Ramblings on morality, temptation, and religion

[cartman]

Some of the posts recently and other things I've read elsewhere have gotten me thinking. I know, some people say that is a dangerous thing, but I thought I'd let me mind and thoughts wander in this post.

Mainly, the thoughts center around the idea of morality police, or arbitrary standards of decency. There are certain religious groups that want to do away with anything that does not fit a strict moral code. On the surface, it is hard to argue with such a stance. If you live a clean life, then you have a good chance of getting into heaven.

But upon closer inspection, is that really the way to go? If you remove all sources of temptation from life, then your faith and beliefs aren't really challenged. If they aren't challenged, then how do you know if you measure up or not? It would seem that the more sources of temptation that are out there that you can avoid, it would be a better show of faith than if there were no temptations at all. As such, wouldn't it show more faith to have many temptations exist that you can avoid, than try to shut them out completely and thus never be tested?

That leads me to my second musing. Why do people feel the need to try and convince other people that they should get into heaven? No amount of politicking or pleading with mortals will give another mortal the ability to get someone into heaven. That ability rests alone with (insert deity of your choice). So why waste cycles trying to convice other mortals of your piety an holiness, when you should be spending the effort convincing the one who make the decision, (insert diety of your choice)? There is nothing I can do personally to get you into heaven, so why try to convice me you deserve to go? I don't care what you think what my chances are to get into heaven, because I know it is not your call. It is between me and (insert deity of your choice), and no one/nothing else.

Like I stated in the beginning, this is something that has been rattling around in my head for a while, so I apologize if some of it didn't make sense, or if I didn't fully complete some of my ideas. I'd be interested to hear what other's thoughts and ideas on these subjects are as well. We'll see how long this stays civil before descending into the morass threads of these types usually end up.

[Franklinnoble]

The Bible says it's better not to tempt your brother. You don't get points for resisting temptation - we're saved by grace, not by works.

[st.cronin]

I think standards of decency aren't neccesarily based on a religious template - they can come from anywhere on the cultural map.

As for your "second musing" I don't think it's any different than people trying to convince other people that they should try green chile or the tv show 24. There is something in my life which interests or delights me, therefore I desire to talk about it.

[MrBigglesworth]

Why do people feel the need to try and convince other people that they should get into heaven? No amount of politicking or pleading with mortals will give another mortal the ability to get someone into heaven. That ability rests alone with (insert deity of your choice). So why waste cycles trying to convice other mortals of your piety an holiness, when you should be spending the effort convincing the one who make the decision, (insert diety of your choice)? There is nothing I can do personally to get you into heaven, so why try to convice me you deserve to go? I don't care what you think what my chances are to get into heaven, because I know it is not your call. It is between me and (insert deity of your choice), and no one/nothing else.
For an agnostic/atheist response to your question, religions, like many other social phenomena, undergo a sort of Lamarckian evolution, where the less fit religions are weeded out. One factor that adds to a religion's fitness is it's ability to increase membership, so religions that have a feature where one tries to convince others to adopt the ways of that religion increase its ability to propogate to the next generation.

st.cronin, I hope nothing in there offended you, as that was not my intention.

[BrianD]

The Bible says it's better not to tempt your brother. You don't get points for resisting temptation - we're saved by grace, not by works.

If we aren't saved by works, can we be damned by works? (honest question)

[st.cronin]

If we aren't saved by works, can we be damned by works? (honest question)

No.

[BrianD]

For the second question, I think people feel the need to convince others about getting into heaven because something that cool should be shared. It is the same reason we tell each other about a sale on the new FM game. Why not let everyone enjoy?

[cartman]

The Bible says it's better not to tempt your brother. You don't get points for resisting temptation - we're saved by grace, not by works.

But if you are not doing the tempting, where is the harm in allowing the temptation to exist? The ones actively tempting are the ones in the wrong according to the Bible. There has to be somethings held up as things and activites to avoid. If there is an attempt to try and remove all temptations, isn't that a try to recreate the Garden of Eden, which can never be reclaimed and is expressly off limits?

[BrianD]

No.

Then does it really matter how we handle temptation? Is morality just an earthly construct?

[st.cronin]

But if you are not doing the tempting, where is the harm in allowing the temptation to exist? The ones actively tempting are the ones in the wrong according to the Bible. There has to be somethings held up as things and activites to avoid. If there is an attempt to try and remove all temptations, isn't that a try to recreate the Garden of Eden, which can never be reclaimed and is expressly off limits?

These are actually very interesting questions.

[st.cronin]

Then does it really matter how we handle temptation? Is morality just an earthly construct?

How we handle temptation is important, because it is what happens in our SOUL that matters, not what we do. What we do can be a reflection of what happens in our soul, as in Greek tragedy, but is not neccesarily so.

[BrianD]

How we handle temptation is important, because it is what happens in our SOUL that matters, not what we do. What we do can be a reflection of what happens in our soul, as in Greek tragedy, but is not neccesarily so.

So giving into temptation isn't bad, but the flaws in our soul that lets us give into the temptation is bad? Is that sort-of what you are saying?

[st.cronin]

So giving into temptation isn't bad, but the flaws in our soul that lets us give into the temptation is bad? Is that sort-of what you are saying?

I think I would agree with that.

[cartman]

For the second question, I think people feel the need to convince others about getting into heaven because something that cool should be shared. It is the same reason we tell each other about a sale on the new FM game. Why not let everyone enjoy?

I agree with this completely. I guess more what I was getting at was those who say "Do as I do, and you will get into heaven. What you are doing now is wrong, and you will never get into heaven." To use your FM example, there isn't one correct way to play the game. You have to play the game the best way you see fit to accomplish whatever your own end goal is, and hope it pleases (insert deity of your choice).

[BrianD]

I agree with this completely. I guess more what I was getting at was those who say "Do as I do, and you will get into heaven. What you are doing now is wrong, and you will never get into heaven." To use your FM example, there isn't one correct way to play the game. You have to play the game the best way you see fit to accomplish whatever your own end goal is, and hope it pleases (insert deity of your choice).

On the one hand, they probably think that they are right and are letting you in on the secret. On the other hand, they are probably looking for some validation. If you agree that their way is right, it strengthens their belief that they are right.

[st.cronin]

I agree with this completely. I guess more what I was getting at was those who say "Do as I do, and you will get into heaven. What you are doing now is wrong, and you will never get into heaven."

Those are like the FOF elitists who deride the Madden enthusiasts as "faggotty joystick jokers." Atheists, then, are like Maximum Football fanboys. In the end, they got nothing. :D

[Franklinnoble]

But if you are not doing the tempting, where is the harm in allowing the temptation to exist? The ones actively tempting are the ones in the wrong according to the Bible. There has to be somethings held up as things and activites to avoid. If there is an attempt to try and remove all temptations, isn't that a try to recreate the Garden of Eden, which can never be reclaimed and is expressly off limits?

Well, the problem is, we live in a democratic society. We're able to do something about it.

If someone puts a measure on the ballot to legalize prostitution in my hometown, I have the obligation to vote against it - even rally against it - because, technically, I am my own government.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

If someone puts a measure on the ballot to legalize prostitution in my hometown, I have the obligation to vote against it - even rally against it - because, technically, I am my own government.

That doesn't really explain why you want to impose these rules on people through the force of government. Say hypothetically that leglized prostitution has been proven to not be socially harmful, or even to be beneficial (this is a hypothetical mind you, I don't want to debate the merits of legal prostitution), and the only reason to oppose it is a matter of religious belief, why would you want to impose adherence to that religious dictate through government force rather than allow people the freedom of choice while encouraging people to accept and adhere to the values of your religion?

And doesn't this approach of trying to institute religious regulations through government become extremely problematic in pluralistic state? What happens when the beliefs of various religions clash and one of those religions has instituted its beliefs through law? Are the adherents of the other religion expected to disregard their religious beliefs to obey the law or violate the law to adhere to their religious beliefs, or are they just expected to leave the country?

[-Mojo Jojo-]

dola.

Barak Obama recently gave a speech on this topic that captures my thoughts on this topic better than I could hope to state them:


For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles.

This brings me to my second point. Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing.

There's a lot more to the speech than I excerpted here. It's well worth reading:

http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote_address/index.html

[Edward64]

st.cronin. Specific to your answer that we cannot be damned by our works, this would seem to indicate you believe that once saved, we can not be 'unsaved'.

I fundamentally disagree with this. In my mind, our works can certainly damn us.

[Groundhog]

dola.

Barak Obama recently gave a speech on this topic that captures my thoughts on this topic better than I could hope to state them:



There's a lot more to the speech than I excerpted here. It's well worth reading:

http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal_keynote_address/index.html

I like this guy.

[Galaxy]

Some of the posts recently and other things I've read elsewhere have gotten me thinking. I know, some people say that is a dangerous thing, but I thought I'd let me mind and thoughts wander in this post.

Mainly, the thoughts center around the idea of morality police, or arbitrary standards of decency. There are certain religious groups that want to do away with anything that does not fit a strict moral code. On the surface, it is hard to argue with such a stance. If you live a clean life, then you have a good chance of getting into heaven.

But upon closer inspection, is that really the way to go? If you remove all sources of temptation from life, then your faith and beliefs aren't really challenged. If they aren't challenged, then how do you know if you measure up or not? It would seem that the more sources of temptation that are out there that you can avoid, it would be a better show of faith than if there were no temptations at all. As such, wouldn't it show more faith to have many temptations exist that you can avoid, than try to shut them out completely and thus never be tested?

That leads me to my second musing. Why do people feel the need to try and convince other people that they should get into heaven? No amount of politicking or pleading with mortals will give another mortal the ability to get someone into heaven. That ability rests alone with (insert deity of your choice). So why waste cycles trying to convice other mortals of your piety an holiness, when you should be spending the effort convincing the one who make the decision, (insert diety of your choice)? There is nothing I can do personally to get you into heaven, so why try to convice me you deserve to go? I don't care what you think what my chances are to get into heaven, because I know it is not your call. It is between me and (insert deity of your choice), and no one/nothing else.

Like I stated in the beginning, this is something that has been rattling around in my head for a while, so I apologize if some of it didn't make sense, or if I didn't fully complete some of my ideas. I'd be interested to hear what other's thoughts and ideas on these subjects are as well. We'll see how long this stays civil before descending into the morass threads of these types usually end up.

Nice thoughts. I'm pretty much been questioning the values and stances of religion (and not agreeing with a lot of it) in my last few years. Part me always question the afterlife? Do we have one? What if what we've thought was right was all wrong?

[Franklinnoble]

st.cronin. Specific to your answer that we cannot be damned by our works, this would seem to indicate you believe that once saved, we can not be 'unsaved'.

I fundamentally disagree with this. In my mind, our works can certainly damn us.

The Bible disagrees with you... I can find the passages addressing this, if you give me a few minutes.

[Franklinnoble]

That doesn't really explain why you want to impose these rules on people through the force of government. Say hypothetically that leglized prostitution has been proven to not be socially harmful, or even to be beneficial (this is a hypothetical mind you, I don't want to debate the merits of legal prostitution), and the only reason to oppose it is a matter of religious belief, why would you want to impose adherence to that religious dictate through government force rather than allow people the freedom of choice while encouraging people to accept and adhere to the values of your religion?

And doesn't this approach of trying to institute religious regulations through government become extremely problematic in pluralistic state? What happens when the beliefs of various religions clash and one of those religions has instituted its beliefs through law? Are the adherents of the other religion expected to disregard their religious beliefs to obey the law or violate the law to adhere to their religious beliefs, or are they just expected to leave the country?

Well, I can't really address that without debating the merits of legal prostitution, since the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, etc. are ALL beneficial to society, and there's no logical way to conclude that violating any of them is NOT harmful to society. God kinda knew what He was doing. I don't think He made rules that weren't practical.

Fundamental Christianity is actually not at all very regimental. You're given guidelines on how to behave towards God, yourself, and your fellow man, but it's not like there's a hard and fast rule about praying 5 times a day when a little buzzer goes off, or anything like that.

The hot-button issues always seem to boil down to selfishness. Abortion is a selfish act. Sex without marriage is a selfish act. Gambling is a selfish act. I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.

[Galaxy]

Well, I can't really address that without debating the merits of legal prostitution, since the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, etc. are ALL beneficial to society, and there's no logical way to conclude that violating any of them is NOT harmful to society. God kinda knew what He was doing. I don't think He made rules that weren't practical.

Fundamental Christianity is actually not at all very regimental. You're given guidelines on how to behave towards God, yourself, and your fellow man, but it's not like there's a hard and fast rule about praying 5 times a day when a little buzzer goes off, or anything like that.

The hot-button issues always seem to boil down to selfishness. Abortion is a selfish act. Sex without marriage is a selfish act. Gambling is a selfish act. I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.


This is where I have a struggle with religion in general. Who "decides" it is a selfish act and what defines a selfish act? Some acts may be selfish to some, but not to others.

[Franklinnoble]

This is where I have a struggle with religion in general. Who "decides" it is a selfish act and what defines a selfish act?

Well, I've always found it to be self-evident. But you can't have salvation shoved down your throat - that much I'll agree with. If the government started instituting a system of mandatory Christianity, I'd have a problem with it.

Missionaries spread the word, but the Holy Spirit does the real work. It'll draw you to the Gospel when you're ready. I can't explain it any better than that. It just convicts you. You see the truth in it, and it shows you where you've gone right, and where you've gone wrong.

That's why most Christians don't feel compelled to do good works out of fear of damnation. It's nothing like that. We know we're saved, but we also know we're wretched, and don't deserve it. We do good works out of thanksgiving, and out of a sincere desire to share what we've found with others.

[Groundhog]

The hot-button issues always seem to boil down to selfishness. Abortion is a selfish act. Sex without marriage is a selfish act. Gambling is a selfish act. I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.

Technically, everyone is living and behaving selfishly, ignorance is no excuse. Capitalism baby; allowing the few to take advantage of the many and less able since the 13th century!

Sad but true. It's just in our nature. Not much that can be done about it, unless someone wants to start a rebellion and make us all sustenance farmers.

[Groundhog]

We know we're saved, but we also know we're wretched, and don't deserve it.

We are as the good Lord made us, I guess...

[watravaler]

Outstanding thread...keep it up.

[Edward64]

I agree, great thread.

St. Cronin and Franklinoble. I am sure there are multitudes of passages in the Bible that support your contention about works, here are some that I googled that support mine.

Does God want works to accompany faith? "What good is it my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have good works, is dead..." (Jam. 2:14-26). Jesus said " not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name? Did we not drive out demons in Your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in Your name?' Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Depart from me you evildoers.' " (Mt.7:21-23) Jesus said to His disciples "For the Son of Man will come with angels in His father's glory, and he will repay everyone in accordance with his conduct." (Mt. 16:27). Jesus answered the rich young man, "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt. 19:16-19) (Mt. 25:31-46, Dan. 4:24, Rev.14:13, 20:13).


Here's the reference website http://www.transporter.com/Fatherpeffley/Apologetics/bible.html. Please note, some of this sites text seems questionable to myself ... I am only referring to the site's quote above.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.

As someone else pointed out, I take it you don't care much for capitalism or free markets?

[-Mojo Jojo-]

On second thought, don't answer the previous post.. like before, I'd rather not argue the point on what is and is not selfish, or perhaps what is good selfish vs. what is bad selfish. The point is that these things are not at all self-evident. On premarital sex, for example, you will find wide variation on intuitions about the selfishness and morality of it. And on the premise that selfishness is inherently bad, you will likewise find a broad difference of opinion. I'm sure these matters could easily occupy an entire thread, but preferably not this one... In any case they are not self-evident.

So if you would please go back to my first scenario and answer it, accepting the basic premise, I would be very interested to see your reply. I'll repost it here for convenience:

Say hypothetically that leglized prostitution has been proven to not be socially harmful, or even to be beneficial (this is a hypothetical mind you, I don't want to debate the merits of legal prostitution), and the only reason to oppose it is a matter of religious belief, why would you want to impose adherence to that religious dictate through government force rather than allow people the freedom of choice while encouraging people to accept and adhere to the values of your religion?

And doesn't this approach of trying to institute religious regulations through government become extremely problematic in pluralistic state? What happens when the beliefs of various religions clash and one of those religions has instituted its beliefs through law? Are the adherents of the other religion expected to disregard their religious beliefs to obey the law or violate the law to adhere to their religious beliefs, or are they just expected to leave the country?

