So, You Don't Believe In Sasquatch

@sonship said
There are bad consequences for being on the Titanic and not getting into a life boat once it hit a iceberg.

Spiritually speaking we, as a species, are not "on the Titanic" and there are no "lifeboats" or "icebergs". We live and we die. We make what we can of the opportunity. Politically speaking, sure ~ take the environment, for example ~ we may be "on the Titanic" and the "icebergs" may be the hazards and challenges that face us, as a species, and the "lifeboats" may be the collective actions we take to mitigate the bad consequences. For this scenario, the analogy has some evidence and parallels to justify it. But for your religious one, it's a dud.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

Believing in is not believing that. God or Sasquatch.

@sonship said
@wolfgang59

Q. Why do Jews today celebrate Passover?

A. Because previous generations did.

And that is all - nobody has any proof of any exodus.

Is this an infinite regress ?

No ... it goes back as far as the people who made it up.

It is easily done; look at Urban Myths, look at Trump.
Repeat a story enough times and it becomes "true".

@sonship said
@divegeester

Jesus: I love you so much that I came to earth and died for you so that you may be saved.

Human: Saved from what?

Jesus: From what I'll do to you if you don't believe in me.

That's not how I read the Bible. I take it more like this.

God "It is most important to be reconciled to God"

Man "What are the consequences if not?"

God "Whatever the consequences. It is most important to be reconciled to God."

Nice attempt to position my post as how I “read the Bible”, it isn’t “how I read the Bible”, it’s a distillation of how your twisted interpretation of the juxtaposition of grace and judgment can be expressed to demonstrate what incomprehensible nonsense it is.

@sonship said
@divegeester

Jesus: I love you so much that I came to earth and died for you so that you may be saved.

The Unitarian shows his true colors. Disdain for the Son of God, contempt for the salvation of Christ.

My disdain is aimed at you and your misrepresentation of the nature of God.

@caissad4 said
But what if I told you that he said you would burn in the fiery depths of eternal damnation if you did not believe in him ? 😲

If you have compelling evidence for the existence of Sasquatch maybe people might take you seriously or maybe even take offense.

@sonship said
@wolfgang59

Q. Why do Jews today celebrate Passover?

A. Because previous generations did.

And that is all - nobody has any proof of any exodus.

Is this an infinite regress ?

The Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake is an annual event held on the Spring Bank Holiday at Cooper's Hill, near Gloucester in England. It was traditionally held by and for the people who live in the local village of Brockworth, Gloucestershire, but now people from all over the world take part.

From the top of the hill, a 7–9 pounds (3.2–4.1 kilograms) round of Double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down the hill, and competitors then start racing down the hill after it. The first person over the finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese.

The first written evidence of cheese rolling is found from a message written to the Gloucester town crier in 1826, though even then it was apparent the event was an old tradition. - Its exact origin is unknown (possibly pagan, possibly that it evolved from a requirement for maintaining grazing rights on the common).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper%27s_Hill_Cheese-Rolling_and_Wake

@moonbus said
Let’s turn this around the other way, shall we? Suppose there were no consequences, no lake of fire waiting for those who did not believe (that Jesus was God), and no heaven for those who did believe. Would there be any compelling reason to believe (that Jesus was God)?

Buddhism, for example, is very gentle in this matter. Buddhism does not claim that you will suffer etern ...[text shortened]... , neither a promise of good ones later nor a threat of terrible ones later. Just a blessed life now.

Tons of reasons, unlike any other person in any other belief system, Jesus' life was foretold, He came, and He came for several purposes, to show us in terms we could understand what God was like. He made claims one of which He said He was going to be killed and rise from the dead, then both of these things occurred. As I heard another say last night, people who rise from the dead after predicting it have credibility.

You should note too, the Bible isn't filled with Hell fire and brimstone, not in the OT is there much said or implied about it, not in any of the letters in scripture do anyone speak much of it either. Jesus who came to save us was the warn to really sound the alarm about Hell, of all those that you may have thought would have screaming about it, it is Jesus not Paul who informs us of Hell, it was Jesus not James who really speaks about Hell. So it wasn't a follower that informs us, but warnings come from God Himself. As such it should be given a lot of thought, as everything else Jesus said, not to do so wouldn't be wise.

