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Isn't decorating a tree with with a five pointed star, technically a form of pagan worship?
EDIT BY A MODERATOR: Split this from the Merry Christmas! thread.
[19:16] <scrimpy> silly portuguese
[19:16] <scrimpy> it's like spanish, only less cool
Isn't decorating a tree with a five pointed star, technically a form of pagan worship?
Yes.
Furthermore, when you consider the origin of said practise...
Though it is now interpreted to signify the star of Bethlehem -- a convenient explanation --, the star on top of the christmas tree is actually an ancient Babylonian symbol, "solar wheel" / "sunburst" / "sundisc", which was also present in Egypt (the disc between the horns of the Apis calf), and which is also the origin of the disc of light around the heads of saints in icons. It is a remnant of the worship of the Sun, present in almost all pagan cultures. It just had different names. Ba'al, Nimrod, Ra, etc.
Speaking of Babylonia, the phallic evergreen tree itself is a symbol of the masculinity and fruitfulness of the Sun-god. The same phallic symbol, obelisk, literally meaning "Baal's organ of reproduction", occurs in many unexpected places today, including in Mecca and in the most recognized landmark of Vatican.
Also, the Bible actually does forbid decorating a christmas tree. (Deut. 16:21, Jer. 10:2-5, Isa. 66:17)
Also, the Bible actually does forbid decorating a christmas tree. (Deut. 16:21, Jer. 10:2-5, Isa. 66:17)
Now I'm probably jumping to conclusions, but going to hell because you decorated a tree? Honestly, to me this just proves the bible is silly.
You are. What part of that says anything about going to hell? Honestly, this just proves to me that you're too eager in trying to prove that the bible is silly.
Perhaps I should have used some cynicism tags. I fully realize the bible doesn't say anywhere that you'll go to hell for it. Hence the "jumping to conclusions" bit, it's a crappy attempt at translating the dutch saying "kort door de bocht". Basically, in this context, it'd mean: I know that what I'm saying is exaggerated, but I say it anyway to prove my point.
It's not so much the fact that the bible would send you to hell for it that makes me think the bible is silly, it's the fact that it prohibits anything that's not Christian. It just seems so intolerant to me. Before you judge me though, I've actually read the bible and my judgment is properly thought-through. I just lack the linguistic skills to express it.
I think this is the movement most closely related to the ideology in question: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism
(Of course there are differences between congregations and individuals.)
Though it is now interpreted to signify the star of Bethlehem -- a convenient explanation --, the star on top of the christmas tree is actually an ancient Babylonian symbol, "solar wheel" / "sunburst" / "sundisc", which was also present in Egypt (the disc between the horns of the Apis calf), and which is also the origin of the disc of light around the heads of saints in icons. It is a remnant of the worship of the Sun, present in almost all pagan cultures. It just had different names. Ba'al, Nimrod, Ra, etc.
Correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Just because the Sun is an extremely common target of worship in many ancient religions doesn't necessarily mean that all old sun/star symbols are related to those ancient religions. The person or group who first thought about putting a star on top of the christmas tree didn't necessarily have anything like that in mind. (The same goes for halos in icons and statues. Similarity does not necessarily imply common origin.)
The person or group who first thought about putting a star on top of the christmas tree didn't necessarily have anything like that in mind. (The same goes for halos in icons and statues. Similarity does not necessarily imply common origin.)
History and intention are two totally different things.
"We do things this way because we've always done it that way and as I understand it means that <...>" is a very popular and sticky way to do things, but it is not biblical. God is eternal and he knows what those things, that one does, originally meant. When you do it, it reminds Him of its original meaning. When you paint eggs red on Easter (an Orthodox custom), you may be thinking of something quite other, but when you do it, He remembers the time when virgins were raped, forcefully impregnated, and 9 months later their firstborn babies would be killed and eggs would be painted with the babies' blood as a symbol / offering to goddess Astarte / Ishtar for virility and fertility. The phrase, "that's not what it means to me!" works both ways. It is also a sign of unfaithfulness.
