7/2/2003: "Finger" of God

Thanks to tandr who suggested this -- I was sitting here telling him that I usually try to avoid reposting Fark material, and here by the end of the day I've not posted anything anyway.

So here 'tis, an APoD, actually a cloud of gas and dust that's broken off the Carina nebula. But much more interesting, as tandr says, interpreted as the last message of Him to His creation.

God can give me three fingers...

... of Romulan Ale. If that's not available, I can think of a reasonable substitute.

Re: 7/2/2003: "Finger" of God

Rage album cover?

Maybe it's a mirror of this Rage album cover:



Thoughts?

Good timing

Undertoad Wednesday Jul 2 11:51 PM

Good timing too. :p Thought you might skip a day.

presuppositions

The way the Bible puts it, God thought his handiwork was good then...

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

~ the cap to the account of creation given in the first chapter of GENESIS (Old Testament, Torah)


...and He isn't exactly giving up hope on His handiwork now either...

For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

~ from the first chapter of COLOSSIANS (New Testament)



P.S. Did someone already notice this?--it looks like there is a little echo/shadow cloud in the same shape just above and to the left of the bigger cloud. I wonder how that one came about.

Irony

Way too heavy for the Cellar, I bet you're thinking. Please don't get the idea that I'm sitting here praying down fire and brimstone on everyone. Quite the opposite.



It's just that some things can't be too heavy for the Cellar.

Look at it this way.

If I accidentally kill a gnat, oh well, you know? How can I walk around long breathing in and out and brushing my hair out of my face WITHOUT killing a gnat once in a while?

If I accidentally kill my neighbor's dog, that is not a good thing at all. I would feel terrible. So would the neighbor, and it would probably be tough to stay on genuine speaking terms. Our relationship as neighbors may very likely suffer permanent ruin.

If I accidentally kill my neighbor, the stakes are obviously upped. I would feel more than terrible, and the consequences would be lifelong and far-reaching for all involved families.

If I accidentally kill my country's president or a vehicle full of national heroes--I might as well count myself dead for all the value "living" would have after such a travesty. It would not matter a speck at that point whether or not I "felt bad." What would matter massively is the huge ramifications of my action, reverberating over the entire hemisphere, marking up history itself.

I'm being ridiculous here. Deliberately so. My point is this:

The more important the individual you offend is, the more serious your offense against him is, and the more serious the consequences of your actions are. It is a correlative thing.

Make light of a gnat--nothing heavy about that. Make light of the One who designed everything from millions of galaxies full of supposedly-coincidental gas cloud formations down to the intricacies of a gnat's wings and digestive or reproductive systems--that's heavy.

A "harmless" jab at me would be quite a light offense. A "harmless" jab at an infinite Being is proportionately infinitely offensive. Making light jokes about God is always heavy.

OK

I think I can manage not to offend too many actual people, but I'm really stuck on how I can avoid offending the invisible beings they think rule their lives through poorly-translated and re-translated, centuries-old fairy tales of suspicious origin. I have concluded that there is just no satisfying some beings, supreme or no, and that all humor is fair game.

UNDERTOAD for AMBASSADOR to the UN.

I'm confused. Is Joy saying they're offended by the picture or the statements about it being the "hand of God" or about the resulting commentary? Which part was offensive?

Also, (insert appropriate divine being here) has more to worry about than people commenting on if he's giving us a galactic finger. At least he/she/it SHOULD. IMHO.
:p


edit: Yeah, still can't type.

If you wanna get philisophical, there are rewards to reap and penalties to pay whether you want to believe in God or not. Quoting scripture to a non-believer is like asking the non-English speaking person "When. Does. The. Bus. Arrive?" You're still not speaking their language and irritating them further.

So yeah, that's a bit heavy to be outside the non-philosophy section.

....Oh, oh! And in So Long and Thanks for all the Fish, just before Marvin [won't spoil it], they see the last message left by God to his creation: Giant, 10 mile-high burning letters that spell out: "Sorry for the inconvenience".

P.S. God created humor.

If, indeed we are the product of an omnipotent being, I consider it grossly and needlessly unfair that, having been given the intellectual ability to doubt and question the being's existence, we are sent to the fiery depths of hell if we choose not to.
Surely it would be more soul stocktakingly profitable to present ones self around the time Santa is looking dodgy and prove beyond any and all doubt that the "10 Commandments" is not just an NRA propaganda documentary.
So there

2 Samuel 12:7, "And Nathan said to David, 'Thou art the man'."

words that are fair

Just a few responses. If you want me to segue over to Philosophy after this, I will. The "take it elsewhere" mentality seems inherently inconsistent, but I will let that go.

email me

if you wish. i don't want to bog the blog further.
matthew1344@hotmail.com

I just find it hard to believe the concept of "God is Love", when for just not believing the right way damns you to an eternity of torment. Hardly my definition of love.

Chew on these generous numbers:
Let's say 1/6 people are doing things the "right way", and will "go to heaven". That's insainly generous on my part, the 1/6 figure. Given the number, there are over six billion people on earth right this second. Doing a touch of basic math, gives us five billion people who just because they don't happen to believe the exact way that they're "supposed to", are going to be eternally tormented.

