How Christians and there god sound to me.

[Gooders1002]

Does this?

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Proverbs 3:5

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding

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In other words, don't think for yourself, just take god's word for it. How is this seeking truth? OR is does definition of seeking truth mean simply asking god for the answer?

Well, a possible response might go like this:

Proverbs 3 isn't saying "don't ever try to understand things", or "never make judgments/evaluations based on your own understanding". It's talking about what you should fundamentally orient your life around--more like, "Don't think that you've got everything figured out already. Be willing to be changed/lead by the Lord".

Well that's your/your churches interpretation of it anyway.

[The Grand Nudger]

Proverbs 3 isn't saying "don't ever try to understand things", or "never make judgments/evaluations based on your own understanding". It's talking about what you should fundamentally orient your life around--more like, "Don't think that you've got everything figured out already. Be willing to be changed/lead by the Lord".

Insufficient, and honestly no different than orienting your life around thinking that you've got it all figured out (we'd just be assuming that someone else has it all figured out). If the lord could cobble together a reasonable explanation for anything then it wouldn't be the lord doing the changing or the leading, it would be the reasonable explanation.

All of this leads me to wondering why we can't trust the words on the page to mean what they say? Why didn't the text simply read......

-"Don't think that you've got everything figured out already. Be willing to be changed/lead by the Lord"-

Why isn't that what we find in the black and white? I mean sure, that's clearly what some may want it to mean, but who's offering the wisdom in this scenario, the lowly human or the god? When it's all said and done it's just a proverb, a saying of men. We say silly things sometimes.

[Darkstar]

Well, a possible response might go like this:

Proverbs 3 isn't saying "don't ever try to understand things", or "never make judgments/evaluations based on your own understanding". It's talking about what you should fundamentally orient your life around--more like, "Don't think that you've got everything figured out already. Be willing to be changed/lead by the Lord".

That...that actually sounds pretty accurate. The problem then being, how do you take guidance from god? Rather than trying to figure things out for yourself, you let god figure them out for you. Ironically, it is the theists who oftentimes think they have it all figured out. We don't know how the big bang was set off, claiming it is god, and filling in 'goddidit' in the answer for everything you aren't sure about is more harmful than leaning on human understanding and admitting that you don't know. Consider all of the scientific progress that has occurred up until this point and ask youself if we would be this far if we hadn't leaned on human reason and instead had asked god to make these discoveries.

Now if by "be willing to be changed/led" you mean that god comes to us to guide us, on occasion, I must ask when he ever did this. Ordereing genocides or making decrees, sure, but imarpting knowledge? Not so much. (This all assuming he actually existed)

[CliveStaples]

Well that's your/your churches interpretation of it anyway.

Uh, no, that's just the first thing that came into my head when I was trying to think of a rival account of the Proverbs passage.

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Insufficient, and honestly no different than orienting your life around thinking that you've got it all figured out (we'd just be assuming that someone else has it all figured out). If the lord could cobble together a reasonable explanation for anything then it wouldn't be the lord doing the changing or the leading, it would be the reasonable explanation.

I don't think this is very persuasive. People are always going to be lead by their own understanding about God. Abraham decided to sacrifice his son based on his understanding of God's command. On the account I described, that's not the kind of thing Proverbs is saying you shouldn't do. In fact, it's exactly the kind of thing Proverbs is saying you should do: if your own understanding of X makes you inclined to do Y, but your understanding of God is such that you think that God would want you to do Z, then you should do Z.

For example, my understanding of premarital sex might lead me to think, "Sure, it's cool, as long as nobody gets sick or pregnant." But in order to lead a godly life, I can't do what I might otherwise want to do in light of my understanding of God's will for me.

All of this leads me to wondering why we can't trust the words on the page to mean what they say? Why didn't the text simply read......

-"Don't think that you've got everything figured out already. Be willing to be changed/lead by the Lord"-

Why isn't that what we find in the black and white? I mean sure, that's clearly what some may want it to mean, but who's offering the wisdom in this scenario, the lowly human or the god? When it's all said and done it's just a proverb, a saying of men. We say silly things sometimes.

Yeah, I mean, why wasn't it written in English? Why'd they write it in Hebrew? Why didn't they use 21st century English idioms so that we could more easily understand it?

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That...that actually sounds pretty accurate. The problem then being, how do you take guidance from god? Rather than trying to figure things out for yourself, you let god figure them out for you. Ironically, it is the theists who oftentimes think they have it all figured out. We don't know how the big bang was set off, claiming it is god, and filling in 'goddidit' in the answer for everything you aren't sure about is more harmful than leaning on human understanding and admitting that you don't know. Consider all of the scientific progress that has occurred up until this point and ask youself if we would be this far if we hadn't leaned on human reason and instead had asked god to make these discoveries.

