16 Mar 14
twhitehead,
Jello entered his OP in the Spirituality Forum. I am not sure what his or her point is to start with.
Does he or she think that obedience to what God wants from us is not needed? Does he or she think that we can disobey God and not suffer any eternal consequences? Does he or she think that some of our choices for morality are not what God really wants from us?
Or is his or her point only philosophical or sociological?
16 Mar 14
Wolfgang,
Do you think that we don't have to make a decision to accept or reject God's way of salvation. If we reject God, then what will we get away with? He created us, and we are under His jurisdiction.
Even so, I am not sure what Jello's point of view is. Is it sociological, philosophical, or religious?
16 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonship[b]You see God as Top of the Moral Food Chain. I see him as a needless middle-man. The moral values that transcend the individual are those regarding the group.
But sometimes "the group" gets judgment wrong.
Sometimes at least a minority realizes that the majority got it wrong.
Then the scales of justice have been put in balan ...[text shortened]... rounded in an eternal Creator's nature.
Why don't you choose an answer and we'll discuss it?[/b]When I speak of 'the group', I do not mean that we defer to their judgement in all cases. I mean that we tend to make better moral decisions when we consider the effect of our actions on others, without leaving out any applicable 'others'.
In most cases of Tyranny of the Majority, you will find that people have been excluded from a preferred group in some way. Society has been split into sub-groups.
The plantation owner can only justify raping his slaves if he puts them in another group outside his own. The group that is only 3/5 human, per his Constitution.
Only you feel the need for 'perfect' justice. Some of us realize that 'perfect' justice is unattainable and impractical.
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No, I don't say the 'hurt feelings' of the victims of society is all that matters. 'Hurt feelings' conjures an image of someone upset over being teased. The emotional trauma to a rape victim is far more severe. With crime in general, there is not only emotional trauma to the victim and those who know them, but damage to the victim's body and/or the victim's goods.
These are the tangible damages done by the criminal. We do not need to invent a sky being in order to be angered by the crime.
Yes, we cannot always bring the criminal to justice. We are not all-seeing. But we do our best. And when we don't do our best (because of corruption, or negligence, etc.), society suffers.
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If you want to believe in a far from perfect judge of moral duties as the collective human society, go ahead and assume that is the final court. It is not that encouraging to stop there.
What I 'want' to believe does not matter. What matters is reality. We can either pine away for an unachievable utopia, or we can strive to continuously improve our justice system. We can either get discouraged that some crimes slip through the cracks, and give up, or we can be encouraged by the progress we have made, and strive to progress further still.
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To answer your questions, I do not think things are right just because a bunch of people say they are. I think evolution mandates that self-destructive groups, like your recreational baby-torturers, mass-rapists and cannibals, will be outshined by other types of animals that know how to treat each other better. The self-destructives quickly go extinct - a fitting result for their actions.
I do not see how evolution can have a different outcome.
I am agnostic on an absolute moral standard. I lean towards 'yes', though obviously not grounded in a deity of any kind. More in an awareness of the consequences of our actions on EVERYONE, with nobody excluded or demoted.
16 Mar 14
Originally posted by KingOnPointRather a silly question to ask an atheist - don't you think?
Wolfgang,
Do you think that we don't have to make a decision to accept or reject God's way of salvation. If we reject God, then what will we get away with? He created us, and we are under His jurisdiction.
Even so, I am not sure what Jello's point of view is. Is it sociological, philosophical, or religious?
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16 Mar 14
2 edits
Originally posted by SwissGambit
Only you feel the need for 'perfect' justice. Some of us realize that 'perfect' justice is unattainable and impractical.
Perhaps that could be. That is that I am dreaming of some future perfect court which man will never attain [/b] because of simply human limitations.
But what do I do with this pesky Person Jesus coming along speaking, and worse yet acting like God become a man. Now this Person, from whose mouth issued the most impressive words of mercy, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, graciousness and kindness, unfortunately (depending on your point of view) also issued the sternest words of judgment ?
From the SAME gracious lips were uttered the most serious warnings of infallible Divine Judgment.
Do you think this should give me pause that perhaps what is unachievable to man is not to a higher Mind ?
I mean, I have to work hard to just ignore this voice out of history. Do you think I should open up and look into this Person's veracity ? This one coming claiming and acting like "the Son of God" , should I just shrug Him off ?
Men and women for whom no earthly vindication was available in their lifetime, went to the lions, to the stake, to the cross, to death singing and praising a resurrection of a Righteous King whose life was indestructible.
Without the presence of this 800 pound golden gorilla in the living room of human history, I agree. I agree I might just shrug man's limitation off with a sigh "Oh well. Such as life. We just make the best go at it as we can and forget the rest."