You may have conceived the idea independently from its history, but unless it is founded in the Bible, it is just another "take that!" to YHWH's face from the master of false gods; a scheme which you are unwittingly participating. Satan presents himself to God and mocks him, saying: Look at how wicked things I get these people doing, and they do it all in your name! And all he had to do is to insert a tiny suggestion that sounds good and innocuous to us. An old and tried tactic. Did God really say that you cannot eat from every tree? Come on. That is why the Word emphasizes again and again, do not do according to your own judgment, but do as I tell you to do. Because you think your actions brings glory to YHWH, but in fact they do the very opposite thing, if they are not founded firmly in the Word.
As Jim Staley puts it: "Honey, I know your birthday is May 10th, but my ex-girlfriend's birthday was April 21st and I've grown very accustomed to celebrating that day. It was so joyful day and I loved it. But now I'm with you. I'm sure you won't mind that I'll celebrate your birthday in April 21st!?" (To help reckon the reply, the Bible describes YHWH as a jealous God.) That, and so many other things are why I don't feel it appropriate to celebrate Christmas at all.
God is eternal and he knows what those things, that one does, originally meant.
In this particular context (in other words, the star at the top of the christmas tree and halos on icons and statues) you are committing the petitio principii fallacy, iow. assuming the premise to be true and basing conclusions on it, when it's not clear at all that the premise is true in the first place (that is, that the star and the halos have a common origin with ancient pagan religions).
As I already said, similarity does not necessarily imply common origin. The fact that suns and stars are common symbols in many religions and cultures doesn't necessarily mean that the symbols in one culture originate from (and have the same meaning as) the ones in another culture. It could be that the modern star symbol and halos do indeed come from ancient religions, but that's to be demonstrated (at least in this discussion). Hence no such conclusions should be made because the premise is not necessarily valid.
Another question is that even if, hypothetically, they shared the claimed common origin of ancient blasphemous pagan religions, is someone committing a sin against God if he uses these symbols without knowing their origin? Why would God judge somebody for using a symbol he doesn't know the meaning of?
Basically you are transferring the sins of one person to another. Person A used symbol X for some blasphemous rituals, and hence person A deserves punishment. If later person B uses the same symbol X for a completely different purpose, without knowing that A used that symbol or what for, the sins of A are automatically transferred to B?
Moreover, even if B knows that symbol X was used in pagan rituals, does this make X a forbidden symbol? It's forever cursed and cannot ever be used again for anything without the user committing a sin against God?
Because that is, basically, what you are claiming. How many symbols have you used which might have been used by some ancient pagan religion for their blasphemous rituals? You don't know, and that's the point.
Wouldn't it make more sense that it's the intention that matters, not the precise symbol? It's not what you use, but how and for what purpose.
Wouldn't it make more sense that it's the intention that matters, not the precise symbol? It's not what you use, but how and for what purpose.
It appears like you completely missed the point of my post. The relevant thing is not what you think something represents. The relevant thing is not what the person, who originally conceived the idea, designated the bits of their idea for. The relevant thing is: Is the idea founded firmly in the Bible? If it is not, i.e. it is just someone's well-intentioned idea, chances are that it is influenced by the master of all false gods, the great liar, the enemy of souls, who uses your actions to assert his dominion over the humanity, by demonstrating that even people who honestly and truly wish to do good in YHWH's name, are subjectible to being put to spread the old-fashioned Baal iconery and ideas, as long as they give in to the temptation of doing "good" things (tree of good and evil knowledge) rather than doing "life" things (Bible/Torah).
There is a reason why the Bible tells the story that when God freed Israel from the slavery in Egypt, all the things he taught them to do to worship Him were pretty much the polar opposite to everything that was done in Egypt to serve pagan gods. He could've used the same things just as well, just label them differently, disregarding the earlier use in paganism -- and He would have been in all authority to teach that such is their true meaning --, but He chose to teach to do very differently, the very opposite things to what was done in Egypt. Why? Because He is sovereign, and He is smarter than we are.