Yeah, sure sounds like love to me.

And like I said, I'm being hugely generous with those figures (the 1/6 that are doing it 'right'). So as you can see, I don't see how it'd be so shocking to picture god up there going "watch the birdy".

Quzah.

You think what I did was an attack? JoyD, firstly, you have no idea; shall we point you to actual online attacks so you can tell the difference?

Secondly, this is something that's happened all my life. Goes something like this.

Me: I don't believe in God.
Xtian: Unbeliever, you are going to suffer eternal torment.
Me: That's a load of crap, and you are welcome to bite me.
Xtian: Help, help, I'm being attacked!

If we don't share belief systems, and you tell me that I'm going to hell or that my statements are inappropriate and I'm going to cause pestilence and death, or going to hell, YOU ATTACKED ME FIRST.

On the topic of "bogging the blog", go ahead, that's what it's there for. This is for everyone to speak out, the more the merrier. If others can learn from your words then let's share them.

Joydriven, killing someone is in no way similar to making fun of them. How can you even make that comparison?

Also, I wanted to say that seeing how your views are seriously underrepresented here at the Cellar, I think most of us would be very excited to have you here. We <i>like</i> discussions like this, and we also like diversity.

I am always up for the inclusion of a rational, tolerant Christian viewpoint. It is just that they are so difficult to find nowadays. However, the Christian version of deity and creation is just as valid as any other version of the same things. It is, however, no *more* valid than any other version of the same things, and that's where we get into trouble.

Whenever anyone tells me that what they believe is *the* way things are, I stop listening. No one has a handle on Ultimate Truth, and anyone who ways they do has stopped paying attention to the world with an open mind.

That being said, I was a defacto Christian for the first half of my life, until I came to realize that Jehovah, if you read the Bible like I read the Bible, is a very insecure, petty and vengeful deity with a real problem with women. Even the whole 'love for mankind thing', which is pretty much a New Testament concept (New Improved Deity! Now with 50% more compassion), is suspect for me since it did in fact involve human sacrifice, and the acknowledgement of which requires ritual cannibalism in some sects of Christianity.

But...these are *my* problems with the religion, and I do not expect anyone else to believe what I believe. All I ever ask of anyone who professes to follow a certain faith is that they walk the talk.

That's damn hard to do, even for me.

I don't have a problem with most core faiths. My problem is with the religions and most often the people running them, that grow up around these faiths.
The Christian religions (I chose these because I'm most familiar with them) seem to be run by the most ruthless people I could imagine. These people would make Enron proud. Squeezing the peasants for their last peso to increase the already rich coffers or condoning if not encouraging racism. And the list goes on and on. Very contrary to what they purport to be the Christian message.
It certainly isn't limited to Christians. The world has seen all to well the Muslim clerics twist the faith to most unreasonable lengths. I doubt if any faith is unscathed in it's application. More people have been murdered and tortured in the name of (fill in god) than any political or economic goal.

joy's comments really created quite a stir. as a speech teacher i'd have to say she defended her arguement well.

Wow, some one went through a bitter divorce eh? You only mentioned the word fifteen times in that post. Likening it to hell? I take it you didn't do the dumping, or you feel "in the right"?

Your logic is horribly flawed. Assuming an all powerful being which has the ability to do whatever he/she/it(HSI) wants, consider the following:

We didn't ask to be created. HSI decided that on a whim, because they were supposedly lonely, they'd create a single source of entertainment. Earth. HSI decides then to populate it with animals. Being bored with the animals, because they were just "lower life forms", HSI then decides to put "superior beings" on said hunk of earth.

HSI then, because apparently they were still bored, made a single solitary source of "the ability to fuck posterity over for ever and ever and ever"(TATFP) in the middle of their house. Next, HSI tricks the "superior beings" into going out and using TATFP.

No, I suppose you'll say it wasn't HSI that did it, it was TOEB(the other evil being) that tricked the superior beings into fucking over all future generations.

Well ok, let's examine TOEB for a second.

At some point in time, either before HSI created earth, or after, HSI decided that they would give TAFY(the ability to fuck yourself) to all of his angels. Angels by the way, are something else HSI created, but apparently they aren't smart, good, whatever enough to be company for HSI, which is apparently why earth was made.*

So, one of the angels decides(since they were given TAFY by HSI) that they're tired of living in the greatest spot in existance, so they'd rather go off and wander around forever, outside of the glorious site of HSI.**

Thus we now have a created being given TAFY so basicly they can then go do so, just for ... no reason at all!

Take the above sentence and now we apply it to humans. They quickly rush to TATFP with eagerness. Suddenly, they realize how stupid they were, because HSI comes down to tell them.

"Hey guess what! You're all toast now unless you do these one specific set of rules! Now break up into your little tribes and scatter around the world forming your own take on these rules, so that I can have a handfull of you with me, and the rest can burn in hell with the rest of my creations!"

Now does that really sound like love? Come one now. There are billions of people, each with their on belief of what to make of life, and all those who don't walk the perfect line, are fucked. Just because HSI was lonely and had nothing better to do.

Consider the following:

I have the ability to create something. I know that if I create this item, as soon as I do so, it will be destroyed. I can do one of two things: I can create said item, or I can not create said item.

