ok, this is my last uber-post for some time. Got a pounding headache now...
Shambles said:
Is a subject rather close to my heart as my younger brother commited suicide aged 17. And did so in the most drawn-out, purpleswollen and agonising way possible and - most importantly - changed his mind shortly after initiating the "cause and effect". Was so horrific it made national tabloid copy. His last words were "I think I've done something rather silly".
That's the saddest thing I've read in a long time. Nearly bought a tear to the eye. I might go slightly easier on this weeks hounding of your theological views.
Only slightly mind.
______________
I was speaking to someone who attended a spiritual church this week. You know, the types that do psychic readings and all that. She was astounded at the results, they came out with stuff about her which they couldn't possibly know. Now, as a Christian I was quite concerned about this. I believe in entities outside of this planet, so I believed her and recognised the readings may have been genuine. But I believe in good and evil entities outside of this planet, and the entities channelled though this church may not have her best interests at heart. She came to the church from "insecurity" and is becoming depenedant on it; and i see that as very dangerous.
To the point; a conversation about God, entities and bible ensued. She was clearly not a Christian, but open to the possibilty of the supernatural. So as I talked about my own understandings of religion and experiences; I felt a mutual understanding. A positive, honest relationship to learn from each other.
But with some people it's impossible. There is no interest in taking opposing views into consideration.
Which brings me to my point; if fundamentally you are not willing to accept God, Christian theology then becomes a waste of time. Just continous arguements getting no-where.
An example. Let me quote from Alasadair in T&A again
do you believe that adulterers should be stoned? do you wear clothes of mixed fibers?
alasdair
Seems a very ignorant question? So i give the best response possible. I quote from the NT (John) where a woman is to be stoned for sexual sin, yet Jesus saves her life and defies "the old law". And tell him that "As a Christian I follow Jesus's example".
Now what's alasdair's response? Does he come out with more verses from scripture that disprove my point and prove Jesus approves of stoning sexual sinners? No. So then does he concede "OK, Raas you got me there. Thanks for updating my understanding of Christ".
Of course not. So what does he do?...
He stops posting on the thread and ignores it.
He's not alone. Some people just whine about how stupid Christians are and give very primitive arguements... yet when you correct them, there is no recognition. No thanks for correcting them. They just stop posting. They have no interest in respecting opposing views.
AlphaNumeric did this to me 6 years ago (I have a weird memory, i know). He posts on how silly Christiannity is... so I corrected him with a well-thought out response, which I felt was irrefutable. What was his response? To ignore it and stop posting on the thread.
On the whole I liked Alpha. Intelligent chap and a great contribution to the forum. But Christian theology wise, he was as receptive as a boiled spud.
I'm not saying Alpha and Alasdair are bad people (Well, Alasdair maybe), just perhaps you could call them biassed? perhaps they have deeper issues with the idea of God and it's affecting their attitude towards religion?
Shambles said:
So, inna nutshell, you're basically back to saying "You have to believe in it to understand it" again, Raas?
*yawn*
It's not quite as demeaning as you described it. To rephrase "You have to overcome deeper issues in your life regarding God, to be honest in your reception of theology"
Let me give you an example. (This is an example, i'm not implying it's how you actually feel) If you felt your brothers death was completely unfair, it may cause you to reject God. Now this change has happened to you, you will be unaccepting of theology... it has become
incompatible with your belief that God has been unfair.
Or if.... someone was wealthy, had loads of money and woman... if they were to accept God, they would have to give up their lifestyle. If they were unwilling to give up their lifestyle they may adopt atheism as a convenience. Now, trying to talk to this person about accepting God would be very difficult.
Or if... Life went really well for someone, they were successful and able to put their skills and ability into fruition...and they feel blessed for it... they maybe unable to accept atheist theories. They feel comforted that they are blessed by God, and atheist theories now become incompatible with them.
