How do Christians comprehend the iconic duo of free will and predestination?

[Baruch]

So what? What's so terrible about nihilism?

If suicidal depression is a philosophy ... then go be lower than Nietzsche if you can.  See ... not all thinking is philosophy, some of it is mental illness.  Consider Nietzsche ...

[Baruch]

My neighbor started in on the "we are all connected" bullshit.  Actually it was, "Everything is connected."  I didn't say anything, and I certainly doubt that I gave any indication of my thoughts, and then he added, "You know that," like I was supposed to automatically agree.  However, what was really odd about it was that whether or not everything is connected had nothing to do with his religious assertions.

I suppose I should have stopped him and explained what a non-sequitur was or given him a quick mini-course in logic, but I just wrote it off as a waste of time.  Plus, I didn't want to teach him another logical fallacy he could use in his reasoning process.  He was already handicapped enough.

No, everything is disconnected.  All of your words are just random letters.  Your body is random atoms ...

Sorry, I see no logic in anyone here, just posturing by mentally ill people.  This person had different axioms than you ... there is nothing logical or illegal about that.  You simply state (if he disagrees with me, he is illogical, because I am Spock)?

[Baruch]

Why misquote? You know as well as I do that he said a "foolish consistency":

Consistency is always foolish, because it always involves unexamined axioms.  For example, Euclid was wrong about geometry ... are you better?  Hmm  ... consistency ... if you fully quote Emerson, then are you a New England Transcendentalist?  Didn't think so.

[Baruch]

Don't assume things please

I was a very sincere atheist for most of my life. believe it or not. I don't care. Just because one cannot understand the real meanings behind scripture doesn't mean it is actual nonsense; just that you lack the capacity to understand it. I don't use scripture for the basis of my beliefs; I started reading them a couple years after my receiving faith in GOD; and they reiterated and verified what was already known. You are speaking from absolute ignorance in reference to the source of my belief and my upbringing.

Isn't that sorta like grasping for straws? And why? What is the point? Being ignorant of a thing is all good and fine, but just shooting in the dark is pretty damn dumb. I recall you being more poised than that.

Hakurei is "G-d's Gift" to atheism ;-(

[Mike Cl]

Per you, there is no objective meaning.  So what did it mean to you?  Or are you simply baiting Pops?  When you have nothing to say for yourself?

Am I simply baiting Pops?  And this from the master baiter of the board?????  Pops seems to have a hard time comprehending what he reads.  So, I asked him to expand on his answer.

[Baruch]

Am I simply baiting Pops?  And this from the master baiter of the board?????  Pops seems to have a hard time comprehending what he reads.  So, I asked him to expand on his answer.

You could have said it nicer.  I can tell when you are irritated ;-)  Also, I suppose that double entendre was accidental ... well in Kabbalah, sex is a sacrament ;-)

[Hakurei Reimu]

I was a very sincere atheist for most of my life. believe it or not. I don't care. Just because one cannot understand the real meanings behind scripture doesn't mean it is actual nonsense; just that you lack the capacity to understand it. I don't use scripture for the basis of my beliefs; I started reading them a couple years after my receiving faith in GOD; and they reiterated and verified what was already known. You are speaking from absolute ignorance in reference to the source of my belief and my upbringing.

I didn't claim that you read the bible first and then you believed. Religious indoctrination doesn't begin with the bible. It begins in the church, in the home, and on the playground. The clergy, your parents, your friends all talking about God and this Jesus person. Before you even cracked open your first bible, you were already primed to believe it. You already knew of god as a concept before that, and probably a few experiences that you were unable to explain but "god" provided a lazy explanation for. Hence, you were already converted by the time you reached out for your bible. You were already seeing the world through god-tinted glasses, so of course, you saw a lot of "verification" everywhere. And you read the bible and find that other people had similar ideas and thought it to be the nail in the coffin, where actually, it is ultimate source for your priming of your beliefs, by way of your parents, your pastors, and your neighborhood.

You may have thought you were an atheist, but you were never my kind of atheist. Your reasoning and skeptical faculties are too poor for you to be my kind of atheist.

Isn't that sorta like grasping for straws?

No. If your conversion didn't happen exactly how I described, pretty darn close. Nobody comes to christianity except by first being exposed to it. Otherwise, we would have discovered tribes in the Amazon that were christians before the missionaries came.

