If you felt low and lost before, and you now feel better after finding that someone\something, I'm happy for you, but your presumption that I and others are as lost and unhappy as you were, and in need of finding faith, is a little insulting. Anyway, it's clearly what you needed to make sense of things, so I won't knock that.
Commendable effort, Karloski. But if you expect Stilton to actually answer any questions then you are expecting a little too much I'm still waiting on his description of our first nature.
if you don't think God exists, it's because you prefer to ignore what most people view as cogent evidence, the magnitude of Creation, for one thing. i know that there isn't any scientific proof for the existence of God, but there isn't any scientific proof for the emergence of life from non-life. we choose to believe what makes the most sense, i suppose, but i find it difficult to suppose that Creation just happened in a naturalistic fashion. the sense that the created world isn't something that just happened on its own is pretty commonplace. there are loads of people who choose to say that Man deals with the uncertainties of natural phenomena by inventing explanations, like the existence of God, and that is a possibility, but i find that notion unsatisfying. more satisfying is that God exists and he make what we perceive in nature and there is a supernatural realm that we don't perceive directly. that doesn't make it any less "real". why Jesus? because God doesn't want anyone to suffer eternal separation from him. because loves us. because he has compassion for our plight, being sinful by nature and wanting to control our destinies, where trusting him and choosing to live according to his understandable will would make the world a better place, for you, for me, can't you see...put a little love in your heart...ooooops, sorry. what kind of god to worship? do you know of another God but Jehovah? look. i found myself living according to my own self-will. i wanted to live a better life, but every attempt i made to "better" myself ended in another jackpot where i was all-in and bluffing my way through because i didn't have the kind of character it takes to make different kinds of decisions. it wasn't as if i didn't know better. i knew better. i just could do better. if you aren't convinced that your life is a vicious circle of trying to live up to your own standards and failing, fine. i think you're kidding yourself, but that's just my take. i can only report what it was like for me, what happened and what it's like now. yes God is a person. not a person with a body ( except in the case of Jesus ), but nonetheless a person. because he is a person, he has attributes that are personal. i think God has emotional stuff going on, maybe not precisely as we understand emotion, but certainly he responds to things in a manner that would best be described as emotionally.
Well, as much as I'd like to debate with you (actually I probably wouldn't) about whether it's more logical to take a Deist view, or that of a theist, or the multiverse, or that the invisible pink unicorn farted out the universe, etc....I think I'd prefer to stick to the topic, which is the Christian teachings through the Bible. Needless to say, I think a monotheistic God who watches over a speck is one of the more....shall we say 'far fetched' theories. It doesn't make it any less real because it comforts you and makes you feel better? I do believe it is real for you. Of course, it would be nice if their was an all powerful deity who created you, and took you in to enjoy paradise for eternity when you passed from this world (though if it was me I'd probably prefer a less mean spirited, temperamental God), but shouldn't all Christians look to logic and reason to try and ascertain whether they are following the right path...or is blind faith all that is needed. I'll respond to the rest of your post tomorrow. It's late.
I got two suggestions for you Karloski. One is to read anything by St. Augustine except for the Confessions. He was a pretty smart guy - an intellectual. So he was asking the same questions you are and also wrestled with the contradictions of the Bible without discarding it completely. Plus it's neat to read his "modern" prose, and then realize it was written in 400. The other is to read the catechism of the Catholic church. It's pretty thick so you probably want to get it out of the library. It certainly tries to "harmonize" what was done and said in the early years of Christianity with today's practices. You can make valid criticisms that it is a pedantic way of belief, that it misses the spiritual forest for the trees, or that it justifies irrelevant practices, but again, it is a way someone tried to answer the questions you posed in your OP. Finally, shouldn't you include the Jews in your "pick 'n mix" question? Most of the Bible is the Hebrew Scriptures which has the same problems.
Sorry I backed out of this after the initial response...busy weekend. It sounds like there has been some good back and forth. The problem is that these are good questions you're asking, but ones that take so much conversation to get to the bottom of. It seems that your idea of Christianity has been a straw man (perhaps rightly so, as many Christians perspective of their own religion is a straw man). You may scour the depths of these questions and still disagree with the Christian position, but know that there are many brilliant Christian thinkers and philosophers who have more than a "blind faith" perspective. That doesn't mean you have to agree with their conclusions (as there are brilliant people on the other side as well), but just that this perception that all Christians are just mindless sheep looking for a cosmic blankie isn't necessarily representative of the whole, even if it applies to many. I agree with the others that if you really are looking for why Christianity is the way it is, start reading and continuing these types of conversations. Unfortunately, typing on message boards is just too limiting for me to have these complicated conversations. ...a three hour conversation over drinks is much better
Of course it's not strange, what do you expect? Take this passage from the gospel of Luke for example: Luke 12:32-33 New International Version (NIV) 32 Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. 33 Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Now obviously verse 32 is very relevant to our Christian walk. Verse 33, not so much.
Err.. anyways, wasn't saying that at all. Unfortunately, you took it that way instead of the friendly way that I meant. You've managed to take all the fun out of conversation, so you've won the internet!
