Choosing a faith

Do you really have to ask this? Don't the young women benefit from education and increased political awareness? Over the long term could not their increased stature in society help their offspring survive with better living conditions than dirt poor? No. Thinking through a problem in all its effects is the only requirement.

The conflict of interest originates with the judge Himself. In order to allow free will, the judge hired a prosecutor who attempts to indict everyone. The prosecutor is not out to defend anybody--be they innocent or be they guilty.
Even though the judge originally chose to hire the prosecutor, the system became rigged. The solution which addressed the one-sided kangaroo court was a defense attorney who paid all of the fines Himself. No matter what the Prosecution threw at the Jury, the defense attorney deflected it from the people so charged. Now for the real mind-blowing reality of my so-called warped theology: The Defense Attorney Himself preceded the Prosecutor. You may well argue that in this crazy analogy a better solution would be for the judge to simply and directly forgive each and every person who enters His court, but if we then introduced YOUR
conclusion that Christianity is based on what we do, EVERY single person in town would have to support every other person in town regardless of their worthiness. In essence, some goobers could get by without working and be assured that all of their bills still got paid. No one in town could become thrifty and frugal and save any money for themselves. They would be forced by the laws of Marx to use any excess money to support the poorest people in town---even if they hacked the system and rode along drafting off of the hard-working guy in front of them breaking the wind for them.In conclusion, I would think it unfair for guilty clients to get the same wrist slap that I, an innocent client, received. I am now confusing myself by realizing that this judge gives everyone a pardon yet expects me to give it all up for the court fines of everyone so charged.

Except that you haven't "covered this stuff already." People note that you have no evidence for your position, so instead of going off and finding some evidence you just make your unevidenced assertions again. Making the same unevidenced claims over and over is not how one "covers this stuff already." You type words in response, that's about the best face that can be put on what you're doing. Same response as above. All God's religions got books. You have the Old and New Testaments, the Hindus have a bunch of books like the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhists have the Tripitaka, the Muslims have the Quran, the Jews have The Bible (the real one), and the Pastafarians have The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.But where is evidence of anything supernatural in any of these books? I don't believe that. I don't believe that someone of your intelligence actually thinks that repeating unevidenced claims over and over is his "level best." I don't believe you actually give such short shrift to the critical role evidence plays in establishing what is likely true about the real world. But it's been pointed out to you numerous times that your books make religious claims of the same nature as other religious books. Usually it's healings and prophecies coming true and incredible often physically impossible and unverifiable stories. All religions are like this. Christianity is not special. Had you grown up in a Muslim family and gone to the Muslim equivalent of Sunday School and been surrounded by stories from the Quran, virtually embedded in Islamic culture, it would be about the Quran that you'd be claiming evidence and truth. You're where you are spiritually because of where you grew up, not because of any ultimate truth. And this is your biggest problem. How are you going to find evidence of the immaterial while here in the material world? Imagine for the moment that there was some evidence somewhere of the immaterial. How would this immaterial whatever-it-was have become apparent to us material beings? By what mechanism can you imagine this ever happening?--Percy

This gets right to the point I was addressing.
Are we free-thinkers, or not?If the novice stone mason became a stone mason because he wanted to... doesn't that mean the novice stone mason already, personally, chose to have "his stone masonry work" be his ultimate purpose individually before the master put the stone on the castle?If so... this seems to align with what I'm saying... the purpose coming from the master only matches the purpose coming from the novice. It's the novice's decision to be a stone mason that is his "ultimate purpose."If the novice stone mason was forced to become a stone mason... I think the analogy fails as it's quite possible for the novice to not give two shits what happened with the stone he carved... as he quite possibly wouldn't care.I think the more apt analogy is the one I provided: arranged marriage.Can arranged marriage work? Absolutely.
Can arranged purpose work? Absolutely.Can free-choice marriage work? Absolutely.
Can free-choice purpose work? Absolutely.Is arranged marriage better than free-choice marriage?
-no, but it can match it, if those involved in the arranged marriage happen to (or learn to) freely choose to love each other as well.Is arranged purpose better than free-choice purpose?
-no, but it can match it, if those involved in the arranged purpose happen to (or learn to) freely choose to desire that purpose as well (like the novice stone mason.) How are you coming to this conclusion? I don't see how our individual purpose is the call to love sacrificially.
I don't see how our individual purpose is defined as any one thing for all of us in any way.It seems like all historical attempts to provided a single purpose for "all people" has always failed - failed spectacularly. Because it never, ever addresses all people. Because people are different. I learned that in kindergarten.Why do you think you simply get to claim that a single purpose is "for everyone" no matter how good you (and I) think that single purpose is?
It seems extremely arrogant.

