No scientist worth considering would state that the complexity of the physical world could prove the existence of the metaphysical. Exactly <i>what degree</i> of complexity must exist before God becomes necessary? The question has boggled Intro to Logic students for centuries, and in fact it has no answer. No amount of evidence can prove or even give a probability for anything. For instance, all the evidence the world had <i>ever encountered</i> supported Newton’s physics, until scientists realized light didn’t work right and ditched Newton’s paradigm. Scientific theories merely attempt to save the appearances. Justifying God by science is nonsensical. Doesn’t it disturb you that, to even try to do so, you must put science’s word above God’s inner word to you?
As I already said, God didn’t tell anybody to go on the Crusades. People did it for their own puproses and used God as mere justification. It is folly to say that this is the fault of Christianity, when it is really the fault of its followers who are either misguided or not really followers at all.
Satan is not as powerful as God. Satan is a fallen angel. Keep in mind that Satan is suffering in Hell as well.
And I’m trying to stress that God is JUST. It is unjust to give the gift of salvation to people who refused it for their entire lives (God gave people the ability to choose their own path… by letting everybody into Heaven, including the people who tell Him they want nothing to do with Him, he is taking away their free choice). That is how He can is omnipotent without being malicious.
Setz, shut the fuck up, you don’t need to be a little prick. That’s really stupid to say that after someone has written up something that they really mean. Go back to your snowboarding.
Dear Setz:
Until you stop stealing from mommy and daddy your moral input isn’t requred. Shut up, and go gag on a horse.
Love
God
So what you’re saying is that God expresses his love for all human beings by giving them free will - since there is not greater expression of love. And that having the freedom to choose bad is still more benificent than being molded or changed by God. I still don’t believe that, if there is a God, he would make a permanent Hell, though… And if God values justice most of all, and condemns people to Hell for being unjust, it somehow implies that justice is actually greater than God. At least to me…
Then of course Christianity hasn’t caused any violence. If you dismiss a person as not really being Christian because they do something in the name of Christianity then that’s kind of a win win.
Lack of proof does not equate to evidence against. That being said, we won’t be able to prove much of the stuff we believe for either side of the fence until we are more advanced, technologically, spiritually and as a species.
Perhaps it was meant to be that way all along?
Well, yeah. If it goes against the doctrines of Christianity, it goes against the doctrines of Christianity. Of course, it also depends on social context. A few decades ago it was natural for people not of the same religion to be persecuted. That doesn’t make the spirit of that era, or this one, any more “true” to the spirit of Christ’s message, unless it is specifically adhering in a greater extent to an accepted written copy of Christian moral codes (which can also change as society progresses…)
What setz said didn’t hurt me. Probably just his way of saying “I read but you’re pissed, dunno what to say.”
Although, Eden99, that comment can go right back up your ass, where it came from. It was baseless.
I’m not best at expressing myself when I can’t think clearly, and this has shaken me, though I appreciate the replies I’m getting. This is hard to talk about.
SK, you make a point, though I didn’t really see it as losing immortality. That’s never something I’ve really considered when thinking about faith. And I see no less meaning in my life, but the absence of a divine presence… I cannot explain it. Something like this is just…shocking, to me. Believing, knowing something to be true for as long as I can remember, then one day just realizing it’s gone. Worse than gone, it was never there. And if I’m right, it’s corrupt, corrosive.
Hiryuu, my problem with disregarding parts of the Bible is that if any one part of the Bible is not true, then none of it can be. It is supposed to be the word of God, along with the accounts of his people from the beginning of creation. In science, everything is theorized, tested, proven, tested again, reproven, and so on until there’s no question that this, indeed, is the way it is. But to have religion, you have to have faith. But if the Bible is wrong, how can there be faith in the word of God? Who decides which parts of the bible are to be taken literally, and which parts are to be interpreted as seen fit with the times?
God is said to have created us in His image, therefore we should bear some resemblance to him, at least metaphysically. But this is not so, and cannot be so, not even through the experience of Jesus. Jesus wasn’t unsure of himself, never worried about keeping his job, paying the bills. He didn’t have a wife, or child to worry about. Jesus didn’t even have to have faith. How, then, can God understand human emotion and know how to judge us?
Hell is described in the bible, not in part as ‘the absence of God’, but in whole as ‘the burning pit, devoid of all that is God’. This is from the bible, and not a simile. So what point is there to Hell? If there is a God then he is sadistic, as the point of Hell is not rehabilitation or education; it is a sentance of eternal suffering, which, in the long run, is utterly pointless. Yet, even so, God is still good. How?