Do you see what i'm saying? Deeper issues can determine our reception of theology. I hope you don't dismiss this as nonsense as you did the last time. It's quite important. Arguing over bible verses is often a waste of time.
An example of this is my Uncle. Was at a very prestigued university and doing very well; strct pious Christian. Wore a badge wherever he went saying "Jesus lives"... years later and trouble hits him. Marriage problems lead to divorce, has to leave his job from stress.... now God is the enemy. He's turned atheist. All the Christian theology is nonsense and he takes to all the atheist stuff now. Try discussing the bible with him is a waste of time.
It's like putting DVD into a CR-ROM player. It will never work; it's not compatible with the player. If someone has developed core issues against the concept of God. They just aren't compatible with the theology.
1:
Yes it's all people doing stuff in the name of their religion - not any particular deity's fault - but that's precisely the point: there ain't no deity's so all of it is unnecessary.
Well that's your opinion. Just because you haven't "found" God, doesn't mean he doesn't exist. It's possible he exists but hasn't really worked in your own life.
.
. Just people long ago unsure of themselves and the world around them is all. Time to put away childish things now - dummies may be soothing but they fuck ya teeth if you don't wean yerself sooner or later. As a species I mean - I'm sure you've not suckled on a dummy since some sweaty tent before you swore off the furries
I guess if you are unable to accept God, it would be compatible with your hypothesis that we "religees" are ignorant people who haven't progressed or faced truths. Though, i of course think you are wrong. I was atheist once and thought exactly the same about those who were religious, now i've progressed in my own understanding of life, it's lead me to Christiannity and I give far more credibility to those who are religious.
(Not trying to boast "i've progressed more than u coz im a christian", hope u dont misread that. We've had different lives and mine has lead me to a different understanding)
2: No it's not a "bias against Christians" it's just that I'm very sloppy on replying and lost all me references when I switched pooters. But mostly cos I'm very sloppy on replying.
My biases have never exactly been hidden so not sure why you feel the need to point 'em out. But ya - I am heavily "biased" against Christians along with more or less all other religees. Well, more specifically I dislike the entire concept of religion and dislike individual relgions to varying degrees. Individual believers are just dandy though - is when y'all are
en masse that things can turn nasty
Bias according to m-w: "
A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment" You admit to "Inhibiting impartial judgement" in your perception?
3: Not my understanding of it, Raas. But don't have me handy quotes to hand since losing all those bookmarks so can't quote chapter and verse off the top of me head. Think I may have done before though. Is very clear on the matter: Denial of the Holy Ghost (or whatever it is) is the one and only unforgivable sin. Totally unforgivable. No way back. Straight down. As it were. Is singled out as being the one thing you can't repent from afterwards. But that's just one of the Gospels. I'm sure there are other bits that contradict it too. To be fair there really isn't much in the book that doesn't have it at least both ways at once. And either way, as a non-believer I give nary a toss cos I don't believe in the concept of sin.
It is the OT and the NT clashes that give the bible the rep of being contradictive; but I hope we've cleared that up by now. In the NT there are some verses which lead to a lot of open questions, but then other verses in the bible support or elaborate on other verses. I haven't found any direct contradictions in the NT yet. If you've found any, please share... until then your idea that "there isn't much that can't be read both ways" seems to be quite unfounded. And certainly not applicable to the verse in hand.
It does state "Denial of the holy ghost leads to hell", the verse i quoted (Luke23) shows that a change from this could potentially happen in your last hours in life. So you are wrong when you say "i'm already condemned to hell", you don't know this until you depart from this planet.
[/QUOTE]
shambles said:
As for the "fine tuning" point I'm guessing you're trying to make... read actual physics and you'll discover there is no fine tuning argument.
C'mon. If there's no God; after the big bang there are hundreds of possible outcomes for the planet. Some species can only see in black and white. For all you know this may have happened to you. It's pretty unlikely it would all work out so conveniently; so conveniently you even have the faculties perfectly suited to even discussing "does God exist".