@kellyjay said
You should note too, the Bible isn't filled with Hell fire and brimstone, not in the OT is there much said or implied about it, not in any of the letters in scripture do anyone speak much of it either. Jesus who came to save us was the warn to really sound the alarm about Hell, of all those that you may have thought would have screaming about it, it is Jesus not Paul who inf ...[text shortened]... h it should be given a lot of thought, as everything else Jesus said, not to do so wouldn't be wise.

Do you really believe you can coerce moonbus into joining your religion by both [1] alluding to the ridiculous revenge/punishment supposedly awaiting him if he doesn't join, and [2] trying to play down ridiculous revenge/punishment supposedly awaiting him if he doesn't join?

@divegeester said
My disdain is aimed at you and your misrepresentation of the nature of God.

So if you were to represent God correctly how would you do it?

‘I love you so much that regardless of whether you believe in me or not you will be saved.’? Dive 3:16

@dj2becker said
So if you were to represent God correctly how would you do it?

‘I love you so much that regardless of whether you believe in me or not you will be saved.’? Dive 3:16

The issue is a distorted view of God! It is actually not a personal failing but profound questions!
Can a loving God judge and condemn?
Can a righteous God give mercy for sinners?
Can a good God not condemn the wicked and sinners?
Can a just God let go of crimes and let the wicked and sinners go free?
Can a merciful God not condemn?

Picking only one trait of God and ignoring the rest is a distortion about goodness, justice, righteousness and so, we are all sinners, we live in a perpetual state distortion due to our nature we see through the glass darkly. In order for God not to act towards us due to our condition, due to our actions of wickedness and evil, He would have to be not involved and uncaring about all. Being a hands on God who is concern with every detail of His creation, for His purposes, He has to be concern about every detail of His creation every sin, every hateful deed and word no matter how large or small each one is.

Jesus and the cross is the only solution to each attribute of God being fully justified in His response towards us, God crushing His sinless Son for our guilt redeems the sinner, by allowing us to take Jesus' righteousness for our own as He becomes our propitiation. God doesn't let us off to continue in our unrighteousness we need to take God into our lives, conforming us into the image of His Son through the sanctification of God, being born again.

Rejecting this leaves no option to stand before God justified, we can come to Him in any way we want, but when we reject God's salvation, it is like God saying, your will be done, and we have to live with that forever.

@caissad4 said
But what if I told you that he said you would burn in the fiery depths of eternal damnation if you did not believe in him ? 😲

No silly, you only get a fiery hell if you don't believe in climate change.

Dolts.

Here it is kids, global warming and collective salvation

https://www.islamicity.org/17148/climate-change-and-collective-salvation/












An Urgency In Global Policy

In the wake of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, as white male privilege reclaims its desperate grip on our future, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report comes out, informing us that we haven’t got much future left in which to avoid . . . I mean implement . . . serious change.

Meanwhile, the midterm elections percolate.

Our quasi-democracy —rife as it is with voter suppression and mainstream media determination to trivialize the issues at stake —remains, nonetheless, the country’s primary means of manifesting public values. Inconvenient as it is to the powerful, this thing called voting is how collective humanity expresses its will —and I believe this will, to paraphrase Martin Luther King, bends toward sanity.

I hope so.

This is about more than numbers and individual “interests.” As the U.N. report is trying to tell us, this is about evolution. We have to become a civilization that is not at perpetual war with planet that sustains it. As Avi Lewis writes, “The only thing that can save us now is the total transformation of our political and economic system.”

The U.N. report warns, in essence, that “humanity has only a dozen years to mitigate global warming and limit the scope of global catastrophe,” as Amy Goodman says on Democracy Now! “Otherwise, millions will be imperiled by increasing droughts, floods, fires and poverty. The sweeping report . . . urges immediate and unprecedented changes to global policy in order to keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius.”

And the primary urgency here is to stop emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which means, to wean ourselves from burning fossil fuels.

