The notion that he went to hell is derived from the text, it's not really stated from it. Even so, the reason most people embrace that notion is for the purpose of giving those who lived before the time of Christ an opportunity to accept his grace or whatever.

I've always felt this to be incorrect and somewhat unnecessary. If God is the author of time certainly select mechanisms of his choosing can be, like him, exempt from time's constraints.

orangeWIZARD:

James1817:
If God knows everything

Wait, hold it right there.
Define "everything".

If something does not exist, is it a "thing"? If something does not exist, can it be known?

Does the future exist?

I was taught as a young lad that god (I assume we are talking about the Christian god) is "timeless". By that I mean all time (past, present, future) exist to him as the present exists to us. It's not that he can see into the future or know what happened in the past, it's that he is currently experience the past and future as we are currently experiencing the present.

The problem with saying that something "exists in the future" is that the word "exist" carries with it the weight of happening "now". Yet, something can't "happen now" if it "exists in the future". In order for it to exists in the future we have to wait for time to progess to the point where this thing can exist "now".

I'm going to put a pop-tart in the toaster. It will be warm in the future. Does that mean that a warm pop-tart will soon exist? No, because I have to wait for a progression of time for the pop-tart to reach that start of warmth. But, anything can happen between now and that time. The power in my house can go out. A meteor can hit me. My pop-tart can spontaneously combust. Etc.

Yet, if we speak in terms of a god, then yes, a warm futuristic pop-tart does exist. Why? Because he experiences all time in the same manner that we experience the present. To god, my pop-tart is simultaneously cold (before I toasted it), warm (after I toasted it), eaten (after I nom nom'd on it), non-existent (before it was ever made), etc etc etc.

Therefore, you must reasonably assume that, yes, god does know "everything" because he is currently experiencing the notion of "everything" right now. Whatever conclusions you can draw about his motive from that, however, is entirely your own.

(back to lurking for the next year

brodiMAN:

orangeWIZARD:

James1817:
If God knows everything

Wait, hold it right there.
Define "everything".

If something does not exist, is it a "thing"? If something does not exist, can it be known?

Does the future exist?

I was taught as a young lad that god (I assume we are talking about the Christian god) is "timeless". By that I mean all time (past, present, future) exist to him as the present exists to us. It's not that he can see into the future or know what happened in the past, it's that he is currently experience the past and future as we are currently experiencing the present.

This is why i don't take organized religion as an authority of anything. In fact, the more i look, the more i think religious people have no idea what they believe in.
Even not being religious i agree with you, going by the premise that God exists and that everything that exists was/is/will be made by God....the question of future is pointless since God is the creator of the future/past/present.

Religious people, just like conspiracy theorists, have the most weird ass rationalizations to fuel their agenda.
Taking this as an example, their rationalization follows more or less this:

> God knows everything....except (insert excuse) because (insert inane rationalization).

So, in the end, by their logic, God doesn't know everything.

Or you know one man on the internet is not the authority of the entire christian religion.

Molinism is not a popular position of God's sovereignty.

Gosh, is there any other subject where people try to use sweeping generalizations on absolutely every aspect without even thinking it through?

No, one person not getting something with over 2000 years of academia exactly how you understood it is not an example of why its probably wrong. It's like any other topic, it requires research and thought and things you could be wrong about. Since its non-empirical there's actually no way to know if your opinions were malformed. Which sucks but hey, that's no different than science tbh. Some things in science were pretty intuitive til other theories came out. Why can't theology be the same?

Spacekobra:
Some things in science were pretty intuitive til other theories came out. Why can't theology be the same?

"some things" as in what? do you have any specific in mind?

A tall tales that only took place BC such as a virgin birth? I believe there was a few of them right?

I changed the order of the quotes, as they make more sense like this due to my replies

Spacekobra:
Gosh, is there any other subject where people try to use sweeping generalizations on absolutely every aspect without even thinking it through?