Somehow, it requires more strenuous effort to just kind of whistle and look the other way, assuming the New Testament and Dr. Seuss or Aesop's Fables are just about the same - nice to read, but not to be taken too seriously.
Maybe beyond our human limitation there is a Divine limitlessness to consider.
It seems to correspond to the power and size of the created universe.
No, I don't say the 'hurt feelings' of the victims of society is all that matters. 'Hurt feelings' conjures an image of someone upset over being teased. The emotional trauma to a rape victim is far more severe. With crime in general, there is not only emotional trauma to the victim and those who know them, but damage to the victim's body and/or the victim's goods.
These are the tangible damages done by the criminal. We do not need to invent a sky being in order to be angered by the crime.
This sounds like ridicule, this "sky being" or an attempt to trivialize a concept held by much of humanity since we were on the earth.
If the universe was created including all the physical matter with all its related mass, energy, space and time, then it is realistic to surmise What or Whoever brought it into existence we cannot observe with a telescope or place under a microscope.
Any kind of lampooning attitude that God does not seem to be behind that cloud or noticed by the Hubble telescope does nothing to assure me an ultimate Person cannot exist. That is One transcending the creation that issued from the power and will and wisdom of God.
Snickering that a piece of God has not been placed under the slab of a microscope of stored in a chemist's beaker as you do, does nothing for convincing many of us God is purely imaginative.
Now if this God is reaching down from His transcendent and eternal existence to communicate with us, it is understandable that on occasion He would do so in terms that we were able to comprehend. So we do have God "appearing" temporarily on Mt. Sinai to a few million Israelites. That is some manifestations of God in His occasional action to communicate with us His creatures.
Eventually we have a man saying that he who has seen Him has seen the Father, when one of His disciples requested to see, as you might suggest, this "sky person".
Look at this exchange John records for us in his gospel:
Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.
Jesus said to him, Have I been so long a time with you, and you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how is it that you say, Show us the Father?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself, but the Father who abides in Me does His works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; but if not, believe because of the works themselves. (John 14:8-11)
You see SwissGambit, your little juvenile snickering about a "sky person" doesn't reduce the profundity of Christ's teaching. That teaching is that ultimately the definition, the expression, the manifestation of this One- "the Father" is observed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
In spite of the several "seeings" of the Divine Being in the Old Testament, perhaps related to the sky or the mountain, the apostles relate that they have all been superseded now by the coming of Christ
"No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him." (John 1:18)
A little snickering at a unlikely "sky person" up there who has been somehow missed by most people's binoculars, doesn't do much to cause me to take the testimony of the life, death and resurrection of Christ as trivial and childish.
Yes, we cannot always bring the criminal to justice. We are not all-seeing. But we do our best. And when we don't do our best (because of corruption, or negligence, etc.), society suffers.
We could wonder why we are not simply satisfied with doing our best. The cow, the beaver, the cat and other animals seem to be at peace to just do their best at what they do.
Man alone seems to accompany his efforts with the musings of philosophers, ethicists, theologians, psychologists contemplating what is the nature of the distance between our "best" efforts and the innate awareness of an ideal.
I have not seen a cow yet perplexed, wondering "What is the MEANING of this grass ??"
Somehow man notices this connection yet profound difference too, he has with all other living things.
Now for theist like myself the mystery we contemplate is do to the fact of what God in His communication has told us. We are created in the image of God - a unique thing setting us apart from all the other living things with whom we share the planet.
This being created in the image of God and according to His likeness, I think, has something to do with our yearning to ever improve. At least we realize that when we have done our best, there still is room to do better.
I do not think this is some cruel trick of our Creator to ever make us feel short. But I do think it reflects some intuitive realization that what would be more desirable would be perfection.
What I 'want' to believe does not matter. What matters is reality.
That is true. What IS the reality ?
We can either pine away for an unachievable utopia, or we can strive to continuously improve our justice system. We can either get discouraged that some crimes slip through the cracks, and give up, or we can be encouraged by the progress we have made, and strive to progress further still.
I don't think those are the only alternatives.
I don't think the New Testament and the Gospel leave man with only those alternatives.
I think it leaves man with the possibility of reconcilation to God.
I think it leaves man with the good news of redemption.
I think it leaves man with the hope of union and oneness with "the Father" - the Perfect.
And I think it leaves man with the hope of a coming world of perfection as His life and nature and Holy Spirit grow within those who have received the Savior of mankind.
To answer your questions, I do not think things are right just because a bunch of people say they are. I think evolution mandates that self-destructive groups, like your recreational baby-torturers, mass-rapists and cannibals, will be outshined by other types of animals that know how to treat each other better. The self-destructives quickly go extinct - a fitting result for their actions.
