Jar's belief statement- Part 2

As per Admin Asgara's request to start a new thread to avoid the earlier straying from the "Leftist Media" topic and per my own desire to address Faith's responses, I am opening this thread.I would like to address this particular post by Faith specifically: I suppose I should post the story that started all this (and from the "part 2" I can assume this has been seen and hashed out before). So, my problem with Faith's assertion that only one conclusion could have been drawn by the poor, little brainwashed kid, is that it is totally, utterly wrong.One other conclusion that comes to mind is that the kid could have said "Well, all the people should have saved themselves and taken the warlord up on his proposition." Many, many people come to similar conclusions when faced with extermination or the extermination of their loved ones. We have examples of martyrs from many religions, but they are considered special because there were (probably, I have no stats) so many who gave in to save themselves and/or their families from death, torture or exile.The kid could have also asked, "Why didn't the people just try to find another place to live?" or "Why couldn't the people hunt for their food?" or "Why didn't the people band together and kill the warlord and take his food?" or a number of other questions that may have been answered one by one until the kid formed his conclusion. Granted, the kid may have gone over these and answered them logically in his head, but the conclusion may not have been as "obvious" to you or anyone depending on the answers given and the alternate conclusion I provided could still be applied.Yet another conclusion could be that the kid simply stated that "I have to ponder this for awhile." A while can last a very long time...even a lifetime when questions fundamental to one's beliefs need to be considered.In conclusion, there is definitely more than one conclusion to most problems posed in life and especially this one in particular. Not everything is as black and white as you believe it to be.

It was a parable about God. All the possibilities you note are impossible even to imagine in the context of Christian teaching about God, even the most liberal Christian teaching. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

But they arent impossible to imagine, I can imagine all of the possiblities quite easily.Don't you believe that Yahweh was (is) a tyrant?Brian.

So, the possibility that someone would think that everyone would{ABE: or should} choose to be "saved" is impossible to imagine? Or, rather, that someone would think that that is the ideal or logical conclusion?Wouldn't also the idea of all the people killing the warlord (rejecting God) and taking his food (finding salvation/nourishment themselves) be possible (I know many Christians afraid of just this scenario).Wouldn't also the idea of all the people moving elsewhere to find food (finding salvation in another faith) be possible?Wouldn't also the idea of hunting for their food (again, finding salvation for themselves, through their own lives) be possible?A question was asked: "What do you think of the warlord?"All of these conclusions could logically be come to after asking "Did the warlord really have enough food for everyone?" (but only the last 3, specifically, would have to go along with a rejection and negative opinion of the warlord (God) ).It happens all the time.Jar's parable does not conclude in a selfish portrayal of God, at least to me. The way I see it is that he believes that we are all under God's grace and will find a place near to Him in heaven because He loves us all and would not put a condition on salvation. (Jar, please correct me if I am off the mark here) and the "should have" part led him to believe that that was the true message of God. That is what I gathered from the story. That may be blasphemous and "revisionist liberal" hogwash to you, but it seems logical both to me and the orange-nehi drinking kid.Edited by Jaderis, : to add "or should"

Hi J, This is all nice and fluffy, and may well be true for all we know.The 'problem' I have with it is that this view of God is nothing at all like the God of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament.Both sets of scriptures are rife with examples that contradict this view of God. For example, does God's behaviour during the period of the Judges line up with the idea that He loves everyone? Does it suggest that there is no condition on salvation? The text blatantly contradicts these ideas.Brian.

I wholeheartedly agree that it doesn't line up with scripture (you know, the daddy who tells you how to be good and that it will hurt his feelings when you don't and, when that doesn't work, beats the evil out of you and, when that doesn't work, tells you he loves you and tries to bribe you to be good while holding an even bigger stick than before), but many a person's perception of God doesn't and no one person has a monopoly on who God really is, no matter how much they think they do. Actually, I retract that. Maybe one person has it spot on, but no one can ever know who it is. (I wonder if all the "true believers" get to see all the people they were sure were going to hell up in heaven before they get kicked off the cloud).Of course, I don't believe any of these perceptions simply because I do not believe in God. I was only relating what I got out of the story.Nice imitation, BTW

A young person in that Christian school context where the religion is what is always being discussed, would know that it was a parable about the nature of God and salvation. The only apparently moral answer one could possibly arrive at the way the story is set up, again in that educational context, is that the "warlord" should have saved everybody. It is the liberal Christian conclusion and the story leads straight to it, and it seems to me that no other possibility would have occurred to anyone in that setting. I don't see how any of your suggestions would have occurred to any of them. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Because not every kid thinks like every other kid, even if they all went through the same training. I understand that it is a parable. I understand that the kid understood it as a parable. I understand that the question was set up to make a "moral" conclusion about God. But the conclusion made was not the only option available no matter how much you want to believe it is.Now that I think about it, your problem with the story seems not to be the conclusion, but the fact that the question was asked in the first place.

I think I have it. The "proper" conclusion to the story would be:"The warlord was showing his great mercy and love to the people by offering a way out of their suffering. The people knew this, but some refused to believe the warlord and chose to remain in their barren and wicked land. The warlord showed them no mercy and they were stricken from his benevolent presence forever. Those left behind came to know what they gave up when they starved to death and suffered eternally because the warlord had offered them love, but he was also wrathful and just and gave them exactly what they deserved. The warlord is great, the warlord is good. Praise the warlord. Amen."

Thread copied to the Jar's belief statement- Part 2 thread in the Faith and Belief forum, this copy of the thread has been closed.