He said, "if and when you want to worship me, do as I tell you to do. And here's what you do. Don't go on and invent your own rituals of worship. For I am not delighted for seeing them." He is not delighted of seeing us devise the very same things to honor Him that people have used to honor idols. We think it's a halo emphasizing the divine nature of Jesus, but He just squints, saying: "Are you serious. This is just the same thing as they did in Egypt, to show the character is blessed by Ra. Do you think I want to see it again. Why don't you ever listen to me?" It is not that we put the halo there to show a blessing by sun-god, not our intention, but we're just repeating the same idea, our idea, that has been used to also serve idols. And he says, it's as disgusting as a rag used to absorb menstruation. Our glorious idea, only that it's not the first time we get the same idea. We make statues showing The Suffering Servant on a cross, and we sell them in churches. What a glorious way to get a message across, and to remind us of the sacrifice made for us. Only, it's not the first time we get the idea of making sculptures of gods. And so on.
(Quotes shown are dramatizations, not actual bible quotations.)
The relevant thing is: Is the idea founded firmly in the Bible?
I think you are presenting a false dichotomy here (well, in the whole of your post; I just didn't want to quote everything, just a representative sentence). The dichotomy is: Everything is either the work of God, or the work of Satan. If something is not firmly founded on the Bible, it must therefore be the work of Satan. (Moreover: Only things which can be explicitly found in the Bible are the work of God, nothing else.)
Not every action, every thought, every object, every symbol is found in the Bible, yet even you wouldn't claim from every such thing that it is the work of Satan. You yourself do and use many things that are not found in the Bible, yet you (I assume) don't think you are worshiping Satan by doing so.
A symbol is just a symbol. If it's an object, it's a collection of atoms arranged in a certain way. An object has meaning only if you give it meaning, and different people may give the same object different meanings. Is someone's meaning better than another's?
You also seem to assert that if, for example, some symbol has been used for pagan worship, the only use for that symbol from that point forward is worship. This goes back to what I wrote in my previous post: If person A uses symbol X for pagan worship, does X become somehow "cursed" and automatically forbidden from that point forward to eternity and for everybody, regardless of intention?
It is possible to celebrate a festivity without worship. You might argue that someone claiming "this christmas tree honors God" is blasphemous and goes against everything that the Bible teaches, and that may be the case. However, almost nobody says or thinks like that. The intention is not to decorate a christmas tree to worship anything or to represent anything. It's just a tradition and there is no deeper meaning to it than that. This doesn't mean that every christian should start using christmas trees. It means that you claiming that they are worshiping Satan by doing so is rather outrageous. Worship is in the mind, not in the object. What matters is what is in the mind, what the intentions are, not what a collection of atoms looks like. It would be a petty God indeed who judged people based on how some atoms happened to be arranged rather than what the purpose for that object is in the mind of the person who uses it.
If a Japanese uses a swastika to decorate a religious building, would you call him a neonazi? If a neonazi used a swastika to symbolize his political views, would you call him a shintoist? No. Even though the symbols look the same, the meaning is completely different. What you are doing is exactly that: You are taking two symbols of two different cultures and claiming that the meanings are the same, regardless of intention.
If a Japanese uses a swastika to decorate a religious building, would you call him a neonazi? If a neonazi used a swastika to symbolize his political views, would you call him a shintoist? No. Even though the symbols look the same, the meaning is completely different.
Would you use a swastika to decorate a festival where Jews are invited to, to cite the good luck it symbolizes, if that is what it honestly meant to you? I think not. Remember that in an event where God is invited to, He is a participant. Do you want to use things that remind Him of times when people did the most horrible things against His commandments? It might be a beloved symbol to you and it reminds you of all the good things, but what does it remind Him of? He does have feelings too, you know. And what does it to tell to Him your insistance of favoring your own fathers' traditions over those that He taught to us?
And if God is invited to your daily life -- Christians believe that their very body is indeed the temple of Holy Spirit (according to 1Co. 3:16) --, you'd sure want to make sure your life has got things He has ordained all over it rather than something else. Again, he is a jealous God, as the scriptures tell from the beginning.
Yes, I am indeed emphasizing a dichotomy here. Because you cannot be a judge to what is perfectly fine and what is not. No human can. Our viewspan is limited. Though he is perfect and loving and He understands and forgives if we do things because we don't know any better, we should not knowingly do something that is questionable. We should not knowingly stay ignorant, either. ("My people perish for lack of knowledge", the Word tells.)