By your suggestion of "outshining" with "better" examples, I take it that you hold to moral truths that are absolute.
In other words, should evolution meander around in a totally different outcome, the moral duties of those beings should be evaluate by those which we here today recognize as the true ones.
You would not be a relativist. You would be suggesting that the moral values and duties that we human beings recognize now, should be the yardstick against ANY other evolved beings should be measured.
If they did not come up to our sense of these moral truths, they need some outshining. They are somehow darker, more primitive, below the standard.
This strongly suggests that these moral truths are eternal - being in existence before evolution does its thing. Beings have to somehow "arrive" at something already out there as an abstract truth in the universe.
My explanation would be that that is because these moral truths are grounded in a preexisting, uncreated and eternal God for whom a greater moral agent cannot be conceived.
And if anyone can read through all of that above. Thanks.
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17 Mar 14
3 edits
I do not see how evolution can have a different outcome.
But if the process of evolution truly has no goal, no intended destiny, as I am told, why could it not come out with a totally different outcome?
A divinely guided evolution might render your result another man like moral being.
But a purely naturalistic process, random as it is suppose to be, I think, if repeated, should come out with a totally different outcome.
I am agnostic on an absolute moral standard. I lean towards 'yes', though obviously not grounded in a deity of any kind. More in an awareness of the consequences of our actions on EVERYONE, with nobody excluded or demoted.
From what you described it seems like these standards SOMEHOW knew we were coming in the evolutionary ascent. That means they were there before any human minds were around to contemplate them.
That's your leaning, I think. Different from LemonJello's I think, your leaning is. I am not sure.
Your moral values and moral duties were in existence pre-arrival of humanity. Without human minds they seem to await there (some abstract "where" ). Man arrives at them and discovers them.
Another evolving creature needs to discover them so as to not be outshined by our truer sense of these moral values and duties.
17 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonship
[b] I do not see how evolution can have a different outcome.
But if the process of evolution truly has no goal, no intended destiny, as I am told, why could it not come out with a totally different outcome?
A divinely guided evolution might render your result another man like moral being.
But a purely naturalistic process ...[text shortened]... to discover them so as to not be outshined by our truer sense of these moral values and duties.[/b]What does jay do with this pesky "Jesus" person coming out of history?
Well, to start...one could realize that there was a huge battle for control of the message of "Jesus". The ones that did not think he was divine at all lost the battle. The ones that won the battle added their own doctrinal slant to "Jesus's" words.
Of the morally worthy things he said, he was hardly the only one to say them in history.
That does not mean you shrug him off. It just means that you gain some perspective and realize that the message of "Jesus" was in fact developed by many men.
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I see you got your panties in a bit of a twist over my use of the phrase "sky being". For that, I make no apology. I think the 'most of humanity' that believes in the god-concept needs to have their intellectual world shaken up a bit at times.
I don't say it to try to convert you. I say it to force you to think about possible worlds in which there is no god. In which you may find that people act just as morally as worlds WITH a god, much to your surprise. I have no expectation that my words will convince you to abandon belief in god. Zero. I couldn't care less about 'winning converts' to atheism.
Your need to write paragraph on paragraph about how inappropriate my comment is says more about you than it does about me. You come off as deeply insecure when a single expression provokes this type of reaction.
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The search for perfection, and trumpeting "man alone made in god's image" strikes me as vanity, and grasping for the wind. The irony is, when taken to conclusion, these attitudes isolate us from the group of all living things, rather than bringing us to a closer connection with them. They produce ideas like "take dominion over all living things" rather than "live in harmony with all living things".
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Yes, I don't think I'm a moral relativist. I'm just not 100% sure there is an absolute moral code. But if there is, I think we have plenty of practical reasons to motivate it. We do not to add a god to the mix to justify it. Simply creating a world in which living things coexist in harmony, with suffering minimized, is good enough for me.
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You asked, "Why could evolution not come out with a totally different outcome?"
Because there are pragmatic reasons that make "good" morals good. They provide tangible benefits to their practicioners. They make a species survive rather than die out.
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I'm pretty sure LJ is a moral objectivist. If anything, he seems to lack the slight hesitation I have towards that stance.
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I'm not sure what the significance of standards existing before we arrived is. As I pointed out earlier, other animals show a grasp of some of these. And even before there were any animals to grasp moral concepts, it is no different than 2+2 equalling 4 even before there were minds to consider it. This is just how concepts work. It does not mean we have to invent another intelligent being to supply the concepts. (That does not even fix the problem, because then the question would be, who taught HIM?)
17 Mar 14
Originally posted by SwissGambitWell, to start...one could realize that there was a huge battle for control of the message of "Jesus".
What does jay do with this pesky "Jesus" person coming out of history?