[revrew]

Mojo, regarding above post:

The first hypothetical paragraph runs into the following problem: most religions equate immoral with socially or personally harmful (so long as the deity is seen as good and/or philanthropic). To "prove" otherwise is to "prove" a tenet of the religion as wrong. Believers must then either ammend that tenet or discount the study that "proved" it. A fundamentalist of any religion, by definition, would discount the study. Put simply, many would say, "It's harmful, whether you so-called 'proved' it or not."

The second paragraph poses a historical dilemma. A government of the people is based upon a social contract (i.e. constitution) and the people's willingness to abide by that contract. But what do you do when the terms of that contract have changed through time, against the will of the people who agreed to it? Such is the case with the U.S. Constitution, especially on the subject of separation of church and state. Though our first ammendment was created with the intent of keeping government out of the church's affairs, time (through the Supreme Court) has switched that intent around. Though the nation was founded with a largely homogenous religous base, the constitution being a contract among brothers of largely similar viewpoint...we have become an increasingly pluralistic society. If we looked at today's government and asked the founding fathers to sign the constitution that governs it, many would likely refuse. Likewise, many today who still hold to the religious worldview of those founding fathers feel as though parties within the country have arrested the social contract and corrupted it to their own ends.

Your paragraph, "doesn't this approach of trying to institute religious regulations through government become extremely problematic in a pluralistic state," should really be turned around: namely, "Doesn't the approach of maintaining the government's religious foundations become extremely problematic as the state grows increasingly pluralistic?" And the answer is yes. Some would say, "Throw out the base to govern the pluralism" (see Sen. Obama's comments above). Others say, "We agreed to the base, it is the thread that binds us together, it's the country we've created and want to live in; make the pluralistic adapt."

[Honolulu_Blue]

Well, I can't really address that without debating the merits of legal prostitution, since the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, etc. are ALL beneficial to society, and there's no logical way to conclude that violating any of them is NOT harmful to society. God kinda knew what He was doing. I don't think He made rules that weren't practical.

I'll give you that the Ten Commadments seem pretty practical. Most of them, at least. The Golden Rule, most definitely. But there are dozens upon dozens of "rules" in the Bible that are the antithesis of practical.

The hot-button issues always seem to boil down to selfishness. Abortion is a selfish act. Sex without marriage is a selfish act. Gambling is a selfish act. I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.

Over generalize much? Sure, there are times when all of the acts noted above are done for selfish reasons, but there are also a number of times when they are done for reasons far greater and much more complicated than simple selfishness.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

I agree, great thread.

St. Cronin and Franklinoble. I am sure there are multitudes of passages in the Bible that support your contention about works, here are some that I googled that support mine.

Does God want works to accompany faith? "What good is it my brothers, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat well,' but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it? So also faith of itself, if it does not have good works, is dead..." (Jam. 2:14-26). Jesus said " not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name? Did we not drive out demons in Your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in Your name?' Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Depart from me you evildoers.' " (Mt.7:21-23) Jesus said to His disciples "For the Son of Man will come with angels in His father's glory, and he will repay everyone in accordance with his conduct." (Mt. 16:27). Jesus answered the rich young man, "If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments. You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and mother; and you shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Mt. 19:16-19) (Mt. 25:31-46, Dan. 4:24, Rev.14:13, 20:13).


Here's the reference website http://www.transporter.com/Fatherpeffley/Apologetics/bible.html. Please note, some of this sites text seems questionable to myself ... I am only referring to the site's quote above.


Just thought I'd chime in on this one. The crux of the passages above, and therefore the whole issue, is whether or not the works cause the faith or evidence it. The easiest way to answer that is not only the context of those passages but Ephesians 2: 8-10: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."

The paradox, as some see it, is that one set of passages will seem to suggest works and the other faith. The difference is that one set is setting for evidentiary support that your faith is real and the other setting forth causitive support for the source of your faith. Different yet intricately related aspects of what is Biblical faith. The above passage includes a touch of synecdoche as it shows that part of the reason for being saved is to do good works.

There are several other passages that suggest the evidentiary items are not just what we do, but even why we do them. The most prominent and broadsweeping is I John 5:13 that says, "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life." What things had been written thusfar? 5+ chapters of basic how and why Christianity.

Excellent thread. Thank you to everyone for an intelligent discussion of this important topic regardless of where you fall on it.

[Warhammer]

We are only able to enter heaven through the grace of God. If we are faithful followers of God, we will perform good works. If we are not faithful followers, then we will not.

It is possible to proclaim faith, but not back it up by works. However, is the person really a man of faith? No.

However, even though straying from God repeatedly with no remorse will bar heaven to them, no amount of good works will gain entry for anyone. It is only through God's Will and Grace that he will be allowed to enter.

[Franklinnoble]

I'm just glad revrew decided to contribute here. He's much wiser than I am when it comes to Biblical knowledge. :)

[Raiders Army]

This is a great thread. For the most part, I think religion is a product of groupthink. Unfortunately, no one has any hard proof that there is a God (or Gods) nor can anyone prove there is a Heaven or Hell.

All acts are inherently selfish and people act in their own interests. I think that when a person's acts intrude on other people's rights their acts are "bad" selfish. That's the litmus test for me.

[Ajaxab]

This is a great thread. For the most part, I think religion is a product of groupthink. Unfortunately, no one has any hard proof that there is a God (or Gods) nor can anyone prove there is a Heaven or Hell.

Agreed on this being a good thread. As for the notion of proof, it seems to hinge on what counts as proof. If one only accepts scientific proof, then it will be considerably more difficult to 'prove' the existence of a deity than with other kinds of proof. If one accepts logical proofs, then there seems to be a whole lot more room for proof to exist.

So the key issue for me involves what counts as proof, how we define legitimate and illegitimate proof with these sorts of questions.

[revrew]

All acts are inherently selfish and people act in their own interests. I think that when a person's acts intrude on other people's rights their acts are "bad" selfish. That's the litmus test for me.

I see your point, but the question of what does and doesn't constitute a "right" is, in itself, a moral question, dependent on a person's worldview. For example, one might see polygamy as a right between consenting adults based on a certain worldview, while another may see it as a violation of women's rights based on another worldview. Or, more practically, the whole question of abortion. Mom's right to chose vs. baby's right to live. The point is simply, you can't speak of rights without necessarily referring to a (conscious or subconscious) moral framework.

[revrew]

I'm just glad revrew decided to contribute here. He's much wiser than I am when it comes to Biblical knowledge. :)

I don't know about wiser in biblical knowledge, but perhaps in grammatical knowledge--"biblical" isn't capitalized ;)

[Franklinnoble]

I don't know about wiser in biblical knowledge, but perhaps in grammatical knowledge--"biblical" isn't capitalized ;)


Doh!

Maybe I should retain Storycraft Communications to edit my posts. :D

[Edward64]

We are only able to enter heaven through the grace of God. If we are faithful followers of God, we will perform good works. If we are not faithful followers, then we will not.

It is possible to proclaim faith, but not back it up by works. However, is the person really a man of faith? No.

However, even though straying from God repeatedly with no remorse will bar heaven to them, no amount of good works will gain entry for anyone. It is only through God's Will and Grace that he will be allowed to enter.

Warhammer. Surely there are cases where someone was saved as a teenager and much later in life, did 'straying from God repeatedly with no remorse'.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Thanks for your post, I think it was very helpful.



The first hypothetical paragraph runs into the following problem: most religions equate immoral with socially or personally harmful (so long as the deity is seen as good and/or philanthropic). To "prove" otherwise is to "prove" a tenet of the religion as wrong. Believers must then either ammend that tenet or discount the study that "proved" it. A fundamentalist of any religion, by definition, would discount the study. Put simply, many would say, "It's harmful, whether you so-called 'proved' it or not."

I think from a descriptive perspective you are entirely correct. Unfortunately, as the Obama talk points out, this approach is antithetical to pluralistic democracy. There is no room for deliberation, compromise, or moderation in positions like this. There is also a certain arrogance in assuming infallibility in the face of contrary data. I find that to be troublesome for the American approach to government...


Though the nation was founded with a largely homogenous religous base, the constitution being a contract among brothers of largely similar viewpoint...

I'm not sure that's true. As Obama also pointed out, this country, while overwhelmingly Christian, had serious sectarian divisions at our founding. And while sectarian divisions are not such a biggie today, a great deal of blood was shed in Europe over these sectarian divides, and that violence played no small role in driving colonists to America. Weariness over state-based religious conflict (the Thirty Years War) was also crucial in shaping the religiously tolerant and rationalist Enlightenment thinking (see John Locke) that inspired the colonials. The founders had this history close in mind when they made religious freedom a key tenet of American government. We have more different religions in the U.S. now, but I would venture fewer serious sectarian clashes.

If we looked at today's government and asked the founding fathers to sign the constitution that governs it, many would likely refuse. Likewise, many today who still hold to the religious worldview of those founding fathers feel as though parties within the country have arrested the social contract and corrupted it to their own ends.

More ink has been spilled on the topic of the religious beliefs of the founders than any sane person would want to read, but I believe, like Solecismic, that many of them would be unable to be elected to public office today due to the lack of orthodoxy of their vague deist beliefs.


"Doesn't the approach of maintaining the government's religious foundations become extremely problematic as the state grows increasingly pluralistic?" And the answer is yes. Some would say, "Throw out the base to govern the pluralism" (see Sen. Obama's comments above). Others say, "We agreed to the base, it is the thread that binds us together, it's the country we've created and want to live in; make the pluralistic adapt."

a) I would be curious to know what the religious foundations of the government are, in some more specific sense, the "base" as you refer to it. Is not our government's religious base, at least as it appears the constitution comprised of free exercise, non-establishment, and no religious tests for office? If there is any base that binds us together, I would tend to think that it would be the principles of liberty and democracy enshrined in our founding documents...

b) I think it's misleading to say "make the pluralistic adapt". In reality you're saying make everyone who does not subscribe to the state religion adapt. And if you are arguing that this is a position that the founding fathers would support, I'm afraid you are mistaken. They lived in that society. The Church of England was an instrument of state power, and those who were not members of it were indeed forced to adapt. The colonials fought a war to be free of it, and wrote in quite explicit language in the Constitution that their new government was supposed to be different.

[molson]

Agreed on this being a good thread. As for the notion of proof, it seems to hinge on what counts as proof. If one only accepts scientific proof, then it will be considerably more difficult to 'prove' the existence of a deity than with other kinds of proof. If one accepts logical proofs, then there seems to be a whole lot more room for proof to exist.

So the key issue for me involves what counts as proof, how we define legitimate and illegitimate proof with these sorts of questions.

And thus, those who are truly damned, above all others, (in a Christian world) are those who are predisposed to science and scientific explanations. Even though those "gifts" were seemingly given by God himself.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

I don't know about wiser in biblical knowledge, but perhaps in grammatical knowledge--"biblical" isn't capitalized ;)

If I were to turn in a paper in one of my religion classes that didn't capitalize Biblical, I would at least get a note reminding me to do so and would probably lose a point.

[Raiders Army]

I see your point, but the question of what does and doesn't constitute a "right" is, in itself, a moral question, dependent on a person's worldview. For example, one might see polygamy as a right between consenting adults based on a certain worldview, while another may see it as a violation of women's rights based on another worldview. Or, more practically, the whole question of abortion. Mom's right to chose vs. baby's right to live. The point is simply, you can't speak of rights without necessarily referring to a (conscious or subconscious) moral framework.
Totally true. I guess I'm assuming the regular U.S. Constitutional rights. I had a great conversation with my new officemate and he was talking about how different cultures view things. In some cultures it's okay to have polygamy; in others it is not condoned. I'm sorry but I'll revisit this thread when I'm totally sober because I think I'm not making sense at this point.

[Schmidty]

I just noticed this thread.

For the sake of my own sanity, and my fellow FOFCers nerves, I am going to try to stay totally out of it.

I think most of you know where I stand.

[Bonegavel]

Food for thought

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

[cartman]

Food for thought

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager
Pen and paper and speadsheets is such a boring way of determining the existence of God. I'm waiting for Maximum-Deity.

:D

[cartman]

Dola,

To get back on course, I'm curious about others thoughts on what I brought up earlier, regarding the possibility that the active suppession of temptations is a way of trying to recreate the Garden of Eden. Since the cast out from the garden of Eden, temptations are part of the curse of original sin.

[molson]

Food for thought

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

Hard to argue with the logic of that. But, can one really choose whether to sincerely believe in God or not? If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be tricked into validating a faith that is motivated only by hedging one's bets. If salvation/damnation is based only on presence of faith, then all of our fates are based on personal attributes we were born with.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

Hard to argue with the logic of that. But, can one really choose whether to sincerely believe in God or not? If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be tricked into validating a faith that is motivated only by hedging one's bets. If salvation/damnation is based only on presence of faith, then all of our fates are based on personal attributes we were born with.

Depends on the source of faith. If it is from within us, then you're correct. If it is external, which is the biblical teaching according to Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 10:17, then faith is its own validation.

[molson]

Depends on the source of faith. If it is from within us, then you're correct. If it is external, which is the biblical teaching according to Ephesians 2:8-9 and Romans 10:17, then faith is its own validation.

But if the source of faith is external, what seperates the saved from the damned? Isn't it personal characteristics that either accept or deny these external sources of faith?

[Ajaxab]

And thus, those who are truly damned, above all others, (in a Christian world) are those who are predisposed to science and scientific explanations. Even though those "gifts" were seemingly given by God himself.

If I'm reading your statement correctly (feel free to clarify), this would be the point where I would depart from your position. At base, I would argue that the founding tenets of science are not scientifically verifiable, but are simply held as philosophically basic, that is, simply accepted as is. The existence of God can be held as a philosphically basic principle in the same way that a belief that all knowledge can be known through the senses can be held as philosophically basic. How one might prove either of these arguments scientifically is beyond me. I would be open to hearing arguments.

[Groundhog]

Hard to argue with the logic of that. But, can one really choose whether to sincerely believe in God or not? If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be tricked into validating a faith that is motivated only by hedging one's bets. If salvation/damnation is based only on presence of faith, then all of our fates are based on personal attributes we were born with.

I think this is the key. I don't believe you can merely choose to believe in God either. You should believe in God because you know, without a shadow of doubt, that he exists.

From my experience, the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians - in my age bracket, at least - are those that I'd classify as 'hedging their bets'. They talk the talk, but act only with the "Christian way" in mind when it suits themselves.

I doubt very much that they question their faith too deeply, probably because most people don't ever find the need to until disaster strikes or they approach old age. It's just not a priority for most in their youth when there is so much else going on. I'd stop short of saying they have their tongue in cheek when they say they believe in God, but again only because it's not a topic that they give a lot of thought to. In fact, if pressed, most of these people tend to be Agnostic.

I on the other hand do think and read a lot about religion these days. When I was young I believed in God just like I believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus; because I was told he existed. Even when I hit my early teens I still prayed on occassion, but I found myself not really believing what I was praying. I was definately "hedging my bets", and had no real conviction that I was doing anything more than praying to myself.

Then as I got older I started reading about the many, many other religions out there, as I'd honestly had no idea exactly how many people didn't believe in the same God that I'd been brought up to believe in. I started reading their histories and was surprised that many of them were just as old as Christianity, and all seemed just as valid and likely. The fact that the Christian God condemned people who followed other religions seemed so wrong to me, because children follow whichever religion happens to have been followed by their parents the majority of the time - much like how I was Christian merely because my parents were - so how is it fair that they are punished for it?

I guess the point of this rant is that I do want to believe in God, I really do. I'd love for there to be an afterlife, and for me to be able to see my father for the first time since he passed away when I was 1 year old, along with every other person I loved who is now gone. Unfortunately, I can't make myself believe that, because deep down I know I'd be lying to myself, and nothing short of a full-blown and clear miracle will ever change that.

I never once sat down and said "I don't want to believe in God", I just lost my faith gradually as I grew up, without even realizing it until it had happened. If it turns out I'm wrong and I get damned to eternal damnation or whatever, then so be it, but I don't want to believe in a God that would allow something like that to happen.

[molson]

If I'm reading your statement correctly (feel free to clarify), this would be the point where I would depart from your position. At base, I would argue that the founding tenets of science are not scientifically verifiable, but are simply held as philosophically basic, that is, simply accepted as is. The existence of God can be held as a philosphically basic principle in the same way that a belief that all knowledge can be known through the senses can be held as philosophically basic. How one might prove either of these arguments scientifically is beyond me. I would be open to hearing arguments.

