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Author | Topic: Choosing a faith | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes:
It is a fact that not everyone who professes faith possesses faith. In Phat-world, only Evangelicals are "real Christians" - and not necessarily all evangelicals, either. It's like Faith-math, where there are "millions and millions" of Christians in the world when it's convenient to have a majority - but on actual individual issues, the only "real Christians" are the other five people in the same pew with her. Its likely that you would judge real Christians solely on their willingness to give everything up...houses, cars, and bank accounts included. And before you say a word, yes, I realize that Jesus set that standard, but what *you* don't realize is that Jesus is more than a lawgiving character in a book. He relates to each of us where we are."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo, replying to GDR writes: In matters of supernatural manifestations and healing, the only evidence that survives 2000 years is ongoing reports of witness statements. Granted, you will say its a bit like the game of telephone, where the story changes so much that the point is lost, but I would argue that stories with this much importance are preserved remarkably well. Ask the editors of the various Bibles. They had copies of original manuscripts in which the meaning changed so little as to be negligible. But all too often believers DO disregard reality. Phat, for example, says that believers don't "need" evidence. Not "needing" evidence is just an excuse for denying evidence. "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes: Nonsense. I can read a Bible as well as anybody, and have no ax to grind, unlike the mythicists. And as for Satan being God's minion, I will agree that he was the tempter...which is a bit like tempering iron to become steel.(stronger) Satan's basic job according to Job is to make us tougher and separate the contenders from the pretenders. They(the authors of scripture) made up a God that YOU don't want."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
ringo writes: I will address this in my upcoming post with dwise1. Our worthy apologist, Dr. Peter Kreeft, has something to say along these lines. With "God" there is nothing resembling universal agreement about what He said - nor even universal agreement that He said anything."A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
They had no original manuscripts.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
That is not how iron is used to make steel.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Note I said Copies.
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Explain what a copy of an original manuscript is.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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Phat Member Posts: 18350 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.0 |
Its the earliest preserved document. It is not the original since, as you said, those were largely lost. Its contents ar based on what is/was known from the originals.
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " *** “…far from science having buried God, not only do the results of science point towards his existence, but the scientific enterprise itself is validated by his existence.”- Dr.John Lennox “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” — Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
How do you know they are accurate or if they are copies of an original?
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. -Christopher Hitchens Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts "God did it" is not an argument. It is an excuse for intellectual laziness. If your viewpoint has merits and facts to back it up why would you have to lie?
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dwise1 Member Posts: 5952 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7 |
Tangle replying to GDR:
I'm really confused about what you're trying to say. It seems that you've abandoned everything in the bible apart from the nice stuff that you prefer to believe. You also add that it's not important which god you believe in so long as it has all these nice attributes. Fairly obviously, preferring particular attributes for your god is not going to affect whatever attributes the god actually possesses but I guess it's harmless enough. But all this leaves you is a general belief to live by the Golden Rule. Under that regime there is no need for all the paraphernalia of any particular religion; worship, preaching, scripture, beliefs etc etc. It seems that under your scheme atheists get to heaven too to why the need for any religious belief at all? In the USA there's a religious pollster, the Barna Group, which has found some interesting trends. On my website, I post an Associated Press (AP) newspaper article about one of his polls (Do We Understand What We Think We Believe In?) which I will post here in its entirety:
quote: I found that part of Buddhists also "praying to the same God" albeit by different names to be rather ironic. My understanding of the Buddha's teachings regarding that is that we must not put any trust in the gods, since that would only hold us back from Enlightenment. Ignorance about religion is very strong in these people. I've also jokingly said that the "Actual True God" must be Vishnu, so when posing as YHWH all that hair and beard comes in handy so he can get by with far less Caucasian-flesh-colored makeup to cover his blue skin -- in HBO's series, Watchmen, Hooded Justice, a black cop, only had to apply makeup around his eyes appearing through the hood to appear to be white. The thing is that Christian doctrine is very specific about what it takes to be saved (Bumper sticker: "You don't want to be caught dead without Jesus") and yet "popular Christianity" allows for non-Christians to go to Heaven, directly contradicting Christian doctrine. An image that I cannot shake related to: quote: I once saw a clip from a silent film, maybe one of the Gish sisters in "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm". The young girl enters the kitchen and is tempted by the pie that's cooling off. She wants to take a piece of it, but she looks up and sees a sampler (a framed embroidery with a saying stitched into it): "Thou shalt not steal!" Sadly, she turns away and starts to leave when she sees another sampler: "God helps those who help themselves." So she helps herself to the pie.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9516 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
I wonder if a poll today would get the same results? The evangelical movement seems to have the edge these days and liberal religious views (or liberal anything) seem unfashionable?
Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London. Olen Suomi Soy Barcelona. I am Ukraine. "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
GDR writes: ...the highly unlikely chance of it all evolving from a mindless cause... It's as if you never heard of the infinite regression. If building a mind requires a mind to build it, where did the prior mind come from? And the mind before that that built that one. And so on and so on. Most of your energy seems to go toward thinking of ways to ignore key and obvious points. The reason this thread draws attention is because you keep raising obviously wrong or easily rebutted points where few can resist responding, and since there are a limited number of these points you keep raising them over and over again as if no one hadn't already heard them many times. It isn't because you've raised any points worth a tuppence. It isn't like we're all in a dither over how to respond about Tacitus or whatever. You've gone off in your chosen direction because it feels right to you, not because evidence drove you that way. Baseless conclusions can and should be dismissed without comment, except perhaps to note the lack of evidence. And you can't drastically lower the bar for what constitutes evidence. Believe whatever you want to believe. Nobody will care until you begin claiming you have evidence for beliefs that never had evidence in the first place. --Percy
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Stile Member Posts: 4295 From: Ontario, Canada Joined: |
GDR writes: Maybe I should make something of a disclaimer here that you have probably picked up on... I often struggle to come up with as coherent an argument as I would like to. I wouldn't worry about academic schooling. It's largely inconsequential.What matters more is how much you want to understand critical thinking - looking for the truth. For everything we discuss (I mean EVERYTHING, not just on this webpage) we all have to decide if we want to discuss it in a way that "feels right" or a way that "follows reality." Feeling right is the human default. Following reality is difficult and takes extra monitoring and effort. Different topics will produce different priorities. Example: When trying to build a house, I hope the builders will follow reality 100% as opposed to what they feel is right.Example: When looking for a partner, I hope the following reality side and feeling right sides are more 50-50. It can become difficult when discussing something like purpose. When you or I are looking for our own purpose, I hope that the feeling right side is quite high.However, when you and I are discussing what purpose is and which purpose is better in whatever situation... I hope we move closer to following reality. It takes constant monitoring and effort to judge each idea/situation and identify if you should be feeling right or following reality.Once that's identified, it again takes more constant effort to ensure one follows reality to help achieve the goal (even if the goal is to feel right!) That's what critical thinking is all about.It's more of a personal choice on following truth and learning when to apply it rather than any amount of academic learning can provide. Besides - I always found my academically-leaning peers to be rather... too busy sticking their heads up their own asses to care about reality. The junior stone mason has been given a task of carving the stone in a very specific way. His purpose then is to complete faithfully the task that he has been given. This would seem to imply that the act of giving the junior the task actually sets the junior's purpose.This is incorrect, and against reality. Any teacher (especially those with more than 10 students) will tell you that setting a task doesn't give the student purpose. It may very well be the teacher's purpose to have the student complete the task. But the student always decides for themselves if they want to comply or not. If the teacher providing the task actually set the student's purpose in reality... there would be no such thing as students that "act out" or "don't want to participate." It is the student's own act of willingly complying that sets the student's purpose. Not the act of the teacher providing the task. A subtle, but extremely important, distinction.
It might even decide that it is his ultimate purpose. If the student wants it that much... absolutely possible, yes. Just like Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile.
