Speaking of bad things...
Hey CJ, I think the drugs are getting to you this evening, buddy. It put a penalty on your Will save. ;)
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OMG that's precious, your just so cute and precocious.Nice underhanded attack.
You are a good teacher.
Ah but did you have to pay?Just curious when was the last time you went to church or tried a psychic hotline?Last week and they did pass around the offering plate.
Well it wasn't a catholic church, but the church in which I grew up in. If you were a church member and did not tithe then it was considered a sin, and since it was a very apocalyptic church, if you had any sin when Jesus would suddenly return then you'd be left behind. So my church did sort of make you pay. But again it wasn't catholic.
Remind me never to have a discussion about 'D.P.' with evangelical protestants.
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Well it wasn't a catholic church, but the church in which I grew up in. If you were a church member and did not tithe then it was considered a sin, and since it was a very apocalyptic church, if you had any sin when Jesus would suddenly return then you'd be left behind. So my church did sort of make you pay. But again it wasn't catholic.OMG that's precious, your just so cute and precocious.Nice underhanded attack.
You are a good teacher.
Ah but did you have to pay?Just curious when was the last time you went to church or tried a psychic hotline?Last week and they did pass around the offering plate.
I know I know I know I wasn't going to post.
Yes well after just a few words from you I think the church you grew up in wouldn't know a sin if it creeped up on it and bit it on the backside.
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Well it wasn't a catholic church, but the church in which I grew up in. If you were a church member and did not tithe then it was considered a sin, and since it was a very apocalyptic church, if you had any sin when Jesus would suddenly return then you'd be left behind. So my church did sort of make you pay. But again it wasn't catholic.OMG that's precious, your just so cute and precocious.Nice underhanded attack.
You are a good teacher.
Ah but did you have to pay?Just curious when was the last time you went to church or tried a psychic hotline?Last week and they did pass around the offering plate.I know I know I know I wasn't going to post.
Yes well after just a few words from you I think the church you grew up in wouldn't know a sin if it creeped up on it and bit it on the backside.
I tend to concur, but me being someone whod oesn't believe in sin. But their compass of what is right and wrong does seem to be assbackwards (forgive the term) most of the time.
Well it wasn't a catholic church, but the church in which I grew up in. If you were a church member and did not tithe then it was considered a sin, and since it was a very apocalyptic church, if you had any sin when Jesus would suddenly return then you'd be left behind. So my church did sort of make you pay. But again it wasn't catholic.
My father figured out the Catholic church, in which he was raised and educated, was a racket (that's his choice of words) before he finished third grade. He was very good at making a little hole in the button of the envelopes they passed out to collect nickel tithes from the kids. In those days, a nickel could buy a lot for a kid. Once he had the freedom to roam on his own, he tried out several other churches and found the same business going on.
For a while, for some reason, he and my mother were members of some kind of Protestant church. He always gave one dollar when the plate came around. They stopped going in fairly short order. The church sent somewhat regular requests for cash, which it never got. Then after a little while, they sent a letter about how according to the bylaws or whatever he was no longer a member. He told his very religious father that the computer kicked him out of the church and they both had a good laugh.
But their compass of what is right and wrong does seem to be assbackwards (forgive the term) most of the time.
Scarcely a day goes by that I don't encounter some group I think the same of. But I do casually follow the news, so it's to be expected.
You are a good teacher.
Fair enough.
Ah but did you have to pay?
Only difference I can see is a demand for payment versus a request for payment (or in some cases a very very strong suggestion for payment).
Passing the plate around was certainly a request for payment.
Aren't there laws against panhandling?
Or that the randomness required for free will means that sometimes bad things happen to good people.
Are you conceding god is arbitrary?
And further, 'sometimes'?! That seems rather self-centered in that bad things seem to happen to good people far more frequently than 'sometimes'. It is just that those same bad things do not befall you and thus makes it easier to dismiss.
Aren't there laws against panhandling?
I realize it was meant as a joke, but I do not think they apply in this situation. I was in their place listening to their lecture. I believe they are free to charge admission if they wish.
