I'll answer Dr. Ransom's first question for now from a Christian perspective, but would still love to hear the thoughts and comments from those who do not hold it.

1). "What does praising God for eternity mean?" I used to be under the impression that all we were going to do in heaven was play harps and sing slow, monotonic, praise songs and that was it. I was a kid and didn't know better. I have however experienced just a glimpse of what heaven could be like at conventions like Urbana. If you think a rock concert with 4-5 thousand people can get wild and crazy, try a convention with 23,000 college students from around the world singing their hearts out, jumping with joy, in seven different languages no less. I used to not like the singing parts of church services except for a few individual songs I liked, then I went to Urbana 06 and God opened my eyes. And I know, that was just a tiny glimpse of what it will be like in heaven.

And guess what, praising God for eternity is not limited to singing songs. We can praise God without our lips but with our actions. I praise God in every fencing competition. I'm not talking about visually giving God glory before and after every bout. I'm talking about the way I go about living. I praise God through my attitude, my deeds, and I enjoy the life that God has given me. And not only do I praise God in the competition, I praise him in the act of giving the sport back to him and using it as a ministry tool. My user name comes from me doing that.

Praising God from a Christian perspective goes far beyond just the songs and hymns. As Jackie Chan says in the new "Karate Kid", (which should be "Kung Fu Kid"), "Kung Fu is in everything we do, in how we put on the jacket and take it off..." (I know I messed that quote up.) For a Christian, praising God is similar only much deeper. We are to give praise in everything and through everything. And like Job, when we get to the point where God can take and God can take away and we still praise his name, that is where a Christian is meant to be. And while I am on Job before it gets brought up, did you know that even though he had everything taken away from him, God gave it all back in far more abundance than he had before it was taken?

Got to go to class now.

Who are you to judge God here? Who are you to say what is and is not loving? Can you see all ends?

It seems you're using skepticism as a tool to employ in situations like these. You make a lot of absolute claims about God in other places, even when the Bible is not explicit about them, but when a challenge comes up my lack of omniscience is a big problem.

Think about that for a second, will you? How can God give a choice to someone who doesn't exist? Choice implies existence. Non-existent things are incapable of choice or any other actions because they are nothing.

I'm sure God could find a way to take care of that if he valued me at all.

So you're apathetic about apathy now? Seriously, there's no such thing as neutrality here.

Or, there is no such thing as positive and negative, everything merely is what it is.

1. What do (either of) you think "praising God for eternity" means?

2. How do you define "praise"? What action(s) do you think this entails?

3. If you ever asked your parents or Spiritual Leaders or whatever what that meant, what did they tell you? And: was it consistent with the Bible?

4. Again, assuming the view from inside: if it's true that God is the highest, most incredible, most loving, most infinite and supreme Being ever in the universe, why would it not make sense to experience more of Him? I realize I'm asking this of non-Christians to whom the very notion of valuing a God outside yourself seems repugnant. But I'm asking not for personal agreement, but theoretical consideration.

1. Like Fencer said, I've always imagined a lot of people in choir robes surrounding the base of God's throne and singing old hymns with angels. I think now it would be a lot more similar to a person actually living as a true Christian on earth, but without the stumbling blocks we now have. I'll use sex because, with the exception of MD I believe we're all guys and can relate (not that this doesn't apply to women, but you know what I mean). Jesus said if we look at a woman with lust in our eyes we have already committed adultery with her in our heart. I would imagine that in heaven, the lustful desires are nonexistent. Sex itself would be useless since we won't be reproducing = no sex drive, no sexual thoughs = no sexual sin. I'm guessing this would apply to everything. So I suppose we would do all things, praying without ceasing, and we would be doing it for God's glory because we have seen him and know his glory. That's why the angels do it, right? Which still leaves me wondering why Lucifer and his gaggle of angels didn't think it was so great.