Warp" wrote:
If person A uses symbol X for pagan worship, does X become somehow "cursed" and automatically forbidden from that point forward to eternity and for everybody, regardless of intention?
That'd be problematic, yes. We'd be prohibited from doing pretty much anything, including the doing of nothing at all.
Though this is personal, Warp, you are a person who seeks to find the very definite binary threshold on everything, to argue about the definition of each rule and to find the impossiblemost edgecases and how the rule works in that situation. Such is what is definitely happening here, too.
I am uncertain whether God is such a person. The best I know is that His word is always valid, and that He has told us how to do in certain situations, and how to never do. Maybe you should seek that source of advise as well?
EDIT: I know the Word also says: "He catches the wise in their craftiness". The human has infinite potential for self-justification. Sometimes, too much of trying to be smart can yield disastrous results. You will eventually find the letters and logic to justify whatever you want to continue doing, yet are in clear violation of the word. And God will say, "you have made your choice, you have clearly outsmarted yourself".
Also, I know that like me, you're often argumenting for the sake of getting things discussed to a clear end rather than for the sake of defending one's own opinion. Hence, you appear argumentative. Considering the biblical principle of "God is smarter than we are" and our tendency to eventually outwit ourselves (as indicated by Bible, and as indicated by history, e.g. church councils), what do you think the ostensible outcome and effect will be in the case of this discussion?
If no human is capable of judging what is good and what is not, then how can anyone judge whether anything is in correspondence with the will of God? You assume the bible to be his word, what if it is not? What if God does want you to decorate trees. He has feelings according to you (but how can you know?) and perhaps he likes pretty trees more than anything. But whoever wrote that bit in the Bible may have misjudged God's word (we silly humans do that all the time, apparently) and put down that God does not want you to dress up trees.
Anyway, just to prove a point: Hitler used the alphabet to write "Mein Kampf". Now stop using it, cause God thinks you're evil for doing so.
To me as a somewhat neutral observer it seemed as though Bisqwit didn't use any logical fallacies, as long as he starts from the premise that the Bible holds absolute truth. Also, Bisqwit's idea doesn't seem to be to do what's logically correct, but to empathize with God when "worshipping" Him, which I'd say makes perfect sense from a believer's point of view.
If you have the best of intentions, but still end up hurting the person you love then you are in fact doing something bad to them and it'd be good to stop. If that other person ends up loving you back, they might forgive you because by empathizing with you, they will realize it's not entirely your fault (though if you really love that person, shouldn't you always strive to know what makes them happy and what doesn't and not just stop caring as long as you know you have good intentions? seems somewhat egocentric in this context) and be able to forgive you based on that. But if you just go on like before, it'd be a very unequal relationship and any human person will probably stop giving you second chances at some point. God doesn't, but I guess any believer should still care for what makes God happy and what doesn't, just as in every other healthy relationship.
To me at least, Bisqwit's point of view makes perfect sense.
Whether the premise is wrong is an entirely different question though.
If a Japanese uses a swastika to decorate a religious building, would you call him a neonazi? If a neonazi used a swastika to symbolize his political views, would you call him a shintoist? No. Even though the symbols look the same, the meaning is completely different.
Would you use a swastika to decorate a festival where Jews are invited to, to cite the good luck it symbolizes, if that is what it honestly meant to you?
You missed the point. I wouldn't go to a Japanese home and call them neonazis if they happened to have a swastika as an oriental symbol of luck, which is what you are doing by claiming that the star at the top of the christmas tree that people put in their homes is a symbol of pagan worship. Even if the symbol looks the same (which in itself is debatable in the case of the star) it doesn't necessarily convey the same meaning or purpose.
Remember that in an event where God is invited to, He is a participant. Do you want to use things that remind Him of times when people did the most horrible things against His commandments? It might be a beloved symbol to you and it reminds you of all the good things, but what does it remind Him of? He does have feelings too, you know.
