7/2/2003: "Finger" of God

[quzah]

Originally posted by joydriven
This is a very interesting self-contradiction.

There is no contradiction. If there is said "God of the Bible", then I find him to be ultimately cruel and evil. I don't know about you, but I find the following to be much "less cruel" and "less evil", perhaps even kind:

Create some peons. Give them a choice: Spend forever with me in this fab paradise, or spend forever with out me, in an equally fab paradise. Naturally, people should want to be with me, because I'm not a heartless, cruel bastard, but if they choose not to do so, I'll not punnish them for it.

But what the hell do I know, I'm just a mortal, right?

Originally posted by joydriven
The one way is offensive to anyone since it requires humility to realize that we don't dictate how we can enter God's heaven.

It has nothing to do with humility. It has to do with kindness. I find it unkind to punnish the multitudes just because they don't happen to follow blindly with whatever I tell them to. But then, what the hell do I know.

Originally posted by joydriven
If you come in my house and I have a house rule that requires the removal of your shoes, you would very likely submit to that or have a pretty good reason why not.

Flawed analogy. You're good with those.

A more accurate analogy would be you bringing me over to your house, waiting until I'm inside, then telling me to remove your shoes or you'll beat the shit out of me. And that, I cannot leave until either one of those happens. I either remove my shoes, or you beat my ass.

That is an accurate analogy. We were born, without being given the option, and once here, we have to follow the rules that only a smattering of people know, and if we don't, we're eternally punnished.

I also find it amusing how all of my points are dodged. Sure, you have faith, great. 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?"

Originally posted by joydriven
If God indeed created heaven and earth and all the inhabitants and so on, he does indeed have the prerogative to condemn/forgive/glorify those who submit to his conditions.

I didn't say he didn't have that choice. He can do whatever he feels like and no one can do a thing about it except bend to his will. But don't you dare try and force feed me the fact that he loves everyone so much that he did this and that. If he loved people that much, he wouldn't have created hell. There is no reason at all to have a hell, other than the fact that he feels like it.

No, all people aren't great and good. Far from it. But don't you dare equate people such as the oh, Ghandi, and Hitler. In your version of God, since they both didn't believe (assuming, I was neither one when they died, so I don't know their final thoughs or personal assessment of the next world, next life, hell, heaven, whatever you feel like calling it) in your version of the Bible's god, they are both in hell saying "Hi" to eachother.

I imagine the meeting went something like:

Hitler: "Hi, what did you do to end up here?"
Ghandi: "Well, I had a different belief system."
Hitler: "Ah, me too, but in addition to that, I lead the world to the slaughter of millions. Glad to make your acquaintance."
Ghandi: "Yeah, just great."

Originally posted by joydriven
That's nothing of their own merit, so the mentality is indeed NOT "you're fucked and i'm not"

Oh you're so right. What do I know about Christians, right? I've never even seen one![/sarcasm]

Originally posted by joydriven
You say that God is "blatantly heartless and cruel." I ask you, upon what absolute moral authority do you stand in judgment of God's actions? What absolute moral measuring stick do you measure his heartlessness and cruelty with?

Yes. My own. You see, we as people seem to do that. We look at things and make up or own minds about them. Or at least, that's what you'd have me believe.

I'm sorry, I really really am if you don't see the concept of hell as cruel. I really really pitty you. No, there is no sarcasm in this statement what so ever. I really really pitty you.

Originally posted by joydriven
So maybe you believe there's an ultimate creator being, but not the God of the Bible. (This seems to be your view, since you consider only bits and pieces rather than the whole Bible as you make your evaluatory statements about God.) And you just don't like what you're seeing of him. Again, you are harking back to your personal experience. Is it possible for you to acknowledge that your experience might be limited and might just not be enough? That there may be something beyond your comprehension out there? That your refusal to spend eternity with the God of the Bible IS the foundation of your self-damnation? We don't get sent to hell. We work our way there.

It has absolutely nothing to do with something being greater than me. I really could care less if there is some ultimate creator of everything. What turned me completely off about the Christian faith was two actual things:
1) The judgemental people themselves. And if you can't see that you are, again, I pitty you.
2) The concept that just because I don't happen to believe the "right thing" means I suffer endlessly.

