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I converted to Catholicism after many years deep in the drug culture, AMA

turkalurk said:
I wanna know howYOU feel about the atrocious nature of your Bible god?
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I would have said it in a much less confrontational way (and I removed those parts of the quote), but SKL, brother man, I also want to know what your stance is on the apparent inconsistency of the Biblical God between the old and new testaments. The NT god seems loving and compassionate, while the OT god reads like the gods of greek or roman mythology, full of jealousy and rage and very human characteristics. Personally, I believe Jesus was trying to overturn that idea, he seemed to be preaching against the status quo. So to me, the OT always seemed like just a book of mythology that gave context for the story of Jesus, rather than something to be used as a basis for any religious decisions as a Christian.

turkalurk said:
says the guy telling him his god is dead and he is delusional. I said he was "good" at something. i said he was "articulate." Yet, I am the one being offensive? Its all a matter of perspective. To me, its not about how you word something, its about the message you are communicating.
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In an ideal world where we can all know each others' intentions, I agree with this. I mean yeah, it is about the message being communicated. But we don't know you, except for the incredibly limited scope of what you have revealed through your typed contributions to this site. We can't even get nonverbal communication cues or voice inflection on an Internet forum. So in my opinion it's important to understand how to word things in such a way that people will be receptive to your ideas on here. In fact, that's an important skill even in face-to-face communication, I believe it's called diplomacy. If you have something to say, it's best said in a manner that is not likely to invite a feeling of insult to the reader/listener. Because most people will shut down as soon as they feel insulted and not really hear what you're actually trying to say.
 
Xorkoth said:
I would have said it in a much less confrontational way (and I removed those parts of the quote), but SKL, brother man, I also want to know what your stance is on the apparent inconsistency of the Biblical God between the old and new testaments. The NT god seems loving and compassionate, while the OT god reads like the gods of greek or roman mythology, full of jealousy and rage and very human characteristics. Personally, I believe Jesus was trying to overturn that idea, he seemed to be preaching against the status quo. So to me, the OT always seemed like just a book of mythology that gave context for the story of Jesus, rather than something to be used as a basis for any religious decisions as a Christian.



In an ideal world where we can all know each others' intentions, I agree with this. I mean yeah, it is about the message being communicated. But we don't know you, except for the incredibly limited scope of what you have revealed through your typed contributions to this site. We can't even get nonverbal communication cues or voice inflection on an Internet forum. So in my opinion it's important to understand how to word things in such a way that people will be receptive to your ideas on here. In fact, that's an important skill even in face-to-face communication, I believe it's called diplomacy. If you have something to say, it's best said in a manner that is not likely to invite a feeling of insult to the reader/listener. Because most people will shut down as soon as they feel insulted and not really hear what you're actually trying to say.
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Ikr, I'm working on it.
 
Interesting thread. The OP is a talented writer and very good at expressing his views and very knowledgeable.

I would have said it in a much less confrontational way (and I removed those parts of the quote), but SKL, brother man, I also want to know what your stance is on the apparent inconsistency of the Biblical God between the old and new testaments. The NT god seems loving and compassionate, while the OT god reads like the gods of greek or roman mythology, full of jealousy and rage and very human characteristics. Personally, I believe Jesus was trying to overturn that idea, he seemed to be preaching against the status quo. So to me, the OT always seemed like just a book of mythology that gave context for the story of Jesus, rather than something to be used as a basis for any religious decisions as a Christian.
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I can take a stab at this one. First of all, I see no inconsistency, only a progressive understanding of the nature of God and his relationship with mankind. I could give many Old Testament passages that support the notion of a loving, compassionate and merciful God.

The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Psalm 103:8

But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15

For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! Ezekiel 18:32

I could list so many more passages but hopefully you get the point. Anyway, you are correct that the Old Testament is a mythology which gave context for the story of Jesus and Jesus was very much against the status quo of scribes and pharisees who were legalistic and not compassionate, thus not actually serving God.
 
turkalurk said:
when you take the ego out of the question, God is apparent. The problem is people think of god like a person controling the world, when really its Existence itself that controls everthing by just simply being what it is.
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ipsum esse subsistens
 
SKL, one comment I have about your exegesis of the story of Isaac's sacrifice: I know that I would not have been able to do as Abraham did. I would not have had it in me to even pretend to go along with God's request, and would have faced the consequences instead. I suspect I'm hardly the only one on this.

