That happened to me last night. If I'm planning a long post, sometimes I'll type it in a text document then paste it in.
I left out me forgetting to copy the text before I submitted it. It was my fault! All my fault! Yes, the ways of this forum are strict and rigid but I know the rules and the modus operandi! No excuses for me!
I know. But how do you decide what to have faith in? Couldn’t you read the Bhagvad Gita and have faith in that too? If not, why not?
And that's where free will kicks in, of course. The "how" will vary according to each individual. Personally, I have faith in the bible because it satisfactorily addresses all of my deepest personal philosophical questions and I see a ton of beauty and truth in it and I am satisfied with the behavior of those who knew Christ. I guess that answers your question directly? Or were you looking for a more general, non-personal answer?
If there is a way to find truth, I say it MUST be based on something that is objectively observable, otherwise you wind up with “truths” that contradict each other in a way that faith cannot resolve.
I'd agree with you if I was a materialist. I'm not perturbed by the fact of spiritual and theological contradictions, we're doing the best we can. Faith is not about resolving these issues, either.
But in other matters, I do agree with you. In materialistic matters that is.
I'm happy to use different ways of handling different things is what I'm trying to say.
You seem to be contradicting yourself at every turn. On one hand, you don’t want people to judge you based on fundies, then you say you are much the same.
I didn't mean it that way, I meant it in that many times people talk to me as if I was a fundie. I think.
And the bible is completely true, but it is not objective reality.
Yes, I do think it is true but not in the way a materialist would consider truth. Meaning it's not a fact book, but it gives us truth that to me is more important than the materialistic truth in a science book.
And I have made the point frequently that people take from the Bible what they want. That can include hate, greed, hypocrisy and anything else, depending on the person’s motivations and limitations.
Well certainly the Bible would have to offer us something or else nobody would place any real stock in it.
That's like saying we only believe in Jesus because we get something from Jesus. Well...yeah...that's the point of Jesus. Jesus was for us, not for God.
The ultra-orthodox Jews have a neat concept of the Torah. They think that it's existence is independent of our existence...that the Law predates our creation. But I don't think that way. The Bible is for us, and without us, I don't think it would have any reason to exist.
Not a single Christian that I have ever met will say that God spoke aloud so others can hear Him. So essentially, they’re hearing voices in their head. I don’t regard that as reliable communication.
People talk to people in a certain way, and God talks to us in a different way. Reliability can be confirmed in the next one. Or not.
What else should we accept based on faith? Why not accept Hinduism on faith? Or Communism? Or the Loch Ness Monster? What is special about the Christian version of God that makes it immune to the same requirements for believability that you require of most other things?
I'm not saying it is immune from any requirements. It isn't, that's readily apparent, particularly in this forum.
I'm saying what I think is true. If you are most interested in believing things based on evidence, you'll never accept Christianity. That's the extent of what I'm saying. Yes, you can bring up other things that one can have faith in, and I can say the exact same things about those things as well.
Of course I do think that Christianity is more special than those things, because it offers us real salvation from what we rightly agree is a problematic existence, or, at least an existence where there is much confusion and suffering and sorrow.
I have already said that I have different requirements for believability for different things. Let's not use the Loch Ness Monster...let's take something like medieval accounts of fairies. I have different requirements for accepting that because I entertain the idea that the reality behind those stories may be a reality that we can't possibly scientifically study. If that is the case, I can accept it in a different way than I'd accept something that I could boil away in a chemistry lab.
I agree that most people believe in God because they need to. But needing to believe in God and God actually existing are very different things.
Oh I agree, and that goes for needing to believe that God doesn't exist as well. My point is just that it isn't necessarily *bad* that people need to believe in God, anymore than it is bad for people to need people who love them or summat.
I dunno either. It makes no sense to me. If He could speak aloud to us, why doesn’t He?
He did, as Christ, and we accept that as a remarkable incarnation that will only happen once again. So let's change that to "why doesn't he speak aloud to us more often". Then we're talking about how many times, under what circumstances, are there any qualifications or limits to that, etc. It's analogous in my mind to the prayer biz...does God answer any and all prayers, does he talk to any and everyone in the way we think he should?
