There are SO MANY MORONS posting in this section!

[DrivenMind]

Great statements...Maybe we should start another thread to discuss freedom and if it ever really exists. This was a big discussion when I was in college because the matrix had just come out so every psychology class started talking about this.

I am not sure if spirituality is something that we could consider to be universal. Mostly because it is usually tied to a persons faith or religious preference in some way. You are correct though about the christian faith is in a God who is another form of control. It really is. The roots of the faith stem from believing in a God who is all powerful and in all control of all things. Because the faith is set on a sovereign God, the idea of him being controlling and doing things to suit his purpose is not far fetched at all. its actually almost point on for the thinking of reformed believers. And it is also important to point out that believers also believe that in all that happens, this God has the intention of redeeming us to him.

I guess the big thing is trying to understand that sovereignty does not denote tyranny. We are accustomed to believing that sovereign rulers and overbearing dictators are the same. They can be, but by definition they are not always the same. A sovereign ruler can be just, loving, benevolent, jealous, angry, and peaceful and still be good.

...this could easily become too much discussion for this thread.

I think I understand what you're saying here, but doesn't the very essence of believing in an all knowing, all seeing, creator in a sense confine a persons beliefs to celestial tyranny. Is it not the nature of tyranny to condemn all who disagree, and to ask people to submit blindly to authority?

I still don't understand why we feel so compelled to assign our petty human emotions to an entity that is supposedly all knowing and all powerful? Either god is all knowing an all powerful creator, or god is a personified figment of humanities collective imagination.

[sport_122]

I think I understand what you're saying here, but doesn't the very essence of believing in an all knowing, all seeing, creator in a sense confine a persons beliefs to celestial tyranny. Is it not the nature of tyranny to condemn all who disagree, and to ask people to submit blindly to authority?

You are right about the nature of tyranny, and if you believe that the all knowing creator is a tyrant then yes you are absolutely correct. But when the christian believes that that creator provided redemption when you should have provided wrath, then it is hard to see Him as a tyrant. Also the believer would say that God's character is always righteous.

If God did not provide redemption then he could be considered a tyrant. The foundation of the Judeo-christian faiths is about a God who will provide deliverance and redemption (and for the Christians we believe this has already happened), so the beliefs will flow out of the goodness that we believe God does for us personally as believers and collectively as a race of people.

I still don't understand why we feel so compelled to assign our petty human emotions to an entity that is supposedly all knowing and all powerful? Either god is all knowing an all powerful creator, or god is a personified figment of humanities collective imagination.

It could be that every human on this planet is crazy or there is something that is somehow a part of us that gives us certain knowledge that is embedded in the very fabric of who we are. Some people act on this knowledge and it becomes their faith, and some people deny this knowledge and rebel against it for whatever reason. But we ALL believe something, whether or not it is a religious belief of not, we ALL believe something and make something or someone a god in our lives. And that doesn't mean a trancendency, it just mean that we all have something that we use to fill that void.