If I create it, am I really giving it a choice of not being destroyed?

"Oh", but you say, "it's just an object. It has no free will of its own". Thank you. I thought you'd agree.

"Well that's rather harsh", you say, "putting words into my mouth"!

Well consider the explanation, partially given already above:
I am an all powerful being. I know everything that is, everything that was, and everything that ever will be, because I am a being of infiniteness. I am everything. I span space and time. I am greater than the sum of everything that will ever be. Everything that is, I made.

Given that I know everything, how in the hell can there be freedom of choice? Given that if I, being all powerful and in control of everything****, if I create something, I know every possible combination of everything that will ever occur with said thing.

If someone goes to hell, HSI knew it would occur before ever creating said item. Now that's a damn shame. I really don't call that love.



Quzah.
end of post








footnote
*See above. HSI created humans because they were apparently lonely. Go on, look it up. Trust me, it's there.

**See above. I've often heard it remarked that people will be so awe struck by the presence of HSI, that all they will want to do is fall down in awe and spend all eternity worshiping HSI. Ok, two points here:

a) Why on earth would the angels for no reason at all decide to give that up? Jealousy? Well who created jealousy? If HSI is the creator of all things, then HSI created jealousy. If not, then HSI is not the creator of all things. If that is the case, who did? If they did, then HSI gave them the ability to do so, thus, creating actually being the creator. If not, then HSI is not the supreme being, because the other creator would have done something without HSI wanting it to be so. If HSI wanted it to be so, ask yourself, why would HSI create things like jealousy?

b) If the angels were around being struck by awe and worship, how was HSI lonely, why could HSI create lonelyness(see point A above), and how are we so different that an all powerful all knowing being could be entertained or comforted(befriended) by such insignificant beings.***

***How on earth are animals not significant to provide comfort/friendship, but us "superior beings" are? Both are creations and as such are not even remotely close in nature. Seriously, compare infinity to 1. Ok, now compare it to 1,000,000. They are exactly the same.

[b]****[b/]As per all-powerful above, if there is something else that is uncontrollable, then HSI is not all powerful. Otherwise, said item would be controlled.

Cynthian, welcome to the Cellar! It's nice to have intelligent life forms join in the festivities.
Question- On the first day of school you decide your students must write a poem with specific parameters to pass your class. Wouldn't you make it clear to all the students rather than tell one student to pass the word?
Surely you've played the old game of tell the first person and have them whisper it to the second and so on down the line to the last person. It never comes out right.
Well, over thousands of "whisperings" not to mention language changes and cleric interpretations, what we have is a bunch of conflicting stories. Look how many different bibles we have today.
You do an admirable job of defending Joydriven's chain of logic but the problem is her basic premis is flawed.

quzah - i'm not divorced. i see divorce a lot as a teacher, from both the parents' side and the kids' - it's horrible. yes, i have some strong opionions of divorce.
your abbriviations were interesting. and the one sided conversation you had with you and you (as me) that was fun.

the truth is though that i don't know that there is a free will.
and now God looks even more horrid.
here's where our logics divide from one another: you describe God as creating all these things because he (or HSI) was bored. i have trouble agreeing with that. a engineer/mechanic thinking person didn't create the first computer because he was bored-there was an ultimate purpose behind it. eli whitney didn't invent the cotton gin because he had nothing to do on the farm one day. he had a reason. if we, as people-reasonably far lesser beings than a God-create and invent for a purpose, i would have to believe that God had a reason in making the world and all creation.
He declairs his purpose as to bring glory to Himself. How vain! How arrogant! but if He is God and there is NO higher, He has that right. working with clay on a potter's wheel, my clay has never said to me "why are you making me a bowl?!?!?! how dare you!" and after the bowl is fired and glazed and fired again, it doesn't sit in a show window complaining that i, the potter, am getting the compliments for it's beauty. i'm the potter, i'll do what i want with the clay. God compares himself to a potter-hence the example.
so, if God's purpose in creation is to bring glory to Himself, how does he accomplish this. (get ready, it's story time)

israeli history says God called this nation apart. you've got abraham way back there being told that God will make him the father of a chosen people-eventually this would become israel. moses comes along centuries later to lead this people out of egypt to their "promise land." He, God, chose a small group of people (and they weren't perfect people, some weren't the kind of people you'd want living next door to you...) but this minority of people were set apart to bring God glory. why not ALL the world? why only a fraction of the population? here's the pot complaining to the potter again.
jesus christ enters the picture. the rejected messiah. His life would appear to be a failure except for the fact that his teaching, even after his humiliating death, changed the world. but, now in the modern world, God's blessing of heaven is the same story as it was with israel. it's only going to be a fraction of the population that is in that "right" way to heaven. is God unfair to choose only a small populas acceptable for heaven? if i believed in God and believed that "right" path to heaven-i'd feel pretty priledged, i'd probably thank God every day for choosing me, i'd read His Bible, worship Him, bring Him glory. and that's His purpose. if i didn't believe in God or in that "right" way-because it's so narrow minded, i'd hate God-maybe i wouldn't voice that opinion but i'd be angry. why only some? i'm just a clay pot. i can't understand His thoughts. (then why do you write so much cynthian.? )
have you ever walked though a maze of hedges or a cornfield maze? on ground level, walking though, it's hard. it's confusing, it makes no sense. from a helecopter in the sky it's very clear. my understanding of God's ways are down here on ground level-it's confusing at times and makes no sense. God's understanding is up there in the helecopter-it's very clear.

