| Sri Lumpa said: |
It`s not that i don`t understand what you are trying to say with moral relativism, my problem is that you think that putting men and God in the same God is ok even though they are in two realities apart - and man vs woman is not the same as men vs God, when the first one is stil men vs men.
More, you think that people deciding who lives and dies is the human equivalent to God deciding who lives and dies. Which is not the same even if both sides can do the same.
Your view is that because in appearence we work the same way, we are to be read in the same way. And here is where we disagree.
I can either bring God to my level, but that wouldn`t be fair; i could put myself in God`s level and it stil woudn`t be a fair attitude; or i could look at both sides see and understand/respect what makes us different.
As i said, it`s not that i reject moral relativism, it`s that i reject your interpretation of things.
So whatever you seem to find in God as immoral, is to me an incomplete view of God because God has the right to decides who lives and dies and this you do not accept if it`s applied only to God because, i presume, you feel like God was either bad or just didn`t care. You don`t know God`s heart or God Himself to see how different it is from a human doing the same - not that i do better.
Therefore you say this "I do not need to understand him in an absolute way any more than a judge needs to understand a suspect in an absolute way to determine if he did an immoral thing." Here you put God and men in the same level.
I understand your inversion. The problem with it, is that you just invert one thing: killing being moral. But to be fair you would have to change everything in regard to that.
That`s like some people reading about Mary, not believing it or her attributes and still "trying" to read for what it is.
The only thing that i can`t say about people`s actions is that i know in an absolute way what motivated them. But i can read their "reality" in light of God. And by doing that i assume that either something is good or bad giving the source for the above reading.
"Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still doing the wrong thing."
But by neglecting the reasons you neglect/reject the beggining of that action. But that would be taking us to the morality issue.
Good actions is not what saves you. Your good heart and your actions is what saves you - in the case you don`t believe in God.
That`s why i said that life is more than morality and therefore you always are judged for more than morality.
You confused me a little: you say the sidewalk is a neutral point but you also clame that it is the same as good behaviour, but this is not neutral.
But that`s not the point as it seems you and i are using it in different ways. This is what matters to me:
You are in point A and to reach point B you need to do something, right? To get an reaction you must first have an action.
So, and this is where i don`t agree with you, is that you claim that because i, in this case, told you about God you consider yourself in danger, which would mean that you jumped to the reaction point.
What you don`t see is the importance of something: you were the one who went from A to B. The reason why you are in a safe or dangerous position, given what was told to you, is that you chose, for whatever reason, that way.
It was not me who bumped you to either side, it was you who went this or that way.
That`s why i keep saying that it doesn`t matter the starting point, it doesn`t matter where you stand, you are not saved or doomed, it doesn`t matter the what is the risk or possibilities, what matters is your actions. Those actions are what makes you go from point A to B, to go heaven or hell`s way.
With all due respect, you cared too much for hell or the situation of risk - which is inherent to human life.
I don`t see a contradiction there, honestly. Men can see right from wrong, can feel it - since we were made good in nature - but that doesn´t mean we have it all to be saved. It seems to make a merger between that knowledge and Jesus' coming.
For example, people still rejected Jesus in His time (when their nature combined with Jesus would be the culmination point).
"Could you, if you wanted, choose not to believe in god? Of course not, because you believe in him and choosing not to believe in him when you do is impossible."
You are still seeing this in the eyes of reason.
It`s not like you sit down and say: "i choose to believe". It`s not how it works. You don`t choose to have faith because it is a gift given to you. What you choose is to open your heart or not. In the other end, you lose faith because you closed your heart. God is only there if you want them there.
So yes, faith is opened to anyone because that is something anyone can do.
Your starting point for salvation still remains in morality, but it isn`t because it can`t be. When you are more than morality, you are judge by more than morality and that is only fair.
That`s why at first i used the girl in love to explain why you get heaven or not. She will only give herself to you in the - implicit - condition of you loving her aswell. And with God it`s the same.
"Faith is belief."
No, faith is belief, love and trust. So, the question is what does it mean to open your heart or why some do and others don`t?
Not always does God punishes you but He also guides you.
What you are bound to do is read in light of God what happens in your life. Sometimes you get it right away sometimes you get it later. But that would be something that would take forever to talk about in detail. Sometimes, for our mistakes we are guided and not punished.
The important part is understanding what God is and wants for and from us, and with that we guide our lives (by acting accordingly and knowing what was good and bad).
During the marian apparitions, Mary said that if people didn`t repent God would punish the world with another war. What this meant was that, although HE gave peace to the world if the world didn`t change we would be punished, or in other words, He wouldn`t saves us now.
Our prayers helped because, even though we didn`t deserve, those prayers acted as water in a fire - not literally - and God, through Mary interviened. There`s more to the apparition (dangers of the soviet union, etc.).
""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?"
Thing is we get what we deserve. If we "love" Him we get love from Him, if we don`t we don`t get that "love" from Him. Although this is true, He stills wants us to help save those who don`t deserve (one of the parts of the apparition was to pray for sinners so they wouldn`t go to hell).
This is our world. We decide the outcome. What God does is, one way or another, helps us/guide us so we can be with Him, but it`s still our call to do so or not. We can save ourselves and we can help save others. That`s the power that God gaves us from the start.
Yet, you call it ego. God loves us to the point where, in no way, we are not alone, even in our walk to salvation (the intended result), becasue God doesn`t want to lose us.
Actually, there`s a part in the Bible that says: "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. " "... there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" and continues " "You know a lot about God, but if you don't know this, you don't really know the heart of my Father."