I don't disagree with you. I used a scientific disposition as just one example of a personal characteristic that would lead one to damnation. For another, read Groundhog's post above this one. Under Christiantity, Groundhog's experiences, and the failure of his faith, would lead to damnation. Why him? Would he deserve that? Why would someone else, who turned to God only because they faced personal struggle, be saved? What seperates the saved from the damned? The answer, from my point of view, seems to be inherent personal characteristics and arbitrary life experiences. Why would God create Groundhog, as he is, just so he'd be cast into hell?

The converse point can also be made. Certain people are born "believers". They want to believe that there's more to life and existence than what they can easily perceive. In Christiantiy, this personal, innate characteristic is more important than anything else. Some people just aren't born with that kind of disposition, and have never otherwise been "reached" by God.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

But if the source of faith is external, what seperates the saved from the damned? Isn't it personal characteristics that either accept or deny these external sources of faith?

Despite what is taught in many christian circles today, the classical christian position is that we are all spiritually stillborn (Ephesians 2:1-7), God knew this before time and space were created and chose, by means known only to God, whom to grant faith (Ephesians 1:3-14) and that God has the right and character to best determine whom to grant that faith to (Romans 9). It's not the most easily palatable view, and always falls out of favor in christian circles the moment any religious freedom (or worse political favor) is granted, but it is the grammatical requirement of those three texts especially.

Now, if the bible were not true, then our definition of the source of faith, and what activates it, would be up for debate. As I'm sure that many here won't agree with the biblically espoused view, I understand why there will be argument/disagreement. I'm just working off of what seems to be the clear intention of the biblical texts which I do accept as the definitive source of truth.

[molson]

Despite what is taught in many christian circles today, the classical christian position is that we are all spiritually stillborn (Ephesians 2:1-7), God knew this before time and space were created and chose, by means known only to God, whom to grant faith (Ephesians 1:3-14) and that God has the right and character to best determine whom to grant that faith to (Romans 9). It's not the most easily palatable view, and always falls out of favor in christian circles the moment any religious freedom (or worse political favor) is granted, but it is the grammatical requirement of those three texts especially.

Now, if the bible were not true, then our definition of the source of faith, and what activates it, would be up for debate. As I'm sure that many here won't agree with the biblically espoused view, I understand why there will be argument/disagreement. I'm just working off of what seems to be the clear intention of the biblical texts which I do accept as the definitive source of truth.

Thanks - it's kind of refreshing to hear that viewpoint. I can only wonder what else Sunday School/Sanitized American Christianity has altered from the biblical texts.

[Galaxy]

I think this is the key. I don't believe you can merely choose to believe in God either. You should believe in God because you know, without a shadow of doubt, that he exists.

From my experience, the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians - in my age bracket, at least - are those that I'd classify as 'hedging their bets'. They talk the talk, but act only with the "Christian way" in mind when it suits themselves.

I doubt very much that they question their faith too deeply, probably because most people don't ever find the need to until disaster strikes or they approach old age. It's just not a priority for most in their youth when there is so much else going on. I'd stop short of saying they have their tongue in cheek when they say they believe in God, but again only because it's not a topic that they give a lot of thought to. In fact, if pressed, most of these people tend to be Agnostic.

I on the other hand do think and read a lot about religion these days. When I was young I believed in God just like I believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus; because I was told he existed. Even when I hit my early teens I still prayed on occassion, but I found myself not really believing what I was praying. I was definately "hedging my bets", and had no real conviction that I was doing anything more than praying to myself.

Then as I got older I started reading about the many, many other religions out there, as I'd honestly had no idea exactly how many people didn't believe in the same God that I'd been brought up to believe in. I started reading their histories and was surprised that many of them were just as old as Christianity, and all seemed just as valid and likely. The fact that the Christian God condemned people who followed other religions seemed so wrong to me, because children follow whichever religion happens to have been followed by their parents the majority of the time - much like how I was Christian merely because my parents were - so how is it fair that they are punished for it?

I guess the point of this rant is that I do want to believe in God, I really do. I'd love for there to be an afterlife, and for me to be able to see my father for the first time since he passed away when I was 1 year old, along with every other person I loved who is now gone. Unfortunately, I can't make myself believe that, because deep down I know I'd be lying to myself, and nothing short of a full-blown and clear miracle will ever change that.

I never once sat down and said "I don't want to believe in God", I just lost my faith gradually as I grew up, without even realizing it until it had happened. If it turns out I'm wrong and I get damned to eternal damnation or whatever, then so be it, but I don't want to believe in a God that would allow something like that to happen.


Groundhog,
This is exactly how I feel. My biggest question for me is the conflict of religions (even within the Christian branch) and the over-emphasis on historial texts. To go with your statement of the Christian religion condemning others of practicing other religions, isn't the belief of the other religions, such as Judaism and Islam founded on the idea of God. With the bickering of these three religions, I've always thinking to myself about the existence of God, or the motives of God. We are all suppose to be the children of God, so why would God (who is a superior being of God) expect us not to think differently? Do we place too much emphasis on historical texts, such as the Bible?

[TheGreatestManAlive]

Groundhog,
We are all suppose to be the children of God....

Are we all children of God? That's a theory that is often espoused, but the Christian view cannot be as such. Ephesians 1:5 expresses that as a result of faith. I know you're not claiming any orthodox Christian view on things, but thought it may help you try and sort things out if you realized that the biblical view explicitly denies the concept of everyone as part of the children of God.

[Groundhog]

Groundhog,
This is exactly how I feel. My biggest question for me is the conflict of religions (even within the Christian branch) and the over-emphasis on historial texts. To go with your statement of the Christian religion condemning others of practicing other religions, isn't the belief of the other religions, such as Judaism and Islam founded on the idea of God. With the bickering of these three religions, I've always thinking to myself about the existence of God, or the motives of God. We are all suppose to be the children of God, so why would God (who is a superior being of God) expect us not to think differently? Do we place too much emphasis on historical texts, such as the Bible?

Yeah, they are all founded around the idea of a God or Gods. The concept of "God" is universal. The aborigines of Australia, cut off from the rest of the world for so long, have their stories of dreamtime and "Gods" (in the form of animals) to explain creation of the world, and Mayans also had their own very unique concept of Gods. The Greeks had their Zeus, the Japanese had their Sun Goddess, etc. The idea of a God/s seems to be an entirely natural and instinctual development for a society.

Religion is, to me, man's attempt to explain and understand these Gods. This is why I'd never call myself a Christian or a Islamist or whatever, because I can't look at these religions and bibles as the word of God. They were (again, in my opinion) written by men, long ago, to try and explain the Gods that they had come to believe governed their daily lives. The individual doctrines differ from region to region and culture to culture, but are all generally about a master Creator who rewards good and punishes evil at their core.

When a particular society is taken over or dissapears, so too does it's religion - replaced in time (or imposed upon, to be more honest) by the religion of the society that conquered it.

I am open to the possibility that there was an original intelligent creator - a "God" - that started this game of life that we are all apart of. The fact that all cultures seem to have attributed the creation of life to a Godly act might account for this, or it could just mean that it's natural for us to explain away things we don't understand to mystical, Godly powers. But still, it would be futile for me to guess at this "God's" purpose, if there was any. I certainly wouldn't look to a collection of ancient texts that was edited and put together in secret centuries after the events took place, which then went on to be used as a powerful political tool.

[Groundhog]

dola


I certainly wouldn't look to a collection of ancient texts that was edited and put together in secret centuries after the events took place, which then went on to be used as a powerful political tool.

That came out harsher than I intended. I know that there are many folks here who accept the Christian bible as the absolute truth, and I don't mean to slam your beliefs... these are just my opinions.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

dola
I certainly wouldn't look to a collection of ancient texts that was edited and put together in secret centuries after the events took place, which then went on to be used as a powerful political tool.


That came out harsher than I intended. I know that there are many folks here who accept the Christian bible as the absolute truth, and I don't mean to slam your beliefs... these are just my opinions.

On the idea expressed there, might I recommend looking into those claims a bit more? The idea of "editing", "secrets" etc. holds no historical water. The Christian Bible can be completely reconstructed (sans 11 verses) simply from quotations in the Anti-Nicene fathers writings to each other. Add in the mountains of evidence for acceptance as to which texts were authentic well before Nicea, and the only legitmate argument is whether or not they're true. The New Testament texts alone have more than 24k manuscripts with a 99.9998% accuracy (with most inaccuracies being the additions of double letters and punctuation) with no letter in the NT without full manuscript support beyond 200 years. No other book of antiquity is even close to that standard. The argument is only whether those texts are true or not, not if what is available is legitimately what was written.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

When a particular society is taken over or dissapears, so too does it's religion - replaced in time (or imposed upon, to be more honest) by the religion of the society that conquered it.




Really? Can you then explain the constant resurgance of Christianity over 2 millenia?

[Franklinnoble]

Hebrew was thought to be a dead language, too.

[revrew]

Regarding the plethora of God myths from different cultures around the world and the trustworthiness of any one over the other (detailed in Groundhog's post above, but evident in a handful of other posts):

Were it not for one important factor, I would agree with you completely. The Greeks have their myths, the Jews theirs, the Aborigines theirs. Why believe any one over the other? Were it not for the person of Jesus, I would see the Old Testament as reliable as Greek mythology. But...the Jesus factor.

Now, some leaders claim great "visions" and insight from heaven. Muhammad, Moses, Joseph Smith, Jesus, David Koresh, Buddha, etc. Why believe any one over the other? Were it not for the wholly unique claims and evidences surrounding Jesus, they could all be fruitcakes.

I'm no blind acceptor of Christianity. Were it not for Jesus, I'd throw it on the heap with all the other world's religions. But I have seen ample evidence that Jesus came into the world at a time when fireside myth was being replaced by legitimate history. I have seen ample evidence that Jesus validated his claims, not only through the impact of his teaching, but through predicting and executing a resurrection from the dead. I have no doubt that his resurrection has ample historical evidence. And so do his teachings and miracles.

Now, if David Koresh, Muhammad, or any other such "prophet" could pull that off, I'd have a serious quandry. And though other god myths also have "resurrections" (such as the Greek myths), these all happened in pre-historical, pre-science times. I can throw those on the pile of fireside tall tales. I can't do that with Jesus' resurrection.

Prove to me that Jesus never rose from the dead, and I'll call Christianity a myth like any other. Even hardened skeptics, however, have sought to prove the resurrection false, and came to the opposite conclusion.

[revrew]

Dola,

To get back on course, I'm curious about others thoughts on what I brought up earlier, regarding the possibility that the active suppession of temptations is a way of trying to recreate the Garden of Eden. Since the cast out from the garden of Eden, temptations are part of the curse of original sin.

I'll try to get back on track with ya, cartman;) But I don't entirely understand your question.

Temptation existed even in the Garden of Eden. Sin did not. And the conseqences of sin are the curse, not the temptations.

So when you say "active suppression of temptation" do you simply mean the modern push for less sex on TV, public decency, etc?

If so, I don't think the motivation is an attempt to create Utopia. I think the motivation is a belief that treating the human body as a sexualized object, rather than as a whole person; that vulgarity is an offense and degradation of the mind; that violence is a cultural devalue-er of all life; etc--that these things tear down our society, increase lawlessnes and cruelty, and harm the individuals exposed to it. I don't want myself, my neighbor, or my children harmed by this crass, value-less society. It's not that I want to create utopia, but that I want to see less harm and injustice done.

Is that on track with your topic?

[Warhammer]

Warhammer. Surely there are cases where someone was saved as a teenager and much later in life, did 'straying from God repeatedly with no remorse'.

You are right. I have known people that have lost all faith in God after a significant event in their life.

A couple that my parents are friends with used to be fervent Southern Baptists. A nephew (I think this was the relation, not crucial to the story though) of theirs was struck by lightning and died. The boy was 15 years old. They lost all faith in God because, "How could God allow this to happen? He was a wonderful kid."

If you have no faith or belief in God, there is no way you are getting to heaven. Now, one could ask, as I do, how strong was their faith to begin with. I would argue not very, or they were not used to challenges to their faith. The result was when their faith was challenged, their faith was broken.

[cartman]

Hebrew was thought to be a dead language, too.

Ancient Hebrew, for all intents and purposes, is dead. It is only learned and studied by a few scholars and interested parties. Ancient Hebrew is very far removed from modern day Hebrew. A point of comparison would be Old English, of a primary example being the original authoring of Beowulf. Old English is considered a dead language as well, in the same class as ancient Hebrew.

[BrianD]

Prove to me that Jesus never rose from the dead, and I'll call Christianity a myth like any other. Even hardened skeptics, however, have sought to prove the resurrection false, and came to the opposite conclusion.

I'm not trying to take sides in this debate, but trying to prove a negative assertion is pretty much impossible. In a situation like this, proving the positive assertion is pretty much impossible as well. We have no scientific tools or measurements dealing with resurrection. All way can take is eyewitness evidence and stories of that evidence. You can believe either assertion, but I don't think you can prove either.

[cartman]

I'll try to get back on track with ya, cartman;) But I don't entirely understand your question.

Temptation existed even in the Garden of Eden. Sin did not. And the conseqences of sin are the curse, not the temptations.

So when you say "active suppression of temptation" do you simply mean the modern push for less sex on TV, public decency, etc?

If so, I don't think the motivation is an attempt to create Utopia. I think the motivation is a belief that treating the human body as a sexualized object, rather than as a whole person; that vulgarity is an offense and degradation of the mind; that violence is a cultural devalue-er of all life; etc--that these things tear down our society, increase lawlessnes and cruelty, and harm the individuals exposed to it. I don't want myself, my neighbor, or my children harmed by this crass, value-less society. It's not that I want to create utopia, but that I want to see less harm and injustice done.

Is that on track with your topic?

Yep, that helps. But the on-topic post I made earlier was more point to my other post about Maximum-Deity. :)

I guess I wasn't completely clear on my post. I mean to refer to trying to create a Garden of Eden to the state before temptation existed with the apple offering. And I didn't have in mind any specific form of temptation, rather all forms.

I can also see the desire to protect and shield people from being exposed to temptations and having them fall prey. But isn't part of the overall spiritual journey being aware of the temptations, and choosing not to partake? It seems, to me at least, that trying to eliminate temptations instead of acknowledging them and making a concious choice to not be taken in by them, is substitution to try and not give Eve the choice of biting the apple or not.

[TheGreatestManAlive]

I guess I wasn't completely clear on my post. I mean to refer to trying to create a Garden of Eden to the state before temptation existed with the apple offering.


Tomato, not apple. I have absolutely no evidence as such, but due to the horrid taste of tomato I have determined to convince people that it, not the wonderful apple, was the fruit of the fall and is now cursed with its wretched taste.

Now back to the regularly scheduled discussion.

[revrew]

I'm not trying to take sides in this debate, but trying to prove a negative assertion is pretty much impossible. In a situation like this, proving the positive assertion is pretty much impossible as well. We have no scientific tools or measurements dealing with resurrection. All way can take is eyewitness evidence and stories of that evidence. You can believe either assertion, but I don't think you can prove either.

Depends on which court you seek to "prove" it in. If the court is a scientific test tube, you're right. But in a legal court, eyewitness accounts can convict a man of murder. In a historical court, the bulk of written accounts verify an event as historical. Both lawyers and historians have submitted the resurrection of Christ to their standards and have found it verifiable, proved in the affirmative beyond many, many other historical assertions we accept as "fact".

As I mentioned earlier, however, fundamentalist adherent of any faith can choose to deny any standard of "proof" in favor of their beliefs. Muslims, if I remember correctly, choose to believe Jesus did not die but "swoon." Jehovah's Witnesses choose to believe Jesus was resurrected as an angel, not a bodily resurrection. And fundamentalist skeptics/agnostics have written many books, held to many theories, launched many arguments to contradict what is otherwise "proven."

(And by the way, I know I'm threatening to threadjack here--I'm not trying!--my point is not that Jesus "proved" he was God or that Christianity is the only logical religion, or anything like that. My point was simply that I cannot relegate Christianity to the stockpile of man's myths when it lays a verifiable, historical, supernatural event as its foundation.)

[revrew]

[QUOTE=cartman]I can also see the desire to protect and shield people from being exposed to temptations and having them fall prey. But isn't part of the overall spiritual journey being aware of the temptations, and choosing not to partake? QUOTE]

I think I detect a hint of Eastern/Oriental influence in this argument. While many Eastern religions would say, "temptation and resisting it is part of the journey," under the assumption that all parts of "the journey" are necessary for spiritual growth/enlightenment--Christianity (at least Western Christianity) takes no such view. Though, of course, we will all face temptations, Christians are taught to run/flee/avoid temptation, because freedom from sin--not weather-tested and tried resistance to temptation--is the goal. We are closer to God in sinlessness, not closer in our developed resistance.

