The stupidity of sin

[The Grand Nudger]

Still waiting for you to transform yourself into anything other than a shameless liar for christ, and for this ability you keep talking about to materialize.

I guess we'll both have to learn to live with disappointment.

[emjay]

No, that wasn't what I assumed if you read my question properly. I asked, assuming (well hoping really... for your sake) that it wasn't the case that you put blind faith in everything, what was your criteria for deciding which claims to apply blind faith to in life? You've here said you only have that sort faith in God... fair enough... but the question was how did you arrive at that decision? To place blind faith in that particular claim over any other? I mean, if the definition of blind faith is that it is based on no evidence, then something else must make you choose to apply blind faith to one claim over another, in this case the god claim.

In my case I can't really say it's "blind faith", I've seen evidence, works should follow faith; faith without works is dead.

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.  

If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.

What Paul is saying here is, speaking in tongues is fine and all, but it's craziness to the unbeliever, BUT if they prophesy and reveal the secrets of the heart, then the power of God is undeniable.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. - Hebrews 4:12

I posted this video a while back, of a woman who had the experience Paul was speaking of:

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Now you may choose to just dismiss her testimony out of hand, but the thing is, something like 1700 sermons from William Branham were recorded and this woman's testimony is corroborated by and audio recording from June 13, 1968.

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I made video clip from another recording which is a little longer in which he sort of explains how faith works, make sure you turn on the subtitles because due to his 7th grade education his grammar isn't the best, and the audio quality isn't very good either.

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Okay, well thanks for those videos... they were interesting to watch. As for my take on them, there are two things to consider. The first is the woman and her claimed vision of the circles at her feet. That is one thing that would never act as evidence of god for me; anything that can be attributed to the workings of the mind. So whether she was lying or actually had that experience makes no difference to me, because the mind is a very powerful thing. My dad claims to have had a vision, and I don't doubt that he did, but I don't attribute it to god but to the power of the mind. Even if I had a vision, my first port of call would be to explain it in psychological terms rather than supernatural terms. This also goes for any type of healing that can be attributed to the mind... the placebo effect is one example of that... you expect to get better so you do get better, even if someone replaces your medicine with sugar pills.

The second thing to consider is William Branham's knowledge about his audience who he claims are strangers. I can't deny that that's powerful stuff at face value but only at face value. If you can think back to a time before you even considered the idea of God... at that point if you were confronted with something that either had a magical explanation or some other explanation, the rational thing to do, based on what you knew of the world up to that point (ie no magic) would be to look for an earthly explanation before a magical one, and to treat an earthly explanation however unlikely as ultimately much more plausible than a magical explanation. So as you think now, you may think I'm clutching at straws to think it's an elaborate deception... but the real clutching at straws is to prefer a magical explanation over an earthly one when you have experience of the earthly but no experience of the magical. Anyway, back to Branham... he claimed that all his audience were strangers, and throughout saying stuff like 'I'm a stranger to you?, raise your hand, you name is xyz spelt xyz these are your ailments xyz', and that in itself sets alarm bells ringing; that's exactly the same thing that magicians do on stage when they go out of their way to reassure the audience that everything's on the up and up... right before they perform their trick. He actually swore in God's name that the people were strangers so looking at earthly explanations only, he could either be a Christian, either playing pedantic word games to make him feel like he wasn't lying or have some rationalisation in his head that it was for some greater good and god was okay with it, or he could be a non-Christian who was deliberately lying. And just looking him up on Google it turns out that there was a lot of controversy about him, calling him a false prophet etc and that he was heavily into the occult and contradicting the Bible. So with that in mind, I think the most likely explanation is that he was indeed not a Christian... to a believer he'd be a 'false prophet', but to everyone else, just a liar.

[bennyboy]

My take on sin is that it is meant to represent those acts which are an abuse of healthy natural function.

For example, eating is important. Gluttony is counter-productive, and represents a corruption of the purpose of eating.
Sex is important. Excessive lust is (likely) counter-productive, and represents a corruption of the purpose of sex.

Yeah, we can argue that nothing has an intrinsic purpose, and we are free to do whatever feels right to us as individuals. But I don't think that counseling people not to overindulge their instincts is a really bad thing to do.

[The Grand Nudger]

You've got a secular impression of sin that works for you, but it's just retrofitting their retrograde concept to something less disgusting.  While your advice about "sin" as you conceive it isn't bad advice, their advice about sin-as-is, is. Maybe one day everyone will see sin the way you see it. Would certainly make for a less purile religion.

[emjay]

And as soon as something is enshrined in a law/commandment, it loses all context. So though I agree that the counsel is good in its way... that excessive anything is generally bad for you, enshrined as a commandment all it does is create polar thinking rather than say, measured thinking.

[Faith No More]

It seems as if you choose to believe no evidence exists.

I've already provided an example of schooling Rhythm on how bees reproduce earlier in the thread.

Wrong, males come from a unfertilized egg, meaning they have no father....

I believe that counts as one... want another?

Keep beating that horse.  It's not quite dead yet.

