It is not for us to question G!d's intent, but...

'Amir Alzzalam said:
SHEEPLE
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'Amir Alzzalam said:
If your god is omniscient, as proposed in your book, then Man having free will is false, and the first example of this is the Garden of Eden episode . . . speaking of which

⦁ If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
⦁ If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
⦁ If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
⦁ If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
⦁ However, Evil exists.
⦁ If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn’t have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn’t know when evil exists, or doesn’t have the desire to eliminate all Evil.
⦁ Conclusion: God Does Not Exist
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See my previous statement in post #37
 
muhammad_isa said:
For sure..


..and He will .. in His "own time" :)


False.
Mankind are always in a hurry, and are wont to mislead.

"Rome wasn't built in a day"
"More haste, less speed"

Nobody has all the answers .. why calamities happen and so on .. but a world
in which people worship G-d, and behave righteously, is FAR, far better than
one in which people behave badly!
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Why would this god take its time and allow all this suffering and Evil? I know . . . this god has a master plan . . . pffft
 
muhammad_isa said:
..because G-d watches "time" as if it was in a bottle.
For G-d, there is no future or past .. time is a perception, but not the ultimate reality.

Einstein knew that.
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I don't think you understand what Omniscience means . . .
 
'Amir Alzzalam said:
C'mon man, this is common historical knowledge, actual documented facts. Everyone knows that Allah began as al-Lah the Moon God and his consort was al-Lat the Sun Goddess.
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C'mon. Historical knowledge has to come from historical sources. And you were talking about YHWH as a former name of a war deity in a Semitic people around 3000 BCE. There are not soo many sources from that time . Do you know it, or who published on it?
 
talib-al-kalim said:
And you were talking about YHWH as a former name of a war deity in a Semitic people around 3000 BCE
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I don’t agree with anything he’s arguing but iirc scholars do assert Yahweh is in fact the name of a very ancient deity. I don’t know if he was a war deity but he was a deity in a pantheon.

I know it’s lazy to cite Wikipedia, but Wikipedia cites actual scholars if you want to see the sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
 
Modesty said:
I don’t agree with anything he’s arguing but iirc scholars do assert Yahweh is in fact the name of a very ancient deity. I don’t know if he was a war deity but he was a deity in a pantheon.

I know it’s lazy to cite Wikipedia, but Wikipedia cites actual scholars if you want to see the sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
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I think it's alright to quote wikipedia .. it's "neutral ground", without a sectarian bias.

We know that if we go back to the days of old, most people were illiterate, and
even if prophets were amongst them, they still often resorted to polytheism.
It does not mean that Yahweh/Allah actually was one of many gods .. EVER.
 
Modesty said:
I don’t agree with anything he’s arguing but iirc scholars do assert Yahweh is in fact the name of a very ancient deity. I don’t know if he was a war deity but he was a deity in a pantheon.
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What he misses is that how we conceive our Gods has moved on since their first appearance, as it were.

One of my favourite Divine Names is Hebrew (from the Ugaritic and Caananite) El Shaddai – a name of uncertain origin, but quite likely a local deity.

Another is the Greek Christos Pantocrator (with a 'c' or a 'k', lit: ruler of all, usually translated as 'Almighty' or 'all-powerful').

The Septuagint used Pantokrator for the Tetragrammaton, as well as El Shaddai.

So I rather see a very ancient term in the light of later wisdom and insight.

Generally, our understandings have progressed somewhat since the Stone Age. Our friend does not seem to grasp that, even though the understandings within his own favoured LHP surely have not remain fixed ...
 
Thomas said:
Generally, our understandings have progressed somewhat since the Stone Age. Our friend does not seem to grasp that, even though the understandings within his own favoured LHP surely have not remain fixed ...
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Most of the LHP stuff is fairly recent in history. Even if one points to the oldest grimoires, we're talking something on the order of 500 years +/-. Wicca on the other hand, dates to Gerald Gardner in the 1940s. BTW, the grimoires with one exception were all preserved by Catholic Monks...hence the reason they are primarily in Latin. The exception is Icelandic, and so remained outside of the reach of the Church.

In fairness, the grimoires point to even older folk traditions among rural peoples. Sir James Frazer wrote The Golden Bough which is an extensive work covering rural belief practices across Europe, for which the author was knighted. While he seemed to primarily focus on the Druids, there are certainly analogues among other tribes going back to the Romans. A lot of modern day "alternative" viewpoints attempt to recreate or reimagine a lot of these things. There are also similarities with some Native American ritual practices, but not enough to equate them totally.

There is a kind of "country bumpkin" wisdom, but it is far more practical and nuanced than any mainstream, "establishment" religion. We still have echoes today with celebrations like May Day and Halloween.

Various cathedrals across Europe acknowledge these matters graphically, and you and I have discussed this before with the Green Knight and Santa Claus.

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Exeter Cathedral (just one of many examples)

The difference I see is the attempt to manipulate reality, rather than allowing reality to work through us. Perhaps a better distinction is selfish vs selfless...neither of which is absolute, meaning a selfish person can have a selfless moment, and vice-versa.

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We are, in fact, in the Judaism blog. I don't know who in this blog is actually Jewish, but many, including myself, are not. I think contributions from others should at least refer to Jewish sources and be a valuable contribution also inside this religion.
 
I have not criticized Judaism, in fact I've invited @RabbiO on more than one occasion to offer his insight. I think I am within the spirit of Kabbala, if not the letter. While I do find instruction from various faiths that illuminate my understanding, perhaps the more informative is Judaism, at least insofar as I understand.

RabbiO is once again hereby invited to chime into this discussion.
 
I’m not avoiding the issue.

Really.

I’ve just been busy juggling a couple of things - professional obligations in this holiest season on the Jewish calendar; personal responsibilities related to that same season; a combined total of over 7 hours during the past 3 weeks in the chairs of 3 different types of dental specialists working in my mouth. The one bright spot is that an area that caused some concern was biopsied and has turned out to be “nothing more” than an infection of massive proportions rather than a tumor.

I need for you guys to be patient with me a little longer.
 
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