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(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: To answer you both the Bible.
I stated no question, only the human right to fabulate 'till your brains drop out.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: PR we've been over this, yes the Bible is a crappy literal list of laws and outdated metaphors.
Sure.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: I try and take out as many personifications out as possible and read something for it's entirety and in context.
Why bother with the crap?
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: Yes, God is a personal God.
I take that as a statement of self-confirmation.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: Yes, God could, and probably does, exist as an entity outside the known universe.
That too. Please define "outside the known universe" and how did you travel there?
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: For a concept of God I look to a)ancient scriptures and place their context in my modern life
Ever read Ehrman? He places them in their historical context and arrives at quite another picture. Quite interesting really.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: b)personal subjective observations
Sounds like personal preferences to me.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: c) logic and reason.
It does not add up nicely with a and b, I'd think.
(June 12, 2010 at 7:02 am)tackattack Wrote: I've told you why I don't subscribe to the personifications touted as evil by atheists. I've told you a few of the descriptors I don't see as personifications are the ones I apply and are validated though fellow Christians understanding and personal observation in reality. I'm telling you what you're picking off of the buffet (to continue your metaphor) isn't actually food and you say I'm only picking the good tastey treats off the table. Does that about sum it up?
So tell me exactly what I've picked off your buffet, without asking? Is it the god is love thing?
"I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped, in the blinding headlights of vacuous crap" - Tim Minchin in "Storm"
Christianity is perfect bullshit, christians are not - Purple Rabbit, honouring CS Lewis
Faith is illogical - fr0d0
(June 11, 2010 at 12:21 am)tackattack Wrote: No, no you're both (Caecilian and Paul) missing the point of inclusiveness. It's a counter to the idea that non-believers have that " So if you're not a Christian you're going to hell" schtick. It's the stance of a lot of non-denominational Church movements. We're not saying sure anyone can get into heaven either mind you. It would be completely unreasonable though, for God to punish people who's only exposure to his grace would be from nature (some remote tribe) or who didn't have the mental fascilities to understand the message (mentallly disabled or children). People before Jesus still got into heaven, so Jesus obviously isn't the only way. Since Jesus, and if you know of the message, the only way to God is through Jesus' teachings. For instance you're blind and in a third world country with no access to religion. You still have the laws of God written on your heart (for literalist atheists that means inherit to your nature) and can therefore get into heaven. The main message being that God only requires as much belief and faith as he's revealed in his Grace. It's not our responsibility to have faith, it's God's responsibility to show us reasons to have faith in him. Remember, true faith isn't without notitia, which requires illumination from God. Similarly, someone could live in absolute blind faith their entire life and speak about God and believe without a shadow of a doubt that God exists and pray to baby jesus all the time and not get into heaven. This is described as happening in the Bible, he spoke to Phillip about it and in the parable of the narrow door. I think the Christian movement sees people like muslims, LDS, and Jews as going to "Hell" (wth ever that is), not because they're sinners or they're "god" isn't the same "God" but because they intentionally turn away from Jesus' teachings. Jews before Jesus obviously got into heaven, that's in the Bible to I'm pretty sure. Breakdown from a Christian perspective:
1-For God to know you he's had to reveal himself to you
2-For you to know God you have to either
a) had the message of Jesus brought to you
b) acknowledge revelations God has for you
3- To qualify for eternity both 1 and 2 have to had happened and yoou have to follow that path he's provided for you.
4- You're left outside the door to eternal life if you turn away from either 1 or 2 or the path they lead to.
I hope that explains it a little better.
Hmmm...I've re-read this post several times. I'm still not sure if I entirely understand it. Very interesting, to say the least- I've never come across this type of christian worldview before. Tackattack continues to provide us with food for thought.
Okay, so assuming that I have more or less understood the inclusive position properly:
1. Does everyone have the laws of god inherent in their nature? I'm assuming that they do.
2. Lets say someone is an atheist, without a shred of religious belief, e.g. myself. It seems to me that I still get 'punished' in that whatever path god has laid out for me, I haven't taken it. And I've been exposed to plenty of christianity, but rejected it outright- often with considerable vehemence. So its hellfire for Caecilian. Despite the fact that I've spent most of my adult life working with people with mental health problems, learning difficulties and/or autism, and have very certainly done more good in the world than harm.