2. I would say giving someone credit for their actions, and this could take a lot of forms.

3. I've heard a lot about this from preachers, mostly it goes along the lines of the song "I can only imagine."

4. I think I've already given my reasons to not praise God, even if he existed.

@Fencer, I wrestled for three and a half seasons at a Christian school and there were a few members of the team who would always point to the sky (to God) when they won a match. One day I asked one of them, who is a very good wrestler, why he bothers showing up to practice if he owes his victory to God. Why not have a two hour prayer session? I think his response was "don't be stupid," but seriously, why? I'm guessing you'll say that if you have faith in God to allow you to win, you'll put your faith in action by working hard to get the skill you need to have. But then it's just you earning for yourself what you want. Wrestling is a very hard sport, with very hard practice. It's on you to put in the work, not God.

I'm about to agree with Mother-Music. If you're not able to answer the questions that were actually asked, I don't see the purpose of further discussion. So I'll let my points stand without any true attempt to reply. However, though I'd be glad (as a mod and a member!) to have you stick around, MD, if you do, I'll remind you later that you haven't really interacted with others.

Well my spring break has just ended--please understand that I am a full time college student holding down two jobs who also has a social life. I probably will not have time to write in-depth replies until this weekend, but I will try and look back on the ones I missed. It wasn't on purpose. I haven't gotten much sleep in the past couple days so if I tried to answer them now it probably wouldn't make sense.

Moonlight, you seem to be very sheltered.

Not sure what you mean by this or where you're getting this from. I've never been homeschooled, I've been public and private schooled my whole life, and now I'm in college. It's kind of impossible to be sheltered when I'm hundreds of miles from home and people on my floor are getting drunk in the halls every Friday and Saturday night. No need to list of all my "experiences" even from a young age. I'm just going to say I'm not sheltered and I never have been.

Whether you're a Calvinist, Armineist or somewhere in between, you still have to agree that God knew what would happen. Yet he still created us. He should have never created us then -- that would be love.

One little thing here before I address your C.S. Lewis quote with a C.S. Lewis quote of my own. In my opinion, the rewards of heaven far outweigh the pains of the world.

There is a lot of pain and suffering on the Earth indeed. Why do African children suffer, when I was fortunate enough to be born in the U.S.? The African children had no control where they were born into, they are victims of their circumstances. If there is a God, why is everything so badly arranged so that I live in relative luxury while an African child dies of starvation, solely due to circumstantial reasons?

The answer has nothing to do with God. Rather, it is a lack of God's presence. St. Augustine said that "darkness is an absence of light", and I agree. Our world is a prime example of what happens when God leaves Man to his own devices. Suffering ensues, sin ensues, pain ensues, and death ensues. I think that we can both agree on the fact that while God knew it would happen, He was not the cause. And of course, let us not forget that God did come down and offer to all of us a Savior.

There are two types of people, those who say to God, 'thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'Fine then, have it your way.'

This would all be well and good if we actually had a real choice. But we don't - I don't remember God asking me if I wanted to exist or not, especially eternally.

And to what you said, Andrew, C.S. Lewis says...

'It would be better for me not to exist' - in what sense 'for me'? How should I, if I did not exist, profit by not existing? Our design is a less formidable one: it is only to discover how, perceiving a suffering world, and being assured, on quite different grounds, that God is good...

This is straight from The Problem of Pain, which I again recommend you take a look at. That was in the very first chapter!

The camp I fall into is closer to existential nihilism. So, I can make assertions based on the claim that there are objective facts behind them. Could I be completely wrong? Yes, but so could Isaac Newton. But his equations sure fit well into the real world, didn't they?

What are the objective facts that make relativism a false way of thinking? Also, who are you to say that there is any such thing as an objective fact in the first place? Why is it all not relative?

-- I will be back soon to respond to more recent posts.

EDIT:

As to what you said, Dr. Ransom, I think we agree, though I am not sure. It seems that you are implying that God is demanding praise, which I do not think he does.

Is God worthy to demand praise? Certainly, yes. He is the reason for my existence. Does He need to demand it from me? Nope!

