Every believer in one God is saying he is universal. Their god is the one true god and everyone else is wrong. That is why np one can describe him or his laws or character or purpose. Every faith, sect, cult creates their own. And as someone said, if you create a god it doesn't exist.
I am not go8ng to continue with this Of you know more and change all or some of your mind, that is one outcome. If you don't change your mind that is another outcome . If I care that you change your mind then I set out to do that. If I don't care then I am merely broadening your experience/knowledge and it is up to you to change some or all of your mind. I dont care. OK?
Oh stop it If someone posts additional material I didn't know before, I might accept it or I might not. Yours is evidence of that confrontational tribal sickness that is infecting the USA. I dont care if you take on board what I posit. All I am concerned about is preventing glib, facile and supercilious posts that lack any three dimensional knowledge I am not here to do battle and win prisoners of war. I am here to learn and to contribute information. What you do with it is not my business.
Luther hated a lot of people, it would seem. Coincidentally, at the exact same time Luther was having his debate with Erasmus over the freedom/bondage of the will, the German Peasants' War erupted in the Holy Roman Empire. Since the rebellious peasants embraced much of what Luther had preached one would think he would have been more sympathetic towards them and their cause, which was expressed in a list of demands called The Twelve Articles: Summary of the Twelve Articles[edit] 1. Every town and village shall be entitled to elect and to dismiss its preacher if he misbehaves. The preacher shall preach the gospel simply, straight and clear, without any human additions, for it is written that we can only attain God through true faith. 2. The preachers shall be paid from the great tithe. Any surplus shall be used to help the village poor and pay the war tax. The small tithe shall be abolished, for it was invented by humans, for the Lord, our God, created livestock free for mankind. 3. Until now it has been practice that we have been treated like serfs, which is deplorable, since Christ redeemed all of us with his precious blood, both the shepherd and the nobleman, with no exceptions. Accordingly we hereby declare that we are free and want to remain free. 4. It is unbrotherly and not in accordance with the word of God that the poor man is not entitled to hunt game or fowl, or to fish. Since when God our Lord created man, he gave him power over all beasts, the birds in the air and the fish in the water. 5. The nobles have taken sole possession of the forest. When the poor man needs something, he must buy it for twice its price. Consequently, all the forests that were not bought (meaning former community forests, which many rulers had simply appropriated) shall be returned to the village so that anybody can satisfy his needs therefrom for timber and firewood. 6. The excessive compulsory labour demanded of us, which grows from day to day, should be reduced to the amount that our parents used to perform, according to God's word. 7. The nobility shall not force us to perform more compulsory labour than was agreed upon. (It was common for nobles to raise unilaterally the compulsory labour they demanded of their serfs.) 8. Many fields cannot produce enough to pay the rent demanded for them. Honest men shall inspect these lands and set a fair amount of rent for them, so that farmers need not work for free, because each day's work deserves its pay. 9. New laws are constantly being made to impose new fines. Punishments are not being meted out depend on the offence but instead in an arbitrary fashion (raising fines and arbitrary judgments were common). In our opinion we should be judged in accordance with the old written law, according to the case's merits, instead of on a whim. 10. Many [nobles] have appropriated meadows and fields belonging to the towns (commons, which were at the disposal of all townspeople). We want them returned to all of us in common. 11. The “Todfall” (a sort of inheritance tax) shall be abolished altogether and never again shall widows and orphans be shamefully robbed contrary to God and honour. 12. It is our decision and final opinion that if one or more of the articles listed herein contradict God's word ... we shall rescind them if it is explained to us on the basis of what is written. If any articles were already granted to us and it emerges afterwards that they were unjust, then they shall be null and void. Likewise, all this is subject to the condition that if additional articles are found here written that are against God and a grievance by some other person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Articles Instead, Luther likened the peasants to rabid dogs and encouraged the nobles to massacre them, which is exactly what they did. Up to 100,000 peasants got killed in the slaughter, and so ended the largest popular uprising in Europe prior to the French Revolution. When I first read about this I found it rather shocking given that Luther was largely responsible for the forces that were unleashed during the Revolt.
Yet, I believe even the most convinced Determinist knows he/she is free to sin and reject God, so the while they may believe what they say, the logic doesn't fly. Every day they have to wake up and maintain their faith or "lapse" into sin, so that inconvenient matter of free will just won't go away. And FWIW it flies in the face of Jesus' message about individual agency - we are what we think, say and act. It's what makes us individuals, not the places and roles we got handed in the Order of the Cosmos.
In many ways it's similar to the Peasants Revolt in England, aka, Wat Tyler's Rebellion. Oppressive nobles, social and economic upheaval, religious ferment....
Read your own posts. Even this one basically implies you know the truth and people who disagree with you are uneducated, and if they would only listen to you and get educated, they would agree with you.
I am fed up being thought of as a liar or self delud3d. Either you accept what I spent time telling you or you dont. As I said, I don't care.
Actually, Injeun and I have discussed the matter of agency previously and I gather that he agrees on this.