In trying to apply this analogy as individuals we come up with our own purposes and all of the purposes in our lives form our basic nature. I wouldn't say that all the purposes in our lives form our basic nature.All the purposes in our lives more form our day-to-day existence. But many people's day-to-day existence is more of a struggle that they do not particularly like. This is because all those purposes go against their basic nature. That is... they do not align with their feelings on what their priorities should be... so they feel ineffective on their actual priorities... which causes feelings of wasted time, frustration and depression. Some people are lucky enough to have all the purposes in their lives form their day-to-day existence in a way that aligns with their basic nature. These are generally very happy people. They feel like many of their actions are actively working towards the goals they hold as high priorities. They feel engaged, useful and in control of their lives. So, "all the purposes in our lives" do not form our basic nature. Our basic nature is whatever it happens to be... whatever feelings each individual human may have on what priorities they hold.Having "all the purposes in our lives" match that basic nature or not... is what causes happy people vs. unhappy people. Our purposes in life might be being a good and loving parent and spouse, being good at our job, serving and helping to provide those that need help. Sure.And some will be very happy doing such things (like GDR and Stile) because it matches our basic nature and are things we personally hold as high priorities. And others will be very sad doing such things (like Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile) because it doesn't match their basic nature and takes time away from them focusing on their actual high priorities. Conversely it might be about being as rich as possible, it might be about achieving power for its own sake, etc. Again - Sure.And some will be very happy doing such things (like Hitler and some Politicians/1%-people) because it matches their basic nature and are things they personally hold as high priorities. And others will be very sad doing such things (like GDR and Stile and Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile) because it doesn't match their basic nature and takes time away from them focusing on their actual high priorities. All these things go towards towards forming our basic nature... No - very wrong.These things do not form our basic nature. Our basic nature is "basic"... it isn't formed. It just "is." It's the feelings we have, the priorities we hold. What matters is if these actions happen to match our basic nature or not. That's what will make us happy or not. Notice that Bad Ass Stone Mason Stile wasn't happy in either of those situations... because he just wants to make bad ass ornaments, and isn't allowed to in either of the scenarios you provided.
...which, in a sense, all combined forms our ultimate purpose. Again, wrong.It would be our ultimate purpose if it happened to match our basic nature. Stile and GDR had ultimate purpose when all the purposes in their lives aligned with their basic nature. Hitler and some politicians/1%-people had ultimate purpose when all the purposes in their lives aligned with their basic nature. Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile will only have ultimate purpose if all the purposes in his life aligns with making bad ass ornaments. You and I can sit and judge Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile's purpose as "lower" if we want.We can call Hitler's and some politicians/1%-people a "terribly unfulfilling purpose" if we want. ...and they can say the same to us, equally so, and equally true. This is what makes none of them an "ultimate purpose" for everyone.
Presumably God. like us, has many purposes but has the ultimate purpose, (from my Christian perspective), of putting together a recreated world inhabited by those who freely choose a life based on the Golden Rule which has become their basic nature. Sure.God can have such an ultimate purpose. And GDR may agree with that purpose, and if GDR's basic nature aligns with that purpose then it can be GDR's ultimate purpose as well. But it will never be Bad-Ass Stone Mason's ultimate purpose - because it takes a way from him making bad ass ornaments.To suggest that Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile "should" take on God's ultimate purpose, is nothing short of arrogant, rude and extremely uncaring towards Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile. Even if it's what God wants. I don't pretend to know the mechanism of how God works that out, but some how it is the renewal of all things according to Paul so I'll go with that and leave it up to God, and i, through faith, trust in His perfect judgement. If it works for you, I wish you all the best. Just as I wish Bad-Ass Stone Mason Stile all the best in making the most bad ass ornaments he can. You do you.
I'll be interested to see if you agree that we agree on how I should have been using the term "ultimate purpose". I parsed your post quite a lot. I hope it's not too long or confusing.My feeling is that you're getting closer... but still not seeing the difference between "personally judging purpose for everyone" vs. "purpose coming from within."
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ringo Member (Idle past 442 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined:
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Phat writes:
Sure it does. I even mentioned Santa Claus. You grew up to reject Santa Claus. I grew up to reject God for the same reasons.
Growing up does not mean rejecting the belief as if it is a made up fantasy. Phat writes:
How does finding excuses for childish beliefs equate to growing up? Growing up means seeing God(and Jesus as more than simply characters in a book. You rejected the God in the book just like I did. The only difference is you made up another god to replace Him.Come all of you cowboys all over this land, I'll teach you the law of the Ranger's Command: To hold a six shooter, and never to run As long as there's bullets in both of your guns. -- Woody Guthrie
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