You are basically claiming that God doesn't want to understand the reason why people have certain customs, and instead chooses to get offended by the coincidental similarity of the shape of an object regardless of why it was put there. You are giving God very human-like qualities and deficiencies, a God who gets offended by trivial minutia.
Wouldn't you think that God cares more about what is in the heart of the person?
And what does it to tell to Him your insistance of favoring your own fathers' traditions over those that He taught to us?
You cannot live completely separated from your environment and society. Your parents, teachers and friends have taught you tons of social customs (for example related to good manners) which you do not have any problems following nor do you think are an affront to God, even though these things are not mentioned in the Bible explicitly. Are you "insistent in favoring your own fathers' traditions" in this case? Would God get offended by you following these customs?
The important thing is not the custom itself, but the reason you are following it.
Yes, I am indeed emphasizing a dichotomy here. Because you cannot be a judge to what is perfectly fine and what is not. No human can. Our viewspan is limited.
I find it a bit contradictory that you state the above in the same thread where you have made absolute claims about certain symbols and traditions being pagan worshiping and offensive to God. How do you know they are offensive to God? What gives you the right to tell others that what they are doing is offensive to God?
Though this is personal, Warp, you are a person who seeks to find the very definite binary threshold on everything, to argue about the definition of each rule and to find the impossiblemost edgecases and how the rule works in that situation. Such is what is definitely happening here, too.
This is personal too, but I think you are simply projecting. What I am doing here is defending a more liberal view, not a stricter view, which is what you are doing. I am not speaking in absolutes, you are. I am proposing a much fuzzier division between what is right and wrong than what you seemingly are, which sounds a lot more binary. It seems that you are the one proposing a hard binary division between "this symbol/tradition is wrong" and "this is ok", but projecting such an attitude on me.
what do you think the ostensible outcome and effect will be in the case of this discussion?
My sincere hope is that you would loosen a bit and stop judging other people for things which are not unambiguously wrong. Nothing good comes from extreme fundamentalism.
Also, spreading possible misinformation is not a good thing.
If a Japanese uses a swastika to decorate a religious building, would you call him a neonazi? If a neonazi used a swastika to symbolize his political views, would you call him a shintoist? No. Even though the symbols look the same, the meaning is completely different.
Would you use a swastika to decorate a festival where Jews are invited to, to cite the good luck it symbolizes, if that is what it honestly meant to you?
You missed the point. I wouldn't go to a Japanese home and call them neonazis if they happened to have a swastika as an oriental symbol of luck, which is what you are doing by claiming that the star at the top of the christmas tree that people put in their homes is a symbol of pagan worship.
So we're talking about two different things.
I'm arguing the case about how to serve God and how not to. My priority is in not offending YHWH..
You're arguing the case about how to talk to people and how not to. Your priority seems to be in not offending people. And here I wish to refer to 2.Tim. 4:1-4.
No wonder our views do not appear to meet....Warp wrote:
You are basically claiming that God doesn't want to understand the reason why people have certain customs, and instead chooses to get offended by the coincidental similarity of the shape of an object regardless of why it was put there.
Yes. God does not care about our excuses. As for understanding us, he is smart and understanding and knows the difference between us being ignorant and us being inpudent. As for choosing something, he is sovereign and we're in no position to negotiate and trade with him. He says "you do this", we do that, or otherwise we're disobeying. He does not command us out of whim; when He instructs us, He does that from love. And when you say "no", what does it do to Him? It hurts! I am not exaggerating here. It is in the Bible. The word of God tells in no small detail how it pains Him to see how people are doing everything, but listen to him. He even gave us a graphic live-action illustration of it about 2000 years ago. He forgives, and extends his deadlines, and does that for centuries, but not to no end.
Warp wrote:
You are giving God very human-like qualities and deficiencies, a God who gets offended by trivial minutia.
According to the Bible, He did create us in His image. The New Testament also describes Jesus both feeling very humane feelings and yet being one with the Father. It is not a question of "trivial minutia". It is a question of commitment in a relationship. In a relationship, you will have to make sacrifices. Sometimes, your partner does not like something you do. You do not agree it can possibly hurt. What are your options? Would you accuse your partner of being crybaby? God gave us the marriage, and everything leading to that, as a model of his relationship to us. The word of God is full of marriage related analogues between the congregation (people covenanted to Him) and Him.