As Shinobi said, one cannot simply dismiss people as ‘not Christian’. They sincerely believed in what the did. Can we dismiss the Catholics in the Inquisition as ‘not Catholic’, the Egyptians that enslaved the jews as ‘not Coptic’, suicide bombers in Iraq as ‘not Muslim’? I don’t want this to take a political turn, but what it boils down to is that they’re doing what they believe God wants of them.
If I sounded deranged in anyway in my earlier post, I didn’t mean to. Judging by some responses, I came off that way, and didn’t mean to. I’m not that kind of person, with or without religion. This…is just a lot for me. Once I started, it all came pouring out like that.
Just my two cents… there are many people (such as all the world’s Jews and Muslims) who believe that God exists and yet don’t believe in the specific version of him that Christianity espouses. Because you lose faith in some of the details of the Bible doesn’t mean that you should suddenly decide that God doesn’t exist. There are other ways to glean Godliness.
In any case, I guess it all comes back down to what Hiryuu was saying about belief in God as something much more than what we can understand. If you really believe that you can’t understand God, any more than the bear Hiryuu mentioned could understand the human freeing him, then you wouldn’t go around questioning what he does and why he does it, because it isn’t something you can comprehend. But humans have a tendency to believe that they can understand everything given enough time; it’s natural. Overcoming it isn’t easy.
Also, about the Bible being metaphorical: This is a tack that’s taken a lot in the Jewish commentary, and I see nothing really contradictory about it. The line quoted is something like this: “The Bible (or Torah) speaks in the language of people.” For example, talking about God’s right hand is something that’s pretty much impossible to be true, since as far as we know, God doesn’t have one. Metaphor is part of human language, and the Bible is written in human language, so using metaphor as a way to impart lessons of life isn’t beyond the pale, and it doesn’t mean the Bible is “wrong”. Another thing that Jewish commentary says is that “every word in the Bible has seventy meanings” - basically saying that the things we can learn from the Bible aren’t limited to the direct meanings of the words, but also reading between the lines and thinking outside the box. I don’t know how well it fits in with Christian thought, but I do think that we should take whatever we can from the Bible without forcing it to conform to any particular interpretation.
Yeah, that conflicts with most Christian thougt Cid.
Oh, and I have a question for you. A week or so I was bored, and I thought to myself “Hmm… I don’t actually know what kosher means” after eating a pickle, so I looked it up. Pretty defined rules on that, it was pretty intresting, but anyway, I’m still wondering what the hell makes a kosher pickle more kosher then a regular pickle.
I don’t know how conservative you were raised as far as Christianity is concerned, but I don’t believe that the Bible is something that needs to be taken at face value. There’s wisdom throughout all of it, but as I said, it’s really not important knowing the exact dimensions of the Ark or all that stuff. It all leads up to Christ and the gift of Salvation. THAT’S what’s in the Bible that you need to concern yourself with.
As for what to take literally and whatnot, all I can say is that you need to study it for yourself and decide for yourself. If you’re not 100% sure about something, I don’t think God will get super-pissed at you or anything. He’ll be pleased that you’re trying to learn about Him and His Word. The real value in the Bible is in Jesus’ message, not in trying to scientifically justify miracles.
God is said to have created us in His image, therefore we should bear some resemblance to him, at least metaphysically. But this is not so, and cannot be so, not even through the experience of Jesus. Jesus wasn’t unsure of himself, never worried about keeping his job, paying the bills. He didn’t have a wife, or child to worry about. Jesus didn’t even have to have faith.
Jesus is a tricky subject, but from a Christian perspective, it is unwise to compare him to us, because he wasn’t really a human like us. He had human flesh, but he wasn’t human. And no, God didn’t make life perfect for us. As I said before, I believe Earth to be a testing ground and a time of choice for everybody. We have the rest of eternity for a perfect existence, should we choose.
Hell is described in the bible, not in part as ‘the absence of God’, but in whole as ‘the burning pit, devoid of all that is God’. This is from the bible, and not a simile. So what point is there to Hell? If there is a God then he is sadistic, as the point of Hell is not rehabilitation or education; it is a sentance of eternal suffering, which, in the long run, is utterly pointless. Yet, even so, God is still good. How?
I already addressed this issue. You can take the metaphors for Hell used in the Bible as literal or not. I already explained my definition of it. Also, again, you shouldn’t personify God. What seems pointless to you may not be pointless to him, and if you expect to understand everything he stands for in this lifetime, you’re setting yourself up for failure. That’s where faith comes in, and you either choose to have it, or you don’t.