3. But heres the weird thing- if I'd never been exposed to christianity at all, I'd apparently still have a shot at heaven. So the very worst thing that a christian can do is try to increase awareness of christianity in countries with other faiths. If the people there don't know about jesus then they can go to heaven. But if they know and reject, then its eternal torment.
Why should god be judging us on the basis of faith? Why should it matter what we believe in? It seems very silly to me. I mean if you were to say that all democrats/ republicans/ independents (delete as appropriate) justly deserved to be tortured for eternity, that would rightly be seen as an over-reaction. And yet what christians say is very similar- 'you don't believe in this, so you'll burn forever'
And whats really appalling is that they seem to think that this is right and just.
Christianity is deeply immoral. That seems clear. Not only crazy, but ethically unacceptable, evil even.
1- Anyone who has the mental capacity for individual thought. Children would be covered because they are individuals and have their own thoughts regardless of their ability to critically self-examine or conceptualize. nimals would be covered if you think that they think. I personally don't care if Fido can think.
2- Correct you are turning away from the message of Jesus, and have the ability to rationally choose between following or fighting. It is possible in theory that you weren't given God's message as he meant to give it to you.. for instance: Preacher comes and tells you about God, now he throws in some lies and misinterpretations to make the offer seem more exciing. That's not God's message so I would say God won't fault you forcalling an arse an arse. If you are being witnessed to, that witnessing terminates as soon as they say something contray to God's nature and plan. Now after the preacher leaves you go to your garden and you're thinking about how pissed ou are that the preacher lied. You wish God would be real, but you're upset and let down. Something catches your eye and there's a particular brilliance and vibrance to your garden that's abnormal. Some butterflies like you've never seen flutter around and you dismiss it and get back to gardening. (A Christian would accept that as a sign if they're used to seeing it) So you're looking down and you swear that a group of beetles was actually forming the shape of a heart or actual words or something. If you dismiss both then yes you've turned against God's plan and are in denial of God, and thus sinning. From a Chistian view it's not about the deeds it's about the denial.
3- No you can be in a place and have no knowledge of Jesus' message and still "go to hell". If you know in your heart it's wrong to kill, then still kill the man, and have no knowledge of Jesus' then you're going against the laws that are written on your heart wich is against God.
I'm trying to show you that 'you don't believe in this, so you'll burn forever' doesn't equal inclusivness or the non-denominational Christian stances I've seen. I'm saying we all have the choice to stand in the rain or go inside. If you deny that it's raining don't bitch if you get wet. We'll never know while we're alive what happens. The afterlife either exists or doesn't, that's where we fundamentally differ. Deepply immoral snd evil .. sigh check the sig. I think you're view is definately skewed. If we can't get past that bias then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
Okay, first of all the issue of messages from god. Afaik, I've never had a message from god, but what if I did? Lets say that I had precisely the experience that you describe in your post.
My first assumption would be that I was experiencing a flashback. In my mis-spent youth I went through a phase of eating acid like candy, so that would be a viable explanation. I haven't had a flashback for many years, but I know what they're like, and how to deal with them.
But what if I kept on seeing weird shit? Flashbacks don't last very long at all, so if things carried on then my next assumption would be that someone had spiked me with an illegal substance- some sort of hallucinogen. Its been many years since I've taken anything like that, but again I'd be able to cope pretty well. I'd try to chill out, do some breathing exercises maybe, get a friend round to keep me company, and wait for whateveritwas to wear off.
But maybe it wouldn't. Maybe I'd still be seeing beetles forming hearts and stuff the next day. Well, that would be worrying. My next assumption would be that I'd gone insane. I'd therefore seek psychiatric help ASAP.
Incidentally, the experience that you describe, in particular this:
Quote:Something catches your eye and there's a particular brilliance and vibrance to your garden that's abnormal
Does sound an awful lot like the effects of LSD. 'Particular brilliance and vibrance that's abnormal'- yep, I know what thats like.
As far as the morality of god goes:
Theres this guy
He killed millions of jews, gypsies, gay people, political opponents and others. He also started a world war. He's generally regarded as a very bad man.
Then theres this guy
He killed millions of russians, ukrainians and others in waves of paranoid persecutions. He also deliberated created a major famine. He's generally regarded as being another very bad man.
And then theres this guy
He's certainly responsible for some bloody deeds on the Earth, at least so the bible tells us. But all of this pales in comparison to the afterlife. He's condemned billions of people to eternal torment, a fate that is vastly worse than simply killing them.