I refuse to belong to something that forces me to get everyone to bend to my way of thinking or else they get forever damned. If I end up there because of it, so be it. It's a god damn shame, because I'm not that bad a person. But then, it doesn't matter if you're a hateful, homicidal, mass murderer, as long as you change your point of view at the last second.

Originally posted by joydriven
It's ironic that most of mankind's reaction to God seems to be shaking a puny God-made fist in the face of God.

No. It's anger coupled with sorrow, at what a waste he has made of the human species. Just because over five billion people don't happen to perfectly agree with said rules, they're all being punished.

That is my problem with said religion. It's just too bad I guess that everyone out there can't be so narrow minded as you. If they were, a lot more would be "going to heaven".


Quzah.

[bjlhct]

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?

[Undertoad]

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!)

[perth]

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.

[perth]

as long as its a deeper level than this one.

~james

[xoxoxoBruce]

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?

[perth]

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.

[joydriven]

<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.

[perth]

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.

not sure i was clear. the thing about an interlinear bible is that you really dont need to be able to read hebrew/greek. above each word in hebrew/greek is the literal translation of that word, or as near as possible to it. so reading the literal translation may not make any sense with out some creative interpretation, but it is important to note that while one translation may interpret a word as 'married' the literal translation may be 'devoured" (just an example, im not saying ive seen this, but i have seen strange interpretations).

~james

[bjlhct]

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

[joydriven]

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.

[Undertoad]

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.

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.

No offense, but... are you kidding? "equally if not more preposterous" than the idea of creationism?

There actually <b>is</b> evidence of evolution. Stubs on snakes where it is presumed they used to have legs. A tail bone in humans that serves no purpose. Humans in Africa and other places that share traits with earlier humans/neanderthals (skull structure, etc).

I didn't run away from the accountability to a God who created. I looked at the evidence and made a choice. I used to go to church every Sunday and declared that Jesus Christ was my savior. But what I eventually came to realize is that what I was doing is believing blindly. There isn't much in Christianity that can't be explained by science. Take a look at today's news: a single child lives through a plane crash that kills 115 others. Undoubtedly, someone will hail it as a miracle and say that God kept the child alive. But you and I both know that professionals could look at the wreckage and provide evidence and reasoning showing that the child lived because of where it was during the impact, how it was seated, etc. God would be hard pressed to keep someone alive if they went through a meat grinder. His real power would be to stop it from happening. But he doesn't do that on any regular basis, now does he? We wouldn't be reading about these things in the paper if he did.

Taking a look at psychology and the way human beliefs work, it's easy to see that we want events and actions to have meaning. Going a step further, it's easy to see why man created God - to help ease the pain when tragedy occurs. It's not right that a five year old child gets shot in the head, and it's certainly hard to deal with if you're a parent. But it's easier if you believe that the child is in heaven now, and God took him because "it was his time". It's not appealing to think that someone shot your child for no reason at all, and now they're gone and that's that.

I'm sure you dismiss this theory, and that's fine. But I've just scratched the surface of the actual argument and, logically, it makes sense. Whereas the best argument I've heard from your side (though not you specifically) is "An invisible man made everything in six days!" First of all, it's illogical to think that he could possibly work that fast. And the attention to detail really throws this off. Plus, carbon dating sorta stretches the timeframe that the world has existed. And <b>why</b> would he make the fossils of these 6,000 year old bog people? Just 'cause? What would be the point?

There really <b>is</b> a lot of evidence to support the other theories. It seems to me as though you personally are just unwilling to truly consider it. And I know for a fact that many others aren't.

How do you feel about the Holocaust and the well defined theory that Christianity is directly responsible for it? Do you feel that it was "that time" for those six million European Jews, or is it really more like a fucked up shitty thing that happened because someone in a position of power convinced a whole lot of people to follow him blindly?

If you do not believe the holocaust was a good thing, then I'd like to know how you feel the indoctrination of Germans by the Nazi party (making them <b>believe</b> instead of <b>think</b>) is all that different than raising children as followers of a particular religion (and making them <b>believe</b> instead of <b>think</b>)?