such is what i've learned of God's purpose and plan. why is it so offensive to have only one way to heaven? you've got to have a ticket to get into a concert, that's really the only way in. (legally). is the hosting centre (God) unloving not to let everyone who wants to come to the concert? no. they didn't all have tickets. what if i have a ticket for another concert-same band (same God)-but different city? (i'm trying for heaven with islam and God wants faith in jesus Christ) yeah, that's not going to work either. but i really want to go. i'm sincere. it's still the wrong ticket. no show.

is the why is it so hard to accept that one way? if i have cancer and there's only one thing that will cure me why would i try all the other non-working methods first? if God declaired there's only one way to heaven, why wouldn't i believe Him? why try another way and hope for the best when there's a guarenteed way?

i don't normally write this much. that might be hard to believe right now....who would have thought that picture would have created such an outpouring of opinions....interesting blog crew.

Re: words that are fair

Quote:

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce ONE??? Bwahahahahahaha.

Think some Christians can be annoying? Try Scientologists. Bleah.

Anyway, I had a religious experience once. I was just sitting around and over a couple seconds I got this INTENSE feeling that there's some Supreme Being and everything in the world is "HSI"'s and that there is a "final" in the philosophical sense. And then about 10 minutes later it went away. Meanwhile, me being me, I was watching what was going on and now I can feel religious any time I want to.

Thus I concluded it was just my brain playing tricks on me.

powerlessness

QUZAH-For hsi's sake, your specious refutations only lend more weight to the absolute truth that we, the devout, have always known.
HSI moves in ways far too mysterious for mere creations to understand.:p

between storms

Here in Mormon country, parents blackmail children into going to church, going to seminary, going on religious missions... It's sad. I was a church-going Mormon until I was about 15... then I stopped going to church because my bullshit flag was getting worn out from being raised so often. To me, Christianity in general makes a case about as strong as a wet kleenex. Although I generally dislike analogies, I think I'll use one here, because unlike most analogies, I think it does effectively make a point.

Let's say I have a son, my only child. I love him dearly. One day though, I am given a terrible choice... I learn that an entire family of eight may die a horrible death, and only I have the power to stop it. But if I do so, my son will certainly die. I have to choose whether to sacrifice my only son to save the family, or to take my son and run to safety, and let the family perish. Though it would be a terrible thing to let eight people die to save my one son, it would understandable, and maybe even forgivable, to save my beloved son's life at the expense of theirs. This is akin to the choice God supposedly had when Jesus was to die for makind's sins... and speaks of the weight of His sacrifice... right? Well...

Say I have this same choice, to save my son or to save the family... but this time, I happen to know that my son is basically immortal, and will gloriously rise from the dead after three days or so (don't tell me that the ressurection was a surprise to the all-seeing, all-knowing God). How hard is my choice now? I would have to be a really loathesome, shitty, worthless speck of a being to let the family die under such circumstances, since I can save the family without losing my son for more than a few days... and moreover, I get to hang out with my dead son's spirit for the few days that he's dead! Yeah, really tough choice there.... big sacrifice.

Organized religion, to my eyes, is seldom more than emotional blackmail at an enormous scale. I think spirituality and philosophy are very good things, but you won't become an elightened person by going to church any more than you'll become an automobile by sleeping in your garage. If there were a God whose punshment for failing to believe in Him was damnation to Hell, and if He loved His children, I'm sure He'd make sure the message He sent them was more substantial than a 1400-year-old bastardized text.

If I go to hell for not believeing in God, it's His fault, because He gave me a logical mind, and then failed to give me ample evidence of His existence. He sent me here knowing exactly what choices I would make, so I was damned from the start. Fuck that. Besides, if heaven is anything like going to church here, the Mormons can have it... I'll take hell.

JoyD I really respect your drive to answer such questions. Two more from me:

The "rules" in the bible seem vague and contradictory. Some people believe that eating animals with cloven hooves is an abomination in the sight of the Lord, and so having lunch and dinner of bacon and ham is downright prohibited. You yourself believe that suggesting that a cloud of gas millions of miles away might be a cosmic joke on behalf of the Creator is Wrong.

Yet I know for a fact that most Christians eat a TON of ham, especially on their holiest days, and many if not most Christians make light humor of God's meaning every day.

Q1: If the rules are so critically important, why are they so vague and often contradictory?

Q2: Are the pig-eaters going to hell?

Just a clarification, Undertoad, regarding your comment before (I'm still catching up!) about the "attack." I wasn't referring to a personal attack and did not take it as a personal one. The comments you made that undercut the authority / reliability of the Bible was the attack to which I was referring. It's the foundation for what I believe, and it really seemed that you were discounting it based on your own opinions of it. I haven't tried to promote man's opinions (including my own) but have tried to stay consistent about promoting the only confirmed and self-affirming revelation of God to men about Himself. That is in an effort to adhere to my premise that the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible is the source of all absolute truth.