[popsthebuilder]

I didn't claim that you read the bible first and then you believed. Religious indoctrination doesn't begin with the bible. It begins in the church, in the home, and on the playground. The clergy, your parents, your friends all talking about God and this Jesus person. Before you even cracked open your first bible, you were already primed to believe it. You already knew of god as a concept before that, and probably a few experiences that you were unable to explain but "god" provided a lazy explanation for. Hence, you were already converted by the time you reached out for your bible. You were already seeing the world through god-tinted glasses, so of course, you saw a lot of "verification" everywhere. And you read the bible and find that other people had similar ideas and thought it to be the nail in the coffin, where actually, it is ultimate source for your priming of your beliefs, by way of your parents, your pastors, and your neighborhood.

You may have thought you were an atheist, but you were never my kind of atheist. Your reasoning and skeptical faculties are too poor for you to be my kind of atheist.
No. If your conversion didn't happen exactly how I described, pretty darn close. Nobody comes to christianity except by first being exposed to it. Otherwise, we would have discovered tribes in the Amazon that were christians before the missionaries came.

You are missing very plain obvious statements made by me in your attempt to fit me into some precast mold.

Such is typical; just as another noted.

What even makes you think I consider myself only or even primarily Christian? That isn't a real question; presuposition is the real answer though.

When you want to conversate like intelligible, individual beings, then let's; otherwise it would behoove you to leave your preconceived nonsensical stereotyping at the door; or not; feel free to continue to make outright false claims based on utter presupposition and perhaps some level of spite.

It would be great to go back to the subject.

[Hakurei Reimu]

Are you saying that you never heard of god, or understood that concept on a basic level, before you cracked open the bible?

[popsthebuilder]

Are you saying that you never heard of god, or understood that concept on a basic level, before you cracked open the bible?

Not at all.

You are playing daft.

In part of first grade ( less than half a school year I think) I actually went to a Christian school. I recall wondering why dinosaurs weren't explained.

Past that I had very little exposure other than my grandmother saying blessing on thanksgiving.

From very near first grade if not during I became an atheist. I went from some level or form of atheism to some level of agnosticism and back to atheism as a surety later in adolescence I guess. I couldn't justifiably believe in GOD because of observable pain in existence.

[Blackleaf]

I stand corrected

Isaiah 46: 9-10 no
Isaiah 40: 13-14 no
Psalm 139:4 no
Psalm 139:13 no
Psalm 139:15-16 no
Job 21:22 no
1 Chronicles 28:9 no
Job 37:16 maybe
Psalm 33:13-15 no
Romans 11:13 no
Hebrews 4:13
Luke 12:7 no
1 John 3:20 yes
Mathew 10:29-30 no
Psalm 147:4-5 yes
Genesis 45:5 no
Proverbs 15:3 no
1 Peter 1:20 no
Isaiah 7:14 no

Considering God made a bet with Satan in the book of Job, you can change that maybe to a no. Why would Satan bet against an omniscient being, and what would an omniscient being have to prove?

[Cavebear]

You are missing very plain obvious statements made by me in your attempt to fit me into some precast mold.

Such is typical; just as another noted.

What even makes you think I consider myself only or even primarily Christian? That isn't a real question; presuposition is the real answer though.

When you want to conversate like intelligible, individual beings, then let's; otherwise it would behoove you to leave your preconceived nonsensical stereotyping at the door; or not; feel free to continue to make outright false claims based on utter presupposition and perhaps some level of spite.

It would be great to go back to the subject.

One never truly knows what some others believe theistically.  But in general, you do seem to be theistic.

[popsthebuilder]

One never truly knows what some others believe theistically.  But in general, you do seem to be theistic.

Yes, I am some sort of theist I guess,  but that is exceptionally broad.

[Baruch]

Yes, I am some sort of theist I guess,  but that is exceptionally broad.

In that, I match you.  Most people treat each other as card-board Nazis ... stand them up, shoot them down.  Stereotypes.  Real people (everyone) don't fit stereotypes.  To actually know what someone is like ... you have to get to know them.  That is a tiresome and bothersome process.  Bigotry is so much more efficient.

If some people do actually act like card-board Nazis ... that is their own fault, fulfilling a stereotype instead of just being themselves.

[Blackleaf]

In that, I match you.  Most people treat each other as card-board Nazis ... stand them up, shoot them down.  Stereotypes.  Real people (everyone) don't fit stereotypes.  To actually know what someone is like ... you have to get to know them.  That is a tiresome and bothersome process.  Bigotry is so much more efficient.

If some people do actually act like card-board Nazis ... that is their own fault, fulfilling a stereotype instead of just being themselves.

Being a former theist, I still remember what it was like to be on the other side of the fence. But I also remember how much more clearly I saw the world after I gave up my belief, and I know how futile it is to try to point out the weaknesses in the kind of flawed logic I used to employ. The brains of the devout simply work differently than those of skeptics.