Poe's Law (It's hard to tell when the crazies are joking.) And yet you expected the part you quote-mined to be taken literally, didn't you? You suggested that the goats "go away" to frolic happily in the sunshine, licking their lollipops - when an inch away, Jesus used the words, "cursed" and "everlasting fire". But there isn't a contradiction in Matthew 25 unless you insist on a sunshine-and-lollipops God. Matthew 25:41 seems pretty definitive. So we have to surmise what happens to a person in everlasting fire. If CS Lewis thought that people "choose" hell, he was an idiot. Worry less but don't preach that it's all sunshine and lollipops regardless of what we do in this life.

And the Judge recuses himself. 1. Judges do not hire prosecutors. That would be an egregious abuse of every principle of justice.
2. A prosecutor who attempts to indict everyone is incompetent.
3. Whoever hires such an incompetent prosecutor is also incompetent. A competent prosecutor only prosecutes the cases that he's pretty sure he can win. He's pretty sure they're guilty. The system you describe is definitely rigged. Have you heard of somebody acting as judge, jury and executioner? That's a crime. Can't you think of an analogy that doesn't fail at every single sentence?Why was there a kangaroo court in the first place? Why would your "loving' God set up such an example of injustice? And since when do defense attorneys pay the fines? Just the opposite: they charge for their services. And by the way, we're not talking about fines here, we're talking about death sentences.. Since when does a defense attorney volunteer to be executed? And since when does a justice system - even a ludicrously unjust one like you propose - allow substitutions? *ahem* In Matthew 25, it was your "defense attorney" who threw the curses. Your mind was blown long ago. And your theology gets more warped with every word you write. We've been through that before. John 1 does NOT say that Jesus was around from the beginning. It says that the WORD (the message) was around since the beginning. Worst analogy ever. Not one sensible word in it. See above. What do you mean by "worthiness"? Who is "worthy" to decide whom is worthy? Jesus implied that nobody is worthy to cast the first stone. And He Himself didn't cast the first stone. You seem to have wandered out of the courtroom. And wandering down the street. Your analogy is dribbling into the sewer. There are no "laws of Marx" but the laws of the USA do "force" you to pay taxes to support the poorest people. Speaking of 'breaking wind", that's what most of your post is. Jesus disagreed with you. He put EVERYBODY in the same category as "sinners". What a damned inclusivist bastard He was, according to you. Yup. Crazy theology --> crazy believers.

I know that for some reason when I use Word you get some strange symbols instead of apostrophes but I just lost a whole post somehow on the site so I’m going back to Word. You have acknowledged that the Bible is evidence and I acknowledged that that is all I have with the addition of the early church fathers. I have nothing else and haven’t claimed that I have anything else. Beyond that it is faith and belief.
I agree that just because I strongly believe something does not make it correct which is the same for you. Same response as above except that I would add that the belief that conscience moral life can emerge from mindless non-intelligence requires more faith than I can muster, but agree I have nothing else to offer other than my individual take on what I observe and my own life experience which doesn’t constitute evidence. I see the fact that we exist as conscious beings evidence which you reject as evidence for my position.
You want me to move the discussion forward but I have nothing else to offer and have stated all of the above previously several times. There is Christ’s resurrection and ascension. There is Mohammed going to heaven. We can all make our mind up of what we will believe about these accounts. I agree with all of that but it doesn’t tell anything about what is true or what isn’t in any of them. It seems that you have finally grasped my point. There isn’t material evidence beyond our subjective conclusions about the existence of life, as will as thr various philosophical or theological books that in turn don’t have material evidence to support what is written in them.