Well, to start...one could realize that there was a huge battle for control of the message of "Jesus". The ones that did not think he was divine at all lost the battle. The ones that won the battle added their own doctrinal slant to "Jesus's" words.
Of the morally worthy things ...[text shortened]... cepts. (That does not even fix the problem, because then the question would be, who taught HIM?)
This battle you speak of occurred when, exactly?
Was this before or after the disciples (save one) were each killed for their belief in a risen Christ?
The ones that did not think he was divine at all lost the battle.
Because their message was wrong, of course!
The ones that won the battle added their own doctrinal slant to "Jesus's" words.
I'm sure you have proof?
Just to keep things safe, I won't hold my breath.
Of the morally worthy things he said, he was hardly the only one to say them in history.
You term this as though there were more than a few things He said which (in your opinion) can be construed as "morally worthy things."
So let's eliminate that big one, the ol' Golden Rule; after that is excluded, how about a short list of what you consider to be the "morally worthy things" He is said to have uttered.
Then, if you're still engaged, explain why these statements ought to be considered "morally worthy."
After that exercise, list even ONE person (historically known) who has been credited with any one of the items you listed in the first place.
Just as in the other case, I won't hold my breath waiting for a response.
Your need to write paragraph on paragraph about how inappropriate my comment is says more about you than it does about me.
Here's a few things I think it says:
• The person responding to the intentional dig is honor- and duty-bound to address insults which are directed at the most important Person of all existence.
• The person leveling the insult knows nothing of the glory of God.
• The person who attempts to diminish God has made it a point of pride to insult things of which he knows nothing in order to supply himself with a (false) sense of intellectual superiority; instead he has made himself a fool.
You come off as deeply insecure when a single expression provokes this type of reaction.
If I told you your domestic partner is a thieving whore, do you think you might get a little indignant about it?
Unless, of course, your domestic partner is a thieving whore.
The search for perfection, and trumpeting "man alone made in god's image" strikes me as vanity, and grasping for the wind. The irony is, when taken to conclusion, these attitudes isolate us from the group of all living things, rather than bringing us to a closer connection with them. They produce ideas like "take dominion over all living things" rather than "live in harmony with all living things".
Ah, the ol' evolution-created-religion-which-actually-works-against-the-invisible-goals-of-evolution trick!
Classic!
I'm not sure what the significance of standards existing before we arrived is.
The transcendence thing enters at some point, I'm sure.
Math is the language of the universe, whether a mind is there to listen to its formulas or not.
If morals are transcendent, how is that they are only manifested with a mind like ours?
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17 Mar 14
1 edit
Originally posted by SwissGambit
Well, to start...one could realize that there was a huge battle for control of the message of "Jesus". The ones that did not think he was divine at all lost the battle. The ones that won the battle added their own doctrinal slant to "Jesus's" words.
Where in the New Testament could you indicate two major places where someone's private doctrinal slant was added to Jesus's words ?
Please give me you two or three most egregious examples.
Just the references will suffice.
And you might explain how I can be free from the suspicion that you are not just selecting passages which you personally preferred were not a part Christ's teaching.
Of the morally worthy things he said, he was hardly the only one to say them in history.
So we first have to come to YOU to get YOUR Okay on what was morally worthy for Him to say ?
It sounds like Jesus Christ needs to come and sit at your feet to learn a thing or two about what is "morally worthy" for Him to say. I don't agree with the need for Christ to first secure permission from you to speak or DO what He did.
That does not mean you shrug him off. It just means that you gain some perspective and realize that the message of "Jesus" was in fact developed by many men.
This is going off into history of the document of the New Testament. I am surprised how often discussions with skeptics gravitate in this direction. This seems no more than an all out effort to extract words AWAY from Christ in order to water down His message to something more palatable to the unbeliever.
The first one fighting the battle "to control the message" are those who seek to SUBTRACT words from the New Testament. I think the argument is usually a red herring. Immediately we have to stop discussing what we were discussion and launch into a long discussion to prove that what we have as the New Testament document is over 98% reliable in spite of thousands of apparent copyist's typos carefully cataloged by serious textural critics.
I think I will not chase this new topic just now.
I see you got your panties in a bit of a twist over my use of the phrase "sky being". For that, I make no apology. I think the 'most of humanity' that believes in the god-concept needs to have their intellectual world shaken up a bit at times.
I didn't ask you to apologize.
No need to flatter yourself.
I don't say it to try to convert you. I say it to force you to think about possible worlds in which there is no god. In which you may find that people act just as morally as worlds WITH a god, much to your surprise. I have no expectation that my words will convince you to abandon belief in god. Zero. I couldn't care less about 'winning converts' to atheism.
I don't think you see the problem.
You said that perfect justice is not attainable in this life with the human race. I think you are correct.