And to those of you out there who are seeing "holes" in my logic, I don't deny that apparent holes are there. It is circular reasoning to an extent to say "I believe the Bible's claims based on the Bible's claims." I readily admit that I have deliberately decided to posit one absolute (and inherently therefore exclusive) way when it comes to religious matters.

This is no more circular reasoning than the circular reasoning employed by pragmatists and solipsists and scientologists and so on. At one point, any seeker of truth has to take a leap of faith. It's not so much the amount of, or the strength of, your own faith that gives that faith its value. Rather, it is the Object of that faith.

You place your faith in a chair that you're going to sit in. If you place your faith in a broken chair, yours is bad faith--no matter how good its intentions, no matter how sure and wholesome, etc. You place your faith in a good chair, and you will find that chair can hold you up--no matter how much you know about Physics, no matter how scared you are, no matter what your background with chairs has been.

I put my faith in Jesus Christ. If He is an adequate Object of my faith, if He indeed does the saving--my opinions, my feelings, my insecurities, my sin record, my emotional baggage have no bearing whatsoever on the situation. It's a black and white, done deal.

Yes, I am giving a personal testimonial to what I know on a personal level, and I recognize (as Alan indicates as well) that there are certainly emotional ramifications and preconceived biases that affect my decisions, but my point is that "my" faith is not the issue. The issue is where/in whom my faith is placed. To be a Christian, or not to be a Christian? No, that's not the question. Is Jesus Christ a worthy, able, adequate Savior? That is the question.

About your ham-eating query, Undertoad. I think you need to recognize the distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. These are indeed deep distinctions. Practicing Jews today fail to acknowledge that the crucified Christ was indeed the Son of God and the promised Messiah. Instead, they reject Jesus as the one true way and place their faith in traditionalism and hope for another, future christ.

It is true that the God of the Old Testament is the same God as the God of the New Testament. He is still holy. If you read Leviticus, you will see striking proof to the point that God was making--that the Israelites could not save themselves. All these details for the building of the tabernacle, all these dietary laws, all these sacrificial DOs and DON'Ts, all these failures for kings, all these sinful priests, were meant to point up the Jews' need for a PERFECT/ADEQUATE sacrifice for sin, a PERFECT/ADEQUATE Prophet, the PERFECT/ADEQUATE Priest, the PERFECT/ADEQUATE King. As you can read in the New Testament books of John, Ephesians and Hebrews, Jesus Christ (as both perfect 100% God and sinless 100% man) was the ultimate and better fulfillment of all of these things--the sufficient sacrifice, the most authoritative Prophet, the most holy Priest (mediator between God and men) and the most noble and worthy King (Lord and ruler of all).

The laws of God in the Old Testament were the schoolmaster that was intended to bring God's people to saving faith in Jesus Christ as the promised anointed one who would bring an end to the Law and be its ultimate fulfillment. Now God can look at those people who have put their faith in Jesus, and He declares them justified because of Jesus' merit.

How many generations of billions of people have offered their opinions and devoted their intellects to solving our need for eternal answers? And they die, and their words die. I want/need something outside myself to give me answers to my questions. I'm tired of everyone's pewter towers--they send me into dispair. I need an Eiffel Tower to place my trust in. And I choose the God of the Bible to be that absolute reference point as I try to navigate through life.

It's not what these hands have done. It's not how much faith I can muster up. It's not how I feel. It's not what I can understand or reconcile mentally.

It's what God did. It's what God provided. It's what God promised. And it's what God, because of His passion for His own glory and our best good, ensures to all who believe.

Which is why I choose to believe that

God so loved the world
that He sent His only Son
that whoever believes on Him
will not perish
but will have everlasting life.

Personally, I respect others' right to believe what they will in such matters, and I admire the convictions of those who are convinced of their version of truth. I am even happy and willing to engage in discussions on religion and related philosophies. I am only bothered when religious beliefs are dispensed as statements of fact. I am as troubled by someone's insistence that God is real and holy and true as they would be if I suggested that God was a snowballed product of over-active imaginations. That doesn't make it wrong for them to assert that God is real and that I will burn in hell for thinking otherwise, but it does mean that I will be as blunt with them. However, I do admire the way you've been expressing your beliefs, being generally respectful of the opposing view.

As for your chair analogy, I think it needs a little altering to include relevant circumstances. One places their faith in a chair when they sit down, yes, but that is a trivial decision. If they sit in the the Wrong Chair (WC), they get up, brush themselves off, and try again. The sitter can change his/her decision based on the additional useful information. Religion would have us believe that we make the choice, and that we are forever responsible for it.

So, put the two chairs above pits of lava. One chair is a wooden chair of straightforward design, with four legs, arms, a seat and a back. It looks sturdy, and feels stout when wiggled. The wood does not sound hollow when knocked upon, and the pieces do not seem to flex or crack when put under some pressure. One is able to observe and test it thoroughly before sitting and paying the consequences of his/her choice. The other chair is draped in cloth, obscuring all but the most general details. There is a long, very old note stuck to the chair, with many sections of the text smudged out, and others scratched out and rewritten, describing the nature of the chair, assuring the potential sitter that it is safe. You are not allowed to touch it or remove the drape before sitting.