Well, you accused me of attacking peoples beliefs in your first post...and in need of finding something\body in your second. So maybe you need to look at your posting style if that's friendly. Thanks for awarding me the internet, it means a lot.
He doesn't wan't anybody to suffer. He loves us. Has compassion for our plight. Yet according to his rules, 2 thirds of the planet will burn for eternity...the majority through no fault of their own. For an all mighty deity to allow that (especially considering he, according to you, created us with a sinful nature) seems a little sadistic to me. A tribesman living away from civilisation, would not have heard of Jehovah. So why is it his fault if he looks at the Glory of life in the forest and praises the Giant Monkey God that his ancestors told him about? So you was looking for something more when you read the Bible? What is your take on some of his emotional decisions\outbursts in the old testament such as wrath and jealousy?
Not going to participate in the thread except to ask why this is important? You are aware I'm sure that most of the bible was not in fact written by God/Jesus as you put it.
Why is it important to me? It's not. I'm curious of the motives and mindsets of others. Nobody is forcing anyone to respond in this thread. It can die a slow death, if people are unwilling to reply or are uncomfortable with my queries. Most? I don't think any of it was written by God/Jesus.
what does "thru no fault of their own" mean. are you suggesting that 2/3rds of the planet has no moral guilt? are you suggesting that having a standard of conduct is unfair of God? because the best a monkey can do, has ever done, is to use a stick to knock bananas from a tree. and, frankly, if you're worried about those tribesmen, maybe you need to tell them about Jesus. my early reading of the Bible was pretty desultory. our family didn't do Christian church. we had a Bible, but my exploratory reading suggested that my moral condition was going to send me to hell. i didn't have much hope of avoiding that end, not until was was in my 30s. divine wrath is the most reasonable response to abject moral corruption. if you spent a lot of energy wooing a woman and she responded to your amorous advances but later decided to become a prostitute, my guess is that you would find that kind of behavior contemptuous and you might not murder her, but you wouldn't put her up in a penthouse apartment and send her boxes of chocolates. you want God to be warm and fuzzy all the time. but he's completely different from anything else we know of. one other thing, though. this is a conversation between Jesus and one of the disciples, Philip:
you know full well why. you and i have a basic nature. you know what your basic nature is like. i know what my basic nature is like. they aren't significantly different.
You insist on avoiding having to actually answer the question. I'm going to be forced to assume you have no idea what you are talking about.
I assume it's important to him because someone who makes a claim about something the bible says should probably be ok with being asked to point out exactly where it says such. But then, if someone like you then comes along and says "well that part wasn't REALLY written by god/Jesus" you can just continue on cherry picking the parts of the bible that "actually" matter. Whee! "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression." 1 Timothy 2:11-13 Selective Bible Thumping really IS fun!
No. What I am suggesting is that most people not of Christian faith, but follow another faith, are indoctrinated as small children. How are they supposed to know any better. Is the promise of heaven a lottery, just hope you are born in the right place at the right time. It's a Monkey God, not a monkey. Who knows what powers he would have in their eyes. Why has God\Jesus not let them know of his existence? Why neglect whole areas of the planet? Are we not all God's children. So you believe this to be a reasonable respose: The LORD says, "I will bring disaster on the earth and punish all wicked people for their sins. I will humble everyone who is proud and punish everyone who is arrogant and cruel. Those who survive will be scarcer than gold. I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place on that day when I, the LORD Almighty, show my anger. "The foreigners living in Babylon will run away to their homelands, scattering like deer escaping from hunters, like sheep without a shepherd. Anyone who is caught will be stabbed to death. While they look on helplessly, their babies will be battered to death, their houses will be looted, and their wives will be raped." The LORD says, "I am stirring up the Medes to attack Babylon. They care nothing for silver and are not tempted by gold. With their bows and arrows they will kill the young men. They will show no mercy to babies and take no pity on children. -Isaiah 13:11-18 God is good, correct? So what ever he does is good, correct? So the moral standards he expects of us now, were fine to break then, as long as they were in his name? Or was this passage part of a metaphor that God was a bit unhappy with man?
Divine wrath is quite unreasonable if you subscribe to the idea of an all-knowing all-powerful god. The Judeo-Christian God literally created all that pissed him off. He creates in order to destroy. Seeing as an omniscient God would know the Sodomites, Babylonians, etc would thoroughly disappoint him well before they came into existence, you would have to surmise that God actually enjoys being pissed off. Seeing as you suggested that God has human like emotions, that would make him a bit of a sadist. Minerva, I believe posted a link in the Creationist thread that had a sort of Q&A that addressed this. According to this guy, God places all the souls of people who would have never bought into the doctrine no matter what, into the bodies of those living before Christ, and after. So it really doesn't matter if you lived in the Old Kingdom Egypt, or if your isolated Amazonian tribe now, the only reason you're there to begin with is that you wouldn't have believed in God if he slapped you in face. This me recounting what I got out of the essay of course, I may have misinterpreted what he was trying to explain.
The guy is W.L. Craig by the way. I'm trying to find the one I read, but this one touches on the same topic. Just so you know I'm not making it up: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=9101