Now there are two things about this which should be noted:
1.) That is the fact that it bothers some of us that perfect justice is not possible.
And here are some of the reasons:
No judge is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent.
The power to enforce is not always in human grasp.
Bribes can sway justice with fallible human beings.
Partiality, vested interest, bias can enfluence fallible human beings.
2.) Someone comes into the world claiming to be God become a Man:
When omniscience is required - He manifests it.
When omnipresence is required - He manifests that too.
When omnipotence is required - He manifests that too.
When mercy is called for - He overflows with mercy.
When wisdom is required - His wisdom does "shake up" the world.
His standard of integrity is considered by many as beyond reproach.
This extraordinary Person speaks of coming Judgment.
This extraordinary one believes it is SO SERIOUS that all men need to be SAVED from its inevitability and extensive divine thoroughness.
He offers Himself as a redemptive means before God, to be redeemed from that eternal judgment.
He manifests an indestructible life, and cannot be destroyed.
Now, some of us take these two factors together. And we find it believable that though humans cannot institute perfect moral justice, perfect moral justice is a divine possibility. We have enough to demonstrate that where we fall short God may not at all fall short.
Our limitations of dispensing perfect moral justice is evident.
But our autonomy is in serious question.
Maybe, we do NOT get the last word.
The search for perfection, and trumpeting "man alone made in god's image" strikes me as vanity, and grasping for the wind.
You do have to at least admit that no other living thing in existence is quite like a human being.
No other creatures on earth are having this kind of conversation today.
That MAN is singled out from among the other lives, and something pertaining to MAN being made in the image and likeness of God, is non-trivial to many of us.
I stop here.
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17 Mar 14
1 edit
Originally posted by SwissGambit
The irony is, when taken to conclusion, these attitudes isolate us from the group of all living things, rather than bringing us to a closer connection with them. They produce ideas like "take dominion over all living things" rather than "live in harmony with all living things". [quote]
No it doesn't.
It is rather realistic. We have an obvious connection to all other living things.
We realitically have a more exalted position among them and even custody of their environment and welfare which should be taken seriously.
The many times we have failed to do so, is another story involving the sin in man which as damaged him morally.
[quote]
Yes, I don't think I'm a moral relativist. I'm just not 100% sure there is an absolute moral code.
I didn't use the word code.
I used the terms "moral value" and "moral duties".
To be fair I think I did use probably Moral Law in this discussion.
I would like to you explain where man's dignity comes from.
I can see it being derived from our Creator in view of our being created in the image of God.
Apart from our being created by God with whom no greater dignity can be imagined, WHERE does man derive his dignity ?
Unless you regard man's nobility to be no better than that of the termite or kangaroo, what caused man to suddenly pick up this extra portion of dignity such that violation of it is an injustice ?
But if there is, I think we have plenty of practical reasons to motivate it. We do not to add a god to the mix to justify it. Simply creating a world in which living things coexist in harmony, with suffering minimized, is good enough for me.
That may be a "feel good" thing to do. But what rational reason do you have that we should ?
You seem to be borrowing from the view you wish to suppress - that we are more than just accidents in the universe.
If we are accidents there is no accidental purpose.
If we are not designed then there is no unintentional intention.
Nothing is designed accidentally. Nothing is acting with purpose in your naturalistic and Godless universe.
Why then is there "OUGHTNESS" at all and why any sense of moral absolutes?
What "harmony" need be sought if no order is purposed? Self existent, formless, even eternal matter has no personality. Impersonal forces have no mind, no will, and therefore cannot design anything or intend "harmony" on anything to be kept.
What accident requires the keeping of "harmony" to it ?
You asked, "Why could evolution not come out with a totally different outcome?"
That is right. If it was all accidental why given another span of big time could these accidents have a totally different result ?
Because there are pragmatic reasons that make "good" morals good. They provide tangible benefits to their practicioners. They make a species survive rather than die out.
This sounds to me like "There is indeed no purpose. But we cannot live that way pragmatically. So we must live by an illusion of purpose. We must live out a lie to be pragmatic though we realize it is just a lie."
I'm not sure what the significance of standards existing before we arrived is. As I pointed out earlier, other animals show a grasp of some of these. And even before there were any animals to grasp moral concepts, it is no different than 2+2 equalling 4 even before there were minds to consider it. This is just how concepts work. It does not mean we have to invent another intelligent being to supply the concepts. (That does not even fix the problem, because then the question would be, who taught HIM?)
This is the nonsensical question of "Who made God?"
You wish to start an infinite regress of always requiring an explanation for the explanation for the explanation ... forever.
This view destroys a philosophy of science on one hand.
We could never know the explanation of anything then.
Secondly, it is antithetical to "God" by definition. And you know that.