I cannot think of a verse off the top of my head that says He "demands" praise, only ones that says that He is worthy. He has earned my praise, He has not demanded.

There is a lot of pain and suffering on the Earth indeed. Why do African children suffer, when I was fortunate enough to be born in the U.S.? The African children had no control where they were born into, they are victims of their circumstances. If there is a God, why is everything so badly arranged so that I live in relative luxury while an African child dies of starvation, solely due to circumstantial reasons?

Life, itself, the fact of it at all, definitely is God's doing. However we choose to be, obeying God and heeding what is the right thing to do or not. In those cases when God is disobeyed, our suffering is very often due to our own bad choices or the bad choices of others who don't care about God, only for themselves. I doubt you can blame God for the suffering of African children compared to your relative good fortune of being born in the USA, where the tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes can be quite nasty. You get floods there as well as bushfires, and drought. Not to mention snow and desert, La Niña and El Niño, and other weather-related world-wide phenomena.

Haiti definitely suffers from its circumstances, but these circumstances are not God's doing. A badly governed, poor sort of place, when the earthquake hit it last year, hundreds of thousands died in Port au Prince. Ongoing bad building construction is part of their problem, no doubt. But far more prosperous Christchurch had older buildings also. These buildings were strongly built and able to withstand a 7.1 earthquake last October, only to collapse in the lesser 6.3 earthquake which hit Christchurch last month, having been weakened. So good building construction, although it certainly helps, does not supply all the answers.

Chile last year suffered very strong 8.8 earthquake last year, which moved a whole city westwards, towards New Zealand, which has also been pushed closer to Australia. Chile has already endured the worst earthquake on record, a 9.5 monster in 1960. The recent 9.0 Japanese earthquake moved part of Japan eastwards, such are the tremendous forces exerted by the planet itself. It is one of the anomalies of living on this beautiful planet that some of the most dangerous places to live on it are also the most munificent and fertile places, where humans in good times are able to live in relative luxury. Sometimes we just have to learn how to survive in the seven lean years as well as enjoying the seven good years.

Right now, USA, which has also endured a 9.0 or worse earthquake in Fairbanks in 1964, and which has the famed San Andreas fault in California, its wealthiest state, is making Africa look a relatively secure and sensible place to live. Do we hear about earthquakes in Africa? Pity about the neighbours those poor African children got landed with. But were those voracious colonists, unscrupulous slave traders or greedy dictators really God's fault?

Not wanting to butt into the discussion here, but I just randomly looked in this thread and saw this line in FoodForThought's post...

Our world is a prime example of what happens when God leaves Man to his own devices.

I agree with what you are saying here, however since mankind is the one who left God (a separation caused by Adam and Eve's sin, and carried on through our own sin nature), rather than God abandoning mankind, I think that it would be more true to phrase it like this: "Our world is a prime example of what happens when Man leaves God for his own devices."

*exits the thread*

--- flambeau

It seems you're using skepticism as a tool to employ in situations like these. You make a lot of absolute claims about God in other places, even when the Bible is not explicit about them, but when a challenge comes up my lack of omniscience is a big problem.

This isn't about skepticism but about right. If God exists, then He judges you, not the other way around. Given your finitude, sinfulness, and ignorance, only God could possibly judge God. Are you the greatest possible being? I thought not.

I'm sure God could find a way to take care of that if he valued me at all.

You're talking nonsense---literally. Your complaint is a contradiction in terms. Calling it a limitation on God is just silly. God can't give choices to non-existent beings any more than He can create spherical cubes or rocks too big for Him to lift.

Or, there is no such thing as positive and negative, everything merely is what it is.

So again I ask you: why do you care? Why care about truth? What's the big deal with reason? You're going to die anyway, so what's the point of being reasonable?

One day I asked one of them, who is a very good wrestler, why he bothers showing up to practice if he owes his victory to God.

Because it was God who gave him time, talent, and energy to practice.