As Shinobi said, one cannot simply dismiss people as ‘not Christian’. They sincerely believed in what the did. Can we dismiss the Catholics in the Inquisition as ‘not Catholic’, the Egyptians that enslaved the jews as ‘not Coptic’, suicide bombers in Iraq as ‘not Muslim’? I don’t want this to take a political turn, but what it boils down to is that they’re doing what they believe God wants of them.
I could read Silence of the Lambs, and then start starving and carving size-14 girls. In my mind, I could truly believe that Thomas Harris wrote the book to advocate making coats out of girls, but is it fair to blame him or the book itself for my own actions? A bit of a stretch of an example, but I really find it unfair to always use religion as a scapegoat, especially after it was unfairly used as justification.
Also, I commend you for taking an analytical view of yourself and your faith. I’ve been down that road, and it ain’t easy. But I think it’s important to do, whether you’re Christian, or Agnostic, or Atheist or whatever.
And don’t think you’re alone with your doubts. It’s natural, it’s normal, and while you are free to decide your own spiritual path, I hope the presence of doubts don’t automatically disregard religion, because no faith can exist without some doubts.
It conflicts some fundamentalist Christian thought (the people who are adamant that the Sun revolves around the Earth and refuse to believe in any sort of metaphor), but I wouldn’t say it conflicts MOST Christian thought. I would actually argue that Cid’s third paragraph is true for most (not all) Christians, as I’m sure it’s true for most (not all) Jews.
That’s just personal experience.
The reason a lot of people personify God I think is because the bible is all like “And God created man in his image” and junk. At least that’s what I assume is part of that equation. Or maybe some people just feel more comftorable with a being that they can comprehend having a reconizable form they can relate to.
I think Cid and SK explained things from a couple different perspectives better than I could have, so thanks guys.
To add to this, when I hear people talk about God sometimes it pisses me off they would whine when something wouldn’t have gone their way. I have 1 simple line to tell them: God helps those who help themselves. So at that point did you really help yourself or did God help you? Can you make the difference? So if you didn’t get it in the end was it because God didn’t help you or because you didn’t help yourself? Since you can’t answer questions about God, but you can about yourself, in my opinion, it becomes about what you are willing to do to achieve your goals or ideals.
I always had the highest respect for Cid and his beliefs because Cid thinks about his beliefs and questions the meaning to the Torah. There’s nothing wrong to question things. One must always ask the purpose of why something was said and who said that. While the bible in any form is supposed to be the word of God, these books are nevertheless written by men and they are translated, leading to imperfections and changes of meanigns, changes in interpretations, I think espcially with Christianity, there are even revisions. When one wonders about the religion one belongs to, I always think it is important to understand what this religion symbolizes and preaches. I believe that a person who truly has faith doesn’t need a religion. I think the most a religion can do for a person is provide certain guidelines and ideas as to how one can leave a good life. From there, it becomes about people using religion and that is something I find despicable and why I am not really a religious person. As I’ve often ranted about society, people are sheep and like being given a religion and instead of being guided by the religion, they are used by malevolent and selfish men under the guise of religion. You have questions about the afterlife. So do I. So do we all. There are 3 possibilies: there’s nothing. There’s something and we can’t come back even if its really bad or hopefully, its not worth coming back here once we’re over there (its that good). No one’s come back, right? At least, not that we can verify >.>.
You’re getting deployed to one of the most dangerous places in the world at a very particular time in your life. I think you probably have more balls than me for doing that and I sincerely hope you get to come back to us and most importantly your family.
Man, Sin, you took the words out of my brain and posted them. Well, that’s considering I would have actually sat down and started writing my thoughts on the topic, which I wasn’t considering.
Anyway, that kosher pickle thing is still bothering me. I mean, I learned what Kosher entails, but I couldn’t figure out how to reference it to a pickle.
Epic, just as there is a wide gamut of political philosophies ranging from ultra-right wing to ultra-left wing, so to are there Theological opinions on the meaning of the Bible. There are some very conservative Christians that hold that the word is literal; these are typically the assholes with the megaphones stating all gays go to Hell outside of sports games. Then, there’s some moderates; their beliefs range from some of the Bible being literal, some of it metaphorical. I most likely fall under that category, and from my experiences even in the Deep South, most people I know hold this view too. We’re just not as loud as those Jerry Falwell types. Then there’s some that think it’s almost all metaphors and allegories meant to help us live a good life; Sin would fall into that category, but he’s not Christian so screw him. 
Yeah, that’s my category. With Sin.
But I don’t really care, I just want to know about that damn kosher pickle!
Kosher pickle? That just means it didn’t have cloven hooves.
Thanks. No really, that was so damn helpful.