How is change at this level possible? I truly do not know, but I refuse to succumb to cynicism. I refuse, as I have put it in the past, to remain trapped in the comfort zone of helplessness. Our political system may seem to be caught up in the trivial interests of the powerful and the manipulation of the fears and prejudices of everyone else, but deep values are managing to emerge nonetheless. The Kavanaugh confirmation fiasco is an example of this, as women by the hundreds of thousands publicly opened their wounds, many for the first time, and challenged politics as usual at its core.






This is democracy beyond the ritual of voting, and it must continue. The infrastructure of privilege and exploitation is being washed away. This is not a simple process. Confronting paradox never is.

Necessary Social Shift

The transition we have to make is described with clarity and succinctness by Kevin Anderson, a professor in climate change leadership in the Department of Earth Sciences at Sweden’s Uppsala University, in his Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.

Noting that about 70 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide come from about 20 percent of the world’s population —that is to say, from those who live in relative wealth and comfort —he hones in his focus on what must change:

“. . . we have to move the productive capacity of our society from building second homes for professors or private jets or private yachts or large four-wheel drive cars — moving from that to building public transport, electrification, improved homes for everyone. So it’s a shift of that productive capacity, the resources and the labor from the . . . luxury for the 20 percent to the essential low-carbon infrastructure for all of us.”

What he’s describing here is a profound social shift, only partially because it seems to curb the rights of the relatively wealthy to live the way they want —from zooming cross-country in their gas-guzzling SUVs to taking a private jet to Saint Barthélemy. The essence of the change he is describing isn’t simply a parental or autocratic no-no to those with money. It’s a consciousness shift: from individual to collective decision-making in how we use the planet’s resources.

And the change Anderson describes ultimately holds not merely the consumers accountable for the destructive use of the planet’s resources, but the corporate, multinational producers as well. The two are, of course, interlocked.

Power vs. Sacrifice

What Anderson doesn’t mention in the interview, but what must be added here, is that militarism and war are also seriously part of the environmentally destructive wastefulness that must be curbed. Whatever its mission, whatever its strategy, whatever its tactics, war is ecocide.

The paradox here is that those who must give up their “rights” —their rights to create climate change —are those with the money and power to declare: no way. No ruling authority is going to suddenly emerge from the great beyond and outlaw private jets or Mar-a-Lago or, my God, defund the Department of Defense.

Facing up to climate change requires human cooperation at an unprecedented level. Avi Lewis puts it this way: “Transforming our economy and society on the scale this crisis requires is the most powerful opportunity we’ve ever had to build a more caring, livable planet.”

Could such an opportunity ever be seized? Perhaps . . . if failure to do so means the end of humanity. The rich have to see beyond their own comfort and profit. The politically powerful have to see beyond war. And we have about 12 years to make the shift.

This seems beyond the realm of the possible, except for the fact that something at this level is necessary. This brings me back to the uproar and the humanity that flowed from our wounds as the Kavanaugh hearings staggered to their conclusion. People see the need for change at the deepest level —change that nurtures the injured and the vulnerable. I can only hope that such change is reflected in the upcoming elections.

@dj2becker said
Being reincarnated into a roach isn’t that bad?

Maybe you can enlighten us, lol.

@moonbus

Buddhism, for example, is very gentle in this matter. Buddhism does not claim that you will suffer eternal torture if you reject Buddhism. It says that there are several paths to reach the blessed state, and that it is possible to reach the blessed state here, now, in this life. No consequences, neither a promise of good ones later nor a threat of terrible ones later. Just a blessed life now.

Could you enlighten us about Buddhism?

The successful Buddhist realizes that all the misery of life is caused by the desire. And he or she liberates from DESIRE of things and draws close to Nirvana.

The basic doctrines of early Buddhism, which remain common to all Buddhism, include the four noble truths : existence is suffering ( dukhka ); suffering has a cause, namely craving and attachment ( trishna ); there is a cessation of suffering, which is nirvana ;

Now His Holiness the 14th Dali Lama of Tibet very much desires freedom of his country from the rule of China. Since he still has this desire, this craving, is he a good spiritual leader of that nation as a Buddhist monk?