Charging admission goes against the spreading of gospel. Unless the tithing return is the gospel? :p
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Or that the randomness required for free will means that sometimes bad things happen to good people.Are you conceding god is arbitrary?
And further, 'sometimes'?! That seems rather self-centered in that bad things seem to happen to good people far more frequently than 'sometimes'. It is just that those same bad things do not befall you and thus makes it easier to dismiss.
What does "good" or "bad" have to do with it?
Jeremy raises a good point (as well as Samnell) and I don't really have a good answer for it. I don't feel that it's "arbitrary" but I also don't feel that it's based on anything that we may feel it should be based on either. (Which unfortunately goes back to your "mysterious ways" issue.)
I guess that my point is that while we wish and maybe feel that it ought to be one way, that way isn't really Biblical. Once again, we are trying to force God to be what we want him to be. I generally haven't seen that work very well.
I do not know about that. Honestly, asking for money for facilities and 'works' is not really something I have an issue with. I can see where Sam draws the parallel to Psychic hotlines, but, I never saw it as giving money for a particular 'service'; certainly not as price of admission for a sermon.
I realize that is what I said, but it was meant as tongue in cheek.
I believe I understand your point, Moff. However, if god is not going to act in, what I believe to be, a moral way, why should I worship him? I owe him no more allegiance than Zeus who is also free to act as he chooses.
It is many of your fellow Christians who suggest god is 'good' despite any evidence to the contrary. So I ask, who is really trying to fit god into their box of what he should be?
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I believe I understand your point, Moff. However, if god is not going to act in, what I believe to be, a moral way, why should I worship him? I owe him no more allegiance than Zeus who is also free to act as he chooses.
It is many of your fellow Christians who suggest god is 'good' despite any evidence to the contrary. So I ask, who is really trying to fit god into their box of what he should be?
So because God is "good", He must save all other "good" people?
Charging admission goes against the spreading of gospel. Unless the tithing return is the gospel? :pOur church actually makes a point to mention that new people should feel no obligation to contribute to the offering plate.
But if that collection plate is lined with green cloth.... I'm calling out the prayer prosperity cloth. ;-)
No god ever imagined by anyone throughout the history of man has ever had to answer to man. It did not make any of them any more real. And I argue that it is a very telling point. It seems far more likely to me that there are no gods which completely, easily and elegantly explains why none of them act in a way consistent with their believed nature than that any of them exist and have their own reasons which we will never be able to grasp for acting inconsistently to their believed nature.
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But if that collection plate is lined with green cloth.... I'm calling out the prayer prosperity cloth. ;-)Charging admission goes against the spreading of gospel. Unless the tithing return is the gospel? :pOur church actually makes a point to mention that new people should feel no obligation to contribute to the offering plate.
No cloth. It has some kind of felt "pad" in the middle of it. I think it's red. Are we safe?
So because God is "good", He must save all other "good" people?
Letting his beloved people suffer when he has the power to prevent it does seem evil to me, yes. At, at the very least, callous.
No cloth. It has some kind of felt "pad" in the middle of it. I think it's red. Are we safe?But if that collection plate is lined with green cloth.... I'm calling out the prayer prosperity cloth. ;-)Charging admission goes against the spreading of gospel. Unless the tithing return is the gospel? :pOur church actually makes a point to mention that new people should feel no obligation to contribute to the offering plate.
Yep, you got a pass. ;)
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So because God is "good", He must save all other "good" people?I believe I understand your point, Moff. However, if god is not going to act in, what I believe to be, a moral way, why should I worship him? I owe him no more allegiance than Zeus who is also free to act as he chooses.
It is many of your fellow Christians who suggest god is 'good' despite any evidence to the contrary. So I ask, who is really trying to fit god into their box of what he should be?
Well in a sense yes. If we have a little girl who has just been brutalized and about to be murdered crying out to god to save her and then god does nothing and allows her to be murdered that comes across as callous. Or any number of people crying out to god for help, like in Katrina pious elderly people crying out to god to save them as the waters rose and they drowned in their attics, or someone about to be murdered pleading with all their strength to be saved, in absolute desperation, and then god does nothing. Yes it does seem callous and not very good at all honestly.