Reminds me of a story about R.L. Dabney, a Presbyterian chaplain for the Confederate army during the American Civil War. He was hiding behind a rock from the gunfire when a private saw him and asked, "Sir, you're a Calvinist, right?"

Dabney replied, "Yes."

The private asked, "So you believe that God ordains everything?"

"Yes."

"So since God has ordained the time of your death, why are you hiding behind a rock?"

To which Dabney responded, "Well, you see, God ordained that there would be a rock for me to hide behind."

Providence is no excuse for a lack of prudence.

It's on you to put in the work, not God.

Ah, but who gave you the talent and ability in the first place?

Andrew, you're playing a dangerous game here: you're playing chicken with God. Guess who's going to flinch first? It won't be God.

TBG

There is a lot of pain and suffering on the Earth indeed. Why do African children suffer, when I was fortunate enough to be born in the U.S.? The African children had no control where they were born into, they are victims of their circumstances. If there is a God, why is everything so badly arranged so that I live in relative luxury while an African child dies of starvation, solely due to circumstantial reasons?

Life, itself, the fact of it at all, definitely is God's doing. However we choose to be, obeying God and heeding what is the right thing to do or not. In those cases when God is disobeyed, our suffering is very often due to our own bad choices or the bad choices of others who don't care about God, only for themselves. I doubt you can blame God for the suffering of African children compared to your relative good fortune of being born in the USA, where the tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes can be quite nasty. You get floods there as well as bushfires, and drought. Not to mention snow and desert, La Niña and El Niño, and other weather-related world-wide phenomena.

Indeed, I agree with you. It is not God's fault, it is the fault of man. I didn't mean for it to come off the way that I am asking the questions for someone to answer, I set them up as potential questions Andrew might have. I think I even answered them in my own post!

The answer has nothing to do with God. Rather, it is a lack of God's presence.

Either way, thanks for the response.

Flambeau, I'm not sure if you're reading this, but yes, my mistake! That is a much better way of saying it.

Andrew, when I read this quote, you came to mind:

"First of all, what is it really all about? What is it you object to? You want to abolish Government?"

"To abolish God!" said Gregory, opening the eyes of a fanatic. "We do not only want to upset a few despotisms and police regulations; that sort of anarchism does exist, but it is a mere branch of the Nonconformists. We dig deeper and we blow you higher. We wish to deny all those arbitrary distinctions of vice and virtue, honour and treachery, upon which mere rebels base themselves. The silly sentimentalists of the French Revolution talked of the Rights of Man! We hate Rights as we hate Wrongs. We have abolished Right and Wrong."

"And Right and Left," said Syme with a simple eagerness, "I hope you will abolish them too. They are much more troublesome to me."

~The Man Who Was Thursday

TBG

In my opinion, the rewards of heaven far outweigh the pains of the world.

Not really, considering the amount of people in hell will exceed the amount in heaven exponentially.

Our world is a prime example of what happens when God leaves Man to his own devices.

Not really, most of the wars and massacres in history were caused over religious reasons. To quote UrbanDictionary's definition of God: "Someone who talked to some Christian dudes, some Muslim dudes, and some Jewish dudes, and accidentally caused more people to die than anyone in history."

What are the objective facts that make relativism a false way of thinking? Also, who are you to say that there is any such thing as an objective fact in the first place? Why is it all not relative?

If there is any objective reality, relativism is false. Tell you what, if you can find a triangle that is 179 degrees I will give up on saying that there is objective reality.

Are you the greatest possible being?

Yes! Not a god, but a titan! I laugh at gods!

You're talking nonsense---literally. Your complaint is a contradiction in terms. Calling it a limitation on God is just silly.

When I mentioned God asking me to exist, I meant to be born -- what's the big problem that he can't just cause me to cease existing? True mercy there.

So again I ask you: why do you care? Why care about truth? What's the big deal with reason? You're going to die anyway, so what's the point of being reasonable?

