didn't exist?

Yes, absolutely.

If so, why?

Because that would mean that we ourselves would have to bear the whole burden of figuring out our obligation to the whole human race, which includes everybody who will ever live from now on and on forever. I don't know that that's an impossible thing to figure out, but I'm guessing it's very difficult, and I do know I'm not up to the task. And yet I think it's something that I would have to do, if it turns out no deity exists. I owe it to all those future generations of humans.

That's the problem with god belief most nonbelievers have: there are no answers about a god from a god.

Some Schmo, how do you know that there are no answers about a deity from a deity?

In other words, the god you've invented must be the kind of god who answers earnest, sincere questions, but that is only one of many possible attributes people have assigned to their personal gods to make them believable and acceptable to them personally.

Exactly! But I think it's a much more reasonable attribute to assume about a deity than all of the other attributes people have imagined a deity has.