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No god ever imagined by anyone throughout the history of man has ever had to answer to man. It did not make any of them any more real. And I argue that it is a very telling point. It seems far more likely to me that there are no gods which completely, easily and elegantly explains why none of them act in a way consistent with their believed nature than that any of them exist and have their own reasons which we will never be able to grasp for acting inconsistently to their believed nature.
Except that (IMO) most other gods don't really act "in mysterious ways". They act more like spoiled and/or selfish humans. i.e. People made their "god(s)" in people's image. Not the other way around.
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So because God is "good", He must save all other "good" people?Letting his beloved people suffer when he has the power to prevent it does seem evil to me, yes. At, at the very least, callous.
I have to agree, this either shows a lack of omnipotence (he does really care but can only do so much) or a lack of caring. I've heard crucible arguments too, martyrs make us all more holy apparently.
No god ever imagined by anyone throughout the history of man has ever had to answer to man. It did not make any of them any more real. And I argue that it is a very telling point. It seems far more likely to me that there are no gods which completely, easily and elegantly explains why none of them act in a way consistent with their believed nature than that any of them exist and have their own reasons which we will never be able to grasp for acting inconsistently to their believed nature.Except that (IMO) most other gods don't really act "in mysterious ways". They act more like spoiled and/or selfish humans. i.e. People made their "god(s)" in people's image. Not the other way around.
Even Yahweh had his selfish and jealous moments in the Old Testament..
EDIT: and even a lot of people seem to have no trouble anthropomorphizing 'God' into their own image by trying to describe his omniscience. Catch-22, I think?
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No god ever imagined by anyone throughout the history of man has ever had to answer to man. It did not make any of them any more real. And I argue that it is a very telling point. It seems far more likely to me that there are no gods which completely, easily and elegantly explains why none of them act in a way consistent with their believed nature than that any of them exist and have their own reasons which we will never be able to grasp for acting inconsistently to their believed nature.Except that (IMO) most other gods don't really act "in mysterious ways". They act more like spoiled and/or selfish humans. i.e. People made their "god(s)" in people's image. Not the other way around.Even Yahweh had his selfish and jealous moments in the Old Testament..
He even admits he's jealous...
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No god ever imagined by anyone throughout the history of man has ever had to answer to man. It did not make any of them any more real. And I argue that it is a very telling point. It seems far more likely to me that there are no gods which completely, easily and elegantly explains why none of them act in a way consistent with their believed nature than that any of them exist and have their own reasons which we will never be able to grasp for acting inconsistently to their believed nature.Except that (IMO) most other gods don't really act "in mysterious ways". They act more like spoiled and/or selfish humans. i.e. People made their "god(s)" in people's image. Not the other way around.
But the same can be said for Yahweh. Now please excuse the following quote Moff, but it does illustrate a point and it isn't intended on my part to be of an aggressive intent.
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins
Basically every claim in that quote we can find an example in the old testament where Yahweh did something that would characterize him as one of the above statements. I literally checked it out. To me that makes him sound pretty much made out of human cloth to be honest.
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Well in a sense yes. If we have a little girl who has just been brutalized and about to be murdered crying out to god to save her and then god does nothing and allows her to be murdered that comes across as callous. Or any number of people crying out to god for help, like in Katrina pious elderly people crying out to god to save them as the waters rose and they drowned in their attics, or someone about to be murdered pleading with all their strength to be saved, in absolute desperation, and then god does nothing. Yes it does seem callous and not very good at all honestly.So because God is "good", He must save all other "good" people?I believe I understand your point, Moff. However, if god is not going to act in, what I believe to be, a moral way, why should I worship him? I owe him no more allegiance than Zeus who is also free to act as he chooses.
It is many of your fellow Christians who suggest god is 'good' despite any evidence to the contrary. So I ask, who is really trying to fit god into their box of what he should be?
So "god" is something that we put in a box until we really need him and then we try and take him out and when it doesn't work we cry "foul"?
In many ways you are right and it's something that I (still) am dealing with. Why would God allow/cause the Haiti earthquake to hit? More than that, why would he have two people there at that time doing God's work standing not more than three feet from each other when the earthquake hits and one survives and the other doesn't? There really isn't an answer for that. It sucks. I wish that I understood better.
