God botherers - are you insane?

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
I'm still not sure why you think finding the problems is the hard part.

I don't view the humilation of the crucifixion as anything special, either. The Jews were allegedly kicked out of the Holy Land for their betrayal; God knew who was getting the last laugh.

Let me ask you this: Can Jesus empathize with the labor pains of a pregnant wom ...[text shortened]... because he can also empathize without experiencing the same type of suffering as you have.

Me thinks you confuse empathy with sympathy. He can sympathise with her because he has experienced excruciating pain himself. Empathy is something different . He can only empathise if he can feel what she actually feels (rather than imagine based on a comparison with his own feelings). However , the only way he could feel what she feels would be to live inside her in some way and experience her world from the inside out...ring any bells? (NB "in him we live and move and have our being"😉. Given the choice I would prefer empathy to sympathy but I would also like both. I'm also not sure how well any of us can empathise with the pain of others unless we have at least some experience of pain ourselves. I think Jesus can do both not just one.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Me thinks you confuse empathy with sympathy. He can sympathise with her because he has experienced excruciating pain himself. Empathy is something different . He can only empathise if he can feel what she actually feels (rather than imagine based on a comparison with his own feelings). However , the only way he could feel what she feels would be to liv ...[text shortened]... s we have at least some experience of pain ourselves. I think Jesus can do both not just one.

Me thinks you confuse empathy with sympathy.
...
He can only empathise if he can feel what she actually feels (rather than imagine based on a comparison with his own feelings).

www.m-w.com
empathy, 2nd definition:
the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

In other words, he doesn't need to feel what she actually feels in order to empathize.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Fair enough. Are you prepared to reveal anything about your former convictions?

Only if you reveal how you got duped into christianity after living as a normal person.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
Only if you reveal how you got duped into christianity after living as a normal person.

Sounds like a case of you show me yours and I'll show you mine? It does leave me wondering what you feel you need to hide or might be afraid of?

Ok, my starting point for being 'duped' into Christianity was having an experience of somehow not being alone in my life combined with a feeling of my being guided in a certain direction. Long before I thought it might be true I felt or sensed that there must be something more to life than I was being sold by materialism. I had a belief in 'something more' first and then some of the intellectual bits came later. A key component was having Christianity explained to me as a real living concept rather than a dead belief system as well as realising that Christianity had answers and explanations for questions I had that other faiths didn't. In short , I was really searching , I was knocking on the door and God made sure I bumped into the right people and this was key because it started to become uncanny rather than just an academic exercise. Christianity talks about a 'living' God not a belief system , and that was what I bumped in to.

Of course , I could write for hours on this but hey, I've unzipped my flies a bit , how about showing me yours? If you need me to focus on one key bit then just ask.

Originally posted by knightmeister
Sounds like a case of you show me yours and I'll show you mine? It does leave me wondering what you feel you need to hide or might be afraid of?

Dude, put it away. This ain't one of your encounters at the local rest stop.

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
[b]Me thinks you confuse empathy with sympathy.
...
He can only empathise if he can feel what she actually feels (rather than imagine based on a comparison with his own feelings).

www.m-w.com
empathy, 2nd definition:
the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, ...[text shortened]... this

In other words, he doesn't need to feel what she actually feels in order to empathize.[/b]

Ok , so maybe it's not exactly empathy. maybe it's something that looks very much like empathy. I would imagine Jesus to be capable of something that goes beyond normal empathy. I don't know , I've never lived inside a person for their whole lives or been eternal. Does it matter that much? This is starting to sound pedantic wordplay. The point being made here is that jesus is present with us and feels with us , alongside us , inside us....whatever. He knows what hurts us intimately and he has had his own experience of humiliation and pain to offer us. He came through it and he promises to help us through ours. I can't give you neat and tidy easy answers with all the t's crossed and I won't play the "let's se if I can irritate a Christian in order to prove to myself what a load of bunkum it is" game. So what's it going to be more split hairs or a make a real point?

Originally posted by knightmeister
Ok , so maybe it's not exactly empathy. maybe it's something that looks very much like empathy. I would imagine Jesus to be capable of something that goes beyond normal empathy. I don't know , I've never lived inside a person for their whole lives or been eternal. Does it matter that much? This is starting to sound pedantic wordplay. The point being ...[text shortened]... unkum it is" game. So what's it going to be more split hairs or a make a real point?

Since humans are capable of empathy, and empathy is not contingent on two people having the same experience, the crucifixion is not necessary to allow Jesus to feel our pain.

I like how I went from 'confused' to 'pedantic' in the span of two posts. Who says debates don't make you smarter?! 😛

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
Since humans are capable of empathy, and empathy is not contingent on two people having the same experience, the crucifixion is not necessary to allow Jesus to feel our pain.

I like how I went from 'confused' to 'pedantic' in the span of two posts. Who says debates don't make you smarter?! 😛

Humans are capable of empathy but on different levels from basic empathy through to some advanced empathy , but I know of no human who has ever claimed to know EXACTLY how the other person feels in the way Christ does. However empathic I might be it is impossible for me to know for sure how it really feels to be you since I have not lived your life and cannot know you from the inside out but only from the outside in. If complete human empathy was possible the world would look very different.