I don't know, maybe I'm off base here, but I can see a monk in orange robes saying, "Grasshopper...you will open your eyes and feel the power of temptation. But only in seeing and turning will you grow stronger." Whereas God would say, "Avert your eyes as you go by, and do not give temptation an opportunity to ensnare you."

[Crapshoot]

I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.


And you're a capitalist ? This statement is the antithesis of that particular strain of thought.

[BrianD]

Depends on which court you seek to "prove" it in. If the court is a scientific test tube, you're right. But in a legal court, eyewitness accounts can convict a man of murder. In a historical court, the bulk of written accounts verify an event as historical. Both lawyers and historians have submitted the resurrection of Christ to their standards and have found it verifiable, proved in the affirmative beyond many, many other historical assertions we accept as "fact".

That is true, but in a murder trial, witnesses usually have scientific backing to what they witness. You can scientifically prove a gun was fired and then combine that with a witness of who fired the gun. Proving a resurrection through witnesses is a little tougher since people don't have experiences with resurrection. Having multiple witness reports surely makes the account more believeable, but we also have multiple witness reports on UFOs. I'm not trying to argue that the resurrection didn't happen, I just don't think it can be proven. It is one of those things which has to be taken on faith.


As I mentioned earlier, however, fundamentalist adherent of any faith can choose to deny any standard of "proof" in favor of their beliefs. Muslims, if I remember correctly, choose to believe Jesus did not die but "swoon." Jehovah's Witnesses choose to believe Jesus was resurrected as an angel, not a bodily resurrection. And fundamentalist skeptics/agnostics have written many books, held to many theories, launched many arguments to contradict what is otherwise "proven."

(And by the way, I know I'm threatening to threadjack here--I'm not trying!--my point is not that Jesus "proved" he was God or that Christianity is the only logical religion, or anything like that. My point was simply that I cannot relegate Christianity to the stockpile of man's myths when it lays a verifiable, historical, supernatural event as its foundation.)

I agree that Christianity can't be relegated to the stockpile as you say. There are a huge amount of people that believe, and that belief must have a strong core. I'm just not sure how verifiable it can be since you can't prove a resurrection...especially not one that happened 2000 years ago. Again, I'm not saying that it didn't happen. I just think that trying to prove that it did or didn't happen will never be successful. It will always be a matter of faith...and there is nothing wrong with that.

[MrBigglesworth]

On the idea expressed there, might I recommend looking into those claims a bit more? The idea of "editing", "secrets" etc. holds no historical water. The Christian Bible can be completely reconstructed (sans 11 verses) simply from quotations in the Anti-Nicene fathers writings to each other. Add in the mountains of evidence for acceptance as to which texts were authentic well before Nicea, and the only legitmate argument is whether or not they're true. The New Testament texts alone have more than 24k manuscripts with a 99.9998% accuracy (with most inaccuracies being the additions of double letters and punctuation) with no letter in the NT without full manuscript support beyond 200 years. No other book of antiquity is even close to that standard. The argument is only whether those texts are true or not, not if what is available is legitimately what was written.
According to wikipedia, nobody is sure what language the original New Testament was composed in. Probably Greek, but possibly Aramaic. There are also early versions in Syriac and Latin. So what exactly has 24k manuscripts with incredible accuracy? If the originals are not known to be in existence, how can there be no debate on what was originally contained in them?

[TheGreatestManAlive]

According to wikipedia, nobody is sure what language the original New Testament was composed in. Probably Greek, but possibly Aramaic. There are also early versions in Syriac and Latin. So what exactly has 24k manuscripts with incredible accuracy? If the originals are not known to be in existence, how can there be no debate on what was originally contained in them?

According to the actual manuscript existance, there is no reason to regard any language other than Greek as the original. It was the official language of the area and the best choice for widespread use especially considering the majority of the original audience were Greek speaking. I'll point you to the work of Josh McDowell on this subject. I disagree with many of his applications of manuscript evidence, but he has personally traveled and observed many of the manuscripts. We can attach a much earlier, scientifically verifiable, date to the Greek manuscripts above the others. If you use the originals argument as the only way to know for sure the definitive material, then you lose every piece of antiquitous literature from The Iliad and The Odyssey to Caeser's Gaelic Wars and so on many of which have a small handful of conflicting manuscripts with as much as 1,000 years between their date and the extant materials.

[Joker]

Common Greek, or Koine, became the lingua franca, spoken by people of many nationalities. It was the language that Jewish scholars in Alexandria used in producing their translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint. Later, the Christian Greek Scriptures were recorded in Koine, and the international popularity of this language contributed to the rapid spread of the Christian good news throughout the Mediterranean area.

[MrBigglesworth]

According to the actual manuscript existance, there is no reason to regard any language other than Greek as the original. It was the official language of the area and the best choice for widespread use especially considering the majority of the original audience were Greek speaking. I'll point you to the work of Josh McDowell on this subject. I disagree with many of his applications of manuscript evidence, but he has personally traveled and observed many of the manuscripts. We can attach a much earlier, scientifically verifiable, date to the Greek manuscripts above the others. If you use the originals argument as the only way to know for sure the definitive material, then you lose every piece of antiquitous literature from The Iliad and The Odyssey to Caeser's Gaelic Wars and so on many of which have a small handful of conflicting manuscripts with as much as 1,000 years between their date and the extant materials.
According to some reserach I just did on McDowell, a majority of his manuscripts are from the Middle Ages. All that proves is that the NT is unchanged from the Middle Ages, not that it was what was written by those with first hand knowledge. Furthermore, he says that they are all the same almost to the letter, so what language are all these 24k in? I doubt that 24k of the Greek manuscripts are available. The earliest complete New Testament known today was written something like 300 years after the events occured, so no chain to the originals can be established. That doesn't definitively prove that the NT we know today isn't the one that was originally written, but you can't say that what we have today is definitively what was written. A lot can happen in 300 years. There could be 100k manusctripts from 1100 AD, but what we need is a manuscript from around the time Jesus lived and died.

[cartman]

This talk of original language and such reminded me of a joke:


A newly minted monk arrives at the monastery. He is assigned to help other monks copy old canons and laws of the church.

He notices that the monks are copying from copies, not original manuscripts. The newly minted monk goes to he leader of the abbey to point this out. He notes that if someone made even a tiny error in the first copy, it would never be noticed and carried through all subsequent copies.

The lead monk says that even though copies have been made for centuries, the new monk hads brought up a good point. The lead monk vows to head to the basement and review the original manuscripts.

The lead monk opens up a door to catacombs that has not been opened for several hundred years. He closes the door behind himself, and proceeds to pore over the original manuscripts. A couple of days go by, and there is no word from the monk. The new monk becomes worried and goes in to check.

He finds the leader banging his head against the wall, quietly repeating "We missed the R. We missed the R." His forehead is bloody, and he is crying uncontrollably.

The young monk asks "What is the problem?"

With a quiet, sad, voice, the old monk replied, "The word was celebRate."

[AENeuman]

If you remove all sources of temptation from life, then your faith and beliefs aren't really challenged.

Oh you can go even further than that. Without the possibility of temptation (sin) then there would be no need for Jesus, because you would, in effect, be Christ.

However, this gets fuzzy when you look at the historical/spiritual function of Christ. If Christ lived a life that is humanly impossible, that is without sin, then his extraordinary act becomes merely mythical. But if Christ could have sinned (or given into temptations) then what is stopping us from being Christ-like? It is certainty not God's infinite grace and mercy.

Therefore, if we strive to be Christ-like, then the belief in the Resurrection becomes (pardon the pun) an after thought. It is the obsession of the afterlife, this "need to convince others of a better place", that distorts and corrupts.

[AENeuman]

Prove to me that Jesus never rose from the dead, and I'll call Christianity a myth like any other. Even hardened skeptics, however, have sought to prove the resurrection false, and came to the opposite conclusion.


I was right with you until this statement. I hope you are not saying, "because Christianity is rational, pragmatic and scientifically sound, I believe." We believe, as our man Tertullain said, because it (the Jesus event) is unbelievable. To base faith on any rational proof means that faith is debatable.

If however you are saying, "prove to me the Holy Spirit does not exist, that all humans are born with a God-shaped hole and only the Spirit (in some incarnation) can fill it" I'll agree. But that's just me.:)

[Joker]

A lot can happen in 300 years. There could be 100k manusctripts from 1100 AD, but what we need is a manuscript from around the time Jesus lived and died.
Check out "Dead Sea Scrolls"
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html

[MrBigglesworth]

Check out "Dead Sea Scrolls"
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html
Dead Sea Scrolls are Old Testament. They are believed to be from around the first century AD, but the events that they describe are supposed to have taken place 1500 years before they were written so we run into the same problem that we do with the New Testament manuscripts.

[revrew]

I was right with you until this statement. I hope you are not saying, "because Christianity is rational, pragmatic and scientifically sound, I believe." We believe, as our man Tertullain said, because it (the Jesus event) is unbelievable. To base faith on any rational proof means that faith is debatable.

If however you are saying, "prove to me the Holy Spirit does not exist, that all humans are born with a God-shaped hole and only the Spirit (in some incarnation) can fill it" I'll agree. But that's just me.:)

Naw, I wasn't saying my faith is based on scientific evidence or lack of a leap of faith; only that the resurrection is the linchpin of all Christianity. If Jesus had stayed dead, then his teachings would have little to separate it from the the teachings of other moral "prophets." Without the resurrection, Jesus would have little more credibility than, say, Confucious. Without the resurrection, we'd have little reason to believe Jesus was actually God, and therefore one could justify picking and choosing a hodgepodge of his teachings, throw in some from Buddha, some from Gandhi, and we could just make it up as we go. Jesus claims of exculsivity, in particular, would be unjustified. But the resurrection makes his claims unique and gives me cause to elevate and honor his teachings above--and even to the exclusion when in contradiction--of all others. After all, if God said it...

I wasn't really trying to explain the comprehensive theological foundation of my faith. I was simply trying to speak the language of the Mars Hill atmosphere here. Sometimes when talking like the Athenians, I sound a little too Athenian. Sorry for the confusion. Besides, I like ol' Tertullian--a favorite of mine. And wasn't he the one who said, "What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem?"

[Jonathan Ezarik]

Really? Can you then explain the constant resurgance of Christianity over 2 millenia?

I'm confused. What did Christianity resurge from? The only time it could be considered really repressed was in its early stages. After Constantine, Christianity was the religion for the Western world.

[Jonathan Ezarik]

The hot-button issues always seem to boil down to selfishness. Abortion is a selfish act. Sex without marriage is a selfish act. Gambling is a selfish act. I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.

Everything you do is selfish. Even acts that are considered unselfish (giving to charity) are actually selfish because you do it because it makes you feel good.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Hard to argue with the logic of that. But, can one really choose whether to sincerely believe in God or not? If there is a God, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be tricked into validating a faith that is motivated only by hedging one's bets. If salvation/damnation is based only on presence of faith, then all of our fates are based on personal attributes we were born with.

The point about not being able to choose beliefs is key, I think. Any "belief" that you actively choose to have, rather than come to believe on its own strengths and merits is not what I would call a belief.

But the deepest flaw of Pascal's wager, I think, is that it assumes what it is trying to prove. There are infinitely many belief systems and tens of thousands of them that have actually existed in human society or exist now. Many have conflicting beliefs and practices. A belief necessary to go to heaven in one may send you to hell in another. For Pascal's wager to be meaningful you have to assume there is only one relevant belief system. The Wager is about choosing whether or not to adhere to that one belief system. But if you had some special information to tell you which one out of these many thousands was the right belief system, then you would probably believe in it anyway, notwithstanding the Wager. I don't see what the Wager buys you...

[MrBigglesworth]

I don't think you can really argue that a society works better when everyone is allowed to behave selfishly.
Ayn Rand would disagree.

[Groundhog]

But...the Jesus factor.


And here-in lies another problem. I had always assumed Jesus did exist, and even now I think it's likely that he was based on someone who existed. However, there are no existing contemporary mentionings of Jesus ever having existed. All mentionings of him are hearsay written after he was supposed to have died. The gospels of the New Testament, who's authorship is uncertain despite who they are attributed to, were written after the time of Jesus, and the authors make no claim to have met the earthly Jesus. Also, we don't possess the original manuscripts, just copies of copies.

The Gospel of Mark, considered the earliest of the Gospels, was written around 70 AD, 40 years after Christ was crucified. Consider that the average lifespan of people was around 30 years, and few lived to be 70. Mark would have been 70 when this was written, and John, whose Gospel is dated around 90AD, would have been 110. John disagrees with events in Mark, Luke, and Matthew. All these Gospels are also written in the third-person perspective, which would be unusual if they were to have been intended to have been eye-witness reports.

Then there is the IMO far more damning fact that considering Jesus' fame in the Bible, there is no mentioning of him in Roman records, nor any other records that have survived to us. Philo, the philosopher and historian, was born 20 BC and died 50 AD, and lived in Jerusalem. There is not one mention of Jesus in any of his writings. Considering the mass of crowds and hysteria that Luke 12:1, Matt 4:25, and Luke 5:15 (amongst others) suggest, this is all the more puzzling. And that's just from Philo, one of the most well known writers of the age. There is not a single Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer living at the time of Christ that mentions him.

My biggest hobby is reading about history and if Jesus was a figure in any other nation or time and didn't have the religious significance behind him, and we had the same lack of contemporary evidence, then I would imagine anyone would question much of what has been written about him.

Again, I believe that there was a historical basis for Jesus, as I believe that there was a historical basis for most Gods and religious figures in all religions. I just don't believe the Jesus described in the Bible was the historical Jesus.

[Groundhog]

On the idea expressed there, might I recommend looking into those claims a bit more? The idea of "editing", "secrets" etc. holds no historical water. The Christian Bible can be completely reconstructed (sans 11 verses) simply from quotations in the Anti-Nicene fathers writings to each other. Add in the mountains of evidence for acceptance as to which texts were authentic well before Nicea, and the only legitmate argument is whether or not they're true. The New Testament texts alone have more than 24k manuscripts with a 99.9998% accuracy (with most inaccuracies being the additions of double letters and punctuation) with no letter in the NT without full manuscript support beyond 200 years. No other book of antiquity is even close to that standard. The argument is only whether those texts are true or not, not if what is available is legitimately what was written.

MrBigglesworth says it all in his post, but I will add a little. As MrB said, the oldest extant copies are dated several centuries after the events. In the 4th century a council determined which of the books of the New Testament were to be read in churches; ie. the official Canon. According to this site (http://www.gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html):

"Determining the canon was a process, first by Jewish rabbis and scholars, and then later by early Christians. Ultimately, it was God who decided what books belonged in the Biblical canon. A book of scripture belonged in the canon from the moment God inspired its writing. It was simply a matter of God convincing His human followers which books should be included in the Bible."

And:

"It was simply a matter of God convincing His followers of what He had already decided upon. The human process of collecting the books of the Bible as flawed, but God, in His sovereignty, despite our ignorance and stubbornness, brought the early church to the recognition of the books He had inspired."

So these men decided on which books would be included in the New Testament based on God's input, meaning that whichever they chose must be correct because God gave no sign that it wasn't. To quote the late, great comedian Bill Hicks, "I've never been that confident".

There were earlier attempts to do the same of course, including unorthodox and extreme attempts by Marcion. Again though, these were made well after the events had taken place.

The real question however is regarding the factual and undoctored content of the New Testament books which were selected. Without extant originals, it's impossible to say.

[Groundhog]

If you use the originals argument as the only way to know for sure the definitive material, then you lose every piece of antiquitous literature from The Iliad and The Odyssey to Caeser's Gaelic Wars and so on many of which have a small handful of conflicting manuscripts with as much as 1,000 years between their date and the extant materials.

Indeed. But people don't believe The Iliad and The Odyssey to be word-for-word factual accounts of what happened, and certainly not as the sources of a religion. They may very well have changed somewhat since Homer wrote them, if indeed there was a Homer, and they are dramatic tales based on real events that were orally passed on through generations, sprinkled with mentionings of Gods and beings that are now placed under the umbrella of mythology.

I love Japanese history, and there are several gunki monogatari, or War Tales, that were written over the 13th-15th centuries describing the conflicts that took place in earlier times. The major events detailed within these tales are factual, but the descriptions of the actual battles, exchanges, divine interventions and other events detailed within these stories are later additions by the unknown authors, as most of them were penned some years after the event and added to as the centuries went by.

They lack the poetic style of Homer's epics, but are in a very similar vein. Once they were taken nearly word for word as factual, but it's now clear they are far too inaccurate and fictional to be regarded as reliable sources, despite the major details being based on real events. This is very much how I feel about Homer's epics.