The wife is to be obedient to her husband, and the husband is to love his wife.
Warp wrote:
Nothing good comes from extreme fundamentalism.
Obviously, I disagree with this part. As for the judging other people part, I think I better abstain from arguing that point. It has been done before.
Warp wrote:
Also, spreading possible misinformation is not a good thing.
Ah! Don't you think intentions matter more than the actual deed? :)
I'm arguing the case about how to serve God and how not to. My priority is in not offending YHWH.
You're arguing the case about how to talk to people and how not to. Your priority seems to be in not offending people.
No wonder our views do not appear to meet...
You don't seem to understand the wrong you are doing. If you don't want to follow a tradition because you think it offends God, then you shouldn't follow that tradition, and that's completely ok. However, once you start judging others for doing what you think is wrong, you are crossing a boundary.
The major problem here is that you are interpreting scripture in a certain way and then applying it to some tradition or symbol you see around you without proper justification, without there being a direct link between the scripture and that tradition/symbol. You are interpreting (no doubt having told so by someone) eg. the star on a christmas tree to be a pagan symbol and offensive to God, and claiming that anybody who uses it is offending God.
Exactly how do you know this? Does the Bible say "thou shalt not put a star on the top of a tree during the time of winter solstice because that's an affront to God"? No. You can find passages which you can vaguely interpret as applying, but that will be your interpretation. Are you so presumptuous as to claim that your interpretation is better than someone else's?
Jesus taught that we should not judge others. Perhaps you don't understand what that means, but you are doing exactly that here. You are in no position to make such judgments. Claiming that someone is worshiping Baal or whatever because they have a christmas tree is atrocious and offensive. You have no idea why they are doing what they are doing, nor what God may or may not think about it.
Warp wrote:
You are basically claiming that God doesn't want to understand the reason why people have certain customs, and instead chooses to get offended by the coincidental similarity of the shape of an object regardless of why it was put there.
Yes. God does not care about our excuses.
Do you really want to believe in a God who does not judge people by their intentions and what is in their heart, but rather by what symbols they use in their homes? Is this really the God you see in the Bible?
And on what grounds can you judge someone of resorting to "excuses" when he follows some tradition? How do you know what they are thinking?
Warp wrote:
You are giving God very human-like qualities and deficiencies, a God who gets offended by trivial minutia.
According to the Bible, He did create us in His image.
Be careful to not to create your own interpretation of God in your own image. A human-like god who has human defects and finite wisdom and understanding. Because that's what it sounds like.
Have you ever thought that your interpretation might be wrong, that you have been deluded by certain people and ideas?
Warp wrote:
Nothing good comes from extreme fundamentalism.
Obviously, I disagree with this part.
Been there, done that (as you probably know). I know where you are right now, and I know it's not good.
Warp wrote:
Also, spreading possible misinformation is not a good thing.
Ah! Don't you think intentions matter more than the actual deed? :)
You may joke about it, but spreading misinformation is where all kinds of conspiracy theories and other such nonsense starts. Christians are not immune to conspiracy theories, including theological ones. On the very contrary, they are quite prone to them.
Is it even possible to remind an omniscient being?
Bisqwit wrote:
Again, he is a jealous God, as the scriptures tell from the beginning.
wait, jealous? Wasn't there something about that in the tenth commandment or the sixth cardinal sin or somewhere?
btw, if I happen to offend my girlfriend by some well-meant deed, there's a simple solution in a working relationship: she tells me. Then again, she could just sulk and expect me to read that one book amongst thousands that claims to solve all relationship trouble, without ever telling me which one is the correct book. I'm not sure if I'm to blame for the resulting problems.
If god is interested in a relationship with us, his communication and courtship skills sure seem sub-par.
>The relevant thing is: Is the idea founded firmly in the Bible? If it is not, i.e. it is just someone's well-intentioned idea, chances are that it is influenced by the master of all false gods, the great liar, the enemy of souls, who uses your actions to assert his dominion over the humanity, ...
