Posted on 11/24/2001 4:17:58 AM PST by chemicalman
Edited on 07/14/2004 12:58:33 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
If my descriptions of the Divine (God) sound primitive, then that is entirely MY fault. I do not profess to be a writer or great philosopher. Do not judge the existence of God on my discription or any other person's for that matter. But rather seek Him on a one to one relationship. That is the only way to ever understand who He really is. I can tell you are seeking something.... and that is a good start! To be commended.
For your own sake, don't seek your facts from Hollywood and fictional characters. There is NO reality there! And don't fall for that old trap that says, "God is not something to be discussed" because He is far too mysterious and to bring Him to a personal level would be to take away His Godliness. Man's brain cannot conceive of God, but our soul (heart) can. The soul is a part of you that God gave to you that is unique to humans. It is through your soul that you will be able to find and commune with God. God is a lot like "the Force" in many ways. God gives the ability to share in His power and strength to all who will accept it.... the "Jedi" had to BELIEVE, then study under elders to grow. God's church is much like this. Unlike the Force, God has clearly outlined "the way" for all to see .... its in His divinely inspired word, the Holy Bible. I have no doubt that if you will read the Bible with the same enthusiasm that you read of Star Trek and Jedi Knights that you will come to glimpse God with a new light. Try it... what do you have to loose?
It makes no sense to get faith from an argument of any kind.
On the contrary! Once we accept the premis of the existence of God and man with a soul, and one begins to commune with God through ones soul, then understanding the other tenets of the Bible is an easy step as God seems to help you with the understanding of these concepts. Now as for the last one ..."the infallibility of the Pope".... I don't believe I have seen any mention of this in the holy scriptures!!! The Pope and his infallibility or what ever is completely a man-made concept and one to be debated perhaps, but not taken as the word of God as stated through the scriptures. (my apologies to our Catholic friends, but it just is not there)
Right thing to do? Who made those rules? Gosh could it be God? Why make any rules to be good, if there are no consequeces for being bad?
Not if you are OJ Simpson, Bill Clinton, or otherwise privledged above the law kind of person. But when God judges there will be no unfairness involved!
Reread the discussion; we are talking about an afterlife, not about life. To contemplate anything (such as the nature of the afterlife) after your death presupposes that there actually is an afterlife for you to do your contemplating in. Get it?
I'm saying that I don't belive pocat will have the opportunity to say, "Gee, I sure was wrong about that afterlife thing," nor I a moment of satisfaction for having been right.
It is you who misread me. The Apostles may or may not have believed what they said; it's all one to me. My point is that there is nothing there to recommend Christianity over any other religion that makes identical claims of miracles and martyrs.
Don't get your dander up, I wasn't going down that road. Here's the point: there are lots of people who don't believe in an afterlife who make perfectly moral and upstanding citizens. I only used Jews as an example because it was topical to the original post. (I took it for granted that you and everyone else understand that Jews typically make very good citizens; I was doing a reductio ad absurdum on you.) Similarly, the prisons are full of people who do believe in an afterlife.
Here's my point: how is this possible if such beliefs have anything at all to do with people's behavior?
You did, but I expect most Christians would consider your ideas heterodox.
I would expect Him not to have used a historical figure at all, but to speak to each of us directly and unambiguously.
In particular, I am deeply suspicious of any religion that claims that faith is necessary for salvation. Human faith is irrelevant to maintain the existence of God, but it's vital to maintain the existence of a religion. The Christian emphasis on faith has more to do with Parkinson's Law than with God's law.
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his office wall. When a guest would ask what it was there for, he would say, "they tell me that if I hang it on the wall, it will give me good luck." His guest would inevitably say, "but you don't really believe that, do you," and Bohr would reply, "No, but that's alright; they assure me it will work whether I believe in it or not."
A true religion would work that way, I insist.
I would expect Him not to have used a historical figure at all, but to speak to each of us directly and unambiguously.
Why do you rule out any other possibility? He, assuming He exists, is God, not your mother. What if He has spoken directly and unambigiously to people many times? I think He has. The record of those communications is in the Bible. And the record is clear. Not everyone wants to hear from Him.
In particular, I am deeply suspicious of any religion that claims that faith is necessary for salvation. In Christianity faith is more than just believeing He exists. It is TRUSTING HIM and His judgement over our own. If God made Himself as plain as you desire, the same people who don't want to trust Him would still not trust Him. They would 'believe'. But were that all there was to salvation heaven would be filled with people who did not want to be there, for it is a place where His will is done.
Human faith is irrelevant to maintain the existence of God, but it's vital to maintain the existence of a religion.