[AENeuman]

Without the resurrection, Jesus would have little more credibility than, say, Confucious. Without the resurrection, we'd have little reason to believe Jesus was actually God, and therefore one could justify picking and choosing a hodgepodge of his teachings, throw in some from Buddha, some from Gandhi, and we could just make it up as we go.


To me this is a conundrum. With the resurrection Jesus becomes someone worthy of believing that he really resurrected. With this magical, non-human, out of this world act, Jesus becomes the ultimate model or essence of human existence.

Christs spirit filled life did not need to be validated by the resurrection. In my opinion the promise of heaven via belief in the resurrection cheapens Christianity. Placing the focus on heaven takes away from living Christs spirit filled life now, from realizing the Kingdom of God is here.

I believe Christianity could still exist without the prize of heaven. And if that is so the resurrection would then take on a more relevant and urgent tone.

[Johnny Slick]

According to some reserach I just did on McDowell, a majority of his manuscripts are from the Middle Ages. All that proves is that the NT is unchanged from the Middle Ages, not that it was what was written by those with first hand knowledge. Furthermore, he says that they are all the same almost to the letter, so what language are all these 24k in? I doubt that 24k of the Greek manuscripts are available. The earliest complete New Testament known today was written something like 300 years after the events occured, so no chain to the originals can be established. That doesn't definitively prove that the NT we know today isn't the one that was originally written, but you can't say that what we have today is definitively what was written. A lot can happen in 300 years. There could be 100k manusctripts from 1100 AD, but what we need is a manuscript from around the time Jesus lived and died.Hmm. I am not as learned on history from 2000 years ago as 500 years ago, but the Bible is anything but "unchanged" since Biblical times. There are very large differences, for example, between the Vulgate, the early English translations of the Bible (which, given the tenor of the time, were virulently anti-Catholic and often included a gloss explaining what the papists had gotten wrong with that particular section), and the KJV (which is quite a bit less anti-Catholic but still not what you'd call pro-Rome). If anything, the KJV is unique in that, thanks to the aforementioned printing press, it's probably the first version to last without revision for more than a couple hundred years. I'm not even sure you can say there were fewer versions than copies of the Bible before 1453.

What I do know about Roman history, though, is this: even if you assert that the redacted version is unaltered since before the Council of Nicaea, there's still a ton of room for, well, bias. The book of John is believed to have been written around 90 AD because it steals material from all the earlier gospels but also because it's less anti-Roman imperialism than anti-Judaism. The scene where Pilate washes his hands of Jesus' fate, for example, only appears in John. Outside of the Bible, Jews were getting really (for the lack of a better work) uppity around 90 AD; the Romans had destroyed their Second Temple 20 years before and they were destined to begin their diaspora just over a decade later. Given what's going on here, it's only natural for a writer like John to fudge the facts a little to make his sect look like one whose beefs were with the Jews, not the Romans.

Back to the OP... I was more religious when I was in high school and right out of high school but have since "turned" to what a lot of us call soft atheism. I don't go around proselytizing as though I know for a fact that there is no God, but at the same time the evidence at hand is consistent with there not being one. As for Pascal's Wager, the problem with it is: what if, when you die, it turns out that the One True Crocodile God Offler decides that everybody gets to go to Heaven except for people who foolishly put other gods in front of him? Then the unreligious like me get in whereas people who only pretended to be religious due to the Wager get to spend their afterlife in the Gloomy Caverns of the Apostate. Point being, Pascal's Wager only makes sense if you believe in the veracity of the Bible over other religious texts, which means it's a circular argument.

[Mac Howard]

.. I was more religious when I was in high school and right out of high school but have since "turned" to what a lot of us call soft atheism. I don't go around proselytizing as though I know for a fact that there is no God, but at the same time the evidence at hand is consistent with there not being one.

At last someone writes something in one of these religious threads I can relate to. But why not give it its name - agnosticism? There's only one "truth" - we don't know. Or to be more precise - we don't know if what we think we know is so. Some insist there is a god. Some insist there isn't. One is right and one wrong but we don't know which. Nevetherless the evidence does not suggest a 50/50 probability situation and the more detailed the religious are about their god the lower the probabilities of being correct.

It's not strictly true that there is no corroberating evidence for Jesus from non-biblical writings from the time. Josephus does mention Jesus twice in his extensive histories of the times. Josephus wasn't quite contempory - 37 AD to 100 AD - but as near as we can get. Unfortunately these mentions illustrate precisely the problems we have with documents from these times - that they have been translated and copied by Christian commentators and are subject to suggestions of interference with the texts.

Although Josephus wrote in the first century the earliest documents come from the 11th century and have been copied and translated many times.

Here's the first mention of Jesus:

And so he convened the judges of the Sanhedrin, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, the one called Christ, whose name was James, and certain others, and accusing them of having transgressed the law delivered them up to be stoned.

Not exactly a detailed endorsement but specfic enough. The problem is that Josephus was a Jew and would never refer to Jesus as the christ. It's thought that that qualifying phrase "the one called Christ" has been added by an overzealous Christian commentator.

The second mention is more detailed but has similar problems:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

Pretty decisive you might think but we have three versions of Josephus and this passage in another version from arabian sources goes like this:

At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and his learning outstanding. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after the crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.

In studies of Josephus these comments have been made:

The words in ALL CAPS are likely interpolations added by Christian copyists over the centuries in an attempt to make Josephus support faith in Jesus as the Christ. We have only three Greek manuscripts of this section of Josephus, all from the 11th century. These phrases, added rather clumsily, appear to be rather obvious additions even to the modern reader in English.
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man IF IT BE LAWFUL TO CALL HIM A MAN, for he was a doer of wonders, A TEACHER OF SUCH MEN AS RECEIVE THE TRUTH WITH PLEASURE. He drew many after him BOTH OF THE JEWS AND THE GENTILES. HE WAS THE CHRIST. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, FOR HE APPEARED TO THEM ALIVE AGAIN THE THIRD DAY, AS THE DIVINE PROPHETS HAD FORETOLD THESE AND THEN THOUSAND OTHER WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT HIM, and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this dayOnce restored to its more original reading Josephus offers us a most fascinating reference to Jesus. Indeed, it is the earliest reference to Jesus outside the New Testament, and its rather matter of fact, neutral reporting, makes it all the more valuable to the historian. It is worth noting that in his earlier work, The Jewish War, written shortly after the revolt under the auspices of the Emperor Vespasian, he mentioned neither Jesus, nor John the Baptist, nor James, while in Antiquities, written in the early 90s C.E., he mentions all three.

It illustrates perfectly the problem with early documents that have passed through Christian hands - including the NT. Nevertheless, scholars of Josephus do believe there is a valid reference to Jesus there.

And there are, of course, alternative accounts to the NT which, surprise, surprise, disappeared without trace when political power came to the Catholic Church. Disappeared that is until 1948 when they were rediscovered in Egypt but which are now glibly dismissed as "blasphemy" ie they don't agree with the official version :)

[Groundhog]

As you say, Josephus was born after the crucifiction of Jesus, so even if nothing was later added to his writings, it's not an eye-witness account and does not address the issue of contemporary writings. And also, as is stated, Antiquities was written after the first Gospels, in the early 90s.

Even if true, Josephus doesn't do much outside of verify who I think the actual historic Jesus was; a preacher man with some disciples who was crucified. I think it's impossible to guess at more with the lack of evidence we have, and that the similarities between the historic and Biblical Jesus likely stop right there.

[Mac Howard]

As you say, Josephus was born after the crucifiction of Jesus, so even if nothing was later added to his writings, it's not an eye-witness account and does not address the issue of contemporary writings. And also, as is stated, Antiquities was written after the first Gospels, in the early 90s.

Yes. I find it significant that he doesn't mention Jesus, John the Baptist and James until the 90s which might suggest he was influenced by Christians of the first 60 years. But nevertheless it is a non-christian, non-biblical report from a well respected historian of the times probably as early as any Christian documentation.

Even if true, Josephus doesn't do much outside of verify who I think the actual historic Jesus was; a preacher man with some disciples who was crucified. I think it's impossible to guess at more with the lack of evidence we have, and that the similarities between the historic and Biblical Jesus likely stop right there.

Sure. As a Jew we would not expect acceptance of the Jesus-the-god story from him.

[revrew]

Christs spirit filled life did not need to be validated by the resurrection.

I disagree. If a man came to me and said, "I am the God of the Hebrew people, He who plagued Egypt and set the Isrealites free," I'd think him a loony. If he claimed to have the authority of God himself, I'd wonder if he was dangerous. Now, he might say some pretty stuff, like "love your neighbor," but if he also said "turn the other cheek," "go with a wicked man two miles," and "forsake your father and mother and follow me, for I will turn people against their own family," and "all the world will hate you because of me," I'd start wondering about his cult-like tendencies. Finally, if he said, "I'll die and come back to life," and didn't pull it off, I'd KNOW he was off his rocker. Some of Jesus' teachings are happy, warm fuzzies. But "take up your cross," "no one goes to heaven but through me," and others are either truth...or dangerous. Were it not for the resurrection, as C.S. Lewis said, Jesus was either a "liar or a lunatic." Heck, even Hitler probably said some truthful, profound things, but taking everything he said on a whole, he was evil. Take everything Jesus said on the whole, and he was either right or loony.

RE: no contemporary accounts, "heresay after the fact," etc.:
Jersualem was a backwoods, armpit of a country at the time. If somebody started a riot in Bangladesh today, do you think we'd still have the A.P. press release from New York City 1000 years later? I don't find it surprising or even troubling that we don't have a report from Rome on a little one-day riot (one among many) in Jerusalem. Who really cared? What other Jewish records from the three-year period of Jesus' public ministry do we have? I'm guessing few to none. To say, "we don't have a record," is hardly a disproving argument, as we hardly have any records at all!

What we do have, however, are eyewitness reports (notably Peter, if you're determined to throw out Matthew and John--does it matter if Peter wrote it in 60 or 30 AD?), one detailed historian's account (Luke and Acts), and the odd way in which a band of first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, of Jewish people--at the time--were willing to be executed for believing the eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection, an event which a good Jewish person should have considered blasphemy. In the face of brutal persecution, the eyewitnesses themselves refused to recant...and to what gain? The idea of resurrection was just as ridiculous to them as it is to us today, maybe even more, given the Jewish faith.

What, afterall, is the alternative? That a highly convincing band of uneducated fishermen decided to make up a blasphemy, persuaded thousands, even tens of thousands of people to believe something that never happened, then waited 30-50 years to write fairy tales to support it, were willing to be tortured and killed for something they knew was a lie, all for no material gain, and that later followers of this persecuted young religion fabricated more and more documents to support the idea--just so they could get beaten and killed for it, too? And now, today, this B.S. religion is the most widely influencial force of good in Western civilization, having been affirmed and testified to by millions of people since that date?

I find that explanation requires just as much faith as the simpler: that the eyewitnesses actually saw what they said they saw. And that's only part of why I said at the beginning, that I believe there's ample evidence to verify the Resurrection.

[MrBigglesworth]

What, afterall, is the alternative? That a highly convincing band of uneducated fishermen decided to make up a blasphemy, persuaded thousands, even tens of thousands of people to believe something that never happened, then waited 30-50 years to write fairy tales to support it, were willing to be tortured and killed for something they knew was a lie, all for no material gain, and that later followers of this persecuted young religion fabricated more and more documents to support the idea--just so they could get beaten and killed for it, too? And now, today, this B.S. religion is the most widely influencial force of good in Western civilization, having been affirmed and testified to by millions of people since that date?

I find that explanation requires just as much faith as the simpler: that the eyewitnesses actually saw what they said they saw. And that's only part of why I said at the beginning, that I believe there's ample evidence to verify the Resurrection.
One word: scientology.

[Groundhog]

RE: no contemporary accounts, "heresay after the fact," etc.:
Jersualem was a backwoods, armpit of a country at the time. If somebody started a riot in Bangladesh today, do you think we'd still have the A.P. press release from New York City 1000 years later? I don't find it surprising or even troubling that we don't have a report from Rome on a little one-day riot (one among many) in Jerusalem. Who really cared? What other Jewish records from the three-year period of Jesus' public ministry do we have? I'm guessing few to none. To say, "we don't have a record," is hardly a disproving argument, as we hardly have any records at all!

I'd argue that much of what happened to Jesus and the fact that it reached the attention of both the Roman authorities and the Jewish High Priest of the time make it more than a mere one-day riot in Jerusalem. It would have been a big event in the day, and recorded as such. I can't say exactly what records we have from these times as I don't know, all I know is that some do exist, that there were Jewish literary men, and other historians and philosophers, who's texts survived, and that none of them mention Jesus.

The mere fact that Christians later went through and modified the writings of Joesphus and others to add more fluff regarding Jesus shows that even just centuries after the events there was no other contemporary evidence existing. They recognised this as a major weakness and attempted to rectify it.

And even if records of these events did not reach us or were considered too minor to record, I find it hard to believe that Herod's slaughter of all children under the age of two years was not recorded, or the fact that, worldwide, there was no mentioning of the 3 hour eclipse in Luke 23:44-45 by any astronomer or astrologer.

"We don't have a record" is indeed a disproving argument, because records are all we can use to ascertain for certain if something occured. As BrianD said earlier, it's very hard to prove something didn't happen. Instead you have to prove something did happen by looking for evidence. In the Bible we have one source of evidence, but the remaining sources from this period do not correlate with its contents, which makes it a questionable source of history.


What we do have, however, are eyewitness reports (notably Peter, if you're determined to throw out Matthew and John--does it matter if Peter wrote it in 60 or 30 AD?), one detailed historian's account (Luke and Acts), and the odd way in which a band of first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands, of Jewish people--at the time--were willing to be executed for believing the eyewitness accounts of the Resurrection, an event which a good Jewish person should have considered blasphemy. In the face of brutal persecution, the eyewitnesses themselves refused to recant...and to what gain? The idea of resurrection was just as ridiculous to them as it is to us today, maybe even more, given the Jewish faith.

Peter's writings are perhaps even more controversial. Some scholars think it was written in the early 2nd century, and contains references to events that didn't take place until after his death. It was also excluded from some church canons into the fifth century.

What, afterall, is the alternative? That a highly convincing band of uneducated fishermen decided to make up a blasphemy, persuaded thousands, even tens of thousands of people to believe something that never happened, then waited 30-50 years to write fairy tales to support it, were willing to be tortured and killed for something they knew was a lie, all for no material gain, and that later followers of this persecuted young religion fabricated more and more documents to support the idea--just so they could get beaten and killed for it, too? And now, today, this B.S. religion is the most widely influencial force of good in Western civilization, having been affirmed and testified to by millions of people since that date?


I don't think the religion was created as a joke by some crafty fishermen at all. I don't think that's how any religion starts. You had the Old Testament in existance for centuries before Jesus was supposed to have walked the earth, and what ended up as the New Testament was likely the teachings of a man named Jesus based on this interpretation of the Old Testament. He probably had followers, and upon his death the stories of him grew more fantastic and wonderful with each telling, until they were commited to paper in the form - or close to, at least - that we now read. I'm just making a guess based on the evidence available, but I consider it more likely than taking the New Testament as literal truth of what happened.

I find that explanation requires just as much faith as the simpler: that the eyewitnesses actually saw what they said they saw. And that's only part of why I said at the beginning, that I believe there's ample evidence to verify the Resurrection.

And I disagree, and don't feel we have ample evidence to verify either the resurrection or the fact that we have anything from anyone who was an eyewitness. I don't expect or want to change your views on this, and I'm sure you don't expect to change mine.

Guess we just need to agree to disagree. :)

[st.cronin]

st.cronin. Specific to your answer that we cannot be damned by our works, this would seem to indicate you believe that once saved, we can not be 'unsaved'.

I fundamentally disagree with this. In my mind, our works can certainly damn us.

Several days late, and I haven't finished the thread yet, but my first thought is that one of the new ideas that Christ brought to the world is that what you do isn't neccesarily who you are. The old joke about the Scotsman who screws the goat is an example of pre-Christ thought. But what Christianity shows us is that we can be "saved" regardless of what we DO. What takes place in our heart is ultimately all that matters. Now, the difficult part is that our heart, to some extent, guides our actions - so that if you go out and fuck a goat, that is in some way a reflection of what is in your heart. It is NOT, however, a complete manifestation of your soul.

[Honolulu_Blue]

But what Christianity shows us is that we can be "saved" regardless of what we DO. What takes place in our heart is ultimately all that matters.