And yet the christians not only worship the third guy, whose crimes appear to be far worse than the other two. They actually have the nerve to claim that he is benevolent.
Its a sick, twisted, evil religion.
He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
Mikhail Bakunin
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything
Friedrich Nietzsche
@PR- Once again going to the physical evidence required to faith. That leads no where. I've never read Erhman, I''ll put it on my list. Of course the evidence is subjective, it's immaterial and unmeasurable within the current model of the universe. I'm not sure if you specifically have, but atheists in general cherry pick only personifications (and usually only the bad ones) not objective identifiers for God. The only one's I'm aware of are the one's I've stated above.Why bother with the Bible? Because if I was an archaeologist I'd not only be studying the things I'd found, but placing them contextually in history with documentation and study.
@Caecilian- You would draw no correlation that the synchronicity of the event of you basically asking for a sign from God , then receiving a spontaneous LSD-like flash are related? Maybe I could see getting an MRI and seeing the doctor to verify if they continue, but I think that's denial.
And what would you conclude if doctors and psychiatrists found absolutely nothing wrong with you? You'd probably still deny God had anything to do with anything because it's incompatible with your materialistic view, instead of accepting that your view could be wrong and maybe he did provide you with what you asked for.
As far as God and morality-The problem with your emotive hate parade is that the first two actually did the events themselves, the third at the most inspired them. What If I have 500 people say that you've inspired them to slaughter all of their own children , because I've told them you have some superhero powers. It turns out your superpowers are completely explainable and you didn't even want them to do what I told them you wanted. What culpability would you actually have in that scenario?
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post
always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
Caecilian: He's certainly responsible for some bloody deeds on the Earth, at least so the bible tells us. But all of this pales in comparison to the afterlife. He's condemned billions of people to eternal torment, a fate that is vastly worse than simply killing them.
I thought the Bible said the wages of sin is death not eternal torment. I'm not really clear on that.
Caecilian: And yet the christians not only worship the third guy, whose crimes appear to be far worse than the other two. They actually have the nerve to claim that he is benevolent.
What did JC do? He let his enemies kill him. It showed that he really meant what he said.
June 13, 2010 at 3:43 am (This post was last modified: June 13, 2010 at 4:13 am by WingedFoe.)
(June 13, 2010 at 12:11 am)ecolox Wrote: I thought the Bible said the wages of sin is death not eternal torment. I'm not really clear on that.
Quote:Matthew 8:12 says, "But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Isaiah 66:24 reads: "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind."
Daniel 12:2 describes the duration of hell: "Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt."
Luke 16:22-24 uses a parable to describe hell: "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'"
Luke 12:5 says, "But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him."
Mark 9:47 says, "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell."
Matthew 23:33 reads: "You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?"
Revelation 19:20 talks about the fiery lake: "But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur."
So, yeah, the Bible mentions a place of fire and brimstone, says that God has the power to send you there, and says that it's a place reserved for those who sin and rebel against Him. I bolded "dead bodies" because those "dead" bodies are being tortured, so apparently "death" in the Bible means eternal torment
Quote:What did JC do? He let his enemies kill him. It showed that he really meant what he said.
Meh, Christians are always saying that he committed the ultimate sacrifice, but is it really a sacrifice if all he did was suffer for a few hours before living for an eternity in paradise? A true sacrifice, I think, would be to share the punishment he reserves for the unbelievers... eternal damnation.
Quote:Surely this is a mistake?
I can't speak for Caecilian, but I can give you my opinion on the matter. Christians themselves are not sick, evil, and twisted (well, most of them anyway), but a lot of the religion's teachings are. Christians generally take the good stuff and ignore the bad, but if you pick up the Bible you'll notice a lot of bad, like the concept of hell. A being who is willing to dole out eternal punishments for any crime, no matter how grave, is certainly not benevolent. I would even call such a being malevolent.
(June 12, 2010 at 11:19 pm)tackattack Wrote: @Caecilian- You would draw no correlation that the synchronicity of the event of you basically asking for a sign from God , then receiving a spontaneous LSD-like flash are related? Maybe I could see getting an MRI and seeing the doctor to verify if they continue, but I think that's denial.
And what would you conclude if doctors and psychiatrists found absolutely nothing wrong with you? You'd probably still deny God had anything to do with anything because it's incompatible with your materialistic view, instead of accepting that your view could be wrong and maybe he did provide you with what you asked for.
