Searching for GOD...

[Shaker]

Your post reminds me of this profound line from the Steve Turner poem I quoted:

You twist the living out of life

Rhiannon gave the perfect response to that earlier - poems in bold type do not a coherent argument make.

Can there be any true living in a world defined entirely by deterministic science?

It isn't actually the case though that the world is defined entirely by deterministic science, but that aside, yes, why wouldn't there be.

Sometimes poetry can express a profound truth when other methods fail.

I have no quibble if you want to regard your belief system as a sort of poetry - I'm a great poetry fiend myself - but you claim vastly more for it than that and, as wiggy has just said, in a highly arrogant, boorish, insulting manner. I've long held it that theism generally but monotheism particularly somehow achieves the difficult feat of combining in the individual believer the maximum of cringing servility ("Oooh, Lord, you are so big ...") with the maximum of overweening arrogance, of which your posts generally but the most recent specifically are crystal-clear if distasteful examples.

[wigginhall]

It seems quite sadistic behaviour to me, with a gloss of politeness and sincerity.   I mean AB. 

[Shaker]

It seems quite sadistic behaviour to me, with a gloss of politeness and sincerity.

In one, old fruit. In one.

[wigginhall]

In one, old fruit. In one.

Your point about servility and arrogance is very good.   With some Christians, it's like a kind of sado-masochism, "I'm very very humble, but you are a sinner, and God is on my side, hee hee hee". 

[Shaker]

Your point about servility and arrogance is very good.   With some Christians, it's like a kind of sado-masochism, "I'm very very humble, but you are a sinner, and God is on my side, hee hee hee".

That's it wiggypops. And not forgetting the ace card: "... and if you don't believe as I do and see as I do and think what I think, you're under the influence of Satan. I have the spiritual discernment to see this. You do not."

[Rhiannon]

I am sure it would have helped if you were aware of how the devil tempts us away from God.

I am sure you are talking bullshit.

The only 'devils' are those who peddle this stuff and persuade others to believe it. Look in the mirror, Alan.

[wigginhall]

Yes, Rhiannon.  It's very sick behaviour. 

[Alan Burns]

Rhiannon gave the perfect response to that earlier - poems in bold type do not a coherent argument make.

I put it in bold to simply distinguish it from my own text.  While I am in this mode, I would like share a verse of a hymn which I find so moving I clam up when I try to sing it. (the chorus and final verse are included in this snippet)

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black;
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone;
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on:

Dance, dance, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the dance, said he.

They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that'll never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me:
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.

Sadly Florence and the Machine stole this key lyric (second line) from this Sydney Carter song

[ippy]

I do not think any human can fully explain this.  But the fact that Jesus had to suffer torture and death in order to open up the way for us to be delivered from evil suggests that it is not just a simple matter of allowing or curtailing the devil's actions - remember that the devil has free will which, by definition, is not controlled by God.  There is much in the Big Picture that we simply do not know.  I put my trust in God's love and trust that our faith in the Saviour will enable us to be delivered from evil.

While the ixy pixy fairies all ran through the wood; talk about gullable?

ippy

[Sebastian Toe]

I am sure it would have helped if you were aware of how the devil tempts us away from God.

Are you aware of how the devil tempts people away from God?

[SusanDoris]

Hear, hear! to all the sensible, rational, clear-thinking posts above.

Since reading them, the song, 'Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, you're rocking the boat,' is running through my head because Radio 3 was broadcasting from RFH a concert of music from musicals.

[Rhiannon]

I put it in bold to simply distinguish it from my own text.  While I am in this mode, I would like share a verse of a hymn which I find so moving I clam up when I try to sing it. (the chorus and final verse are included in this snippet)

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black;
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone;
But I am the dance, and the dance goes on:

Dance, dance, wherever you may be,
I am the Lord of the dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the dance, said he.

They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that'll never, never die.
I'll live in you if you'll live in me:
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.

Sadly Florence and the Machine stole this key lyric (second line) from this Sydney Carter song

It makes a difference if it's in red?

You know some priests and pastors refuse to sing it on the basis it is too pagan, right?

Funnily enough I cry whenever I hear Lord of the Dance too - my friend had it for her little boy's funeral as he loved dancing. No doubt you think she was missing the point. But then I find your belief in a god that could allow such a thing to happen in the first place lacking in more than one way.

