[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

Don't you think that God knows who is going to sin and who is free from sin? It hardly matters that the sin has not been committed; it will, eventually.

That's just it. Having, thoughts, ideas even knowledge about the results of an event can alter those results.
Take for instance a ball. I roll it over a counter towards the end where you stand. It rolls off the counter at your side. Before hitting the ground you catch it. I ask you:
"Why do you catch it?"
- Because it was going to fall on the ground.
"But it didn't, because you intervened."

My point is (and the whole point of self-fullfilling and their counterparts self-defeating prophecies) that you cannot know for certain what wll happen and that thinking you know the ending, may have you act in a way that changes everything.

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

If there is a God, I believe that he acts in a way that agree with psychological processes. I would believe that he knows those processes and uses them to actually help people.

Why do you believe that? For a critical thinker, you believe uncritically in some strange things.

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

Why do you believe that? For a critical thinker, you believe uncritically in some strange things.

I have a background in psychology and I find it fascinating to learn how the mind of people acts and how that leads to certain behaviour. So I have some pretty good knowlegde about the theories and mechanisms about human behaviour. And I find that, when looking around me, those theories actually make sense and can explain to me why people behave in certain ways.

[Pastor Ezekiel]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

I think that you really need to read the Bible instead of just guessing what it says, and then pulling a lot of nonsense out of your behind.

Romans 9:11-22, Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:4-5 "...for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

I have a background in psychology and I find it fascinating to learn how the mind of people acts and how that leads to certain behaviour. So I have some pretty good knowlegde about the theories and mechanisms about human behaviour. And I find that, when looking around me, those theories actually make sense and can explain to me why people behave in certain ways.

That doesn't answer my question. Why would the Almighty be bound by human psychological processes?

[Wide-Open]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

That doesn't answer my question. Why would the Almighty be bound by human psychological processes?

It doesn't make sense, does it Pastor? If you would look at our Lord and his words purely from a human psychological perspective, He would come out as a murdering narcissistic psychopath*.

For example (God having killed every little living thing)

Genesis 8:21
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

If a human said this, he would be in a straightjacket before he could say "kill! kill!".

Of course, when you know Him and Love Him, like we do, we know He's doing it all for us, to help us get into Heaven.

(*Please forgive me for writing this Lord. I only wrote it to make a point towards our Swedish guest.)

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

I think that you really need to read the Bible instead of just guessing what it says, and then pulling a lot of nonsense out of your behind.

Romans 9:11-22, Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:4-5 "...for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

You are missing my whole point. Predestination is dangerous business and can change the course of the future. Therefore, predestination should be avoided if possible.

That doesn't answer my question. Why would the Almighty be bound by human psychological processes?

You actually partly answer that question yourself: human psychological processes. We are human, therefore we behave accordingly to human psychological processes. If you ignore those, you have absolutely no idea how people work. Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that a God will ignore these processes.

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

Psychology eh? That is "Looking into the soul" I don't think God approves.

Anyway,
OK, Freewill and an All-Knowing God:

You look at a person and you think, “He seems to be the sort of person who would help me.” Or “He looks like a criminal”, or “He looks as if he might die soon.” There is a good chance you are right.

A good chess player will know 6 or 7 moves ahead; the best chess player will know 8 or 9 and will be right.

God is like this only better – there are many futures, it is simply that God can work out, for all your life, “what happens if…” and he is always right. This is just like you work out what happens if the ball rolls off the counter.

So the future is not fixed but God knows it.

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

It doesn't make sense, does it Pastor? If you would look at our Lord and his words purely from a human psychological perspective, He would come out as a murdering narcissistic psychopath*.

After this, you still want to follow him?

For example (God having killed every little living thing)

Genesis 8:21
And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

If a human said this, he would be in a straightjacket before he could say "kill! kill!".

Of course, when you know Him and Love Him, like we do, we know He's doing it all for us, to help us get into Heaven.

I wasn't actually talking about your God's own behaviour, but of his influence on human behaviour.

(*Please forgive me for writing this Lord. I only wrote it to make a point towards our Swedish guest.)

We have a Swedish guest? Cool, did he actually posted anything in this topic?
Friend, saying I am from Sweden, or a Frenchie, or even a gypsy, is stupid. It shows that you are weak and does not help to prove your point. Furthermore, it distances you from the people you want to save and therefore make them less likely to follow you. So be smart for once and refrain yourself from namecalling that is based on nothing more than your own frustration.

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

Psychology eh? That is "Looking into the soul" I don't think God approves.

It is more like trying to explain human behaviour.

Anyway,
OK, Freewill and an All-Knowing God:

You look at a person and you think, “He seems to be the sort of person who would help me.” Or “He looks like a criminal”, or “He looks as if he might die soon.” There is a good chance you are right.
But there is also a not-to-ignore-chance that you are wrong. That is called statistics. I met a number of people whom I initially did not like that much, but I chose to ignore my feelings about them and I actually found them to be friendly people. So here I choose not to give in to the self-fulfilling prophecy, acted kindly to them and in return they acted kindly towards me.

A good chess player will know 6 or 7 moves ahead; the best chess player will know 8 or 9 and will be right.

