Oh, yay, a hot topic. Omniscience does not preclude action. Reduce it to the absurd - the most knowledgeable and wise entities would not have to truly act, because they already know all potential paths and outcomes? No, sorry.

To prevent this course from straying to free will versus God's ultimate omniscience, I'll attempt to focus on how the actions could have affected the mortal involved - perhaps the point was to solidify Abraham's understanding, or even his acceptance of God. Since there are so many factors to the story that weren't conveyed, many points of view are arguable - maybe God knew that, milennia in the future, people would feel more connection to a test. Maybe He thought that Abraham needed to experience the trial firsthand to have the experience to pull from later in life.

Being omniscient would allow God to fully understand and comprehend Abraham's lack of that very trait. However, omniscience brings a binary decision to the forefront - either do absolutely nothing, or influence absolutely everything; fortunately, religion has already noted the former as being God's Divine Plan, and we do not have to reconstruct the wheel every time the discussion resurfaces.
God could see all possible scenarios when He made his decision to test Abraham - we, as mortals, do not know the whole of the situation, and we cannot possibly surmise every path that would have been altered had God not tested Abraham as he did. While scholars can and do spend their lives researching what may have occurred, many admit the futility of their pursuit in the context of actually understanding why a decision was made.


EDIT: Oh, sorry to the original poster, I sort of neglected your thread. I really did mean to answer you.
If we're to believe in the Divine Plan, then I assure you that God is affecting your life and understands your trials. The issue is that there is not "one path" that can be shown to you - certainly, you are following a very specific path, yet any slight change would result in a vastly different one. Trust in your faith that God is indeed answering you, just not in a (to a mortal viewpoint, anyway) very direct and visible manner.
Your love toward the Creator must be as strong as you can make it; however, everyone has their temptations in life - it is a part of being human. Eventually, your faith will be rekindled as you open your understanding to the mysteries of the divine.

This post was edited by Dexterity on May 30 2010 12:24pm

Encouraging words, thanks

I just wish I'd receive something from God.. it would fill the deep hole inside my soul.

Maybe someday..

If a God exists he answers in Yes, No, and Wait.

Yes = It happens

No = It doesn't happen, but no worries it's all part of God's plan

Wait = It may have taken 6 months, a year, or more, but eventually it happened. See? All you had to do was wait.



Faith is just believing despite evidence to the contrary. The purpose of science is to improve understanding. You can't do that if you're unwilling to correct or reject your own presuppositions, and faith doesn't permit that.

To quote the former evangelical minister Dan Barker,



By the way, you are straw-man'd the shit out of evolution.

The big bang explains how the universe was formed.

Abiogenesis attempts to explain the the origins of life.

And evolution explains the diversity of life.

My two cents.

Oh and by the way, much of the big bang can can only be proven mathematically.

Regards.

This post was edited by Black487 on May 30 2010 04:00pm

Black487: I see you have faith in the explanations from mankind in the scientific arena.

"Faith is the acceptance of the truth of a statement in spite of insufficient or contradictory evidence. <snip>"
Your own quote owns you quite nicely. Even your own words "attempts to explain", means it cannot hold up on it's own (without even having to lift a finger to tear it apart). All of the theories you quoted are far from fact. Did you hear on the news? Turns out we're genetically related to Neanderthals, and they aren't part of a separate branch on the "tree of life". Damn, another one science theories got wrong.

Not to mention that the Webster's dictionary definition and generally accepted definition of faith contradicts a quote by some random person.

You were warned, don't spam this forum or topic. Use the PaRD.

Hi.


omg i can post here.

This post was edited by FreedomFighting on May 30 2010 04:40pm

faith. faith.

I have been through catholic education my whole life. And I can for one say, I do not believe in a Set type of religion. My family are clearly Christians, church-going citizens. I for one am more exploring the options of religions. I am a Agnostic believer. I wish I could believe in one set religion, but I just find folly's in all. You do for one have to base your prayers and belief in faith, but then again, you have to realize, if there is One God, He has a lot of prayers to answer. I am sure he will get to yours sooner or later. Just keep faith and be strong breh!

u say that yet on ur side u would say "the weakest shall die and the strongest shall live" ? ur ways are more peaceful against "Thou shalt not murder, Thou Shalt not Steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not commit adultery"??????????

Okay, now seriously what the heck. Even Njaguar is now spamming my topic. You could at least have the courtesy of replying the first post.

Please, everyone, don't go off-topic anymore. This happends to be a delicate subject for me.

Do you have any idea how many milions MORE medical science has saved people?? Or is that just gods work??
If you believe this is the case. then you believe that god and not science cured those people. then who would be the hypocrit ?! if god our big homeboy in the sky cures the sick then he also choses to let the ones that dont make it die. pretty nifty huh.

Also on your standings on religion staying consistant... im frigging happy science does not. also you're the hypocrit here. without science to believe in and work on .. this awesome website wouldnt exist and you would not be making your man made money off of it.

just my 2 cents for now.. will continue to discuss more later as this intrigues me.