Singularity

If a thief (God)points a loaded gun (Hell)at your head and informs you he desires your wallet (endorsement and total loyalty) or the gun will go off, are you seriously asking me to believe you think one is acting out of their own free will if they should relinquish the wallet?

Haul that guy in front of a judge and charge him with assault and robbery of himself and see how far that s**t flies! As absurd as bringing a sexual harassment suit against yourself for masturbating against your will. Take your time, I'll wait.

A person who thinks like that might also imagine a president to have the power to actually achieve something with a command to another to actually mean it (wink, wink!) when he coerces them to (worship the f**g) perform a solemn ceremonial act such as assuming a required posture, requiring the timely performance of meaningful gestures, and culminating in verbally affirming a pledge of loyalty and allegience to the f**g (an idol representing the State.)

Singularity

We thus know, from your steadfast refusal to own the proposition in your own voice, that whenever you say this, you really mean you are washing your hands of responsibility for the god's iniquity.

Unacceptable.

If you can't OWN IT because IT is so morally d********g you cannot even state it in plain English, "I worship a thing that will choose to torture human beings for not imagining it into existance and/or not loving it best," then you have abdicated not just your morality but your very humanity.

You have no legitimate voice until you claim it for your own.

Singularity

Mr Trump claims he would enjoy crowds of Americans snapping to eager adoring attention whenever he speaks, such as he observed in North Korea for their Dear Leader. Such respect! Too bad he fails to observe that such respect is only gained through fear of meeting the same fate as the general who fell asleep during one of the ceremonial exercises. He was executed on the spot!

If you enjoy such fear based excercises, you can go to Heaven!

In my book that is a curse of the same sort as "You can go to Hell!"

PeterS

It's not a question of want. I didn't WANT to come from nothing into existence. I don't WANT to go from existence into nothing. Your mistake is that you think that we have some sort of control here when, aside from medical care to extend life, we are on a ride that we have little control over.

I just had a four hour surgery and had I not been revived that would have been it. You think there would be some sort of awareness after death. I think all awareness would end with my last heart beat. We have a difference of opinion over what will or won't exist after death.

As for freewill--you believe in an Omnipotent and Omniscient god which means that he would know all my choices before my life came into existence. How then can I then have freewill when all my choices were known before I even came into existence? The only way for freewill to exist is for no such powerful god exists. You don't seem to get that--that the only way for freewill to exist if our creation was random and simply a product of Nature. I accept that. You don't. So lets move on...

PeterS

He may fail to observe the principle reason for such attention but there is no question that he is fully aware of WHY and only hopes to be able to garner such attention himself. So far he has about 35% of the population who willingly adores him. If it takes force to garner the rest of the population into such attention...with authoritarianism does it matter how you get there?

PeterS

Nicely stated...though I think he will fail to grasp what you said.

Singularity

A picture's worth a thousand words!

Just following orders. Who could get into trouble for THAT!?!

PeterS

MW, when one has no ability to objectify ones existence, as you don't, how can one understand why one does or doesn't exist? Your whole world view is predicated on a book, WRITTEN BY MEN, actually being true. Think about that for a second...does it ever cross your mind that the laws Moses wrote down in stone are no different than the laws he learned as a Egyptian Prince? So was Moses just regurgitating his Egyptian teachings or was there actually an inspiration by god?

I can objectively look at that and examine the probability that the latter is True. You have to cling to the hypothesis that god directed Moses chisel because there is no other narrative you can entertain. You talk of freewill? How? Where? If you choose any other narrative then the one predicated by a book written by men you think the end result will be an eternity roasting as a marshmallow in hell! There is no other choice for you to "rationally" make which eliminates reason as you cognitive directive.

This begs the question: when reason no longer guides your choices how can you make any different choice than that of a cult? There may or may not be a Jones or Koresh guiding you but the end result is still the same--you have no choice to guide your life. That's sad indeed...

TexaCan Loc: Homeward Bound!

God sees time in a circle! He has the ability to see our life and our decisions at any point in that circle. Just because he knows what decisions we make at any given time, takes absolutely nothing away from our freedom to make any decision! People make this much more complicated than it actually is! Free will exists whether one believes in God or not! We each have the freedom to have Faith and accept the proof that He has provided that is all around us at all times or to reject Him and all that proof! You're right...... time to move on! No one is going to change their mind!

mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

If God offers you a perfect body that will never wear out and die with a life that is joyous beyond compare for making a simple decision of believing in Him and giving Him your total devotion and loyalty why would you be stupid enough to reject His offer unless you are so full of your own self-importance, arrogance, and p***e that you say no? That PERFECTLY describes you and PeterS.

Singularity

See! Told you! My time travelling transcendent soul was/is/will be a circular answer to circular logic if I wish it to be! Wait, I'm feeling I have no choice but to continue in circles. Help me, I got dizzzzzzy, now I've fallen and I can't get up!

Can you explain how, if everything happens according to the immutable will of God, according an eternally existant plan that our sense of choosing is anything more than illusion?

And here's the burning question you can laugh about and then toss out. Could It throw Itself Its own surprise party?

I truly feel my soul expanding within my heart and beginning to power up again and once I become sufficiently transcendent and omniscient, I'm gonna HAVE TO know this stuff!

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, you radical regressives sure are good at playing your godless political spin game. If any of you hypocrites actually gave a tinker's damn about "crying little babies", no matter where they are and why they cry, we'd have a major miracle to talk about.

When a liberal is sitting at the Resolute Desk signing EOs, we never hear a peep out of you about crying little babies, and if one was there now, we wouldn't hear a thing. In your spiritually barren artificial world of abstract constructs and plastic banana good time rock and roll fabrications, crying little babies are not allowed to exist.

You can see the real crying little babies by looking in a mirror.

Singularity

There is no free lunch. You have to listen to the condo timeshare presentor's bulls**t the whole time you're trying to enjoy yourself and your meal!

And I already have a good enough body that is gloriously imperfect that I can throw away once I'm done and want to rest! And a life that is joyous beyond compare but also sucks sometimes.

So I can compare the glorious with the sucky and make better future choices and thus grow in grace and knowledge of myself and the world.

Immortality/eternity would suck for one who is always hungry. And my mind has a hunger to know more and ask the next question, then the next... Well you've complained about it so you know what I'm sayin'. A place where time and space have ground down to perfection has no challenge for such a one as I. Its the journey, not the destination. I just gotta keep movin'!

Have you ever successfully observed a human being demonstrate the ability to reverse a significant belief they have arrived at thoughtfully over time simply on command?

mwdegutis Loc: Illinois

Like I said...you are so full of your own self-importance, arrogance, and p***e.

Singularity

I could never aspire to the heights you achieve.