Even Einstein was stumped on this one. He was atheist, but couldn't get around the "amazing design of the planet".
As for Dawkins? His theology is pathetic. Can't really understand why anybody would even try to rebut it - it's moronic. Can't stand Dawkin's pisspoor attempts at arguing theology. And I've never read The God Delusion so can't comment on that either
ok, on this I totally agree. There are some great atheist theologians. Dawkins is not one of them.
[EDIT... ok, even I will admit he comes out with 1 or 2 good points in his book. Some I couldn't answer. But I am not a biblical scholar. When I have a lot of spare time, hopefully then I will look into the history of bible creation.)
NightsEpiphany said:
I know what you mean about coming out of church and feeling refreshed. I've felt that in many different churches but I'm drawn towards churches that have a liturgy at the moment.. I love the Eucharist and the process that we go through before we take it.. eg a ritual of repentence ( saying sorry basically)... When I mean it and have faith that I am receiving His body, Blood and forgiveness. I feel so grateful ..and new. I think thats why I sometimes come out of church feeling alive and energised like you said.
Ed: This doesn't always happen.. sometimes I'm not focussed.. there's no faith and the Eucharist is just a wafer and a sip of cheap wine. But lately I've felt super aware of my sin.. the things I do or dont do that are nowhere near christ like..more devilish Like vanity, bitchyness, lazyness, pride. But I know I have mercy.. I can just ask for forgiveness in prayer if I' truely regret something I've done or said and know that He's with me and still loves me regardless of the mistakes I make
I think just to attend church is an acknowldged step. After repentence I also feel "Clean" inside.
I would often go out on a saturday night for a "couple" of drinks. But my couple always turned into 20... lol....
It became a sunday morning tradition to start the day with a prayer of repentance. I subsequently don't drink like that anymore...but i always felt touched after that prayer.
The christian bible is so full of nastyness, stupidity, impossibilities and contradictions I don't see how any rational human being could (want to) believe in it.
C'mon dude. You've been saying this on P&S forums and been given loads of responses. The answers concerning all the vileness of the OT can be found all over the Inernet, and earlier in this thread.
NightsEpiphany said:
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelations 21.
I love that verse.
In this world there are so many problems and fears about oneself and their function in the world. Ageing, loss of loved ones, the health of loved ones, you're own health, sex, relationships,
But all these problems are not so real as we imagine, rather they are more or less created by God, for whatever reason. And there comes a time when the lessons have been learnt, and they are all taken away...
Still, Pagey did make a point
Well sure, I can believe that true faith brings release in the sense that seeing as you're convinced that there's an all-powerful and all-knowing deity looking over you or whatever, that would indeed make you feel better.
Just like if I truly believed the giant spaghetti monster would bring me to a kingdom of marshmallow fluff and hot men after my death, I think I'd feel pretty happy and released.
Without belief in God, the verse isn't going to have much effect.
Pagey said:
I believe that there is another world that we live in conjunction to. This world would be inhabited by spirit/demon-type creatures. I really hate using those words as they don't grasp the concept at all, but well it's exactly that, a concept, so I wouldn't know how else to explain it. Occasionally there are cross-overs between the two worlds..
Pagey said:
they just don't come anywhere near a conventional description of 'God'
Pagey said:
I don't believe in any kind of afterlife
Mmmmm... I like to think that there is an organised structure of life around this planet, or there isn't. Theories stating that there is life acting on our planet, but no God or afterlife I don't really see much sense in. Either there's some organised kind of structure of life outside this planet, or there isn't. Anything in between just seems impractical imo
Pagey said:
I don't believe in any kind of afterlife but I know that the people I've lost are in a better place somehow.
I appreciate this is a very heartfelt, honest and personal view. I don't mean to sound disrespectful, but it does come across as extremely hypocritical. Surely there either is or isn't an afterlife... you can't have it both ways.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