I'd choose the chair I could see to be of sound construction, personally, since my very life is in its care. And that represents my belief system... I believe that which I have reason to believe, and suspend belief on anything else until I have reason to otherwise. This varies with the importance of the subject obviously, but generally I need more evidence of Truth than a old text of questionable origin, and a desire to believe it is true. I must observe, or be informed from a trusted source. But everyone's minds work differently.

The analogy only gets weirder when you consider that your payoff happens in this world, the world you know, while most religious folk expect the payoff in the next one.

IOW, the "lava" for you is eternal torture in a world you can't see and can't prove exists, while for the religious, the "lava" is living a life on entirely false pretenses and not getting anything as a reward (or worse, getting the eternal torture of some other religion's hell).

The other thing I cannot swallow is that a Creator who loves their children wouldn't give them the opportunity to accept Him/Her/It once they have returned to Him/Her/It. This, to my mind, is yet more evidence supporting the theory that religion is emotional blackmail. If there is no opportunity to redeem oneself in the afterlife, one is completely bound to a religion, and has no room to explore and make up their own minds about Truth without essentially turning their back on their religion.

Puny human spirit: "Wow, it's the afterlife!"

God: "You made the wrong choices based on my incomplete and sometimes contradictory information! To Hell for you, for all eternity!"

Puny human spirit: "But I was taught from birth that it was a sin punishable by everlasting torture to believe in &lt;insert unexpected diety here&gt;! Of course, I believe in you now that I can see you and speak to you."

God: "Too little, too late. Say Hi to the Mormons for me."

Puny human spirit, as it is tossed into the eternal wastebasket of depair and hopelessness: "WHAAAAAAAA!"

could you clarify?

Hey, Undertoad...I think I'm confused.

That promise worked very well on the slaves.

That's what I meant, JoyD, I was just taking HP's analogy a step further (or confusing it) because the lava is different for each chair-sitter.

lightbulb

aha. you did say that. my bad. i get it now.

intermission

though i would love to continue writing on this blog i will be away for awhile and then i'm moving. so, my lack of interaction on this page is not because i have nothing more to say, or that i am afraid of the plethora of criticism that would no doubt ensue-but because i'm away from the internet.
by the time i return this topic will most likely be beaten to death. it's been a pleasure conversing. until the next striking controversy then...

But y'know, JoyD, the stakes really aren't that high afer all. We all look for whatever meaning we can get out of life, even the non-believers. Without a doubt, most of us are wrong about the purpose, just by math. We have to live according to the meaning we have found in our lives, and according to our own perception of how things are. If one of us gets to the wrong destination, there is still meaning in the fact that we were traveling in the first place; the beauty in the scenery was not lost on any of us; and we can all enjoy life, no matter what the purpose.

I'm afraid that I don't quite understand joydriven's pewter Eiffel tower analogy.

I wonder: why a Christian's rejection of the Prophet Mohammed more valid than a Jews rejection of Christ?

Re: between storms

Re: between storms

Hitler was Catholic.

Raised that way and repeatedly said he was a devout one, anyway.

A counter argument to the [God lets bad stuff happen, so He is not as Super Good as He Says] argument is that there is an inherent goodness to Justice. I don't buy this; some do.

The Gnostic system sidesteps a lot of the issues here.

I don't think I'll EVER be a believer in anything but maybe Zen after what happened to me. (See my other comment.)

The problem with religious folks is that you make such easy targets. You profess such profound beliefs as truth and, when it comes down to it, cannot make a logical argument for the existence of your deity of choice. Show me some proof. Perhaps you could even come up with some really strong evidence?

Hey, is the whole "Ghandi and Hitler" problem solved by Dante's different levels of hell? You know, level 1 for Ghandi, level 8 for Hitler, and level 9 for the person who decided CDs should be packed that way?

(Thank you! Please remember to tip your waitresses!)

they made a separate, special level for the guy who came up with the cd packaging scheme.

~james

Yes, perth, that is what he was implying.

as long as its a deeper level than this one.

~james

QUOTE]But no answers for the questions like "Well what about all the people for centuries who didn't have any way possible to hear this wonderful religion?"[/quote] The Jehovah's Witnesses told me that everyone who ever lived and died without having been exposed to Christ, will be given a chance to make that decision before being judged.
Joydriven never did tell us just which, of the dozens, of bibles she follows. I always wondered which is the right one.
Saying "Christen" is like saying "white person". They come in so many flavors, I really don't know what you're talking about.

Would the LOWEST level of hell be the...cellar?

i think the best kind of bible to have is an interlinear bible. king james or other common translation, alongside the original hebrew/greek and a literal word-for-word translation. throw in strongs concordance, and theres a lot there you might otherwise not see. its good to get a look at just how much has been edited to pretty-up or change the meaning of what was originally written.

~james

p.s. another link because amazon is being stupid.

<b>Quzah...</b>

There is only so far either one of us can proceed, given our unbudging presuppositions. You are continuously challenging the idea of a biblical God as though you are qualified to stand in judgment of his actions. You accuse God of unkindness and injustice, but I again submit to you that (1) you are not looking at the whole, biblical representation of God, and (2) you are judging him based on a morality system that he created. When you say, "that's not fair!" and expect all of us to agree, you are calling all of us to recognize a universal definition of kindness and love and justice and goodness. Although you cannot personally account for this morality system's origin, you claim to have plumbed the depths of it.