Faith is irrelevant to the existence of God, but it is essential in determining who desires to serve God. I am sure there are some former Taliban supporters that are now NA 'supporters'. That is not the kind of 'supporters' God is after. That is, those who kowtow because He is 'there on the ground' in force.
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his office wall. When a guest would ask what it was there for, he would say, "they tell me that if I hang it on the wall, it will give me good luck." His guest would inevitably say, "but you don't really believe that, do you," and Bohr would reply, "No, but that's alright; they assure me it will work whether I believe in it or not." A true religion would work that way, I insist.
Judism and Christianity DO work that way for a blessed life on Earth. A Christian who sleeps around and gets drunk will have a less blessed life on Earth than a sober, faithful atheist. But the rebellion in the heart of the atheist will take him in the opposite direction of life. It does not matter in a 100 year life, but for eternity what matters is not where you are but which direction you are headed. The stumbling Christian will be freed of whatever great weakness binds them, the atheist has no desire to throw off such chains.
I hear you asking, "why would FAITH be necessary for salvation?"... well allow me to attempt in my clumsy, but sincere words to explain why:
When God created Adam and Eve, there didn't seem to be any strings attached to the fact that their souls would be with God forever. Then He gave them a commandment. He forebad them to eat of one particular tree because the fruit of it would make them as wise as God himself. He told them to do so would be their "death". The exact reason for this commandment can be debated, but I think it was something like a test to see if man would do what half the heavenly host had at one time done..... attempt to become as God themselves. This was what got Lucifer (renamed Satan) kicked out of heaven. Sure enough, man did want to become as God so he ate the forbidden fruit. As God had commanded the punishment was now death for mankind (or a corruptable body that would eventually grow old and die).
The miracle of it all is that God still in His goodness wanted to give man a way to attain eternal life. So He offered up His Son (an earthly physical body that contained a part of the actual soul of God)... as pure of sin as God Himself ... to become a blood sacrifice to atone for man's sin. Now the atonement would not mean anything unless man had to do something in return for it. God chose to make that requirement simply a belief or FAITH in that Son and what He did.
I know that this seems too simple to be true, especially to a mind as great as yours (no sarcasim intended.... I really do respect your scientific mind!) Why is is so hard to accept that God would require something in return for the gift of eternal life? Are we so diserving of it with no requirement on our end? Of course the reality of God's existence is not dependent on our Faith, but the giving of the gift of eternal life (afterlife in heaven) is!
There are also many scholarly works which are held in reverence but are not "holy". These include the Talmud (which is commentary on the Tanakh written by ancient rabbis) and writings by Rambam (Maimonades) and Rashi among others. These later books are used to better understand the holy books, and contain some very detailed and often esoteric commentary. Rashi and Rambam in particular sought to find understanding of the Tanakh by dissecting individual words in some cases to discern new meaning. Tradition holds "there are 70 faces to the Torah", so while the literal meaning is considered true, there are also 69 other ways to understand everything contianed within the Torah.
I will give you an example. Rashi, writing on Genesis, explains that the order of creation is not as simple as you may think. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". You would think that this is the order of Creation. But as you see in verse 2, "The spirit of God hovered over the waters" begs the question, when did He create the waters? Rashi says the waters were created BEFORE the heavens and the earth. Why? For one, because verse 2 says "over the waters" without mentioning when they were created, it implies that the waters were already there. Furthermore, the word 'Heaven' in Hebrew is a combination of the words fire and water. So since God created the Heavens from fire and water, it stands to reason that the water had to exist before the Heavens. Rashi goes on to cite many other proofs of his claim. The phrase "In the beginning" means exactly that. It doesn't mean "at first". In the beginning is a point of reference for us, who sit a fair distance from the time of Creation. It is not meant to be interpreted as the sequence of creation.
Accepting this premis gets one approximately to the varieties of mysticism -- including some aspects of Christian mysticism. And there does seem to be a basic consistency in the viewpoints of mystics of various religions regarding the direct experience of a God with man communication. However, to get to Judaism and Christianity, one has to get past notions of sin, sacrifice and atonement, either the Jewish slaughter of unblemished animals or the Christian sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It is difficult to imagine that God the creator of a 12 billion old universe containing billions of galaxies with billions of stars actually desires that people on the third planet of a fairly nondescript star engage in killing and burning an animal on an alter as a way of expunging their guilt for acting bitchy to each other. Or that said creator actually prefers lamb over fruit (see story of Cain and Abel).
Sorry for bringing up Papal infallibility, but it is one of the three examples I gave of theological rationalizations dating from the later period of Christianity. I think the argument goes this way: God is a god of love. As a god of love, God would not lead his church astray. The Pope is the leader of God's church. Therefore, God would not allow the Pope, speaking for the church, to lead the church astray.
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