> > On May 19, 2009, at 6:00 PM, Jerry Foote wrote: > > > Have you ever considered that there is a God, and he did create this > > earth, > > and us and is going to hold us accountable for the things we do. > > After all > > if he is powerful enough to dream up the first cause design of > > everything we > > see around us, I'm sure it a simple enough task to keep track of our > > every > > thought and deed, and perhaps hold us available. Perhaps > > I was thinking along these lines, too, but I guess I have a > bigger > imagination.
Hmmm. Do I sense a little over-compensation there...? > I imagine that God is the creation of an even greater > entity, who tracks God's every actions. God had to design and create > everything, and he is going to be held accountable for the quality of > his work, and the actions of us humans is what will make or break his > grade. Did God create us with sufficient insight, wisdom and > understanding to live well, or did he screw it up and make us selfish, > greedy and short-sighted? It must be awfully tough to create something > with a consciousness as well as survival instincts, so that was the > test that this über-being gave to God. So when we fall short, it's not > us who will suffer, since we'll be dead, but rather God, who is > immortal, and is responsible for every flaw in humans, since every one > of those flaws was in his design. > > No wonder he's threatening us with all sorts of nasty punishments > if > we don't act a certain way; it's probably the most effective way he's > figured out to motivate us to act in the way that his master wants us > to. No, actually, God created us with free will to accept or reject Him; to do good or evil; and the total freedom while we are in human form, created in his tri-part image, to explore reality either for our pleasure or for His will. (This also means the freedom to experience pain, and the ability to inflict suffering on ourselves and others, which we think somehow it's an all-powerful, omniscient government's job to "fix" for us... but I digress). He was kind enough to give us clues as to His purpose, even some really compelling ones, loaded with metaphor and subtle meaning, but would never go so far as to "prove" them for us in an epistemologically irrefutable way, lest we no longer be intellectually free to disbelieve Him, or emotionally free even to hate Him. Yes, He's a big enough God even to allow His creation to despise Him. Indeed, He is big enough even to let His creation kill Him in the most painful and humiliating way. He knows what path we're going to choose, and still has given us the ultimate Get Out Of Hell Free pass, which a "simple" and sincere act of faith is sufficient to claim, with power even to alter our chosen destiny. He made us this imperfect way you describe precisely to reveal His perfect will by the cosmic unfolding of reality and all its laws and mysteries on earth, using this other clever invention of His called Time, which confounds all of our human philosophies, and even our human "theologies" and false religions. No we don't have to work or earn our way into heaven; nor need we (or He) apologize for our being the way we are--it's not like He's unaware of the situation. We need only to confess our agreement that this is the reality and accept His cosmic mulligan. Through this act of the will we embrace a way of looking at reality that pierces through the veils of illusion constructed by the limited cognitive abilities of our fleshly nature, and, while given the opportunity via this awesome illusion called Time, our mission is to help other people find that perspective and embrace God's free gift of eternal life, too. When once we grasp the beauty of it, all our vein conceits are rendered as so much rubble. Not all of us will embrace His way; in fact most won't. Even when we do, we do so in all the imperfection of our fleshly nature, which our walk of discipleship is intended to iron out, again, over Time. But the door is open till our dying breath, when the illusion of Time is stripped away, and no matter what we've done--as long as it's not the one unforgivable sin of blaspheming His Holy Spirit--we will walk into "real" reality of eternity. Whatever that phrase "blaspheme the Holy Spirit" means---and I think it has to do with mocking Him and shaming others away from Him -- it's the only thing for which a man cannot be forgiven. Everything else---yes, even adultery, larceny, murder, rape, sexual perversion, stealing, waging war, abortion -- all of it committed while we walk in the flesh-- can be forgiven if our hearts are truly penitent, just not *that*. - Bob > -- Ed Leafe > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