Is this really true? Is that really what Christianity shows us? Is their anything in Christianity that supports the notion that an athiest (like myself), who has a "good" heart, is kind to people, gives to charity, doesn't cheat, steal, etc, etc., and basically lives a good, honest life, but does not believe in God, can be "saved"?

Thats one of things that always sort of irks me. I have a really hard time accepting or believing in a God who supposively rewards people who live good lives in the afterlife, but only on the condition that they take this leap of "faith." In essence this God is simply condeming people for using the power of the minds He apparently gave us. So it's all just comes down to some sort of test?

For example, you have a guy who kills a bus load of nuns and children, but then finds God, is born again, repents, has faith etc, etc, and he gets in "heaven", while some poor guy or girl who doesn't believe in God, for whatever reason, but spends their lives helping sick children, the elderly, etc, etc just because he/she thinks it's the right thing to do is flat out of like? Too bad, so sad, Hell's that way?

[st.cronin]

For example, you have a guy who kills a bus load of nuns and children, but then finds God, is born again, repents, has faith etc, etc, and he gets in "heaven", while some poor guy or girl who doesn't believe in God, for whatever reason, but spends their lives helping sick children, the elderly, etc, etc just because he/she thinks it's the right thing to do is flat out of like? Too bad, so sad, Hell's that way?

One of the things that many Protestant churches, imo, consistently miss is how illogical the faith actually is. It doesn't make any sense, when you put it that way. But when you do understand the faith, with your heart and your mind, it has an undeniable beauty like nothing else.

[Honolulu_Blue]

But when you do understand the faith, with your heart and your mind, it has an undeniable beauty like nothing else.

I sort of feel the same way about hockey. :)

[Franklinnoble]

For example, you have a guy who kills a bus load of nuns and children, but then finds God, is born again, repents, has faith etc, etc, and he gets in "heaven", while some poor guy or girl who doesn't believe in God, for whatever reason, but spends their lives helping sick children, the elderly, etc, etc just because he/she thinks it's the right thing to do is flat out of like? Too bad, so sad, Hell's that way?

Yeah, pretty much. But until you learn not to scoff at the "injustice" of it all, and realize that no matter how good, charitable, and compassionate you are, you're not perfect, and not worthy of God's glory, you're probably not going to be able to accept the gospel.

[st.cronin]

I sort of feel the same way about hockey. :)

EXACTLY

[Franklinnoble]

One of the things that many Protestant churches, imo, consistently miss is how illogical the faith actually is. It doesn't make any sense, when you put it that way. But when you do understand the faith, with your heart and your mind, it has an undeniable beauty like nothing else.

:confused:

So, you're basically saying, only the Catholics "get it" because they have all the stained glass, pretty robes, smelly incense, and such?

[cartman]

:confused:

So, you're basically saying, only the Catholics "get it" because they have all the stained glass, pretty robes, smelly incense, and such?

Also it could be argued that Catholics have the unbroken lineage back to Jesus via the succession of Popes. Maybe that counts for something as well.

[st.cronin]

:confused:

So, you're basically saying, only the Catholics "get it" because they have all the stained glass, pretty robes, smelly incense, and such?

No, not at all. I'm not remotely a Catholic, but do share their faith and recognize the strengths of their particular brand of worship. The protestants have their strengths, as well - I was just pointing out one thing which I wish they would approach differently.

Also, 99% of all protestant services have sucky music. 0% of orthodox services have sucky music.

[Franklinnoble]

No, not at all. I'm not remotely a Catholic, but do share their faith and recognize the strengths of their particular brand of worship. The protestants have their strengths, as well - I was just pointing out one thing which I wish they would approach differently.

Also, 99% of all protestant services have sucky music. 0% of orthodox services have sucky music.

There are protestant sects that are almost complete mirror images of Catholicism. They just don't recognize the Pope or any of that apostolic benediction garbage.

Anyhow... I have drifted away from the organized sort of churches, and I now attend a non-denominational Bible church.

And the music's not that bad. ;)

[Ajaxab]

Thats one of things that always sort of irks me. I have a really hard time accepting or believing in a God who supposively rewards people who live good lives in the afterlife, but only on the condition that they take this leap of "faith." In essence this God is simply condeming people for using the power of the minds He apparently gave us. So it's all just comes down to some sort of test?

For example, you have a guy who kills a bus load of nuns and children, but then finds God, is born again, repents, has faith etc, etc, and he gets in "heaven", while some poor guy or girl who doesn't believe in God, for whatever reason, but spends their lives helping sick children, the elderly, etc, etc just because he/she thinks it's the right thing to do is flat out of like? Too bad, so sad, Hell's that way?

I get a sense that this is the conventional perspective on the Christian message. It's my understanding of Christianity that God does not reward people for living good lives and does not punish people for living bad lives. If so, we would have a very difficult time figuring out whether we were going to heaven or not. I know I'd always be trying to figure out if I'd done enough to warrant a place in God's kingdom. Instead, it's my understanding that God provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them. He rejects those who live from their own selves and own resources operating as though He doesn't exist.

In some respects that puts your analogy above in perspective in that God is not so interested in the things we do, but the how and why we do them. I can have the highest spirit of self-interest in doing good things and be the proudest person in the world in doing them. That puts me in the same self-centered place as the one who does the conventionally bad things. As for the one who does the conventionally bad things and then sincerely (emphasis on sincerely) repents, God chooses to reward that person for giving up on their own efforts to be right with him.

Just my 0.02.

[Warhammer]

I get a sense that this is the conventional perspective on the Christian message. It's my understanding of Christianity that God does not reward people for living good lives and does not punish people for living bad lives. If so, we would have a very difficult time figuring out whether we were going to heaven or not. I know I'd always be trying to figure out if I'd done enough to warrant a place in God's kingdom. Instead, it's my understanding that God provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them. He rejects those who live from their own selves and own resources operating as though He doesn't exist.

The first part of the statement above is half of the reason why Luther split from the Church. He wanted to have some way of knowing whether or not he would be accepted into Heaven.

It is human nature to be concerned about acceptance into Heaven. Heck, how do we know if we REALLY believe unless we are put to the test?

I have always believed that there are signs of God's existence if you wish to find them. If you wish to deny God's existence, you can do so. What startled me was a good friend of mine who has never been extremely religious and works as a research scientist specializing in nuclear physics, he said, "There is too much order for there not to be a God. Chaos theory cannot account for how simple most of what observe actually is."

What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that a being came into existence that created everything? Given other things I have observed, I find it much easier to believe the latter.

[Franklinnoble]

The first part of the statement above is half of the reason why Luther split from the Church. He wanted to have some way of knowing whether or not he would be accepted into Heaven.

It is human nature to be concerned about acceptance into Heaven. Heck, how do we know if we REALLY believe unless we are put to the test?

I have always believed that there are signs of God's existence if you wish to find them. If you wish to deny God's existence, you can do so. What startled me was a good friend of mine who has never been extremely religious and works as a research scientist specializing in nuclear physics, he said, "There is too much order for there not to be a God. Chaos theory cannot account for how simple most of what observe actually is."

What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that a being came into existence that created everything? Given other things I have observed, I find it much easier to believe the latter.

Ironically, I was convinced of the existence of God after reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan.

[Honolulu_Blue]

The first part of the statement above is half of the reason why Luther split from the Church. He wanted to have some way of knowing whether or not he would be accepted into Heaven.

It is human nature to be concerned about acceptance into Heaven. Heck, how do we know if we REALLY believe unless we are put to the test?

I have always believed that there are signs of God's existence if you wish to find them. If you wish to deny God's existence, you can do so. What startled me was a good friend of mine who has never been extremely religious and works as a research scientist specializing in nuclear physics, he said, "There is too much order for there not to be a God. Chaos theory cannot account for how simple most of what observe actually is."

What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that a being came into existence that created everything? Given other things I have observed, I find it much easier to believe the latter.

You see I actually understand this sentiment. I understand it very well. I don't believe it, but I can really see how one could look around at the world and make that conclusion. I really do.

What I don't understand, however, is that next step. Going from "I believe that there is a higher being out there that created this universe" to "I believe that this higher being is the Christian God who 'provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them. He rejects those who live from their own selves and own resources operating as though He doesn't exist.'"

That's such an incredible and complex leap and seems wholly inconsistent with the original basis in believing in a higher power that was based on "things observed." While I understand observing something and thinking "a higher force is at work here", I have never observed anything that would lead me to believe that this higher force would be anything like the Christian, or any other religious, God.

For the record, WH, I don't know if you're a Christian or not, so all the above is generalized and not aimed at you specifically.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Instead, it's my understanding that God provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them.

I honestly have no idea what this means or would entail.

[Franklinnoble]

You see I actually understand this sentiment. I understand it very well. I don't believe it, but I can really see how one could look around at the world and make that conclusion. I really do.

What I don't understand, however, is that next step. Going from "I believe that there is a higher being out there that created this universe" to "I believe that this higher being is the Christian God who 'provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them. He rejects those who live from their own selves and own resources operating as though He doesn't exist.'"

That's such an incredible and complex leap and seems wholly inconsistent with the original basis in believing in a higher power that was based on "things observed." While I understand observing something and thinking "a higher force is at work here", I have never observed anything that would lead me to believe that this higher force would be anything like the Christian, or any other religious, God.

For the record, WH, I don't know if you're a Christian or not, so all the above is generalized and not aimed at you specifically.

Until you believe in God, and spend some real time trying to get to know Him, you won't be able to make that leap of faith.

No offense, but if you don't believe in God at all, there's really no point in arguing with you about it. It would only frustrate both of us, and I'm not in the business of trying to make people believe something they don't want to hear.

The Holy Spirit opens the hearts of the unsaved, and we are merely called to share the Word with those who will hear it.

[Warhammer]

What I don't understand, however, is that next step. Going from "I believe that there is a higher being out there that created this universe" to "I believe that this higher being is the Christian God who 'provides people a place in heaven when they give up on themselves and their own attempts to get into His good graces and trust in what Christ has already done for them. He rejects those who live from their own selves and own resources operating as though He doesn't exist.'"

This is where I split with a lot of the Christian teaching...

First off, I am Roman Catholic.

Second, I don't believe in wearing religion on my sleeve, but I try to lead my life by following the path Christ showed us.

Third, I don't believe the standard Christian teaching that it is basically leave everything up to God and he will provide for you.

Many people believe in an "Earthly" heaven. You follow The 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, etc., and you will be showered with riches here. I don't buy that. I also don't stand with the "Proclaim Christ as your savior and you will be saved!" mentality because I have seen too many people distort this belief.

I believe that it is a combination of good works and God's Grace that gets you into Heaven. Now, before someone cries that I am a heretic, let me explain...

As I stated earlier in the thread, I believe that it is only through God's Grace that we are allowed to enter Heaven. What we are asked to do, as Christians, is accept that Christ is the Son of God, who sacrificed himself for us, so that we might be forgiven for our sins. He was the great sacrificial Lamb. Nothing I do will absolve myself of my sins, but I can attempt to atone for my sins to show the sincerity of my attempt to mend my ways. The only way I am forgiven for by sins is through the sacrifice of Christ. Now, if I accept Christ, am I not obligated to avoid sin, and help others? Therefore, to me, good works are a needed sign of someone who has accepted Christ as his savior.

Now, to answer your question in making the leap to believe that there is one God, and that he is the Christian God, I will point to the Old Testament. In the OT there are an absolute slew of prophesies regarding Christ. Most of these were like Nostradamus' prophesies in which no one realizes what is being revealed until the time comes. The prophesies of the OT clearly show Christ as the Son of God, which was the point of them. The Jewish religion has a line of great prophets, but they suddenly disappear after Christ. That is what makes me believe that Christ is the Son of God.

Why should we try to conduct ourselves in the best way we can? I believe that in addition to all-powerful, all-knowing, all-etc., I believe that God is all-just. I believe that there is a Purgatory. By leading a good life, I can minimize my time there, before I am allowed in Heaven.

Granted, the concept of Purgatory is controversial, but I believe that it is consistent with other Church teachings.

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I hope it does.

[Warhammer]

Catholics are Christians, I was only stating this as full disclosure since beliefs are slightly different among Christians, although the core belief is the same.

[Honolulu_Blue]

This is where I split with a lot of the Christian teaching...

First off, I am Roman Catholic.

Second, I don't believe in wearing religion on my sleeve, but I try to lead my life by following the path Christ showed us.

Third, I don't believe the standard Christian teaching that it is basically leave everything up to God and he will provide for you.

Many people believe in an "Earthly" heaven. You follow The 10 Commandments, the Golden Rule, etc., and you will be showered with riches here. I don't buy that. I also don't stand with the "Proclaim Christ as your savior and you will be saved!" mentality because I have seen too many people distort this belief.

I believe that it is a combination of good works and God's Grace that gets you into Heaven. Now, before someone cries that I am a heretic, let me explain...

As I stated earlier in the thread, I believe that it is only through God's Grace that we are allowed to enter Heaven. What we are asked to do, as Christians, is accept that Christ is the Son of God, who sacrificed himself for us, so that we might be forgiven for our sins. He was the great sacrificial Lamb. Nothing I do will absolve myself of my sins, but I can attempt to atone for my sins to show the sincerity of my attempt to mend my ways. The only way I am forgiven for by sins is through the sacrifice of Christ. Now, if I accept Christ, am I not obligated to avoid sin, and help others? Therefore, to me, good works are a needed sign of someone who has accepted Christ as his savior.

Now, to answer your question in making the leap to believe that there is one God, and that he is the Christian God, I will point to the Old Testament. In the OT there are an absolute slew of prophesies regarding Christ. Most of these were like Nostradamus' prophesies in which no one realizes what is being revealed until the time comes. The prophesies of the OT clearly show Christ as the Son of God, which was the point of them. The Jewish religion has a line of great prophets, but they suddenly disappear after Christ. That is what makes me believe that Christ is the Son of God.

Why should we try to conduct ourselves in the best way we can? I believe that in addition to all-powerful, all-knowing, all-etc., I believe that God is all-just. I believe that there is a Purgatory. By leading a good life, I can minimize my time there, before I am allowed in Heaven.

Granted, the concept of Purgatory is controversial, but I believe that it is consistent with other Church teachings.

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I hope it does.

It does, sort of. I think you got distracted by the quote which really didn't have much to do with what I was trying to say.

It's just that you mentioned that you "observed" something in nature, or a pattern of things, and said "Based on this observation, 'There is too much order for there not to be a God. Chaos theory cannot account for how simple most of what observe actually is.'" Thus, there is a God.

Again, it's the next step that confuses me.

It's sort of like:

I observe A (order in the universe), therefore I in believe B (a God/higher force).
I believe in B (God/Higher Force), therefore I believe in C (Catholicism).

Why Catholicism? What have you observed in the world that makes the Catholic God any more believable or legit than any other God?

How does observing "too much order" in the Universe lead to a belief in Purgatory? Or a belief that the prophecies in the Old Testament are to be believed any more than the prophecies in the Koran or any other religious text? Or that this God who created the Universe and all this order, then created a human son, sent him to Earth to absolve Humans of all their sins, let him die, and then had him resurrected three days later?

Maybe it just is a "Leap of Faith", but that seems inconsistent with the initial belief in God, which followed an "observed" phenomonen, which is how was believe in most things (e.g., earth is round, gravity, water is wet, etc.).

[Warhammer]

Just some quick comments before I head home, the comment on Chaos Theory was by my friend, not me. He believes that God exists, but that is as far as he goes.

Islam, Christianity, and Judaism all believe in the same God. They just have different beliefs about God.

Also, I think you are making too many leaps. "Too much order" does not lead to a belief in Purgatory in and of itself.

Why I believe in God, the way I do. That is a tough question to answer. The easy answer is because I have connected the dots for myself and concluded that God is God. The question of why I am Roman Catholic rather than Southern Baptist is a completely different question. A better question would be why do I believe in God rather than a pantheon of gods?

Are you trying to find out why people believe in God, or are you trying to find out why they subscribe to a particular religion?

[Franklinnoble]

The problem with purgatory is that there is no Biblical foundation for it. It's strictly Catholic dogma.

[WVUFAN]

I have trouble with the Church because of the concept of Predestination -- the idea that since God is omnipotent, he allows people to be born onto this earth knowing they're going to hell. It just seemed to me that my preconceived idea of what God is like wouldn't allow that, and no one could really convince me otherwise.

I know this has no connection to anything the Bible has ever said, but I kinda like to think Hell is not permanent -- that it's a place where people go to think about what they have done in their mortal lives, and that as soon as they truly repent, they're given access to Heaven.