On the other hand, I am trying to consistently approach the idea of a biblical God in a way that accords with how is character and work is described in the Bible. This negates the possibility of my accusing God of evil. By nature, none of us wants to recognize a God who created the world, a God who is both terribly holy and just and yet unfathomably gracious and merciful. No one wants to acknowledge God as sovereign Creator because that would automatically necessitate ownership and accountability. (In spite of most summary comments that I have heard from deep thinkers like yourself, THE primary problem they have with my religion is very likely this. No thinking person wants to be held accountable for his actions before a holy God.)

However, if you do take that initial step and decide to take the Bible for what it claims to be--revelation of God's character and work, then a lot of things fall into place. For instance, the way to heaven does not seem so arbitrary and ambiguous because it is quite clearly and repeatedly blueprinted (e.g., "Jesus said, 'I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by me'"). Some things, such as degrees of punishments for Catholic Hitlers or well-meaning Hindus or Baptist hypocrites or those who have never heard the gospel once in their lifetime--those things are not delineated in the Bible. I can't speculate with authority, and I won't try to satisfy your curiosity about the mysteries that remain.

All this mutual pity is valuable, but only to the extent that we try to be objective and genuinely seek the truth. The minute I start throwing in my personal pet peeves and assuming things about you rather than stepping back and trying to get a larger-scope perspective--that's when my alleged pity becomes merely a facade for my own allegiance to my own opinions.

The Bible talks about how we, even in our fallen, sinful state, still retain some traces of the image of God. I believe that's why we have so much potential for creativity, beauty, love, etc. -- in spite of the perverseness of our generation and all the wicked things that have happened throughout preceding history. Humanity is a messed up blur of good and bad, and some are more twisted than others. All of us have it in us to commit the worst crimes, and we are certainly guilty of twisting God-given gifts and avoiding his agenda and ignoring his purposes, which is essentially what it means to sin against him.

<b>dave...</b>

I already acknowledged that I don't have the kind of tangible, visible proof that you would like to see. Just as you don't have tangible, visible proof to disprove my views. All of us place our faith in something. There is no such thing as living in a vacuum. I don't mind my "targetness" but I fail to see how I differ from those who have placed their faith in evolution, for instance. No living human was present to observe the universe's beginning, it can't be repeated, cannot be studied according to the rules of scientific observation.... And yet humanity has come up with all kinds of notions (evolution in spite of entropy, big bang, random chaos, long-day, survival of the fittest, etc.) that are equally if not more preposterous than the idea of a supernatural 6-day creation -- again, the foundation of faith like an evolutionist's appears to be, at root, nothing more than running away from the ownership/accountability of a God who created.

<b>xoxoxoBruce...</b>

I sort of follow your question, but I think I come at it from a different perspective. There may or may not be hundreds of Bibles--but I think what you are referring to is the hundreds of available <i><b>translations</b></i> of the Bible. Some of these translations are pretty faithful to the original manuscripts, while some of them are pretty watered down to the extent that they deviate from the originally penned biblical concepts. Here is a Web site that I really enjoy because it has a lot of online Bible versions available for quick lookup.
<a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/" target="new">BibleGateway</a>
As for which Bible I personally ascribe to--I'm not sure how to answer that. I read all kinds of translations (my favorites are New American Standard Bible, English Standard Version, New Living Translation, etc.), including Hebrew, Greek and French. That's not really the point, though. Translations of the Bible are good/bad based on how well they adhere to the original manuscripts. The original Bible in its original languages was inerrant and infallible. It may be impossible to find a flawless translation--so, like perth said, an interlinear could be good if you read Hebrew or Greek and really want to be "sure" the translation is faithful. In most cases, however, it is. God has promised to preserve his Word, and he has done so successfully over the centuries and across hundreds of language barriers.

<b>And,</b> for what it's worth, I would also add that my personal faith differs greatly from that of most Catholics. I mentioned before my firm belief in what the Bible says about salvation "by grace, through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast," and about there being only "one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." Most Catholics hold to a faith-plus-works salvation theology, and most Catholics do believe that, in addition to Jesus, Mary and other saints are legitimate people to pray to as interceding mediators. I believe that Jesus, being God, needs no additional help; and his atonement requires no complementary works from me to supplement his sufficiency as the better Prophet, better Priest, better King, better Sacrifice.

So yeah, I'm maybe not even your normal 'brand' of Christian. In fact, I kind of hope I'm <b>not</b> the kind of Christian that most unbelievers seem prone (Murphy's Law style) to encounter. Sometimes the biggest deterrents to Christianity are those who claim to be Christians and then, instead of acting like converted "bad sinners," they simply whitewash their outsides and pretend to be holier than all the other "bad sinners," while in reality they are worse.

Bible

Or you could use http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

right-oh. it was not you who was unclear.
the interlinear does do what you describe. it is actually a good illustration of the difficulties of the translation process (a universal problem in translating from any language to any language), since it doesn't change the syntax, etc. the hebrew/greek words are literally translated so that if you read between the lines straight across it can get kind of kooky. and it is kind of cool (linguistically) to see how the xlators choose to flesh out the intended meaning in vernacular English.