What's so interesting to me about this, is that most stories about great legendary people or heroes invite the listener to walk in the hero's shoes, and in so doing insinuate that I have the ability to be similarly brave, and should take the legend as a guide to my own behavior. But this story gives me exactly the opposite reaction -- I clearly am not Abraham, and could never do what he did. This instills a certain level of humility in me, as is I think part of the intended effect of this story. I am not "father of a holy nation" material. And if that means that I miss a chance to be the father of a great nation, but keep the opportunity to be the father to one vulnerable young boy who loves me and needs me, then I own that.
 
I find it interesting and somewhat appalling that you liken Abraham to a hero of any kind in this context.
 
I've been terribly busy with outside considerations so haven't had much time to attend to this thread or to finish what I guess has become my "essay" on the Binding of Isaac; but just a few thoughts jotted down about ^ this: Abraham is universally considered one of the "heroes of the faith." Not merely because he set aside everything for the direct commands of God, but that he trusted in God in doing so. Consider taking Abraham at his word that "“God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering." Trusting in God, and having experienced a very high level of communion with Him, Abraham at some level may have had understood that the binding and commanded sacrifice of Isaac was not, eventually, a demand for the sacrifice of Isaac, but something else entirely: a test of faith, yes. Consider that God had promised Abraham that he would become the father of a great people, with progeny "as numerous as the stars" -- in Abraham's culture, as great an accomplishment as a man could possibly have. God's apparent contradiction to this claim in sending Abraham to sacrifice his favoured son Isaac was no contradiction at all, as it was at some level not only a test by God that Abraham would follow His commands to the end, but that Abraham would have faith that God's promise would be fulfilled, despite the apparent command that would have lead that promise to have become null and void. Furthermore, from the Christian perspective, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering" is a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ, the son of God, provided by God, for the sins of the world -- see the parallels here with Abraham: the sacrifice of the son, the absolute faith of Christ ("Thy will be done...") just as Isaac has faith in his father when his father say s that God will provide the offering; in Christ, God provides the sacrifice, in the case of Christ, God hypostatically both is and receives the sacrifice in what is one of the great mysteries of our faith.
 
If it is not a historically true "enacted parable," or allegory, then it is simply an allegory; the theological truth contained therein would be the same.
 
SKL said:
I've been terribly busy with outside considerations so haven't had much time to attend to this thread or to finish what I guess has become my "essay" on the Binding of Isaac; but just a few thoughts jotted down about ^ this: Abraham is universally considered one of the "heroes of the faith." Not merely because he set aside everything for the direct commands of God, but that he trusted in God in doing so. Consider taking Abraham at his word that "“God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering." Trusting in God, and having experienced a very high level of communion with Him, Abraham at some level may have had understood that the binding and commanded sacrifice of Isaac was not, eventually, a demand for the sacrifice of Isaac, but something else entirely: a test of faith, yes. Consider that God had promised Abraham that he would become the father of a great people, with progeny "as numerous as the stars" -- in Abraham's culture, as great an accomplishment as a man could possibly have. God's apparent contradiction to this claim in sending Abraham to sacrifice his favoured son Isaac was no contradiction at all, as it was at some level not only a test by God that Abraham would follow His commands to the end, but that Abraham would have faith that God's promise would be fulfilled, despite the apparent command that would have lead that promise to have become null and void. Furthermore, from the Christian perspective, “God will provide the lamb for a burnt offering" is a prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ, the son of God, provided by God, for the sins of the world -- see the parallels here with Abraham: the sacrifice of the son, the absolute faith of Christ ("Thy will be done...") just as Isaac has faith in his father when his father say s that God will provide the offering; in Christ, God provides the sacrifice, in the case of Christ, God hypostatically both is and receives the sacrifice in what is one of the great mysteries of our faith.
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No offense, but to me that sounds like a bunch of nicely worded sentences put together, yet they lack essence. Why does the god need to "test" Abraham in the first place, if god is omni-potent and can know everything, including past-current-present thoughts and actions of said subject in any possibly scenario? What adds even more ridiculousness to the story in our modern day context is the need for animal sacrifice, and even human sacrifice. It just shines more light onto the probable fact that these stories were just written by people who didn't know any better - the practices in the bible and whatnot, somehow humorously coincide with the general accepted and performed practices of the era the book was written in, as in the book is centered around that exact era, not a word about perhaps our current era or something that we (or our successors) will witness in the future. Not a word of it, considering it should be the word of god. Perhaps the easy explanation is is that it's actually a collection of words of different (not so intelligent and/or educated) people of that time. Which goes a long way in explaining why the stories bear the character they do.

