Fretting about the bird cage on religious topics...
Warning: Explicitly Christian. Atheists should only proceed if they wish to be annoyed.
Enjoy the music at the link.
Cheers!
Posted on 02/08/2013 5:37:02 PM PST by grey_whiskers
Fretting about the bird cage on religious topics...
Warning: Explicitly Christian. Atheists should only proceed if they wish to be annoyed.
Enjoy the music at the link.
Cheers!
I couldn’t agree more.
And atheist’s agree too.
Robert Jastrow (September 7, 1925 – February 8, 2008) was an American astronomer, physicist and cosmologist. He was a leading NASA scientist, populist author and futurist.
“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountain of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”
Robert Jastrow.
Awesome post, just what I needed to read this Friday evening. Thanks!
“And the other difference, is that prayer is not designed, we are explicitly told it was never meant, for personal power. That way lies Faust and the Occult.”
This bears repeating, since we have some Christians today who are chasing “prosperity” through prayer. That’s not a good road to start traveling down.
That was great, thanks for posting! :D
Faith demands the believer to acknowledge the believer's god to be omniscient, all-knowing. The believer, by implication of the acknowledgement, has to believe that this god also knows the wants, feelings, needs, desires, intents and goals of the believer. So you have the believer and the believer's omniscient god as two entities, with no need for any "lines of communication / petition" (a.k.a prayer) between them, due to the quality of omniscience. What does this render prayer into? Redundant nothingness. And religions that demand it? Self-contradictory nonsense.
Enjoy your weekend!
It is not merely symbolism, nor metaphor, nor simile, to refer to God as Father.
Cheers!
Christian belief begins with the presumption of an omniscient God, which is based on extrapolation of the physical evidence of the nature of the universe: the evidence is insufficient to prove nor disprove with certainty, which is why one may have faith in a God, or have faith that the universe is as it is totally by chance.
The believer, by implication of the acknowledgement, has to believe that this god also knows the wants, feelings, needs, desires, intents and goals of the believer. So you have the believer and the believer's omniscient god as two entities, with no need for any "lines of communication / petition" (a.k.a prayer) between them, due to the quality of omniscience.
This is not true, on at least two levels. First, while the Christian believes that God already knows what we need before we ask, the Christian also believes that God commands us to ask--not for God's benefit, but for our benefit. For example, I already know most of my daughter's needs; does that mean she does not need to ask me, not for my benefit, but for hers?
Second, as in the quote above, prayer is not only petition, but communication--or, to be more accurate, communion. My daughter not only talks to me; she talks with me, a two-way communication, not only for the purpose of sharing information, but for the greater purpose of sharing relationship. The most important aspect of prayer is not what we say to God, but what God says to us: God already knows our needs, but we do not know the extent of God's nature or God's will, and the more we can experience that communion, the stronger our relationship to God.
Therefore, your dual assertion...
What does this render prayer into? Redundant nothingness. And religions that demand it? Self-contradictory nonsense. Enjoy your weekend!
...is twice incorrect. Prayer is the essence of a communicative communion with God, where we are given the opportunity not only of expressing our needs to a God for our benefit, but also of experiencing a dialogue that is a portion of a sensory and extrasensory communion. And there is therefore no self-contradiction. Whether it is nonsense or not depends on whether my "bet" that there is a God who desires a communal relationship with humans is accurate, or that your "bet" that there is no God is accurate. My experience, along with the nature of the universe itself, leads me to conclude that my "bet" is the accurate one. Which, by the way, is why I will indeed enjoy my weekend, and the eternity of which it is a part: not because I am wonderful, but because God is wonderful. And so can you.
And the Stone itself was rolled away.
They demonstrate that nothing makes atheism as attractive as atheists do. See how happy, peaceable, broad-minded, and wise they are!
What an amazing quote!
She wouldn't need to ask you if she believed you knew everything running in her mind. Since you don't, and since she doesn't believe so either, she has to ask you. If she truly believed you knew everything running in her mind as well as she did, then neither of you would find any purpose or meaning in asking. Because the need is invalidated by omniscience. Do you ask your heart to beat at X Hz when you are performing a strenuous activity? No. Would you enjoy asking your heart to beat faster, even though you believe your heart knows what it has to do better than you do? You wouldn't, unless you were insane (compare this with the previous comment of mine, the part about the pertaining activity being nonsensical).
Second, as in the quote above, prayer is not only petition, but communication--or, to be more accurate, communion. My daughter not only talks to me; she talks with me, a two-way communication, not only for the purpose of sharing information, but for the greater purpose of sharing relationship. The most important aspect of prayer is not what we say to God, but what God says to us: God already knows our needs, but we do not know the extent of God's nature or God's will, and the more we can experience that communion, the stronger our relationship to God.