You have a point there (as far as ancient religions). However, I believe the Judean-Christian god was created to one up all those other gods. Therefore, Moses says he is all powerful and all knowing.
Come to think of it, god seemed pretty selfish and spoiled in the Old Testament. At least certainly jealous, so maybe your point is not quite so solid.
Back to where I was going with this…later people try to make god 'good' as well as all powerful and all knowing except they never really thought through the consequences of such. Now, to cover up the apparent inconsistencies they say he acts in mysterious ways.
"See?! Ar has spoken. He wants your children!"
So "god" is something that we put in a box until we really need him and then we try and take him out and when it doesn't work we cry "foul"?
I do not put him in a box. I do not believe in him at all. I do not thank him or curse him when bad or good things happen to me. And I do not think people who believe in him put him in a box until they need him. I think they pray to him daily and try to do what they think he wants. Some people have a crisis of faith when he does not help them and some people rationalize it with 'he works in mysterious ways'.
What I am saying is you have admitted you would not worship Zeus even if you believed he existed because he was a petty god. Why should I worship a god that I do not feel is 'good'?
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Basically every claim in that quote we can find an example in the old testament where Yahweh did something that would characterize him as one of the above statements. I literally checked it out. To me that makes him sound pretty much made out of human cloth to be honest.
Meh. This is kind of coming to an impass on this.
Sure if you pick apart and take a lot of that out of context. Some of that is true. A lot of that is taken out of context and some is really missing the point of the stories. It's like watching Bambi and not getting past the demon deer that speaks. Even "jealousy" used to describe God has a different connotation than we have for the word.
I also don't fault the people of the time to try and "explain" God. I think that is only natural.
In any case, you will read the Bible and see what Dawkins has said about it. I won't and don't.
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So "god" is something that we put in a box until we really need him and then we try and take him out and when it doesn't work we cry "foul"?I do not put him in a box. I do not believe in him at all.
I'm not talking about you. If we're going to listen to some kind of "article" that talks about how people pleaded with God at their last hour (as if we have any idea what they were saying) and didn't save them, then it looks more (to me) like people who are only looking to "God" for emergencies. Jesus didn't save the other (good) person on the other cross -- at least not physically. Yet for some reason, the rest of the world (and many Christians as well) seem to have this line of reasoning.
Yep, you got a pass. ;)No cloth. It has some kind of felt "pad" in the middle of it. I think it's red. Are we safe?But if that collection plate is lined with green cloth.... I'm calling out the prayer prosperity cloth. ;-)Charging admission goes against the spreading of gospel. Unless the tithing return is the gospel? :pOur church actually makes a point to mention that new people should feel no obligation to contribute to the offering plate.
Pretty much word-for-word the same with mine. Even down to the red felt pad thingy.
"See?! Ar has spoken. He wants your children!"
Beastmaster quote for the win!
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Devil's (or is it God's) Advocate Time:
I assume that the attributation of acts to God, including miracles/saving people, could be a fault of humans in perceiving God, not a proof against God existing. God exists at a level beyond human comprehension, sees a world in much greater detail, and generally operates at a level of information that we can't even begin to understand. At the risk of opening up an alignment-esque debate, the very concept of justice, good, and law shift from culture to culture because these are institutions of man. Heavenly law is beyond the limitations of our perception, and God's role or hand in such is similarly beyond our perception.
I suppose this chalks up to a "God works in mysterious ways" type argument, but I see the people who pray to God to save/help them in a time of need are seeking the wrong type of assistance. I think what God offers through prayer is the ability to come to peace with or accept a justice beyond yourself, to allow you to experience terrible things that shouldn't happen to any person (but which God has given humans the freedom to experience) without breaking.
God doesn't operate at our whim or answer our prayers, he gives us comfort for what happens to us and condolences for when other humans abuse the freedom he has given us all at our expense. God is greater than man and all the petty tyranies of man.