Don't you see that once you remove reason to do something, that automatically removes the idea of a reason to not do something? What we're left with is psychological and sociological conditions mixed with some limited free will. My personality type is someone who argues and tries insessently (sp?) to find the truth and know WHY and my placement in the world allows me to do so, that's all the reason I can give you.

I like your rock story, I've heard some similar ones, and I'll bite.

Ah, but who gave you the talent and ability in the first place?

Well, it's a complex matter of genetics and genealogy. Why do I sit down and write my papers in 30 minutes, turn in the rough draft and get an A, while some of my friends struggle with the same assignment for a week and can barely pass? Everyone has different talents based on their genetic history and makeup.

I like the G.K. Chesterton quote, and thanks for sharing. However, to "remove God" means he has to exist. I'm more interested in removing any false ideas.

God is dead. God remains dead, for we have killed him.

Not really, considering the amount of people in hell will exceed the amount in heaven exponentially.

That still does not negate the statement that the rewards of heaven will be greater than the pains on Earth, for those who go.

Not really, most of the wars and massacres in history were caused over religious reasons. To quote UrbanDictionary's definition of God: "Someone who talked to some Christian dudes, some Muslim dudes, and some Jewish dudes, and accidentally caused more people to die than anyone in history."

Hmm. The Crusades, Salem Witch Trials, and Spanish Inquisition are rather irrelevant. This is what happens when religion becomes corrupt. This is not an example of how God is evil and corrupt. It is simply a prime example of how man is evil and corrupt! I think this ties back in to my original point. It is not God, it is the inherent evil that Man has injected into religion.

Besides, we both know that UrbanDictionary is just full of bored teenagers full of angst anyways.

If there is any objective reality, relativism is false. Tell you what, if you can find a triangle that is 179 degrees I will give up on saying that there is objective reality.

Is geometry not just an opinion too? Isn't the definition that a triangle has 180 degrees just an opinion, and not an absolute truth? My triangle has 179 degrees, and you have no basis to say otherwise.

It is simply a prime example of how man is evil and corrupt! I think this ties back in to my original point. It is not God, it is the inherent evil that Man has injected into religion.

So God shouldn't have revealed himself in the way he did. Obviously he doesn't understand how we tick, since he made a world full of things far more enticing.

Is geometry not just an opinion too? Isn't the definition that a triangle has 180 degrees just an opinion, and not an absolute truth? My triangle has 179 degrees, and you have no basis to say otherwise.

No it's not. And no, I'm afraid not. If you can show me any proof that your triangle is 179 degrees, I would bite. But we both know you can't decide it to be so and it will happen - that's why relativism is false. Like I was saying yesterday, you can't look at things purely philosophically. They still need to work with and in the real world.

Yes! Not a god, but a titan! I laugh at gods!

Funny, to me you seem to be screaming. The problem for you, Andrew, is that one day you will see that you are not the ubermensch. You are not a Titan nor a god---you are a man.

When I mentioned God asking me to exist, I meant to be born -- what's the big problem that he can't just cause me to cease existing? True mercy there.

What does He owe you that you have a right to ask Him for "mercy" here? Is it possible that love sometimes involves pain? Who are you to dictate what the mercy of God should be? Where were you, Job?

Don't you see that once you remove reason to do something, that automatically removes the idea of a reason to not do something?

I recall something about "An object at rest likes to remain at rest." The default position is to do nothing.

Well, it's a complex matter of genetics and genealogy. Why do I sit down and write my papers in 30 minutes, turn in the rough draft and get an A, while some of my friends struggle with the same assignment for a week and can barely pass? Everyone has different talents based on their genetic history and makeup.

So, if God exists, it would seem that He is the one who gave you these abilities and therefore it's God who ought to be praised for them. All you've given me here is the materialistic cause. You haven't given the ultimate cause.

God is dead. God remains dead, for we have killed him.

On the contrary, I say that it is Nietzsche who is dead. For what Nietzsche is saying is that God was a convenient hypothesis for a while, but now we're all grown up and don't need Him anymore. Yet I find God immensely inconvenient: He keeps me from doing what I want, holds me to standard, and forces me to build virtue rather than vice.