I assume you talk about "Satan" or somesuch here.
1) How do we know Satan didn't write the Bible? It's what I would do if I was Satan. I would also portray God as a jealous jerk who kills people for minor transgressions and then tortures them in hell forever.
2) Is God more powerful than Satan? I assume your position is that he is. Why doesn't God just take away Satan's powers, or lock him up where he can't mislead humans? Especially since you think God gets very sad when Satan tricks us to decorate trees.
Before you answer, think to yourself: did I just now invent a rationalization to be able to continue believing? Should belief be more important than reason and logic?
Is God <...>? Why doesn't God just <...>? Especially since you think God gets very sad when <...>
This question is asked rather often, usually in a mocking tone. I think this time I'll put my answer as "a rushed decision is not always the best one".
A rushed decision is the one where you happen to be holding a bazooka, and you see a fly on the wall, and you shoot the fly with the bazooka. By the way, the way to make the decision "not rushed" is not to shoot the fly with the bazooka later. The opposite of a rushed decision is a wise decision, not a slow decision.
Rushed decisions lead to an avalanche of other problems, like in many time travel stories where someone "fixes" what went once wrong, and ends up with an exponentially growing number of other problems that need to be fixed as a consequence of fixing the first problem. My belief is that what we have been/are/will be seeing, is indeed God's solution to that problem. And you already knew that, but you wanted me to write this in any case. There are always people who disapprove. Always. As long as the level of understanding differs between two parties, there are differences in understanding*. And that is why God is raising a nation for himself that is taught to always trust Him, for He is smarter than we are.
As for your other questions, I am not fan of philosophy. Ask someone else.
*)This sounds tautological, but is not. Level of understanding is a measure of ability. Understanding is the product of using the ability, which includes thoughts and perceptions one receives and generates.
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but if you don't shoot fast enough, the fly will notice your bazooka and consequences will never be the same
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It rests on the conviction that you — by your choices, effort and actions — have made yourself into the
kind of person able to deal with reality. It is the conviction — based on the evidence of your own volitional
functioning — that you are fundamentally able to succeed in life and, therefore, are deserving of that success."
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Bisqwit wrote:
Bisqwit, I don't think you really answered the question you were asked. Yes, rushed decisions are bad. How does this relate to the subject at hand?
God's kingdom is not a democracy. You cannot go and second-guess him on every decision. Imagine you tried, and as an answer, He listed you 2214510587 affecting circumstances, of which 109601967 are about lessons he wanted to teach in the Torah, and of which 1731506815 are related to the way He will be able to interact with his people 10860 years from now, and 377110857 happenstances in lifes of people born long before you and born after your death, and the 175019790175 ways in which the different options may turn out, of which 175019790174 are out of question because it is uncharacteristic to Him to make that happen, and so on. In the end, the scope of his decisions is way out of capability of any human's understanding. So who am I to try? Or more to the point, what good would it possibly do for me to make a guess? Instead, I chose to point out the more fundamental principle to decision making, and to remind any reader that the scope of circumstances concerning the decisions God makes are beyond the capacity of understanding of any human, and that it is enough for us to know that He is capable.
Of course, the real reason to this confusion is that the question is made from a different point of reference than the one in which I am writing an answer for the question. The point of reference, in which the question is made, is "does this concept of a God make sense at all". The point of reference, in which I chose to interpret the question and to write the answer, is "do decisions made by God make sense to us". I do this deliberately to enforce the change of orientation from human-centric thinking to God-centric thinking. The human-centric thinking is the one in which we assume that any and all decisions can be explained in terms that a human can understand. (Yes, it might be explainable in such terms, but the explanation may need a lightyear thick book if contained. Naturally, I am not able to come up with such an explanation. I could possibly come up with an explanation that makes sense and that you have not considered, but then again it could be plain wrong or at best, utterly misrepresentative.) The God-centric thinking is the one that takes God's word as granted and builds interpretation on that foundation. Once you understand the change in the point of reference, my answers make mostly perfect sense even if you don't agree with them. If you choose not to understand the change in the point of reference, yes, then everything will look like a circular justification to the belief.