Anyway, I went off and did something I didn't want to do (shit on your parade, as I understand this stuff has become important to you on a psychological level), so apologies for that. However, what I'm genuinely curious about is what you take away from these stories for yourself - what conclusions that you can apply to your life do you find in these texts?
 
Kind of pretentious to think that you're going to come up with an argument so devastating as to "rain on my parade" and hurt me on a psychological level, isn't it? I do actually study this on more than a superficial level and believe it or not have been exposed to a contrary point of view before.

Anyway I've been saying for 2 or 3 pages that Scripture is written within the bounds of a certain time and a certain cultural context, at the same time as it is inspired by God. God, too, has met people where they are in certain ways in revelation. The reason for this, and the reason for the need to 'test' Abraham, and the reason for any sort of unpleasantness in the world in fact, is the fact of human free will, with which we are endowed by God absolutely.

Just woke up and saw this. Unsure how much I will post today (probably not much) given work obligations but I was kind of struck by the implication that I am so fragile or your arguments are so strong that a dialogue would "rain on my parade."
 
SKL said:
Anyway I've been saying for 2 or 3 pages that Scripture is written within the bounds of a certain time and a certain cultural context, at the same time as it is inspired by God. God, too, has met people where they are in certain ways in revelation. The reason for this, and the reason for the need to 'test' Abraham, and the reason for any sort of unpleasantness in the world in fact, is the fact of human free will, with which we are endowed by God absolutely.
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Doesn't Catholic doctrine say that God is omniscient, i.e. knows everything? I think belligerent drunks point is that if God was truly omniscient then he would not need to test any of his followers. By virtue of knowing everything, he would have to know whether someone was truly faithful without the need to test them.

While we are on this topic, about 3 months ago I raised the objection that there seems to be an inherent contradiction between the idea of an omniscient God and humans possessing free will. I am still waiting for an adequate response to this objection.

Obviously scripture is written within a certain cultural context, but if it was written with divine inspiration then surely the moral content of scripture should be relatively timeless. You used the same tactic to sweep away my concerns about the bible endorsing slavery. Assuming that you believe slavery is morally impermissible, don't you think that if a benevolent God was communicating with people in a time where slavery was prevalent he would (or at least should) have made it a priority to tell people that slavery is morally impermissible?
 
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drug_mentor said:
While we are on this topic, about 3 months ago I raised the objection that there seems to be an inherent contradiction between the idea of an omniscient God and humans possessing free-will.
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Not necessarily. I could know exactly what you're about to do, but still let you do it. Of course this begs the question of why I'd let you go ahead and do something I find objectionable when I could see it coming and could have stopped you (which is what I think you're really driving at with your question). People do this to each other all the time, for a variety of reasons.

Obviously scripture is written within a certain cultural context, but if it was written with divine inspiration then surely the moral content of scripture should be relatively timeless. You used the same tactic to sweep away my concerns about the bible endorsing slavery. Assuming that you believe slavery is morally impermissible, don't you think that if a benevolent God was communicating with people in a time where slavery was prevalent he would (or at least should) have made it a priority to tell people that slavery is morally impermissible?
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What is divine inspiration? Have any theologians, philosophers, or literary critics tackled this question throughout the ages? Because it has to have come up in scripturally-based faiths when deciding what works are canon and which are not.

