(January 16, 2016 at 5:57 pm)athrock Wrote:(January 16, 2016 at 5:42 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: But then I think he then goes right off the rails:
"...if you're going to accept the existence of God, at some level you have to give up control and you can't just do what you want to because it feels good. And I liked very much being in control. I liked not having to answer to what was holy and vote for what was right. Maybe in some way, I was aware already without having put words to it, of the moral law — and aware that I wasn't living up to it.
From the concession that a faith based worldview need not be dismissed out of hand, it does not follow that one should abandon control to a hypothetical god. That is just whack. One can admit that one has less control than many probably surmise without willfully abandoning any role whatsoever in ones life. Self abnegation is always a mistake as well as reprehensible.
Well, look at this from another perspective: if there is a God who made all things, who made YOU also (even by means of genetics, etc.), then, you belong to Him, don't you?
Understood in a sufficiently as-if manner, allegorically in other words, I do belong to this 'god' but no more than it belongs to me. We are mutually dependent on the other. I am dependent upon what you're calling 'god' for giving rise to me. But in the same way, this god is likewise dependent upon me for bringing it into a modern world where it otherwise has no place at all. We are this god's vessel as well as its 'creation'. Psychologically, we complete god and do what it cannot.
'God' understood in this way can't just be walked away from and ignored. It is important to please this God because if you go too far astray and serve it not at all, it can withdraw the fundamental ground of being which makes 'you' possible. But you're a fool if you think this 'god' is correctly and exclusively explained by just one tradition, say the bible. The truth is you don't have the first clue about how to please it because you don't 'get it' at all.
(January 16, 2016 at 5:57 pm)athrock Wrote:(January 16, 2016 at 5:42 pm)Whateverist the White Wrote: There are ways to live a life with a faith based worldview, and even hold your head up high in doing so. But Collin's way isn't one of them. You meet and hear of so few impeccable theists. I wish those there are would do more to make themselves known to encourage others. But they probably feel estranged by the fundamentalists who dominate most traditions. It would be much more interesting to live in a world with those guys to challenge us than it is to be constantly proselytized to my idiot fundamentalists who have so missed the boat.
Accept that there are no impeccable believers, and the Church is not a haven for the perfect few among us. It is a hospital filled with the sick, the wounded, the deranged, the stinking and rotten.
You got that right.
(January 16, 2016 at 5:57 pm)athrock Wrote: In short, it's pretty much like the world outside its walls with one exception: those patients inside have accepted the forgiveness of the Divine Physician who alone can heal them.
Yes, they cling to a literal prescription obtained from a book best understood allegorically within the context of the worldwide genre. Sadly that might provide solace -I wouldn't know- but it won't lead to anything more.