JoyD, you haven't examined the true basis for science just as the science advocates haven't examined and don't understand the "big picture" of your faith.

dave's explanations don't pass your laugh test, and so you don't study it further; and your explanations don't pass dave's laugh test, so he doesn't study it further.

I side with dave; now I could go and study your faith further and try to understand the nature of God and stuff, but I feel it would be a waste of my time and quite annoying. At the same time, you don't study the basis of science because it would be a waste of your time and quite annoying.

But at the same time, I now understand why my text around "Finger of God" is annoying to you -- it completely disregards your sensibilities about how the world works. To this, I say, we can only speak from our own perspective. I could try not to be annoying in this way, but that wouldn't be right either. It would be dishonest. I have to write from my own perspective, even if it means annoying you. I'm not trying to be an ass, really; I'm just trying to express myself. I'm sorry if it irritates you, I mean that, but I still think it's appropriate.

Quote:

Originally posted by joydriven I already acknowledged that I don't have the kind of tangible, visible proof that you would like to see. Just as you don't have tangible, visible proof to disprove my views. All of us place our faith in something. There is no such thing as living in a vacuum. I don't mind my "targetness" but I fail to see how I differ from those who have placed their faith in evolution, for instance. No living human was present to observe the universe's beginning, it can't be repeated, cannot be studied according to the rules of scientific observation.... And yet humanity has come up with all kinds of notions (evolution in spite of entropy, big bang, random chaos, long-day, survival of the fittest, etc.) that are equally if not more preposterous than the idea of a supernatural 6-day creation -- again, the foundation of faith like an evolutionist's appears to be, at root, nothing more than running away from the ownership/accountability of a God who created.

I am not ignoring the verifiable scientific discoveries of facts. There is no such thing as faith in a vacuum, and there is no such thing as facts in a vacuum. I cannot validly claim to have stripped myself of all presuppositions when I encounter a fact. Facts are interpreted through the lenses of the presuppositions we bring to the table. I acknowledge those verifiable scientific discoveries, but I do not interpret them the same way you do.

Carbon dating can be valid, but if you posit the Bible, then you also posit a flood--which (due to sudden immense pressure and vast global consequences) would have significantly altered the effectiveness of various dating methods, since it would provide the necessary conditions for fossilization.

I learned the scientific method in school like the rest of you did, and I don't deny its legitimacy. Nor do I doubt that true science, i.e., that science which is conducted faithfully according to the scientific method, serves usually to verify and never to deny, the claims of the Bible. For instance, the roundness of the Earth in spite of former scientific opinions to the contrary. Or "the morning stars sang," a phrase that was originally written off as biblical poesy but was actually discovered to be true by radio experts during WWII times. This is the case with countless historical and linguistics records as well. The only instances where the Bible's accounts of history and geology have <b>not</b> been verified by science properly conducted have been instances where the Bible itself declares that a supernatural miracle occurred (such as when the "sun stood still" or when the invisible man created the world in six days).

I can't get into the INs and OUTs of the historical, scientific, linguistic verifications that Bible-supporters would consider valid supports. Christians are not only in the minority numerically, but they are sadly in the minority when it comes to scholarly expressions of their faith. If you are interested, here is one creationist site that proposes quite a few valid arguments and interpretations of what even you would call facts, and they are among the very few who do so in a manner worth reading.
<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp" target="new">Answers in Genesis</a>

I keep coming back to this, but I'll say it again. We are wearing different-colored lenses. I am acknowledging that I have presuppositions and am positing an absolute truth by which I measure all of my interpretations. I submit to you again that you have presuppositions as well that influence your interpretation of the facts.

Ultimately, we all believe what we all want to believe. That we are all free to do so does not mean we are right or wrong in doing so.

packing it up

Hey, I'm just thinking it would be best to move any insane remains of this discussion over to Philosophy as was originally proposed/implied as a good idea.

So, maybe we could continue here....
<a href="http://cellar.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3651" target="new">Philosophy thread discussion re: the God of the Bible</a>

Again, thanks for your patience with my blog bogging.
~joy

matthew1344@hotmail.com

I feel compelled to pop in ...

"thou shalt not kill" ...redirect...

hey, warch...

please see here for a reply.

<a href="http://cellar.org/showthread.php?s=&postid=48150#post48150" target="new">"thou shalt not kill" entry on Philosophy blog</a>

But thanks for the cosmic laugh anyway -- the Finger of God...

Quote:

Originally posted by xoxoxoBruce Not so sure on this one. When I think about all the times I came close to killing myself with one stupid antic or another, I've sometimes wondered in someone didn't intervene. Christian hot air?

It's just you.

More fingers?

Yikes

Is that the holy goatse man?


sorry

You bastard, now that you've said it that's all I can see.

My work here is done.

but I'll stay anyway.

Never let a good thread die.

Goatse

I was once (mis)directed to that awful goatse thing. Immediatly felt the compulsory thought of poking my eyes with some blunt object.

I think I'll be OK. Having seen Dave's Webscalpel logo, I was somewhat prepared.

/me curtsies.