God is like this only better – there are many futures, it is simply that God can work out, for all your life, “what happens if…” and he is always right. This is just like you work out what happens if the ball rolls off the counter.

The fact that great chess players know so many moves is because chess players often follow knowable paths that are in a way predictable.
Now take a chessplayer that works by what you can call randomness. The moves that he makes are illogical and the other chessplayer does not know what to do, because what he expects does not come true.
That is what happened last week. We had a man that worked by randomness. People did not expect his act (why should they, it is illogical to ruin such a great day and the lives of all those people). Therefore, his deed could not be stopped in time.

So the future is not fixed but God knows it.

That sentence contradicts itself. If something is not fixed, you cannot know how it goes. You can have ideas about it, one future being more likely than another, but it still would be chances and not the truth. The future with the smaller chance still could happen.

[Wide-Open]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

After this, you still want to follow him?

With all my heart! It's called Faith(r). I'm sure you must have heard about it before.

Friend, saying I am from Sweden, or a Frenchie, or even a gypsy, is stupid. It shows that you are weak and does not help to prove your point. Furthermore, it distances you from the people you want to save and therefore make them less likely to follow you. So be smart for once and refrain yourself from namecalling that is based on nothing more than your own frustration.

So saying someone is from Sweden is name calling now? That's a pretty racist viewpoint son!

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

With all my heart! It's called Faith®. I'm sure you must have heard about it before.

Yes I have. And you should believe what you like, only accept that not everybody feels the same way. That is why it is believing.

So saying someone is from Sweden is name calling now? That's a pretty racist viewpoint son!

Saying that someone is from Sweden, when he is not, can be considered namecalling yes. However, the thing with namecalling is that the one who is being namecalled should be offended by it. I am not, only by the fact that you try to make your point by making false statements, like my origin (The Netherlands I made it easy for you, just look at the top right of my post. There it says that my location is The Netherlands. Glad to be of any help to you )

[Ezekiel Bathfire]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

So the future is not fixed but God knows it.

That sentence contradicts itself. If something is not fixed, you cannot know how it goes. You can have ideas about it, one future being more likely than another, but it still would be chances and not the truth. The future with the smaller chance still could happen.

I wish you would read more carefully:

Imagine you have a bag of 10 red balls and 1 white ball. You put your hand in to find the white ball. You take out a ball – 10:1 it is a red ball. If you asked God to do that, He gets the white ball every time – not because it is fixed, but because He knows.

Think of a street of 10 houses – you want to find the house at which the True Christian lives. You look and you see 4 with badly kept lawns, 4 with old cars and 1 needing to be repainted. You think you know the True Christian will live at the best house. God does not think He knows - He actually knows!

You are in Stockholm and you want to find a house in Malmö. You know the owner of the address once said he drove south to work (so you think his house will be in the north.) You know that he is a True Christian™ and therefore his house will be near a church. You know he has 9 children so the house will be big. But you still don’t know the address. God does - God can work it out with certainty. Yet the friend in Malmö has never told God or anyone else his address.

God just knows so much about you, all your possible futures are clear to him. He even knows that you will do something unexpected – but the future is not fixed.

He knew you would come to Landover to hear His Word.

Friend, He is telling you something, will you not listen to Jesus?

[Seraph]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

I wish you would read more carefully:

Imagine you have a bag of 10 red balls and 1 white ball. You put your hand in to find the white ball. You take out a ball – 10:1 it is a red ball. If you asked God to do that, He gets the white ball every time – not because it is fixed, but because He knows.

Think of a street of 10 houses – you want to find the house at which the True Christian lives. You look and you see 4 with badly kept lawns, 4 with old cars and 1 needing to be repainted. You think you know the True Christian will live at the best house. God does not think He knows - He actually knows!

You are in Stockholm and you want to find a house in Malmö. You know the owner of the address once said he drove south to work (so you think his house will be in the north.) You know that he is a True Christian™ and therefore his house will be near a church. You know he has 9 children so the house will be big. But you still don’t know the address. God does - God can work it out with certainty. Yet the friend in Malmö has never told God or anyone else his address.

This has nothing to do with the future. These are situations in the here and now and therefore, with the right equipment (x-ray machines for instance), you could find them out to. Your God only has an advantage of being able to see thorugh walls or something.

God just knows so much about you, all your possible futures are clear to him. He even knows that you will do something unexpected – but the future is not fixed.

He knew you would come to Landover to hear His Word.

Friend, He is telling you something, will you not listen to Jesus?

How can he know that which is not fixed? If it is not fixed, then the end results can vary. If the end result is already determined, then it is fixed. It is not either-or, but both-and. You cannot have one without the other.

[Pastor Isaac Peters]

Re: Last warning for Swedish Queen from Baby Jesus!

You actually partly answer that question yourself: human psychological processes. We are human, therefore we behave accordingly to human psychological processes. If you ignore those, you have absolutely no idea how people work. Therefore, it seems unlikely to me that a God will ignore these processes.

That's a non sequitur. Does a chicken farmer confine himself to acting in accordance with the psychological processes of chickens, or does he use his superior human intellect to impose his own will on them?