It reminds me of a story, although I don't remember who wrote it. Disturbed (the band) did a song based on the story -- where a man dies and "wakes up" standing in a line, surrounded by darkness. The line seems neverending and it moves very slow. When he asks the woman in front of him, he's told Hell is overburdened and this is the line to get in. This long time waiting causes the man to evaluate what he's done, and truly repent for what he's done. When the line suddenly clears and the door to heaven appears. The "line to Hell" WAS Hell, and the moment he no longer deserved to be there, the correct door opened.

[Honolulu_Blue]

What startled me was a good friend of mine who has never been extremely religious and works as a research scientist specializing in nuclear physics, he said, "There is too much order for there not to be a God. Chaos theory cannot account for how simple most of what observe actually is."

What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that a being came into existence that created everything? Given other things I have observed, I find it much easier to believe the latter.

I guess the questions would be more aimed at your friend, who I know nothing about. Again, this more general musings that directed at anyone in particular.

There are two steps at play here:

1. I observe A (order in the universe), therefore I in believe B (a God/higher force).

2. I believe in B (God/Higher Force), therefore I believe in C (Religion).

I understand 1. While I don't agree with it, I understand how someone could look at the universe, observe it, and come to the conclusion that "there is too much order for there not to be a God. "

But how does what one observes in the universe lead one to believe in all that comes with believing in a religion. A lot of that stuff has nothing to do with observations at all.

I just find "Step 2" to be incredibly hard, if your foundation for believing in God truly is "Step 1", as some people claim it is.

I remember seeing some show on PBS and there was some Christian Scientist going on and on about how the order of the universe made it impossible not to believe in God and how the odds of life were so incredibly small there had to be a God, etc, etc.

But how do all those observations and odds and all that lead one to believe anything about God other than His existence? I think that's what I am after...

[Ajaxab]

I honestly have no idea what this means or would entail.

If we say that a person gets into heaven by doing good things, then it would seem that that individual is functioning entirely based on their own power, their own efforts and their own work to be good enough to please God. It becomes that person's responsibility to meet a standard God has set. In my understanding God will not accept those who function from this mindset of 'try, try, try again to be as good as I possibly can.'

God's desire is for people to give up trying to meet His standard by their own effort and realize they can't because He demands perfection. Irrespective of whether I tell a little white lie or kill a truckload of nuns and children, I am not perfect. The only one who has lived this perfect life and met God's perfect standard was Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life, died on the cross and was raised from the dead so that those who trust in Him and stop relying on themselves and their own efforts can be acceptable to God. God provided the way for me to be acceptable to Him through Christ. As we place our faith in Christ and admit there's nothing we can do to be good enough, God gives us the same right and perfect standing before Him that Christ has in his perfection. I can be accepted by God because of what Christ has done and not because I'm good enough. I have to give up on myself and my own effort and trust Him to make me right with God.

To try to get to heaven any other way is to trust in my own power to get the job done and because God is perfect and I am not, my efforts won't cut it.

Again, my 0.02.

[Groundhog]

Are you trying to find out why people believe in God, or are you trying to find out why they subscribe to a particular religion?

I think they are both pretty self explanatory. Believing in a God or creator is completely natural and has occured in all societies throughout our history. As to why people subscribe to a particular religion over all the others, it's generally because that was the religion that they were brought up with. Sometimes people will switch religions or find religion after previously following none, but they would be the minority.

[Edward64]

Again, fascinating thread. Thank you all.

My background is a non-practicing Catholic. I do believe in God.

The problem with purgatory is that there is no Biblical foundation for it. It's strictly Catholic dogma.
Franklinnoble. I don't claim to be a bible scholar but I believe it is more accurate to say "there is no protestant Biblical foundation for it" as the protestant Bible removed the Book of Maccabees which did have a reference to a purgatory state.

Why should we try to conduct ourselves in the best way we can? I believe that in addition to all-powerful, all-knowing, all-etc., I believe that God is all-just. I believe that there is a Purgatory. By leading a good life, I can minimize my time there, before I am allowed in Heaven.

Granted, the concept of Purgatory is controversial, but I believe that it is consistent with other Church teachings.
Warhammer. I agree with you. Purgatory brings some comfort to me knowing there is some "fairness" in God's judgement.

I know this has no connection to anything the Bible has ever said, but I kinda like to think Hell is not permanent -- that it's a place where people go to think about what they have done in their mortal lives, and that as soon as they truly repent, they're given access to Heaven.
WVUFan. I do believe there is a Hell and it is permanent (however, see Purgatory above). There's some people that are just plain evil.

The typical portrayal of Hell is burning fires (ex. Constatine, great movie) but I like to think of Hell as essentially non-existence, just gone, non-recoverable. No pain, no demons torturing you, just non-existence, no reunion with loved ones in Heaven.

What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that a being came into existence that created everything? Given other things I have observed, I find it much easier to believe the latter.
Warhammer. I've always had a problem with this argument. What is more believable, that the entire universe came from a point singularity that spontaneously exploded into what we see today? Or, that an All Mighty, All Divine being was created spontaneously?

What I hear as a comeback is that All Mighty always existed, no one created the All Mighty. I would reply then that the Universe always existed, energy always existed and theorectical physics (and its applications) always existed.


P.S. Catholic choirs are the best.

[Edward64]

Here are some questions I've always struggled with. I would appreciate any of your insights.

Literal Interpretation of the Bible. Which Bible, the Catholic Bible or the King James Bible? The Protestant Bible is a subset of the Catholic Bible, Martin Luther removed some books during his Reformation.

Therefore, to most Protestants, the original Catholic Bible was faulty, Martin Luther fixed it. If the original Catholic Bible was faulty, why couldn't there be other aspects of the Catholic Bible (and hence the Protestant Bible) that is faulty?

Only Saved by Accepting Jesus as a Personal Savior. I understand children who die before coming to the age of accountability gets a free pass.

How about that Austrailian aborigine in the outbacks in early 1900s who never met a missionary? What happens to the aborigine?

Book of Job. Some view this as an inspirational book on how Job preservered and kept his faith. I've always rejected this book. God is playing a game with Job and 'goaded' the Devil to kill innocents (ex. Jobs children). Anyone else have a problem with this Book?

Age of the Earth. Some Southern Baptist that I have spoken to, believe you can age the Earth by the OT begats which I think comes out to < 10K years. For those who believe this, can you please explain why?

Jesus Christ as the Savior vs Jesus Christ as the Great Prophet. Christians believe JC was the son of God. Muslims believe JC was a Great Prophet.

Can someone explain how/why this discrepancy came to pass? At the very least, I would think the Muslims would have thought JC as a hoaxster or liar and not consider his a prophet.

Noah, the Ark and the Flood. I can easily accept there was a regional flood but cannot believe a global flood that covered most land.

Also, the Ark with all the animals etc. Impossible to believe all those animals could live together in an ark.

[AENeuman]

Until you believe in God, and spend some real time trying to get to know Him, you won't be able to make that leap of faith.

No offense, but if you don't believe in God at all, there's really no point in arguing with you about it.


Until you've become a parent and experienced that joy and the pain that goes with it..you don't know what it's like and whether or not choosing to be a parent is selfish or not.


My two cents: You really haven't fully experienced life until you've had a kid. I doubt any parent will disagree with me.

Perhaps there is a relationship here... ;)

[Groundhog]

Several days late, and I haven't finished the thread yet, but my first thought is that one of the new ideas that Christ brought to the world is that what you do isn't neccesarily who you are. The old joke about the Scotsman who screws the goat is an example of pre-Christ thought. But what Christianity shows us is that we can be "saved" regardless of what we DO. What takes place in our heart is ultimately all that matters. Now, the difficult part is that our heart, to some extent, guides our actions - so that if you go out and fuck a goat, that is in some way a reflection of what is in your heart. It is NOT, however, a complete manifestation of your soul.

Not entirely true. Matthew 12:31: "Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men."

[revrew]

This discussion has taken a long, and interesting turn since I wrote what I am about to post. I don't mean to threadjack, but hope only to address some things mentioned earlier:

Many have said (in this thread and elsewhere), "Why only Jesus? How could a loving God condemn to hell those that are good but don't subscribe to Jesus? We don't know if the words written about him are even true." These are not easy questions to answer, but the following parable was written to help answer in a story-format. Incidentally, if you enjoy science fiction, you may find this an appealing parable:


The year is 2124. The world has been ravaged by unforeseen toxic fallout from human technology gone horrendously awry. Every living thing on land has been corrupted down to the genetic level. Humans are but hideous shadows of their former glory, their skin pallored an ashen gray, their eyes bloodshot and drooping in folds of crusted skin, their strength sapped, their joints twisted.

But one, very wealthy man has built for himself an airship, a home in the air free from the earth's toxic waters and poisoned food chain. There he lives with his beautiful bride, she expecting their first child. Aboard their vast and luxurious airship a single child is born. He is the first healthy, perfect child in over a century. His fingers are full and chubby, his eyes a sparkling blue, his cheeks a rosy pink. He giggles and coos without the hacking cough characteristic of every surface dweller, and he later laughs and runs and jumps with a freedom of spirit long lost to the world below. He is the pride and joy of his father, but alas, only his father. For his mother died in childbirth, leaving the father with only his precious son.

Now in time, the child grows. And as the day approaches for his son's sixth birthday, the father and son decide to have a birthday party. The airship is prepared with dozens of rooms, each filled with bright colors, balloons, streamers, and laden with pure food and drink: cakes and steaks and fruit punch and peanut butter—all the things a six-year-old would revel in.

The wealthy man then sends messengers down to the surface to invite the children of the ground to the party. Oddly, however, the messengers disappear. Though the man had asked the ground-dwellers to RSVP, no reply comes.

As the day approaches for the party, the son begs his father, "Daddy, may I go invite some friends myself? I've never had friends before. May I, please?"

The man, moved by compassion for his child, lets the boy go, but only for a short while.

The child, however, disappears as well. For when the ground-dwellers find the child, they tease him for his pink skin and joyful spirit. They mock him and beat him and call him names. They capture him, and the more wicked among them cut him until he screams in horror. Then they chain the boy to a fence post and rape him. When he cries for his daddy, they beat him to silence. In the midst of all their brutality, the boy dies. Then the ground-dwellers hide the boy. They cut his body to pieces and bury them. There, they hope to forget him.

But the man in the airship comes looking. "Where is my son? Who has seen my son?"

The ground-dwellers deny ever seeing the son. "You had a son?" they ask. "We've never seen him. Do you have a birth certificate?"

The man produces a birth record from his airship, but the ground-dwellers say, "This isn't signed by one of our judges. How do we know you're not making this up? We have no reason to believe you ever had a son."

But the man knows he had a son. And in time, he finds the truth about what was done to his precious, angelic boy. Yet even though he confronts the ground-dwellers with what they did, still they say, "What boy?"

For years, the man drifts through the sky in his air machine. Each day he wakes to see the dusty streamers, hung out to celebrate the life of a boy whose life was snatched by evil men. Each day he smells the food and pictures his son's face covered in frosting, only to have the image snatched away by the picture of his son's face covered in blood and semen. Each day he walks empty halls where his son's laughter once rang.

Now the year is 2134, ten years after the boy's death. A torrential flood of radioactivity is released from the groundwater, threatening a terrifying, painful death to all things living on land. The people of Earth line up in a massive throng before the man in the airship, begging to come to his party rooms and have a taste of the birthday cake, to breathe the clean air, and to drink his boy's fruit punch instead of their waters of death.

One ground-dweller pushes his way to the front. "I'm a kind and loving human!" he cries. "Give me a place on your airship!"

"Were you loving to my son?" asks the man. "Did you fight for him, remember him, honor him, stand up for him?"

"What son?" asks the ground-dweller. "I don't know anything about your son, but I was good to other people's sons!"

Other people's sons? Other people's sons? What about my boy? Why weren't you kind to him when others were beating him?

"His son?" another ground-dweller asks. "Forget about the imaginary boy. I want to buy a spot on the airship. What will you take?"

"Nothing," says the man.

"C'mon. I can pay gold. I can wash the floors. I can worship you, even. What do you want? Name your price!"

"I want you to tell me what you did the day they killed my son. If you want to walk the halls that were prepared for his party, I want you to remember my baby boy!"

One by one, the ground-dwellers come, claiming to be noble, claiming to be worthy, but not one will confess that they threw a punch, that they spit on the boy, that they called the boy names. They won't even acknowledge the boy existed.

The man turns and reads the banner hanging over the airship's door: "Happy Birthday, Joshua!" How can he? How can he let the men and women who slaughtered that precious boy feast at the boy's party, all the while pretending they don't see the banner or the streamers or the cake?

"No," says the man. "I had a son. He will not be forgotten; his memory will not be trampled on as you did his body. If you will but tell me what you did to kill my son and honor his memory with your days, I will welcome you aboard. But I cannot…I cannot let you rape my son and pretend it never happened while you eat his cake."



If the parable needs explaining, the explanation is this:

God, the Father, sent his Son to invite a people corrupted to the core by their own misdeeds to celebrate the life of the only pure child born in history. But upon that Son was laid the wrongdoing of every human, past and future. As Jesus said, "As you do unto others, so you do unto me." That Son died because of what you and I did.

Now, the flood of hell is coming. It was not meant for us, but for the devil, the author of all evil. The Father's airship is available to save us from this hell, but we want to board this ship without acknowledging the Son. Some of us say, "What I did to the Son wasn't as bad as what somebody else did." Some say, "I'm good to other people." Still others say, "I need to see the birth certificate." None of those things, however, prevent the coming flood. And none of them would even remotely satisfy any of us fathers, if we were in his place. He has put one requirement on attending the party: we have to remember who it's for. Frankly, if I were him, I don't think I could stomach even that. I'd let all the ground-dwellers die. But I'm not God. And I thank Him for that.

[revrew]

Here are some questions I've always struggled with. I would appreciate any of your insights.

Literal Interpretation of the Bible. Which Bible, the Catholic Bible or the King James Bible? The Protestant Bible is a subset of the Catholic Bible, Martin Luther removed some books during his Reformation.

Therefore, to most Protestants, the original Catholic Bible was faulty, Martin Luther fixed it. If the original Catholic Bible was faulty, why couldn't there be other aspects of the Catholic Bible (and hence the Protestant Bible) that is faulty?

The history here is slightly faulty. The Council of Nicea set the canon for the 66 books of the Bible. Over the next thousand years, the Roman Church believed 7 other books to be equally inspired. When the Reformation broke out, Reformers rejected many Roman practices, including the inclusion of these 7 books. The Reformers, and thus modern Protestants, use the Nicean list. Today, neither Catholics, nor Fundamentalist Protestants, nor Evangelical Protestants question the original 66, only the later 7 additions. Many critics and liberal theologians (that's not name-calling, just a general category) today do question the original 66, and yes, that questioning does open the whole can of worms of doubting everything.

Only Saved by Accepting Jesus as a Personal Savior. I understand children who die before coming to the age of accountability gets a free pass. How about that Austrailian aborigine in the outbacks in early 1900s who never met a missionary? What happens to the aborigine?

There is much uncertainty and debate among Christians of all faiths over this issue. I couldn't give anything but my opinion.

Book of Job. Some view this as an inspirational book on how Job preservered and kept his faith. I've always rejected this book. God is playing a game with Job and 'goaded' the Devil to kill innocents (ex. Jobs children). Anyone else have a problem with this Book?

I personally find this book very comforting. I know with certainty that God doesn't always protect us from the devil's schemes. If I thought otherwise, I'd wonder where the heck God is when we suffer. People lose their children every day. I don't see this story as a "game" or "goading," especially on the part of the omniscient God who knew all Job's fortunes would be restored. God allowed Job to suffer with the result of Job's record trouncing Satan's victory and providing hope and meaning to millions that would suffer after him. The sheer number of spiritual victories won because of Job's story are a testament to God's good purpose, even in intense suffering. I expect in heaven, Job rejoices that he was given the honor of being Job.

Age of the Earth. Some Southern Baptist that I have spoken to, believe you can age the Earth by the OT begats which I think comes out to < 10K years. For those who believe this, can you please explain why?

The scientific observations we have are exactly that: observations. There are many theories to explain the raw data, including young earth theories. Thorough examination of these theories (with credible sources--I confess there are many to many yahoos out there trumpeting these theories) will reveal they are reasonable, requiring some leaps, but no more or less than other scientific origin theories. Those that hold these beliefs often see the young earth theory as necessary to support a literal Adam, Eve, Fall, and Garden. The literal Adam was foundational to both Jesus' and Paul's theology, making it indespensible to fundamentalist Christians.