Christianity goes even further by claiming that Gods know us better than we even know ourselves and in such a way that he is completely able to know what we are capable of and what struggles we go through and our innermost thoughts (eg -even in our sleep)

Now to be fair the crucifixion had another main purpose (taking on sin etc etc ) but I would suggest that an experience like that is likely to make Jesus a much better empathiser. There's something about experiencing pain that makes us more able to be open to the pain of others. If you were going for therapy would you sooner see a therapist who has had a very sheltered upbringing and had experienced nothing of any significance , or would you sooner see someone who had been through the grinder themselves and come out the other side. ?

In any case it's not just about Jesus feeling our pain but about us allowing him into our pain (or allowing ourselves into his healing). He knows agony and despair and physical pain for himself but just as importantly WE know he knows it.

Without his life, the cross , the flogging , the death , the humiliation etc etc we could rightly shout "Jesus what gives you the right to draw close to me and be intimate with my pain , you don't even know what it's like to be humiliated , suffer , live as a human etc".

Originally posted by knightmeister
Without his life, the cross , the flogging , the death , the humiliation etc etc we could rightly shout "Jesus what gives you the right to draw close to me and be intimate with my pain , you don't even know what it's like to be humiliated , suffer , live as a human etc".

I disagree. If Jesus is part of God, and God designed us, he knows exactly how we experience humiliation, pain, etc. He implemented the chemical releases in our brains necessary for emotions. It is also claimed that God can see our thoughts, and is omnipresent to witness our every action. How can that not lead to a total understanding of what it is like to be human? Why on earth would God, or any part of him, need to be crucified to understand that which he already knows?

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
[b]I disagree. If Jesus is part of God, and God designed us, he knows exactly how we experience humiliation, pain, etc. He implemented the chemical releases in our brains necessary for emotions.

It all depends on how you use the word 'know'. For example , you can easily imagine how a man could have a phD in suffering and neurological brain chemicals. He might 'know' everything thing there is to know about suffering in a dry academic sense BUT still in a very real way not know hardly anything at all about suffering that means much in a human sense. He could know a terrific amount but if he can't empathise and has never experienced suffering himself what does he really know (in my book not a lot).

I'm afraid God drawing alongside us and whispering in our souls... " don't worry , I've got a complete understanding of the chemical processes involved in what you are experiencing " isn't going to cut the mustard. He would come across as a patronising idiot.

Originally posted by knightmeister
...then some of the intellectual bits came later.

Boy o boy! I can hardly wait 'til you share some of them with us!

Originally posted by BigDoggProblem
[b] It is also claimed that God can see our thoughts, and is omnipresent to witness our every action. How can that not lead to a total understanding of what it is like to be human?

There's a difference between seeing from the outside and knowing from experience (from the inside). You can only get so far by observing and having intellectual understanding. Experiential understanding gives you something completely different.

Do you seriously think that even if I spent a trillion years studying every facet of your life and observing your life from the outside that I would be able to understand nearly as much about what it feels like to be you as you understand. Even if I ended up knowing more about your life than you did and was able to remember or witness things you did that you had forgotten about I would not be able to bridge a crucial gap in my understanding.

What's more whatever I could understand of value (which might be quite a lot) would probably be as a result of being able to project my own experiences as a human being on to yours and draw comparisons. But if God has never been a human being or known suffering what happens to experiential knowing? He only has one aspect of it but not the other. Its not complete as you state. Also remember that this is not some academic exercise we are talking about here , this is an area filled with human emotion and feelings so this knowledge becomes even more important in this context.

I'm sure you can think of times in your life when having had an actual experience of something has added significantly to your understanding of something in a way that you couldn't have achieved in any other way. I'm surprised you asked this question. It's pretty obvious to most people.

(Further homework -Person with lots of experience of sex versus celibate professor who has a phD in sexology. Question- Who has a complete understanding of sex? Both? neither? Why are these two different? 3,000 words minimum , hand in Monday)

Originally posted by David C
Boy o boy! I can hardly wait 'til you share some of them with us!

I thought I was.

Originally posted by David C
Boy o boy! I can hardly wait 'til you share some of them with us!

Since you have joined the fray , can you tell me why my posts keep going bold and then light. Am I pressing the wrong key? My experiential knowledge is letting me down.

Originally posted by knightmeister
It all depends on how you use the word 'know'. For example , you can easily imagine how a man could have a phD in suffering and neurological brain chemicals. He might 'know' everything thing there is to know about suffering in a dry academic sense BUT still in a very real way not know hardly anything at all about suffering that means much in a human se ...[text shortened]... encing " isn't going to cut the mustard. He would come across as a patronising idiot.

That's a poor comparison, because the ph.D. is merely someone who has studied the human brain, not its designer and builder.

You also conveniently left out the whole bit about God knowing our thoughts and being omnipresent.