In essence, I see thanking God for an event as our own attempt to acknowledge and accept God's plan, which is particularly easy when that plan is coincident with our own mortal plans. That doesn't mean that God changed his plan for us, just that we experienced a portion of his plan and acknowledged it as a miracle, writ larger than the billions of miracles performed each second because it happened to us.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Devil's (or is it God's) Advocate Time:Ok, who are you really and what have you done with the pony?
Good post and largely how I see things. (Here's hoping it wasn't entirely sarcastic and I failed my perception roll.)
Nope. I was having a conversation with some friends about this type of subject, and trying to explain how a lot of what happens in these things is that people have completely different perspectives and it's really, really hard to try and reach the other person's perspective. The analogy I use is pregnancy: I can't get pregnant, I can't experience what that is like. Now, it's not a perfect analogy because pregnancy does produce all sorts of side effects that can be demonstrably measured, but the actual experience itself is something I can only approximate.
Similarly, I have yet to feel the divine presence which I assume you must experience. It's possible you're lying or just oblivious to the truth, but I think it's more likely that you're perceiving something that I fail to see. Perhaps can't see. In any event, as of right now, I can only understand it to the same extent I understand how someone feels when pregnant - intellectually, and not through maternal instinct (or faith).
Anyway, the point I was making in the side conversation that inspired the above post was that it's easy to see malice in these debates challenging the existence of God or probing at these inconsistencies because the fundamental experience of the perceivers is so different. Rather than ask that others try and perceive things as I do (which, honestly, is very similar to the old Spaghetti Monster chestnut - which seems as real and believable to me as the Bible), I tried to see things the other way. It strikes me that religious thought is very much a creature of broad concepts, things beyond our complete comprehension, and frequently the victim of poor models that we build to explain religious thought to others. What I posted above is based on my own model of religious thought, a model which I realized in posting became better developed as I tried to explain and understand it, but is still woefully inadequate.
So, no sarcasm this time. Not even double secret sarcasm, where I say it's not sarcasm, but really it is.
Wait...that's not helping is it?
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A lot of stuff
I've basically gone through this same mind set, I can't put my head into a mode that allows for a religious experience. Others don't seem to be able to describe it to me, or if they attempt to I don't get it, so I'm not even left with an approximation at this point. It is completely alien to me, but something I'd very much like to understand or experience at some point. Is it like an epiphany? Is it different than that? Is there a physical component?
Edit: Preconception are hard to shirk. I try to come at things with a tabula rasa, but it always brings up the same old questions.
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Okay, maybe a more specific example is in order...
Has anyone here ever found themselves speaking in tongues? If so, what is that like?
Wow. Going right for hot topics within the Christian community, are we?
I have not. Things like "Jesus Camp" (or whatever that documentary was) I don't feel are what the Bible is really talking about and miss the purpose of "speaking in tongues". When it lumps "speaking in tongues" with "gifts", I think that (at least Biblically) it's talking about something else than what we seem to take it to mean currently.
"Pentacost" was a very specific event where some things happened that (quite honestly) are written about in a vague manner. ("...like tongues of flame..." -- what exactly does that mean?)
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Mark 16:17, which records the instructions of Christ to the apostles, including his description that "they will speak with new tongues" as a sign that would follow "them that believe" in him.
Glossolalia :meaningless but phonologically structured human utterance, believed by the speaker to be a real language but bearing no systematic resemblance to any natural language, living or dead
I personally do not think the two are the same.
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Wow. Going right for hot topics within the Christian community, are we?Okay, maybe a more specific example is in order...
Has anyone here ever found themselves speaking in tongues? If so, what is that like?
Well, it was either that or snake wrangling. I picked the one that seemed more mainstream. :P
I have not. Things like "Jesus Camp" (or whatever that documentary was) I don't feel are what the Bible is really talking about and miss the purpose of "speaking in tongues". When it lumps "speaking in tongues" with "gifts", I think that (at least Biblically) it's talking about something else than what we seem to take it to mean currently.
"Pentacost" was a very specific event where some things happened that (quite honestly) are written about in a vague manner. ("...like tongues of flame..." -- what exactly does that mean?)
Right, but it seems to be a current widely shared religious experience. More than one person has done this. I more meant tongues in the current understanding.
But you bring up a good point. What sorts of religious experiences do you think aren't actually religious? Which ones are?