Jesus Christ as the Savior vs Jesus Christ as the Great Prophet. Christians believe JC was the son of God. Muslims believe JC was a Great Prophet. Can someone explain how/why this discrepancy came to pass? At the very least, I would think the Muslims would have thought JC as a hoaxster or liar and not consider his a prophet.

Perhaps a Muslim could answer this better than I, but as I understand, Mohammad's faith was grounded in the nomadic shepherd's tales of Judaism and Christianity. He would have been reluctant to throw out the baby with the bathwater. After his later "visions," which gave rise to the Koran, Mohammad believed Allah was the same God as Jehovah, only distorted by Jews and Christians (Mohammad having lived 600 years after the birth of Jesus). Thus, Muslims refute that Jesus actually rose from the dead and therefore also refute the validity of Christianity's writings about Jesus. Once they threw out the biblical record, they were free to create their own explanations for his moral teachings and impact. The explanation? A great prophet falsley deified by Christians.

Noah, the Ark and the Flood. I can easily accept there was a regional flood but cannot believe a global flood that covered most land. Also, the Ark with all the animals etc. Impossible to believe all those animals could live together in an ark.

Many, even Christian "young earth" proponents, believe the world looked very different prior to the flood. Perhaps all land was even contained in a single continent. Perhaps all animal life was contained on one land mass. Regardless, even a local flood could have the effect of a global flood. According to Genesis, the dispersal of human and animal life throughout the planet didn't happen until after the flood, so even a local flood could wipe out all life.

As for the animals on the ark, the Bible is very clear about there being "kinds," or categories of animals represented on the ark. Two dogs, for example, could represent the entire canine family, two cats the entire feline, etc. Depending on how you categorize "kinds" remarkably few animals need be on the boat. Those that believe in a literal flood usually accept that there must have been a post-flood diversification of species. Hence, the young-earth, anti-evolution types need not discount all evolution or speciefication, only the evolvement of living things across the "kind" lines (e.g. a bacteria doesn't become a cat, no matter how many generations removed, but a cat could become a tiger given time and varied environments).

Now, did I just set the record for the two longest back-to-back posts? :o

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Now, the flood of hell is coming. It was not meant for us, but for the devil, the author of all evil. The Father's airship is available to save us from this hell, but we want to board this ship without acknowledging the Son. Some of us say, "What I did to the Son wasn't as bad as what somebody else did." Some say, "I'm good to other people." Still others say, "I need to see the birth certificate." None of those things, however, prevent the coming flood. And none of them would even remotely satisfy any of us fathers, if we were in his place. He has put one requirement on attending the party: we have to remember who it's for. Frankly, if I were him, I don't think I could stomach even that. I'd let all the ground-dwellers die. But I'm not God. And I thank Him for that.

There are a couple of elements to this parable that are troubling:

a) It implies that those claiming not to know about the son actually do and are only being duplicitous and evil. It's not genuine doubt, but a coverup. That doesn't seem to describe the question that the parable attempts to answer, where people do have real doubts. There are many religious myths in this world, some more dubious than others, and it doesn't seem duplicitous or evil to have questions about the veracity of any one element of religious mythology. Moreover, as per the Pascal's Wager discussion, those who feel less than absolutely certain about who the man on the airship is or what his demands for carriage are will not know that he demands belief in his son until after they've submitted their ticket application, so to speak.

b) It asserts that people are in a direct dialogue with the god-figure. His presence, his statements, the existence of his airship with its tattered banners all serve as direct physical evidence, giving testimony to the fate of the child. It seems that this sort of evidence is just the thing that people are looking for and questioning here.

Neither of these points argues to the fact that the man on the airship doesn't demand exactly what you say he demands, but it seems to me that the point of the parable is to show why it's reasonable for him to demand what he demands. And taking these points into consideration, it does not seem that these demands are particularly reasonable at all. Truly the man has been done wrong, but it seems unspeakably cruel for this rich man to enjoy his airship while condemning all those on the ground to misery, even though many of them had nothing to with the fate of his son, nor any way to really even know about it.

[Edward64]

revrew. Thanks for your reply. Can you please clarify the origins of the bible?

The history here is slightly faulty. The Council of Nicea set the canon for the 66 books of the Bible. Over the next thousand years, the Roman Church believed 7 other books to be equally inspired. When the Reformation broke out, Reformers rejected many Roman practices, including the inclusion of these 7 books. The Reformers, and thus modern Protestants, use the Nicean list. Today, neither Catholics, nor Fundamentalist Protestants, nor Evangelical Protestants question the original 66, only the later 7 additions. Many critics and liberal theologians (that's not name-calling, just a general category) today do question the original 66, and yes, that questioning does open the whole can of worms of doubting everything.

I googled on 'council of nicea' but did not find reference to the 66 canons, it was more on Arian.

My understanding is

1. Catholic Bible with Apocrypha (circa 300s, post Constantine)
2. This Catholic Bible pretty much accepted until Reformation (circa 1500s)
3. Creation Protestant Bible and variants without Apocrypha (post 1500s)

[revrew]

There are a couple of elements to this parable that are troubling:

a) It implies that those claiming not to know about the son actually do and are only being duplicitous and evil. It's not genuine doubt, but a coverup. That doesn't seem to describe the question that the parable attempts to answer, where people do have real doubts. There are many religious myths in this world, some more dubious than others, and it doesn't seem duplicitous or evil to have questions about the veracity of any one element of religious mythology. Moreover, as per the Pascal's Wager discussion, those who feel less than absolutely certain about who the man on the airship is or what his demands for carriage are will not know that he demands belief in his son until after they've submitted their ticket application, so to speak.

b) It asserts that people are in a direct dialogue with the god-figure. His presence, his statements, the existence of his airship with its tattered banners all serve as direct physical evidence, giving testimony to the fate of the child. It seems that this sort of evidence is just the thing that people are looking for and questioning here.

Neither of these points argues to the fact that the man on the airship doesn't demand exactly what you say he demands, but it seems to me that the point of the parable is to show why it's reasonable for him to demand what he demands. And taking these points into consideration, it does not seem that these demands are particularly reasonable at all. Truly the man has been done wrong, but it seems unspeakably cruel for this rich man to enjoy his airship while condemning all those on the ground to misery, even though many of them had nothing to with the fate of his son, nor any way to really even know about it.

I'll confess that the parable is troubling. But perhaps some clarification will help. First, the parable is based on the premise that Christian doctrine is fact. That's the hypothetical given, just as Jesus' parables implied the hypothetical given that when he said "the kingdom is like..." that he knew for fact what he was saying.

That in mind, one such given is that the sins of EVERYONE were laid upon Jesus. Thus, there is no one innocent of the death of the son. All are guilty. This is a basic Christian doctrine.

The parable also assumes that God is real, what happened to his son was real, and he has made this known to people (this parable doesn't really address "those who have never heard.") The parable assumes the assertions of Romans 1:18-20, that God IS in direct communication with individuals, that He HAS left evidence of His work and His Son.

Naturally, a skeptic would refute these fundamental assertions.

Finally, where it truly is troubling, is that it does imply, I'll admit, that those that resist belief are doing so willfully. That doesn't necessarily imply "duplicitous or evil" but willfull resistance to believing "the truth". Unfortunately, I can't escape the biblical teaching that sustained disbelief is judged a moral resistance and not simply a reasoned resistance. That is, admittedly, a very disturbing teaching--one of those that makes Jesus' teaching "either right or lunacy". I'll admit that's a disturbing, even offensive. I have repeated an offensive biblical teaching, and I don't take it back.

The crux comes down to this:
it seems unspeakably cruel for this rich man to enjoy his airship while condemning all those on the ground to misery, even though many of them had nothing to with the fate of his son, nor any way to really even know about it.

This parable assumes Christian doctrine: that we all had everything to do with the fate of his son, and that we have been given knowledge of it. If one denies those assumptions, than it's easy enough to say, "This parable doesn't apply to me." But if you DO accept, even hypothetically, those assumptions...that's where I find it impacting.

On a personal note to my friends on FOFC, I (and I believe God) welcome doubts, questions, skepticism. Most people, I figure, have a path of questions and doubts before arriving at faith. Many people tread that path even after arriving at faith. I don't condemn those still asking questions, still seeking. The offense comes in the conclusion that when a man eventually rejects Jesus and stops seeking, he does so willingly, an offense to the Father by purposefully denying His Son's death. For those still uncertain of His Son's death, I only encourage you to keep asking questions and wrestling with your doubts. And Mojo--I appreciate your thoughts.

[revrew]

revrew. Thanks for your reply. Can you please clarify the origins of the bible?



I googled on 'council of nicea' but did not find reference to the 66 canons, it was more on Arian.

My understanding is

1. Catholic Bible with Apocrypha (circa 300s, post Constantine)
2. This Catholic Bible pretty much accepted until Reformation (circa 1500s)
3. Creation Protestant Bible and variants without Apocrypha (post 1500s)

Y'know what? I screwed up in my earlier post. Not only did I have my info wrong, but I got my councils mixed up, too. My sincerest apologies. I need to brush up on my church history. :o

First, I meant to refer to the Council of Hippo, not Nicea. But even then, I had my facts mixed up, because that only decided New Testament, while the Apocrypha are Old Testament writings.

My further research (now for my own benefit as much as yours) revealed the following timeline.
1. The conclusion of the non-Apocrypha Old Testament writings (400 BC)
2. The writing of the Apocrypha books (300-100 BC).
3. By the time of Josephus (first century AD), the Jewish faith had established its cannon--22 books, which divided differently make up the Protestant 39. The Jewish faith at the time did not acknowledge the use of the Apocrypha, but only considered the books up until the time of Malachi authoritative (though some of the Apocrypha claim older authorship, such as the Baruch addition to Jeremiah). Jews, Catholics, and Protestants agree on these 39 books.
4. In the early church (pre-Roman Catholicism), the church widely accepted the use of the Apocrypha in various forms. Augustine, for example, argued for their use, while others claimed church acceptance wasn't sufficient. The debate went on and on.
5. As the Roman Catholic church formed, it accepted use of the Apocrypha, but not as canonical, inspired Word of God.
6. At the time of the Reformation, Protestants sought to return to the Jewish canon and refuted the validity of the Apocrypha.
7. At the Council of Trent (1546), the Roman Catholic church reasserted the validity of the Apocrypha, and for the first time, pronounced the Apocrypha biblical canon.
8. Today, Protestants still reject the use of the Apocrypha, while some Catholics debate as to whether the Council of Trent went too far.

Sorry for my misinfo earlier. I had thought the Council of Hippo dealt with the Old Testament, too, but I was mistaken.

[Edward64]

Several days late, and I haven't finished the thread yet, but my first thought is that one of the new ideas that Christ brought to the world is that what you do isn't neccesarily who you are. The old joke about the Scotsman who screws the goat is an example of pre-Christ thought. But what Christianity shows us is that we can be "saved" regardless of what we DO. What takes place in our heart is ultimately all that matters. Now, the difficult part is that our heart, to some extent, guides our actions - so that if you go out and fuck a goat, that is in some way a reflection of what is in your heart. It is NOT, however, a complete manifestation of your soul.

St. Cronin. I am not sure I understand how this applies to my contention that you can be 'unsaved' by works. Your example seems to apply to 'before/soon after' being saved.

Here's a simple example to illustrate my point.

Age 21. Person becomes saved (doesn't matter how it happened)
Age 41. After 20 years of leading the good life, decides hes likes little kids.
Age 42. Acts out fantasies and kills kids
Age 43. Caught on Jan 1, 12:30:32pm.

Is your contention that Person is still saved at Jan 1, 12:30:32pm?

[st.cronin]

St. Cronin. I am not sure I understand how this applies to my contention that you can be 'unsaved' by works. Your example seems to apply to 'before/soon after' being saved.

Here's a simple example to illustrate my point.

Age 21. Person becomes saved (doesn't matter how it happened)
Age 41. After 20 years of leading the good life, decides hes likes little kids.
Age 42. Acts out fantasies and kills kids
Age 43. Caught on Jan 1, 12:30:32pm.

Is your contention that Person is still saved at Jan 1, 12:30:32pm?

My understanding is that "acts out fantasies and kills kids" is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not that person is saved - whether or not you are saved depends on an honest acknowledgement of your own flawed humanity, and whether and how you are willing to accept God's love. Being saved does not mean you are free of sin, or even that you are less likely to sin.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

On a personal note to my friends on FOFC, I (and I believe God) welcome doubts, questions, skepticism. Most people, I figure, have a path of questions and doubts before arriving at faith. Many people tread that path even after arriving at faith. I don't condemn those still asking questions, still seeking. The offense comes in the conclusion that when a man eventually rejects Jesus and stops seeking, he does so willingly, an offense to the Father by purposefully denying His Son's death. For those still uncertain of His Son's death, I only encourage you to keep asking questions and wrestling with your doubts. And Mojo--I appreciate your thoughts.

I don't have anything substantive to add to this, just wanted to say your explanation makes a lot of sense, and that I appreciate the thoughtfulness and civility of this thread in general and your posts in particular. It's nice to discuss serious topics without things flying out of control.

[Edward64]

My understanding is that "acts out fantasies and kills kids" is completely irrelevant to the question of whether or not that person is saved - whether or not you are saved depends on an honest acknowledgement of your own flawed humanity, and whether and how you are willing to accept God's love. Being saved does not mean you are free of sin, or even that you are less likely to sin.

And hence, what I view to be a paradox that I cannot reconcile with.

Example Person goes to heavan, 1900s Australian aborigine goes to hell (according to some mainstream protestant beliefs).

I do want to add that the Catholic religion does believe works can damn you. Pretty sure suicide is considered a cardinal sin, a big no no (again, Constatine, great movie!).

[st.cronin]

And hence, what I view to be a paradox that I cannot reconcile with.

Example Person goes to heavan, 1900s Australian aborigine goes to hell (according to some mainstream protestant beliefs).

I do want to add that the Catholic religion does believe works can damn you. Pretty sure suicide is considered a cardinal sin, a big no no (again, Constatine, great movie!).

I believe God reveals himself to all people, regardless of whether there is a Church in their neighborhood. How an aboriginal would be judged, or redeemed, never having heard about Jesus, I couldn't even begin to guess, but I believe it to be possible. One idea, which I think more or less represents Orthodox teaching, is that life is a preparation for your judgement; everything you think and do prepares you (or leaves you unprepared) to meet God. At that meeting, you are judged.

The idea that specific works can damn you, I don't neccesarily disagree with it, except I believe that each case describes a work which comes from a very specific spiritual situation - and it's that situation which works against you, not the work itself.

Damnation is such an uninteresting theology, though. I recommend trying some of Mathew Fox's works, like Breakthrough.

[Edward64]

The idea that specific works can damn you, I don't neccesarily disagree with it, except I believe that each case describes a work which comes from a very specific spiritual situation - and it's that situation which works against you, not the work itself.
I'm trying to grasp this statement and can't. Can you give me an example of your thoughts here?

Damnation is such an uninteresting theology, though. I recommend trying some of Mathew Fox's works, like Breakthrough.

I went to Amazon and read the 4 reviews. Sorry St. Cronin, it looks like an incredible dry reading and I'm in the middle of Mayflower. Would you care to bullet point the important thoughts and lets discuss them?

[st.cronin]

I'm trying to grasp this statement and can't. Can you give me an example of your thoughts here?



I went to Amazon and read the 4 reviews. Sorry St. Cronin, it looks like an incredible dry reading and I'm in the middle of Mayflower. Would you care to bullet point the important thoughts and lets discuss them?

At the risk of misrepresenting Catholic thought ... I think that what makes suicide a mortal sin is not the act itself, but the psychic state neccesary for the act.

And Fox is decidedly NOT dry reading imo - he's one of the liveliest, most interesting writers I've read, on any subject - but where I was trying to steer the conversation is to what I consider the central message of Christianity, that we need not fear death. "Damnation" theology works against that message.

[cartman]

The "saved" thread reminded me of this one I started a couple of years ago. There is a 2006 Obama sighting on the first page of the thread. There is a ton of great discussions contained within.

[JediKooter]

WWCD?

[Marc Vaughan]

If we aren't saved by works, can we be damned by works? (honest question)

The idea is that your actions don't count its your belief in God and acceptance of Jesus as saviour that matters.

In theory you could be a rampging murderer and still go to heaven - this is covered by the ultimate catch 22 though which states that if you're truly saved it'll be visible as you'll be infused with Gods spirit and want to be good, give money to the church etc. .... if you don't then you're not truly saved etc.