Also, we are the Body of Christ, and we are commissioned to speak for God and spread the gospel of Christ. We are imperfect (duh) proxies for God. It's part of God's plan to have it that way. We're all in this together, and the question "am i my brother's keeper" has been answered in the affirmative.
It makes it seem like He is deliberately trying to keep us from knowing Him, which is yet another contradiction in the way God is envisioned by many Christians.
And it doesn't seem that way to me.
But without going into a lot of detail, I would say there are many things you should be proud of. I just don’t think that acceptance without evidence should be one of them.
If I've said in once, I've said it hundreds of times. My faith is *not* acceptance without evidence. If I didn't have the Bible, I wouldn't have my particular faith. And then it's your turn to tell me that the Bible is not evidence, and then I will say "no, actually it is". Surely we've gone over this one before, me and you, right?
For me, one of the biggest sources of pride is the things that I do that help others in real, tangible ways.
And I reiterate, take pride in whatever you want to take pride in! I'm not telling you not to take pride in things. I'm only saying that if you're position is correct, this pride will cease at some point. You may get as much personal meaning out of this, as much sense of noble pride as one who gets pride from having faith in Christ, and in so doing does the exact same things and helps others.
Also, to the Christian, helping others is serving Christ. It's the same thing. So, the Christian will also take pride in this as well because it is also a manifestation of faith.
Also I take pride in having one of the largest collections of jokes in the known world.
I take pride in having one of the largest...errr...nevermind.
And I think it is a waste of the only life that I am certain exists. Everything withers. It’s how the world works. I can live with that.
Most of us can, and do, live with that.
How did they know about Christ? Did somebody tell them? Did you? Are you proud that you could convince sick children of your God? I’m betting that their standards of evidence are even lower than yours.
Well I certainly did no proselytizing in that job, I was a teenager back then and I was many times more reticent to talk about my faith then as compared to now. I'm guessing that their faith, and faith it certainly was, came from their parents. I don't know whether or not the parents took pride in their kid's faith...but I'd guess yes. Parents often give their kids what they love, and that can include their faith of course.
Their standards of evidence, as you say, were/are probably lower than mine. That mere fact, if true, doesn't mean that much to me. If we're right, obviously standards of evidence will have nothing to do with it. If we're wrong, who cares, we'll live as best we can than die. I hope nobody will be spray painting on my gravestone "this s.o.b. had miniscule standards of evidence" but that's about the worst thing I can come up with on this one.
Yeah, maybe sick kids need something to believe in, but it could be anything, just so long as it gives them hope. It could be Santa Claus.
You might be right. My point in bringing this up is that you don't "intelligence" your way into faith. It is something that can be grasped by people of all intelligence levels because it is about love and a relationship with God through Christ. Christian faith of course. I brought it up because I see no essential merit in using evidence to determine an outlook on whether or not to believe in Christ or God. Being drawn to Jesus in that way is akin to falling in stating your love for someone because you measure the endorphin levels in your brain and take pH readings or whatever can be done to determine the chemical reality of the love of one human for another.
Sin is nothing like a genetic disease. Sin is an offense to your particular religious system. It is a taught thing.
We'll never agree on this one I reckon. But at least we can agree that sin does exist, and I'm content with that.
Omar correctly identified that it would be a tyrannical god that created these rules without having us agree to them. No (eternal) taxation without representation.
Well...yeah...and I guess you could call parents who raise children inherent tyrants, or actual tyrants.
Also, if I recall, tyrant is not an inherently negative word, or at least the Greek meaning of the word isn't inherently negative. Yes, it's true that God created the rules. But we *don't* have to agree with the rules. You're right in that the rules are not contingent on our opinions...but of course the rules came before our creation...I think there are some philosophical assertions I can make that follow from all this but whatever.
edited to fix some quote unquotes.
-Elliot