When I think of divine inspiration, I imagine a person emerging from a mystical experience, deep meditative state, vision quest, or some other sort of meeting with a higher power, and just writing whatever came to mind. Even if the experience the writer had and is using for inspiration was genuine, the final written product is still subject to the limitations, biases, and interpretations of one mere mortal mind, with a certain experience of the world, and a certain agenda in reaching a certain audience. (Compare the sneer-worthy "Based on true events" that appears at the beginning of movies.) My point is, I don't know that divine inspiration necessarily imbues a piece of writing with merit for all listeners, in all settings, for all times.
 
SKL said:
Kind of pretentious to think that you're going to come up with an argument so devastating as to "rain on my parade" and hurt me on a psychological level, isn't it? I do actually study this on more than a superficial level and believe it or not have been exposed to a contrary point of view before.

Just woke up and saw this. Unsure how much I will post today (probably not much) given work obligations but I was kind of struck by the implication that I am so fragile or your arguments are so strong that a dialogue would "rain on my parade."
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No, that is not what I was insinuating. Quite the opposite actually. I meant to say that my points and arguments are a result of my confusion with the whole bible and organized religion. Many people get personally offended by discussions regarding scripture or something related, whereas the discussion itself has no connection to the persons(s) taking part in the discussion. Especially if one side of the arguments questions many very important aspects of a religion. So the
(shit on your parade, as I understand this stuff has become important to you on a psychological level)
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Piece was a disclaimer saying that I'm interested in a genuine debate (where such is possible at all), and if there were things that you may contradictory to your belief, I did not present them for the sole purpose to offending you.

The reason for all this is, having not read much of the thread for various reasons, I still have come to the understanding that religion/Christianity has been playing a large role in the development of your psyche. From your posts I can see that you're definitely an intelligent person, and an articulate one at that too. Which is why I decided to stress that, considering the fact that I'm strongly against organized religion (yet more lenient towards "personal religions"), and even more strongly against modern day analysis of the scripture, which most often than not is unacceptably biased and adopts the cherry-picking practice all too well.

However, having said all that. There is definitely zero pretentiousness or anything of the like in my comment, and nor am I saying that my 2 little arguments can bring the whole thing down to zero wiggle room, no. It just was a disclaimer: that if I say something that may sound offensive personally or to anybody, I don't mean to start throwing ad hominems left right and centre.

After a quick browse through this thread, I noticed a lot of like-minded people sharing their ideas and bolstering their own convictions, which is fun of course. I hope I won't get kicked out and hung in public because I perhaps may post a comment or three offering a different perspective showing how something is complete bullshit. Because, let's be serious here, the book was written some, what, three thousand years ago by bronze age people who never even knew that we're living in a solar system or that our planet was more of a sphere than flat.
 
The problem with free will is, it isn't truly free will if it's predetermined. If YOU know what someone will do, their action might not necessarily be predetermined. But if an all knowing god knows what you are about to do, then your action is predetermined and renders your illusionary decision pointless. I think that's more or less what he meant.
 
Nixiam said:
The problem with free will is, it isn't truly free will if it's predetermined. If YOU know what someone will do, their action might not necessarily be predetermined. But if an all knowing god knows what you are about to do, then your action is predetermined and renders your illusionary decision pointless. I think that's more or less what he meant.
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I would indeed be very interested to hear how Catholic theologians have bridged this gap, traditionally. I'm going to ask my parents (who've read a lot of philosophy and scriptural commentary from Catholic theologians) about this the next time we talk.

Personally, I haven't made up my mind on free will, but I think that if it's real, it is much more limited (like most true freedoms are) than we'd like to imagine. Being of a more Gnostic bent, I believe that our separate sentient existences are a mistake, as we are each a little shard of a broken whole, and that we each have a role to play in repairing and putting this whole back together. As such, any free will we have is probably a byproduct of this brokenness inherent to our lives, and will be completely irrelevant once we all return to our source and make it whole again.
 
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