If you do not, or forgot, God is a Being for whom a greater being is impossible.
So "Who taught HIM" is re-visiting a complaint refuted long ago.
By definition, God is the greatest conceivable Person for which a greater cannot exist.
18 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonshipThree examples of alterations of the message of Jesus:
[quote] The irony is, when taken to conclusion, these attitudes isolate us from the group of all living things, rather than bringing us to a closer connection with them. They produce ideas like "take dominion over all living things" rather than "live in harmony with all living things". [quote]
No it doesn't.
It is rather realistic. We have an obvi ...[text shortened]... go.
By definition, God is the greatest conceivable Person for which a greater cannot exist.
The story of Jesus saving the adulterous woman from stoning was almost certainly added on later. (Ehrman)
The transition from Q (Mark), the earliest account, to John, the last account, clearly shows the doctrinal change in emphasis to a divine Jesus.
The writings of the Apostle Paul (and those who made up some writings in his name) took Christianity in a still more radical doctrinal direction. And, before you scream that Paul is not Jesus, remember who allegedly spoke to Paul and changed his ways in the first place.
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I'm not sure where you got the idea that I set myself up as a higher moral authority than Jesus.
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As for the 'reliability' of the NT, we have more discrepancies in the various copies of the NT than there are words in the NT (Ehrman).
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I'm not sure that I would call Jesus 'overflowing with mercy'. At least, not the version of Jesus that invented eternal hell to punish the dead beyond the grave. That's bizarro-mercy if I've ever seen it.
Of course, the whole threat of hell is simple mind control of the most banal kind. Yes, those who preach it are serious about it - they like to scare the hell INTO people and make them converts.
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Sure, humans are doing well NOW, but a few million years ago, it was all about dinosaurs. Who is to say which species will dominate after a few more million years? Especially if we manage to create a massive nuclear exchange. Then it's any species' ballgame.
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Now, on to the 2nd post.
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What you call man's "dignity", I would simply call a heightened awareness of moral issues. It comes from our intelligence, mainly. We did not 'suddenly' pick it up. We gradually increased moral awareness over time.
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You do not think that maximizing harmony and minimizing suffering are rational reasons for having sound moral principles? Seriously?
Really, I think you should reconsider what you said there.
And why do you think that I would believe anything as silly as 'we are accidents'? Of course I do not.
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If you read "there are pragmatic reasons that make good morals good" and you think "sounds to me like there is indeed no purpose", that strikes me as simply a non-sequitur. I know YOU personally have trouble accepting that we can have a purpose and be temporary at the same time, but I don't share this problem.
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Yes, I know what the definition of "God" is. I am just pointing out that the argument you made does not help you deal with the 'problem' you cited of abstract principles existing before humans existed to follow them.
18 Mar 14
Originally posted by FreakyKBHParagraph by paragraph. I will limit my responses to one sentence, JUST to make it fair.
[b]Well, to start...one could realize that there was a huge battle for control of the message of "Jesus".
This battle you speak of occurred when, exactly?
Was this before or after the disciples (save one) were each killed for their belief in a risen Christ?
The ones that did not think he was divine at all lost the battle.
Because their mes ...[text shortened]... or not.
If morals are transcendent, how is that they are only manifested with a mind like ours?[/b]
P1. Read your history.
P2. The winners write the history.
P3. See response to Jay above.
P4. Do your own homework.
P5. You can't diminish what does not exist.
P6. (Hypothetically) my domestic partner would actually exist, and thus provide me a valid reason to be indignant.
P7. Nope.
P8. Morals are NOT only manifested with a mind like ours.
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Originally posted by SwissGambit
Three examples of alterations of the message of Jesus:
The story of Jesus saving the adulterous woman from stoning was almost certainly added on later. (Ehrman)
The transition from Q (Mark), the earliest account, to John, the last account, clearly shows the doctrinal change in emphasis to a divine Jesus.
The writings of the Apostle Paul (and tho ...[text shortened]... th the 'problem' you cited of abstract principles existing before humans existed to follow them.
Three examples of alterations of the message of Jesus:
Replies must be short this morning. More detail, perhaps, latter.
The story of Jesus saving the adulterous woman from stoning was almost certainly added on later. (Ehrman)
I do not have time for detail study of Bart Ehrman's comments this morning.
However, it is possible that a latter copy of a NT document could contain something that an earlier copy did not include. It is possible.
Secondly, SERIOUSLY --- how devastating to the central message of Jesus Christ is the ADDITION of the story of John 8:1-11.
With a straight face you are telling us that this account of Jesus convicting the crowd "He who is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone" does some kind of irreconcilable doctrinal damage to the Gospel of Jesus ?