Your faith in your god to know your heart in and out, your intents and feelings, renders unnecessary the need for this mental / verbal / physical communication because by the repercussions of your faith, you ought to be 'spiritually' connected, and believe that you are so, whose lines of communication are superior to anything you do as a substitutionary activity to pretend to give a physical aspect to this 'communication'. Since a believer believes this to be the case, the unnecessary and self-contradictory nature of prayer becomes self-evident. To put it in simpler words, does the faith of a believer weaken when the believer falls into a coma? What about when the believer is in subconscious states, such as during deep sleep? If the answer is no to either, then my point remains validated.
At best, you can plead for a deistic god with your arguments, no more. The type that does 1 Samuel 15:3 is totally repulsive to me. Add to that, the prayer fluff, and the falsehood becomes unavoidably evident. Do you find this verse difficult to accept, even if you eventually do?
Oh, and I enjoy my weekends. My weekdays, too. After all, we live only once, and eternity is a fantasy. About half of all natural conceptions end up in spontaneous abortions where the mother isn't even aware of it, usually. Such is the nature of life.
It’s just fluff to hide the self-contradiction. If you enjoy it, more power to you!
Also, faith is believing and therefore must spring forth from the deep and clear well of truth. Many who pray hold tightly onto their false beliefs which impact the way they perceive and understand, and therefore impede the purity of their faith. By the beliefs that they tightly hold onto which are not true they muddy their ability to have strong faith.
The Church of God is multi divided with all people holding the central truth about salvation through Christ, but not agreeing on many other important truths. One Church or belief system may believe certain things right and certain things wrong, and others believe wrong about other certain things and right about other certain things. Often adherents are adamant and proud about what they think is their corner on all truth. Few admit that they may hold to things that are not true. I doubt that at this present time very many Christians have and hold all important truths correctly.
Since faith, which is correct believing, is wedded to truth, our false beliefs impede it from working as it should. When God's people seek Him for truth, and stop relying on their denominational prejudices for their personally derived understandings of truth, then truth will flourish. We need to study The Word of God carefully and prayerfully before Almighty God, seeking and asking Him to show us what is true.
Also, the Bible says that faith works by love. How many Christians really walk in God like love as we should? How can faith work, if it works by love, if we do not love one another as we should?
I liken faith to the airplane. For ages man did not know how to fly so he often believed it impossible. Because man could not fly didn't make it impossible. When we finally learned how to fly we began to be able to fly on a regular basis. When Christians finally learn to find truth out from God through His Word, learn to love each other with fervent love, and learn to commune with The LORD on a continuous, love filled and intimate level, then our faith will become powerful, and will flourish as it should.
The one thing that is often missed about faith is that faith is asking God. It isn't a formula, it is a person, the person of God. We cannot manipulate God, but must purely ask Him. Whatever it is that we are asking Him for has to come from Him. It will come from an act of His will. It will come from His power to perform it. It is all of Him. Like getting saved, all we can do is ask. We do not have the power to bring it about. The power does not in any way originate from ourselves.
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Luke 11:34 The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when [thine eye] is evil, thy body also [is] full of darkness. 11:35 Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness. 11:36 If thy whole body therefore [be] full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.
Thanks, I enjoyed that. I think the simile of athletic competition is quite useful: each person in his relationship with God starts with himself, the totality of his own unique person, and then adds his effort and discipline to all the grace God provides.
It's just a completely different -- well, I wanted to say ansatz, but that's not quite right; nor is schwerpunkt -- "approach" maybe? -- than the one you're used to.
And all the intellect in the world will not suffice to internalize it: it is not a model, but a relationship.
While Paul was saying this in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice, "Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning is driving you mad." (Acts 26:24)
Cheers!
So it is your own private intuition which rules.
Tell me then, since all sentiment and moral values are usually held by atheists to be epiphenomena, a swirling of cerebral biochemistry in response to cultural trends, coupled with instinct -- and sifted by the imperfect, impersonal sieve of survival value over time and populations --
since death comes to everyone anyway, and natural selection operates without pity to kill individuals and populations alike --
where's your beef?
Cheers!
Yes: I can pray that God gives you grace (we are commanded to pray one for another), and God can and does give you grace, but I cannot personally imbue you with it.
(1 Cor. 3:6).
Incidentally, (hint hint), read 1 Cor. 9:24.
Do you know how "crestfallen-making" it is, to think that one has come up with a wonderful analogy to explain this, only to realize you have been scooped by the New Testament itself?
God has a wonderful sense of irony -- what a gentle way to give me a little humility.
Cheers!
Oh, I always find that when I think I’ve had a clever and original insight, someone (or several someones) has already come up with it, expressed it better, and published it. I don’t mind: I just think, “Golly, I thought of this in my own head ... and look, I was right!”
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