But God doesn't "figure things out for you". That's just a strawman that people have crafted because they want to conclude "lol xtians don't exercise critical judgment."

What specifically in this passage leads you to conclude that the text instructs believers to 'let God figure things out' for them?

Now if by "be willing to be changed/led" you mean that god comes to us to guide us, on occasion, I must ask when he ever did this. Ordereing genocides or making decrees, sure, but imarpting knowledge? Not so much. (This all assuming he actually existed)

You're just asking about the agency of God. Typically examples (e.g., anecdotal evidence) are automatically dismissed precisely because they would entail that God actually acted in the world. So I don't know what kind of evidence you would actually even possibly accept.

[pocaracas]

You're just asking about the agency of God. Typically examples (e.g., anecdotal evidence) are automatically dismissed precisely because they would entail that God actually acted in the world. So I don't know what kind of evidence you would actually even possibly accept.

According to the myth, some people did have direct interactions with this god. Some other people simply witness some interactions of this god with the world.

Why is it that, once the myth was established, he stoped interacting?
Or he didn't and it's just a case of 21st century people just being blind to those interactions in a way that 10th century BC people living in a half-desert country were not?

[CliveStaples]

According to the myth, some people did have direct interactions with this god. Some other people simply witness some interactions of this god with the world.

Why is it that, once the myth was established, he stoped interacting?

He stopped interacting? Support, please.

Or he didn't and it's just a case of 21st century people just being blind to those interactions in a way that 10th century BC people living in a half-desert country were not?

First, 10th century BC people would probably describe and understanding things very differently than we do.

Second, how do you know that God doesn't interact with people now? How do you know how precisely God chooses interacts with people? Where did you come by this knowledge?

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't think this is very persuasive. People are always going to be lead by their own understanding about God. Abraham decided to sacrifice his son based on his understanding of God's command. On the account I described, that's not the kind of thing Proverbs is saying you shouldn't do. In fact, it's exactly the kind of thing Proverbs is saying you should do: if your own understanding of X makes you inclined to do Y, but your understanding of God is such that you think that God would want you to do Z, then you should do Z.

The obvious question becomes, "why is going with whatever god thinks any different than going with whatever you think?" Neither involves an explanation for whatever authority we might wish to go with. In this way they are both entirely similar.

For example, my understanding of premarital sex might lead me to think, "Sure, it's cool, as long as nobody gets sick or pregnant." But in order to lead a godly life, I can't do what I might otherwise want to do in light of my understanding of God's will for me.

Illustrating the difficulty you alluded to above, your understanding of what god wills is yet another thing "you've got figured out", and we still can't explain why either you -or a god- has anything figured out without elaborating can we?

Yeah, I mean, why wasn't it written in English? Why'd they write it in Hebrew? Why didn't they use 21st century English idioms so that we could more easily understand it?

It -is- written in english. The words we find in english are not a direct translation but an interpretation of what the phrase would mean in our vernacular (direct translations are often unintelligible). If the author wished to express the sentiment you've expressed they could have done so in whatever language they wished, and it would be interpreted in english to be as close as possible to this expression. What you are doing is unlike this, you are translating an expression -in english-...to another expression -in english-. Why this is required at all is the very thing I'm wondering. Even after we go through the trouble of this double dipping interpretation we still don't have a very useful statement, the criticism of the first applies as equally to the second.

(ignoring this entirely - would it be so unreasonable to expect that the very important message of a god be easily understood by any person of any culture and any language at any time? I don't think so, but in the case of this particular portion of the text I don't require it to be so, or even expect it to be so...because it's just something that a human being decided to write down one day- and again, we say silly things....)

[catfish]

I know exactly what your intention of this thread was/is. You were hoping to ridicule Christians and call them crazy...

No wrong, My intention was to see who is the crazy ones and who was the sain ones and I can no intention to ridicule anybody. All I wanted to a simple yes I believe point 1 or no I don't which you seem not do have gotten. It's nice to see a Christian do research and not take it blindly (unlike most). But it seems you can't decipher my original point, and I did not need a lecture about your believes I want a simple YES or NO answer (with a brief explanation of why to believe that point or not), Also I want to know the personal views on the 9 points not the majority views. What part of this don't you get?

Exactly how stupid and intellectually dishonest are you really? You just supported my statement with your response. What part of THAT don't you get? It appears that you couldn't do your own research so you resorted to changing the subject. Read the fucking OP yourself... You can finally admit that you really haven't read the Bible and you're just an unbelieving sheeple, it's OK, really it is. Your oxymoronic position is amusing and yet quite predictable...