How about schooling someone on the meaning of the word 'except'

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Yeah so there aren't any rules apart from the rules.

Fuck me. Fuck everything.

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How many examples do you need? 3? 4? 5? I've got all day.

Lol, that's quite the schooling.  You're a regular professor.

On a side note, do you just bookmark a page every time you think you score a point?  Are you secretly trying to compile Huggy's greatest hits?

So you really aren't insulting me by referring to me as a moron, you insult your buddies...

Actually, it was as much a counterpoint to your claim that being convinced by evidence is equal to knowledge as it was an insult, which don't think I didn't notice that you completely dodged that.  Care to actually address the issue of whether my being convinced by evidence that you're a moron is knowledge or belief?

[Faith No More]

@Faith No More

What happened man? Ran out of ad hominem attacks?

It wasn't an ad hominem, genius. There was an actual point being made.

It's cute when you try to use fallacies, though.

[Huggy Bear]

And just looking him up on Google it turns out that there was a lot of controversy about him, calling him a false prophet etc and that he was heavily into the occult and contradicting the Bible. So with that in mind, I think the most likely explanation is that he was indeed not a Christian... to a believer he'd be a 'false prophet', but to everyone else, just a liar.

Did not the religious establishment in Jesus day refer to him as a devil Did they not accuse him of contradicting the law (scriptures?) Why would it be any different now?

15 But some of them said, He casteth out devils through Beelzebub the chief of the devils.

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?

At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto him, Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day.

I get it, it's a lot to take in, but it's all according to scripture.

does not the bible state that God would send a prophet at the end times? John the baptist was sent to prepare the way for the first coming of Jesus as foretold in Malachi 3

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts.

In Malachi 4 there was another prophet promised to prepare the way for the second coming.

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord:
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

I could show you where this goes all the way back to the book of Genesis (when I find the time, since it will take a lengthy post to present the evidence and tie everything in with the bible), although it will probably just be a waste of time, y'all won't be able to say that no one provided any evidence.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of evidence of God would you be willing to accept?

[robvalue]

Still no answer on whether you can suddenly decide to be an atheist.

Or how original sin has anything to do with unbelief.

[emjay]

I could show you where this goes all the way back to the book of Genesis (when I find the time, since it will take a lengthy post to present the evidence and tie everything in with the bible), although it will probably just be a waste of time, y'all won't be able to say that no one provided any evidence.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of evidence of God would you be willing to accept?

You're right, it would be a waste of time because this sort of thing holds no value as evidence for me either; the human response to prophecies, signs, horoscopes, superstitions etc can all be readily explained by the power of the mind. The human mind is exceptionally good at seeing what it expects to see so if I buy into say the superstition that seeing a black cat crossing my path means bad luck, then if I see a black cat my mind starts to expect bad luck, then it starts to perceive bad luck, noticing things it wouldn't have noticed without that expectation and interpreting things differently in light of that expectation, and since whatever you perceive is your reality, it ultimately creates bad luck... it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same thing with horoscopes... they set up expectations which your mind then fulfils, interpreting what it sees in light of what it expects to see. And because of these psychological processes, vague prophecies are meaningless as predictions. The more vague a prediction is, the easier it is for your mind to perceive it as fulfilled; the more scope it has for interpretation. Conversely, the more specific a prediction is, the less room the mind has for manoeuvre in interpreting it... so the more details, the more constrained the mind is interpreting it as fulfilled... constrained to the one thing that prediction predicted. Which is good for everyone... a specific prediction is testable and people can be sure they have interpreted it correctly. You're pointing to prophecies in the Bible and seem to be saying you think this guy, William Branham is a prophet prophesied in the Bible? Well I think it's a fair bet that one hundred years ago a guy was pointing to the same passages in the Bible and interpreting some other religious figure of the day as the fulfillment of that prophecy... and in a hundred years time another guy will be doing the same, interpreting a different set of facts as fulfillment of the prophecy... millions of potential interpretations as a result of the vagueness and open-endedness of the prophesy. Show me a prophecy with dates and with specific details that only permit one interpretation and I'll treat that as a prediction which can then be tested, but anything other than that... anything more vague and its value as a prediction drops to zero because of the mind's ability to interpret things in light of its expectations... to see what it expects to see.

As to what I would accept as evidence of God. Not much to be honest... I would need to see with my own eyes a miracle that could only be attributed to god, not to man and the power of the mind. And even then I'd be suspicious of my own mental processes unless it was verified by another person... so ultimately if I saw a miracle and said to my mate 'did you see that?' and he said yes... that's when I'd start considering it for real. But I can take this even further... though I doubt I would in practice... that previous step would probably be enough for me... I read about how sailors in the past thought they saw the end of the world - walls of water around their ships - and were understandably terrified. They were in a position where they had a shared vision as it were... they could turn to their mates and say 'did you see that?' and get a yes response but the walls of water were a trick of the light, caused by how light bent or whatever in that part of the world. So even with a shared 'miracle' in sight, there was in that case a rational explanation, even if it would not be known for hundreds of years. But that aside if me and my mate both see a miracle, that would be enough for me to take it seriously.