Nah. I'm pig-headed alright, but I'm not that pig-headed. In the scenario that you give, I'd be forced to examine my assumptions. After all, if your paradigm can't explain your experience, then maybe the problem is with your paradigm. I'm not saying that I'd convert or anything- frankly I have no idea how things would pan out (how could I?). But one thing that I wouldn't do is try to deny what had happened to me. That would be dishonest, and although I have many faults, dishonesty isn't one of them.
Quote:As far as God and morality-The problem with your emotive hate parade is that the first two actually did the events themselves, the third at the most inspired them. What If I have 500 people say that you've inspired them to slaughter all of their own children , because I've told them you have some superhero powers. It turns out your superpowers are completely explainable and you didn't even want them to do what I told them you wanted. What culpability would you actually have in that scenario?
Do you think that Hitler personally killed 6 million jews? Of course he didn't. He didn't even order 6 million jews to be killed. What he did was to create a system- a death machine if you like- appointed the 'right' people, set the policy, equipped his followers with the 'right' ideology, approved the allocation of resources. He was certainly responsible for the Holocaust, but lots of other people were responsible too- on a smaller scale, of course.
God, according to christian theology, plays a similar role in the damnation of people like myself. He created the universe, with full foreknowledge of what would happen. The mechanisms that lead to eternal torment for billions are his work. Just as Hitler created the nazi death machine, so, according to christianity, god created the damnation machine. And if Hitler was directly responsible for the Holocaust, and I think that any reasonable person would say that he was, then god is directly responsible for mass damnation.
Not sure how the superhero analogy works, so I won't comment.
He who desires to worship God must harbor no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity.
Mikhail Bakunin
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything
Friedrich Nietzsche
June 13, 2010 at 12:55 pm (This post was last modified: June 13, 2010 at 12:57 pm by ecolox.)
(June 13, 2010 at 3:43 am)WingedFoe Wrote: So, yeah, the Bible mentions a place of fire and brimstone, says that God has the power to send you there, and says that it's a place reserved for those who sin and rebel against Him. I bolded "dead bodies" because those "dead" bodies are being tortured, so apparently "death" in the Bible means eternal torment
Revelation does settle that huh? I guess eternal torment is fair if a soul is set on being eternally sinful and rebellious. You do understand that eternal sin and rebellion means endless evil (which deserves endless punishment)? On earth you may only do a finite amount of evil deeds, but you have the attitude to do such deeds forever, perhaps?
Quote:Meh, Christians are always saying that he committed the ultimate sacrifice, but is it really a sacrifice if all he did was suffer for a few hours before living for an eternity in paradise? A true sacrifice, I think, would be to share the punishment he reserves for the unbelievers... eternal damnation.
You act like getting spat on, beaten, and killed when you don't deserve it is easy. He had to do it all through faith too, I think.
Sending Jesus to eternal damnation would only be sadistic, just what we'd expect you to want.
Quote:I can't speak for Caecilian, but I can give you my opinion on the matter. Christians themselves are not sick, evil, and twisted (well, most of them anyway), but a lot of the religion's teachings are. Christians generally take the good stuff and ignore the bad, but if you pick up the Bible you'll notice a lot of bad, like the concept of hell. A being who is willing to dole out eternal punishments for any crime, no matter how grave, is certainly not benevolent. I would even call such a being malevolent.
You're crazy, Hell isn't 'bad'. God doles out eternal punishments for eternally rebellious/evil subjects. That's perfectly fair and just. It's just what we'd expect of a purely good God.
June 13, 2010 at 1:04 pm (This post was last modified: June 13, 2010 at 1:05 pm by ecolox.)
(June 13, 2010 at 12:13 pm)Caecilian Wrote: God, according to christian theology, plays a similar role in the damnation of people like myself. He created the universe, with full foreknowledge of what would happen. The mechanisms that lead to eternal torment for billions are his work. Just as Hitler created the nazi death machine, so, according to christianity, god created the damnation machine. And if Hitler was directly responsible for the Holocaust, and I think that any reasonable person would say that he was, then god is directly responsible for mass damnation.
If one good soul comes out of this creation then it was all worth it, don't you think?
People like you can choose to reject God and His way. Now, are you upset that you were given that chance?
(June 13, 2010 at 12:59 pm)Minimalist Wrote: If he's crazy then you are out of your fucking mind.
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