No, one person not getting something with over 2000 years of academia exactly how you understood it is not an example of why its probably wrong. It's like any other topic, it requires research and thought and things you could be wrong about. Since its non-empirical there's actually no way to know if your opinions were malformed. Which sucks but hey, that's no different than science tbh.

Of course it was a generalization, i thought that was implied since i don't know every religious person in the world.
As you know, generalization is a figure of speech, and figure of speech are used to "illustrate" or provide emphasis for an idea....hence why i used it.
Besides, from what i could gather, Jehovah's Witness don't adhere to Molinism, and since OW is JW....once again, why i used that generalization.
I didn't even knew that Molinism was a thing...also why i generalized.

Spacekobra:
Some things in science were pretty intuitive til other theories came out. Why can't theology be the same?

As far as i'm concerned, theology can be whatever you want it to be, after all, religion is a sort of philosophy, is based on ideas and beliefs, hence why there are so many interpretations and several religions.
But the point is also that theology is seen, for the believers, as divine, the word of God, so, there really isn't open to interpretations, there is only the utter truth.

Spacekobra:
Or you know one man on the internet is not the authority of the entire christian religion.

Molinism is not a popular position of God's sovereignty.

Like i said, i didn't even knew that Molinism was a thing...which is quite ironic since, going by the premise of acceptance of the existence of biblical God, it agrees with me.
The way i see it, God created every possible outcome, every possible thought, every possible decision....but he doesn't know what we will take, hence why we have free will. That's also why there are things like "Possibility theory" and "Probability Theory".
It's like God being a video game programmer, that created a game, created every possibility, but doesn't know what the player will do.
In the end, we make our own decisions.

Condorrr:
A tall tales that only took place BC such as a virgin birth? I believe there was a few of them right?

Some things as in flat earth and Aristolean physics.

Isildur:

Of course it was a generalization, i thought that was implied since i don't know every religious person in the world.
As you know, generalization is a figure of speech, and figure of speech are used to "illustrate" or provide emphasis for an idea....hence why i used it.
Besides, from what i could gather, Jehovah's Witness don't adhere to Molinism, and since OW is JW....once again, why i used that generalization.
I didn't even knew that Molinism was a thing...also why i generalized.

Is it really a good thing to dismiss a theory/worldview because people hold it poorly? Truths are true independent of who believes it is true. Don't use a generalization to reject something. That's just projecting your own beliefs onto others. And well, OW can believe what he wants he doesn't HAVE to listen to watchtower.

As far as i'm concerned, theology can be whatever you want it to be, after all, religion is a sort of philosophy, is based on ideas and beliefs, hence why there are so many interpretations and several religions.
But the point is also that theology is seen, for the believers, as divine, the word of God, so, there really isn't open to interpretations, there is only the utter truth.

Philosophy isn't looking for personal truths but rather objective meaning/significance. But just like everything else on the planet truth gets muddied with opinions. Also, that's not what theology is. Theology is more of the study of God. It doesn't have to be His word.

Like i said, i didn't even knew that Molinism was a thing...which is quite ironic since, going by the premise of acceptance of the existence of biblical God, it agrees with me.
The way i see it, God created every possible outcome, every possible thought, every possible decision....but he doesn't know what we will take, hence why we have free will. That's also why there are things like "Possibility theory" and "Probability Theory".
It's like God being a video game programmer, that created a game, created every possibility, but doesn't know what the player will do.
In the end, we make our own decisions.

Which is fine, I'm not really here to dictate what you believe. Glad I could teach you something new though.

James1817:
Lately I've been contemplating the actual sacrifice that Jesus Christ actually made.

It has come to my attention that other people close to Jesus also sacrificed or martyred in the name of promoting an once illegal religion and they're know as the twelve disciples.

Its so strange that an all powerful and know it all God needed so many of his people and followers to suffer and eventually die of horrible deaths just to promote it religion.

This make me wonder if the doubters were angry at God because of his stupid test? The test that cause everyone to sin?