Agreed. Too many differences in fundamental assumptions can make communication difficult.
Could it be that this is your view?
My objection is only that I don’t think we are designed. I would say instead that we have such a need in the sense since God made us finite beings with a nature to grow, learn, and become more.
No, it is what I think you believe. about design.
I do not see a problem with “designing” n terms of control. Whoever designed the machine to choose the lottery balls could not possibly have incorporated a means by which they would now what those balls would be, any time let alone all the time.
My view of god is that he does not try or even want to control, which is why I object to any view of “Judgement” because it automatically sets a criteria to abide by.
The result is a paradox.
No matter who sets or claims the standard, God or man, the net result will be loss of freedom. Freedom, by definition, has to be amoral. Whether that makes God amoral is a mute point.
Judgement is unfair unless all parties are aware of the standards involved and agree to them. Which sort of reverts back to where we stsrted. If humanity has an inbuilt moral code does that make us designed?
And, if we have that moral code does that entitle God to judge us by it. (Rhetorical)
Richard
Can God create a straw so thin He cannot suck water through it?
Somehow I don’t think anyone will be debating this conundrum 20 years from now. 
I guess you don’t have to have straws to suck. We suck in air all the time
Shame, it was a nice thought while it lasted
Richard
We are His imagers – how could we not have a specific need for Him? We were designed to be in relationship to Him.
How you got that out of what he wrote I don’t know.
Which makes God uncaring, unloving.
So you are saying God puts on a show to just make it look unpredictable when it really isn’t because knowing the position and motion of all the balls he knows exactly what the machine will do?
Because otherwise I think it comes down to the same thing I am saying which is that God made the process of life where living things make their own choices and the future is something we write together with God.
In other words it is not design in the absolute sense of how we make machines but only design in a much weaker sense that God made us so that we make our own choices.
Since the Bible uses the word judgement, I consider such an outright repudiation unwise. I certainly think nature demonstrates that the way God does things (as is required by the very process of life) is to make the world work by a fixed set of rules and it is both our responsibility and the very nature of life that we have to learn those rules, otherwise there are consequences (as there must be for there so be any learning, which is the essence of the process of life). In ancient times we had too poor of a grasp on the this and the judgement of a human ruler was simply the best model for understanding it.
When judgement actually means natural consequences then saying it is unfair is like saying it is unfair for someone to fall to their death for simply stepping off the top of a building. But that is BS understanding of fairness. The fairness is in the consistency of the rules and learning those rules is our responsibility and the very essence of life itself. Anything else would be God living our lives for us which is not a good thing at all.
If you followed the conversation and knew what @mitchellmckain beleives you wold know that is not my view but his.
Hoow do you cme to that conclusion?
“spare the rod and spoil the child”?
You are claiming that God mposes Himself onto those who ether cannot see Him or have decided not to follow Him. If so “freedom of choice” is meaningless. and, to be hionest, so is this life in general.
You confuse Love with dominanace and dictsation.True love does not rely on reciprocation or obedience. It loves no matter what and lets them live rather a=tan insisting or imposing specifics.
God loves me despite, not becauxe of what I do and say.
Your model would seem to be based on Orwell’s’ 1984.
…Richard
Edit.
More likely 1984 is based on that Christian model.
George Orwell wrote 1984. H.G Wells is the dude who wrote War of the Worlds and the Time Machine.
Ok, I’m getting old, sorry.
Richard
That’s a clearer statement of what I’ve been trying to say than I’ve managed!
No tests, no growth.
He did that the moment He created us. We continue in existence only due to His sustaining energy.
So anything that can have consequences is meaningless?
I haven’t brought love into it, only that you call many things that are just consequences “judgment”.
This again assumes some sort of neutral condition that puts us on equal status with God.
To use Paul’s metaphor, God is the potter, we are the clay – and you are arguing that it’s okay to be a cracked vase covered in scratches and that that is better than allowing the potter to repair it.
What is dogmatic antidogmatism?
ChatGPT said:
ChatGPT
Dogmatic anti-dogmatism is a concept that seems paradoxical at first glance, as it combines two opposing ideas: dogmatism and anti-dogmatism. Let me break this down:
When these ideas are combined into the term dogmatic antidogmatism, it refers to a stance where someone may reject dogmatism, but does so in a rigid or uncompromising way. In other words, it’s a form of antidogmatism that is itself approached dogmatically.
This paradoxical position might manifest as:
In philosophy or discussions of intellectual positions, this can be viewed as a critique of those who are so firm in their rejection of dogmatism that it becomes a new kind of dogmatism, leaving little room for nuance or dialogue.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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