Sire we are. The novice can ignore the master and find a new master, He can just not bother and make up some excuse or he can complete the task given to him. I suppose you can only go so far with any metaphor but just because he chose stone masonry wouldn’t mean that he would choose this project. OK, but it still meant that the novice had to agree to the purpose and if he didn’t the master would simply find another novice that would agree. The freedom to choose has not been taken away. I don’t think that analogy works. The outcome is the same whether or not the arranged purpose is subsequently freely chosen or not.
I assume that the ultimate purpose is to have a successful marriage. Both scenarios cand lead to that outcome.
However in the case of the stone mason we can assume that he freely chose that line of work whereas in the case of the arranged marriage I think we can assume that was an arranged marriage was assumed, and not a freely chosen situation.
Also in the case of the stone mason we can more safely assume that he/she well be committed to the project whereas that is not the case in an arranged marriage.
As far as Christianity goes IMHO God, on the assumption that He did have a choice, would not have wanted robots and wanted to ultimately have a world where sacrificial love is the freely chosen norm. Remember again, the novice freely chose to be a stone mason prior to the metaphor even beginning. Firstly, what does a single purpose of sacrificial love look like. It would look different for everyone. It is a heart thing and is not specific to any particular action. Also, when you have a single purpose there will be those who freely accept it and those that freely reject it.
I’m curious to know what example you would use of an attempt at a single purpose that failed.

If you stopped trying to claim that your beliefs had some corroboration in scientific observations and real world evidence and just said what you're saying now - that it's simply a belief - then most of our complaints go away.We'd then have a different discussion about why your beliefs are contradictory or fly in the face of what is actually known, but we wouldn't have to keep asking you to evidence your assertions.

The deep contradictions of your position will not evaporate by determinedly ignoring them. Your book describes both love and hate. You've chosen to draw your conclusions from only half. You are picking and choosing. There's nothing remotely objective about what you're doing.But there's nothing wrong with forming your religious beliefs subjectively and selectively. Just don't try to sell it as an objective exercise to other people, an exercise where you supposedly sifted through *all* the evidence and considered it rationally and objectively with other people to form a meaningful consensus. What you're doing is intimate and personal, and it's great that you're sharing your search here, but you are profoundly deluded about its nature.--Percy

I'm about a week behind on this thread, but judging from your response to something GDR posted yesterday he's still saying the exact same things as a week ago and for weeks before that.--Percy

Yes, I find contradictions in the Bible. Maybe this is one of them, or maybe not.As I said earlier the Jews of the era used hyperbole a lot with and obvious example being stars falling from the sky and the sun refusing to shine if the revolutionaries continued down the road of violent revolution.Also as I said earlier, I contend that those that focus on the self, even at the expense of others can wind up in some form of hellish existence in this life.
In the end though I don't worry to much about the next life but believe that God is a god of perfect justice whatever that looks like.
,
What do you think the next life should look like for those like Hitler and Pol Pot? Why should you take the everlasting fire term literally? It is being told as part of a parable. But I have said that there is judgement, but I don't see it as happening as in a court of law. Seeing as how you see CS Lewis as an idiot, because he disagrees with you, you probably won't get this.As I understand Lewis he is saying that we will have made the choice to be with like minded people in the next life. If you are self focused in this life, even at the expense of others, and you wind up living with others of the same mind set, then maybe everlasting fire is a pretty good metaphor.

As I have said to Percy several times. all I have for evidence is the Bible, and to a lesser degree other holy books. (There is no evidence that points to the accuracy of any of the accounts in those books. It is belief.)I do believe that the resurrection was an historical event based on the Bible, and for the fact that Jesus was, instead of being rejected as a failed messiah as what happened in all of the other messianic movements, was accepted and revered by the early church. There is no other evidence to collaborate the accounts.That and my rejection of the belief that consciousness, morality and sentience can come from mindless particles. I realize that we can see it working its way through societies but that does nothing to answer the question of whether or not that is happening because of a pre-existing intelligence or not. That too is belief without evidence.

I started this thread to make the case that the god of any religion we choose, isn't what is important.What is important is the nature of the god we choose. Yes, I am picking and choosing. I am picking the loving God that I see as Embodied in the life of Jesus. Yes, there are apparent contradictions in the Bible but as I just explained I don't think that quote from Matthew 25 is necessarily one of them.The Bible was written by fallible men with all of their own understandings, cultural biases. Also I think we have to understand the cultures and the idioms of the time the various books were written. In the case of Matthew 25 I think that we have to understand the eternal fire bit as being an idiom that Matthew and the early Jews would have understood, in the same way that we understand the phrase that it is "raining cats and dogs".
So yes, when I read the Bible I choose to understand it through the lens of Jesus, who tells us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to forgive, and ultimately to love sacrificially. It's all a heart thing.If I am worshipping a god that that does not represent the actual nature of God, Allah, Yahweh or whatever then so be it.

Why wouldn't you? What is there to indicate that it's a parable? No. Because the idea of "choosing" hell is idiotic.