I gave you simple yes/no answers with my agree/disagree responses (with very brief explanations). Does your delusional mind deny this??? (obviously it does) Perhaps you forget what you said not so long ago??? " I want you to tell me if they're right or wrong and correct me, I want to know if you really believe them and if they're accurate or not. I want to see things from your eyes that not been corrupted by somebody else with their own goals and your view on those points, That's the whole point of the thread." I challenged 1 point and you ran from that challenge, now didn't you? I gave you several examples of why your point #3 was incorrect in my eyes, do you deny this? Can you refute MY points? Probably not...

And you DID need the lecture on my beliefs... With that "lecture", you fell right into the "no true Scotsman fallacy". On what basis do you think that I'm not a Christian? Really Gooders, I would love to hear your reasoning behind THAT... lol! It's fucking hillarious that an atheist would resort to the "not a True Christian™" angle...

So Gooders, the ball's in your court... Prove to me that you're not troll, can you do that????

[CliveStaples]

The obvious question becomes, "why is going with whatever god thinks any different than going with whatever you think?" Neither involves an explanation for whatever authority we might wish to go with. In this way they are both entirely similar.

But God's will for you is the explanation for believers. That is, if you're a Christian/God-follower, God wanting you to do X is explanatory for why it is good to do X.

Illustrating the difficulty you alluded to above, your understanding of what god wills is yet another thing "you've got figured out", and we still can't explain why either you -or a god- has anything figured out without elaborating can we?

I don't understand your question, your phrasing is too ambiguous. You want me to account for why I have a particular understanding about premarital sex? Or why I have a particular understanding about God's will with regard to premarital sex? Or why God has a particular understanding of premarital sex?

It -is- written in english. The words we find in english are not a direct translation but an interpretation of what the phrase would mean in our vernacular (direct translations are often unintelligible). If the author wished to express the sentiment you've expressed they could have done so in whatever language they wished, and it would be interpreted in english to be as close as possible to this expression. What you are doing is unlike this, you are translating an expression -in english-...to another expression -in english-. Why this is required at all is the very thing I'm wondering. Even after we go through the trouble of this double dipping interpretation we still don't have a very useful statement, the criticism of the first applies as equally to the second.

(ignoring this entirely - would it be so unreasonable to expect that the very important message of a god be easily understood by any person of any culture and any language at any time? I don't think so, but in the case of this particular portion of the text I don't require it to be so, or even expect it to be so...because it's just something that a human being decided to write down one day- and again, we say silly things....)

It's the problem of communicating with language at all, isn't it? Different people might need it explained in different ways. Which is why there's an entire Bible to read in order to more fully understand God's nature/will/plan/whathaveyou. You're asking why proverbs--essentially, Hebrew "wisdom cliches"--aren't pithy when translated to English? Really?

[The Grand Nudger]

But God's will for you is the explanation for believers. That is, if you're a Christian/God-follower, God wanting you to do X is explanatory for why it is good to do X.

Yes, in exactly the same way that "waffles" is my explanation for the existence of the universe. That's precisely the problem Clive. It's a bare assertion followed up with circular reasoning. It matters very little whether we invoke our own understanding or gods - something more is required in either case.

I don't understand your question, your phrasing is too ambiguous. You want me to account for why I have a particular understanding about premarital sex? Or why I have a particular understanding about God's will with regard to premarital sex? Or why God has a particular understanding of premarital sex?

No, not at all, I want you to explain to me why your understanding of gods will doesn't fall to the same comment about not "having it all figured out". Explain to me how your reference to the will of a god doesn't become a self defeating statement if we set it right next to your interpretation of this proverb.

It's the problem of communicating with language at all, isn't it? Different people might need it explained in different ways. Which is why there's an entire Bible to read in order to more fully understand God's nature/will/plan/whathaveyou. You're asking why proverbs--essentially, Hebrew "wisdom cliches"--aren't pithy when translated to English? Really?

It's a problem for us, as human beings, sure, but why is it a problem for god? And no, that's not what I'm asking at all, I expect there to be ambiguity and difficulty in tranlation (largely because I don't think a god was even remotely involved in any of it, least of all proverbs), I'm asking why you felt the need to translate one english expression into another, and whether or not you can then claim the authority of the first as the authority of the second. Proverbs says -such and such-...You, Clive...say something else. Are you deferring to proverbs here or your own understanding? Again...how is this not a self defeating statement when we consider it alongside the very interpretation of that proverb you decided to offer us?
(and again, it's still an empty statement regardless - no reason has been given as to why we would side with one or the other)