CHALLENGING QUESTIONS

Allhallowsday · December 18, 2021, 11:05:13 PM

Ask one or relate one asked of you.

Is it important for you to be right?

RCMerchant · December 19, 2021, 12:57:33 AM

^ Only if I AM right.

Trevor · December 19, 2021, 05:12:42 AM

Quote from: Allhallowsday on December 18, 2021, 11:05:13 PM
Ask one or relate one asked of you.

Is it important for you to be right?

In my job, it is important as I help clients so the info I give has to be right. If it isn't - like I always said that the movie Dark of The Sun (1968) was made in South Africa and it wasn't - I have to make amends and apologize.

Rev. Powell · December 19, 2021, 11:38:25 AM

Quote from: Allhallowsday on December 18, 2021, 11:05:13 PM
Ask one or relate one asked of you.

Is it important for you to be right?

It is important to actually be right... like, will this stock go up? Is that truck about to hit me? Would my girlfriend make a good wife?

It's generally not important to be seen and acknowledged as right... though it is flattering to the ego. But that desire causes a lot of unnecessary conflict.

ER · December 19, 2021, 12:03:30 PM

Quote from: Rev. Powell on December 19, 2021, 11:38:25 AM
Quote from: Allhallowsday on December 18, 2021, 11:05:13 PM
Ask one or relate one asked of you.

Is it important for you to be right?

It is important to actually be right... like, will this stock go up? Is that truck about to hit me? Would my girlfriend make a good wife?

It's generally not important to be seen and acknowledged as right... though it is flattering to the ego. But that desire causes a lot of unnecessary conflict.

You're right.

Rev. Powell · December 19, 2021, 12:05:34 PM

Quote from: ER on December 19, 2021, 12:03:30 PM
Quote from: Rev. Powell on December 19, 2021, 11:38:25 AM
Quote from: Allhallowsday on December 18, 2021, 11:05:13 PM
Ask one or relate one asked of you.

Is it important for you to be right?

It is important to actually be right... like, will this stock go up? Is that truck about to hit me? Would my girlfriend make a good wife?

It's generally not important to be seen and acknowledged as right... though it is flattering to the ego. But that desire causes a lot of unnecessary conflict.

You're right.

Thanks, that means a lot to me!

RCMerchant · December 19, 2021, 01:16:49 PM

If there isn't a God, would we just invent the concept?

claws · December 19, 2021, 01:55:14 PM

Yes because people need something to believe in. It is in our DNA. Be it Jim Jones or God, doesn't matter.

ER · December 19, 2021, 02:33:40 PM

Likely, yes, RC, and there's no way even now to know whether God is a human invention, or whether a common tendency toward belief in God is imprinted in our DNA because God placed it there.

I remember reading a Billy Graham book my neighbor gave me in high school because she thought all Catholics went to Hell and hoped it'd convert me, and Billy Graham described being in Moscow and meeting a Soviet philosopher who was "Minster For Logic And Atheism" and Graham asked him if he could name a single culture in human history that did not believe in God, and Graham said the Soviet said he could not.

I thought that was a broad question and a shallow answer, since I can think of many cultures that may have had notions of higher beings to which they prayed, but which were not exactly "God" as Graham probably defined God.

Oddly though so many seeming polytheistic faiths, even Hinduism, tell you ultimately they pray to one god, just a god that has many forms.

Question: Does an evil act undertaken for higher good always remain an evil act, or does its service of a higher purpose then make it an act of goodness?

RCMerchant · December 19, 2021, 02:43:08 PM

^ I dunno about my answer to the question you ask, except God flooded the world and killed everyone- but that was good, right?

Allhallowsday · December 19, 2021, 03:00:19 PM

Quote from: RCMerchant on December 19, 2021, 02:43:08 PM
^ I dunno about my answer to the question you ask, except God flooded the world and killed everyone- but that was good, right?

ER · December 19, 2021, 03:30:36 PM

Quote from: RCMerchant on December 19, 2021, 02:43:08 PM
^ I dunno about my answer to the question you ask, except God flooded the world and killed everyone- but that was good, right?

I wasn't really thinking about my question in terms of God, but, yeah, good example. If the record is to be trusted then God flooded the planet, killed countless Egyptian children, ordered the Canaanite genocide, the cruelties and slayings in the Book of Job, yet we are told God is absolute good. How can that be reconciled?

Allhallowsday · December 19, 2021, 04:09:02 PM

Quote from: ER on December 19, 2021, 03:30:36 PM
Quote from: RCMerchant on December 19, 2021, 02:43:08 PM
^ I dunno about my answer to the question you ask, except God flooded the world and killed everyone- but that was good, right?

I wasn't really thinking about my question in terms of God, but, yeah, good example. If the record is to be trusted then God flooded the planet, killed countless Egyptian children, ordered the Canaanite genocide, the cruelties and slayings in the Book of Job, yet we are told God is absolute good. How can that be reconciled?

Hence your challenging question.

ER · December 21, 2021, 04:50:54 PM

I was having a pre-birthday get-together today with my buddy Edie, and she said she kept getting a banner ad for HAVE SEX, GET PAID!

She finally clicked it and it was an offer to become an escort, "with jobs available in any city."

She said, "The ad claimed escorts could make three-hundred dollars a date, and here I been giving it away all the years I been married."

"Yeah," I said, posing a challenging question, "but based on what you've told me about your sex drive, could you afford to live on three-hundred bucks a month?"

Trevor · December 21, 2021, 04:56:48 PM

Quote from: ER on December 21, 2021, 04:50:54 PM

"Yeah," I said, posing a challenging question, "but based on what you've told me about your sex drive, could you afford to live on three-hundred bucks a month?"

Oy