So God shouldn't have revealed himself in the way he did.

Here you go again: judging God, and by what standard? God is about the business of making new men, or rather of making men new. You don't like God's revelation? That's your problem, not God's.

If you can show me any proof that your triangle is 179 degrees, I would bite.

Sure, I'll just change the definition of a degree. It's an arbitrary unit of measurement which is there for our convenience. Here you are mistaking the shadows of geometry upon the world for the way that the world actually is---unless of course you admit that there just might be a transcendent standard here.

Here again, Chesterton provides a relevant quote:

"I see everything," he cried, "everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, 'You lie!' No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, "We also have suffered."

"It is not true that we have never been broken. We have been broken upon the wheel. It is not true that we have never descended from these thrones. We have descended into hell. We were complaining of unforgettable miseries even at the very moment when this man entered insolently to accuse us of happiness. I repel the slander; we have not been happy. I can answer for every one of the great guards of Law whom he has accused. At least —"

He had turned his eyes so as to see suddenly the great face of Sunday, which wore a strange smile.

"Have you," he cried in a dreadful voice, "have you ever suffered?"
As he gazed, the great face grew to an awful size, grew larger than the colossal mask of Memnon, which had made him scream as a child. It grew larger and larger, filling the whole sky; then everything went black. Only in the blackness before it entirely destroyed his brain he seemed to hear a distant voice saying a commonplace text that he had heard somewhere, "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?"

~The Man Who Was Thursday

Andrew, do you dare to accuse Christ upon the cross of being unmerciful? Of being an insufficiently great Deity? Here God suffers and dies for His creation and you say it is not enough! Can you have a greater sacrifice than an infinite?

TBG

The misinterpretation of Nietzche is something that warrants a comment here, even if I have no quarrel with the rest of the argument at hand.

For what Nietzsche is saying is that God was a convenient hypothesis for a while, but now we're all grown up and don't need Him anymore.

This is not quite correct.

When Nietzche's madman said "God is dead," he was referring to the fact that due to the post-industrial revolution of rationalism, Western civilization no longer has a unifying mono-myth to act as a forward-moving driver; if one is to accept this fact (which is indeed a fact, given that all modern Western societies now boast some iteration of humanism as a governing ideology,) it leads to a situation where morality does not exist and society stagnates, i.e. nihilism. He then goes on to describe the necessity of this godless society to invent a new moral driver.

For Nietzche, the transition from a God-driven society to a civilization driven by other necessities is irreversible. It did not mean that God was "convenient" or that humanity has "grown up," but rather, he was concerned with what Western civilization must do to cope with this transition in the face of inevitable collapse.

True, but here you just gave a metanarrative---it's just a scientistic evolutionary one filled with all kinds of conceptual confusion. Any description of this kind is some sort of narrative, no matter what you think.

Of course- but it's a question of what you're metanarrative is based on.
I'm not pushing a simple correspondence theory of truth- I don't think our current understanding of the world is "true", any more than Newton's clockwork cosmos was.

OTOH, I won't go all post-structuralist or Rorty-type pragmatist and say that it is all a matter of conflicting discourses. There is a sense in which our metanarratives/paradigms do relate to an actual existing reality "out there".

The reason why the scientific one prevails more and more is based on the fact that it has shown over and over to be more fruitful than other explanations.
So far, at least, methodological naturalism has not run up against any limits, (which is not to say that eventually it might). Combined with the self-correcting nature of the scientific endeavour- all conclusions being held provisionaaly, subject to testing- it's been a pretty effective way of thought.

Not that the scientific paradigm necessarily conflicts with Christianity or any other religion as long as they are not making truth claims about the physical universe that conflict with it.

That's not what I'm getting at. Of course I want truth---but a true theory should be able to account for every aspect of human existence in a common-sense kind of way.

To be a little bit tendentious here, would that be the theory involving the talking snake?