Go back and hunt for something like Jesus saying He was not the Son of God, or would not die, or the Father did not exist, or something as a major problem to the other 26 New Testament books.
You have to kidding if you think John 8:1-11 presents some kind of insurmountable problem to the rest of the New Testament.
Believe it or not that is a "brief" comment. Next ?
The transition from Q (Mark), the earliest account, to John, the last account, clearly shows the doctrinal change in emphasis to a divine Jesus.
I'll have to look at this latter.
The writings of the Apostle Paul predate the writing of the Gospel of Mark.
Compare Romans 1:1-4 with Mark 1:1-3.
Romans 1:1-4 -"Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, a called apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He [God] promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, Who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord."
This document of basic Christian teaching predates Mark.
Mark 1:1-3 - "The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Even as it is written in Isaiah the prophet: "Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way. A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord: make straight His paths."
This comment about (Q Mark) I can't reply to now. Scholars have long thought there was some FIFTH source document which somehow is reflected in the three known gospels, the synoptic three - Matthew, Mark, Luke.
Regardless, you see both Romans and Mark speaking of a divine Son of God prophesied to come by the Old Testament prophets. His coming is the coming of the Lord. His resurrection manifests His divine power.
So far we have a story of astounding mercy shown an adulterous woman in John 8 which 11 verses is absent on some ancient copies of the NT. And we have an earlier letter of Paul and a Gospel of Mark both introducing a Son of God, predicted by OT prophets, whose coming is the coming of the Lord and whose resurrection manifests His divinity.
The writings of the Apostle Paul (and those who made up some writings in his name) took Christianity in a still more radical doctrinal direction. And, before you scream that Paul is not Jesus, remember who allegedly spoke to Paul and changed his ways in the first place.
So far you have no proved any "radical new doctrinal direction".
The radical new direction Paul's ministry took was radically different from Judaism. And we might say it was radically different from what the James was teaching. But the contents of Paul's emphasis against that of James had NOTHING to do with Jesus not being Son of God, dying a redemptive death, rising in victory miraculously, and coming again at the end of a Gospel preaching age.
It is completely understandable that the elder James had difficulty in making a complete transition from the law keeping of the old covenant to the walking in the Holy Spirit (Christ in His pneumatic form).
The realism of the presence of James in the book of Acts to me only verifies the veracity of the history Luke relates to us of the early Christian church. For a time they kind of had one foot in the old way and one foot in the new way. This is completely understandable as realistic recollection of how the Jews who became Christians transitioned into the new covenant.
I'll give you that Paul was clearer in grasping the radical departure of the new covenant impartation of God's Son as life giving Spirit into the believers from the law keeping of Old Testament.
Of the top of my head I can only think of one thing Paul wrote about which we don't see Jesus speak of per se of any real significance - circumcision.
Any other imagined departure from Christ's teaching in the four gospels (or even in just the synoptics) and the earlier writings of Paul are your wishful thinking. This is usually misdirection - problems with the words of Christ are misdirected as fabricated complaints against Paul.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I set myself up as a higher moral authority than Jesus.
I got the idea because you seemed to say that SOME statements of Jesus were morally worthy. This implies that some of the words of Jesus do not come up to your standard of what was morally worthy for His to say.
If I misunderstood you, you can correct me now.
As for the 'reliability' of the NT, we have more discrepancies in the various copies of the NT than there are words in the NT (Ehrman).
You should know that scholars recognize that Dr. Ehrman has TWO sides to his work.
1.) Bart Erhman the more astute scholar of the NT who would not DARE say some things around his colleagues as experts in the field.
2.) Bart Ehrman the popularizer who writs best selling books where he makes off the cuff remarks as sound bites which make him lots of money.
It has been noted that Bart Ehrman has these two kinds of personalities. And I can prove it. Sometimes Bart Erhman has to go back to clarify some sound bite statement he made which atheists or Mythic Jesus theorists have latched on to.
He had to clean up a lot of misconceptions about what people THOUGHT he was saying about Jesus never existing on the popular radio program "The Infidel Guy."
I would suggest that you seriously watch some of the YouTube debates between Bart Ehrman and Mike Licone, between Bart Ehrman and William Lane Craig, and some of the comments of scholar Norman Giesler on Bart Ehrman.
Enough said on that at the moment. There is the Dr. Bart Ehrman the more careful scholar who sometimes comes back and says "Well, I didn't exactly mean that" and there is the Dr Bart Ehrman who can write popular best selling books by dropping bombs for atheists and skeptics which they love.
The market for "Been There Done That" supposed X - evangelicals these days is great. If you want to make big money, be a "Been There Once and Quit" Christian clergyman or pastor or gospel preacher. These kinds of books sell very well with today's pop culture.