[Nearly Sane]

AB you are not convincing anyone of your POV!

How could you tell? Maybe he is winning someone  over. You can only speak for yourself.

[floo]

How could you tell? Maybe he is winning someone  over. You can only speak for yourself.

Blimey you and my husband would get on well, he has got so pedantic since half his brain became trashed!

[Alan Burns]

You know some priests and pastors refuse to sing it on the basis it is too pagan, right?

Funnily enough I cry whenever I hear Lord of the Dance too - my friend had it for her little boy's funeral as he loved dancing. No doubt you think she was missing the point. But then I find your belief in a god that could allow such a thing to happen in the first place lacking in more than one way.

I personally find it very disturbing to bring the topic of the devil up, and I know I am opening myself up to more ridicule in doing this.

But what is the source of temptation?  What can tempt someone to do something they know to be wrong, and knowing that they will bitterly regret it afterwoods, yet they still go ahead and do it?  This may be an extreme example, but I am sure the devil also uses more subtle ways to take us away from God.  I know of many Christians who seem oblivious of the devil, or simply do not want to admit that the devil exists.  But in our baptismal vows which we recite every year at the Easter vigil service, we are asked, "Do you reject Satan and all his false promises?" to which the congregation all reply, "I do".

[Gonnagle]

Dear Alan,

A wee present just for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0aEHw3vKLg

I am the life that will never ever die.

Gonnagle.

[Nearly Sane]

Blimey you and my husband would get on well, he has got so pedantic since half his brain became trashed!

So it's OK to pull up people for non evidenced unjustified statements but ok for you to make them? I don't think pointing out your hypocrisy is pedantry, no matter the state of my brain.

[Alan Burns]

Dear Alan,

A wee present just for you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0aEHw3vKLg

I am the life that will never ever die.

Gonnagle.

Thanks for this - I particularly liked their interpretation of the final verse. 

[floo]

So it's OK to pull up people for non evidenced unjustified statements but ok for you to make them? I don't think pointing out your hypocrisy is pedantry, no matter the state of my brain.

Pedant!

[Leonard James]

But what is the source of temptation?  What can tempt someone to do something they know to be wrong, and knowing that they will bitterly regret it afterwoods, yet they still go ahead and do it?

I will explain it to you, Alan, and hope you understand it.

Evolution first of all began with the self first instinct. Primitive organisms simply took what they wanted from the environment to live and multiply. There was no need to care about anything else.

Then came the advent of social species, when the instinct to protect the group overrode the primitive self first instinct, but didn't eradicate it. Because of the diversity of genetic combinations, it follows that all the members of one social species had a differing balance of the two instincts, ranging from totally selfish at one extreme to totally altruistic at the other, with the majority somewhere in between.

Humans, being a social species, are exactly the same, and it is those at the very selfish end of the range that you think the "Devil" is tempting, whereas in fact they are doing nothing more than responding to their genetic makeup.

Can you understand that?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Wiggs,

It seems quite sadistic behaviour to me, with a gloss of politeness and sincerity.   I mean AB.

I concur. It's easy to see him as benignly bonkers – “hey, at least he’s polite about it right?” – but I don’t. The utter indifference to reason, the casual judgmentalism, the conviction that others can only be wrong because they don’t have his special insight etc I find quite chilling. It’s a type of passive-aggressive behaviour that’s blighted the lives of others all too often and I hate it.

[Nearly Sane]

Pedant!

You don't seem to understand what that word means.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

You don't seem to understand what that word means.

Pedant!

[floo]

You don't seem to understand what that word means.

someone who's too concerned with literal accuracy or formality. It's a negative term that implies someone is showing off .

[Nearly Sane]

Wiggs,

I concur. It's easy to see him as benignly bonkers – “hey, at least he’s polite about it right?” – but I don’t. The utter indifference to reason, the casual judgmentalism, the conviction that others can only be wrong because they don’t have his special insight etc I find quite chilling. It’s a type of passive-aggressive behaviour that’s blighted the lives of others all too often and I hate it.

Don't we all think we are right as opposed to people we think are wrong because of a 'special insight', e.g. we are not in different to reason and they are?