I'm not sure that I would call Jesus 'overflowing with mercy'. At least, not the version of Jesus that invented eternal hell to punish the dead beyond the grave. That's bizarro-mercy if I've ever seen it.
You refered to one scene which you find questionable but I do not. That is John 8:1-11.
However, I see great mercy displayed by Jesus in John 4 with the woman who had five husbands, in John 5 with the man who waited 38 years to be healed, in John 9 with the man kicked out of the synagogue, in John 11 with the raising from the dead restored to his loving family. I see Jesus' overflowing mercy in His asking the Father to forgive those who crucified Him in Luke. I see overflowing mercy in reconciling Peter back to discipleship after Peter had denied Him three times with cursing in John 21. Then there are the accounts of other raisings from the dead like the poor widows only child. There is His healing of the ten lepers, His casting out of evil demonic spirits from exceedingly sinful people, the feeding of crowds following Him out into the wilderness where no provision was, the pronouncing of forgiveness in various places to sinners, the choosing of a hated tax collector to be a disciple, the salvation of the hated Zachias the tax collector, even the sparing of the towns that James and John wanted God to destroy on the spot. And on and on.
You cannot see any mercy from Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Luke or the other Gospels ?
The Bible has a funny effect on some people. The less they read it the more they fancy themselves as experts on it.
Jesus whole understanding of why He HAD to die is overflowing with mercy and forgiveness towards sinners deserving to come as is before a perfect and holy Righteous God. Jesus took the NEED for our forgiveness, everyONE of us, seriously to the point of costing Him everything.
He did not have to die.
He stepped forward voluntarily to torture and execution by man for His message. And He supernaturally bore in His body the wrath of God against the hated sin of all mankind. This part of His dying was not of the natural realm. It was of the supernatural and redemptive. God executed the judgment we deserve upon the Son of God.
And you see no overflowing mercy from Christ in the Gospel ?
Of course, the whole threat of hell is simple mind control of the most banal kind. Yes, those who preach it are serious about it - they like to scare the hell INTO people and make them converts.
I will devote another possible thread to the resentment of the thought of eternal punishment by sinner...
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18 Mar 14
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Multiple motives for things is acceptable in all other realms. And the desire not to be eternally condemned may legitimately be included among many other reason why someone wants to follow Jesus Christ.
Of course we do see Jesus rebuking His own disciples James and John for wanting to call fire from heaven down on a town that rejected Christ's message. So if Jesus rebuked two of His twelve disciples for being to judgment eager, I would not dare to suggest some preachers are too much on that side.
However, Jesus did not distance Himself from warning us. And if He did not take judgment from God so seriously, He would not have prayed with His sweat becoming like drops of blood, in the garden, requesting as any human would, that the coming redemptive sacrifice would pass from Him. Yet He said "not My will be done, but Yours."
This testifies to the degree Jesus was concerned to SAVE us from our sins' guilt before God.
We cannot take some bad preachers as excuse to ignore that aspect of the Gospel's total message - God is absolutely Holy and Perfect and everyone of us sinners need redemption from our guilt before His impartiality. He is simply no respecter of persons.
More than ONE motive for wanting to follow Christ is realistic. And that some motives reflect both positive and negative consequences is understandable. "Behold the kindness and severity of God" .
That's all for now.
18 Mar 14
Originally posted by sonshipI'm trying to ease you into the idea that other people tacked things on to Jesus' message. These things can't be done instantly.Three examples of alterations of the message of Jesus:
Replies must be short this morning. More detail, perhaps, latter.
The story of Jesus saving the adulterous woman from stoning was almost certainly added on later. (Ehrman)
I do not have time for detail study of Bart Ehrman's comments this morning.
However ...[text shortened]... vote another possible thread to the resentment of the thought of eternal punishment by sinner...
Instead of making me plod through hours of YouTube debates, and trashing Ehrman, why don't you offer specific rebuttals of what he said? Surely, given the body of work done by Dr. Craig and his army of Reasonable Theists, there is ample material at your disposal.
Yes, the gospel writers got beaten to the punch by the Apostle Paul. It seems like the Apostle Paul is the true visionary of the faith. The one who saw how it could persevere even after Jesus' death.
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Yes, it is true that some statements attributed to "Jesus" do not sound morally worthy to me. But that does not mean that I consider myself a high authority on morals. It simply means that I do not follow any person without question. I always evaluate what they say. To do otherwise is extremely dangerous; it means you can be easily made to do evil by a charismatic leader.
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I see you deflected from the lack of mercy shown by Jesus in inventing hell by showing some (comparably trivial) mercy shown to people on earth while he was there. If he hadn't invented hell, I could applaud his other acts of mercy. But that invention erases and overshadows any good he may have done while here. He was only here 30+ years. Eternity is a tad bit longer.