Originally posted by SwissGambitCorrection, 'OT-style killing-the-insolent God' shows up again in verses like 1 Cor 11:29-30:
The whole passage is interesting because it's the last time you see OT-style God make an appearance. That God preferred to solve his problems by killing.
I'm sure the later disciples were relieved to discover that God was no longer locked into doing things the same way. Plus, the Gentiles might not have bought in to the faith if there were lots of u ...[text shortened]... members. Good on Paul for recognizing that whole 'kill immediately' thing was played out.
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
The God of the Old Testament and New Testament are exactly the same God - He is both holy (1 Pet 1:16) and loving (1 John 4:16); He is able to save and destroy:
There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy ... (James 4:12)
Originally posted by jaywillThat may be a motive for establishing a religious power center.
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That wasn't the point. The point is that greed is a potential motivation to promote a faith, even if the promoter knows it is false.
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That may be a motive for establishing a religious power center. But that was not my point.
If Jesus taught us to call no man artiness.
I don't think there is much more that you have. I'll cut it short here.[/b]
And once you have your religious power center, do you just give it up once the gov't becomes hostile to you and your faith? I doubt it.
What you discribe is motive for hiding the Bible and locking it away. It is not a logical motive for writing the New Testament.
See above - writing holy books augments the power center. It allows you to influence people that you cannot meet in person.
Beats your going off on a positive non tangential error.
What error?
So far you have failed to establish motive for the fictional creation of Christ or for writing the New Testament.
That was the easy part, actually. The hard part is getting certain audience members to admit it.
I think your thought is too superfiscial.
I feel like I'm constantly having to pull you back to the matter at hand. I'm not willing to go any deeper unless we can get more on the same page.
Originally posted by Henry23OT God was more into the 'zap them on the spot' type killings. What's this weak stuff about letting them slowly get weak and die? That sounds more like natural death. Not OT God's forte at all.
Correction, 'OT-style killing-the-insolent God' shows up again in verses like 1 Cor 11:29-30:
29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.
The God of the Old Testament and New Testament are exactly the same God - He is both holy (1 Pet ...[text shortened]...
There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy ... (James 4:12)
Originally posted by jaywillHonestly, I've read the bible cover-to-cover more times than I count. I listened to many of today's christians talk about the book of revelations, too. Despite all that, your interpretation is new to me. It reads like a Marvel Comics storyline in which you think a character has been killed off, but they come BACK NEXT ISSUE~!
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Hmm. What chance is there to learn from discipline and behave more morally if you're dead?
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Physical death is not the end nor is this age the final age in which a man can have dealings with God.
If you bothered to read the Gospels you might notice a few parables ...[text shortened]... dren.
You seem to have no clue as to exactly how wise of a Heavenly Father God really is.[/b]
So what happens if you screw up in the 1000 year period? Can you get killed again? How many more eras and killings can possibly happen? Can God just give up on you if you never get it right and send you to hell instead of heaven?
Originally posted by SwissGambitYou read the Bible from cover to cover many times?
Honestly, I've read the bible cover-to-cover more times than I count. I listened to many of today's christians talk about the book of revelations, too. Despite all that, your interpretation is new to me. It reads like a Marvel Comics storyline in which you think a character has been killed off, but they come BACK NEXT ISSUE~!
So what happens if you sc ...[text shortened]... Can God just give up on you if you never get it right and send you to hell instead of heaven?
How do I know you are not mistaking yourself for the person you want to be?
Originally posted by SwissGambitI am not begging you to listen to me preach. You've made a decision that you take comfort in being superior to all religious people. Stick with that decision then.
Yeah. I was in a Christian home-school when I was younger. It was required reading.
You don't want the gift of eternal life, the next person may. Just step out of the line. No pushing please.
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Originally posted by jaywillI'm not reading this at all in what SG says.
You've made a decision that you take comfort in being superior to all religious people. Stick with that decision then.
SG is one of the more intelligent athiests on the boards an you'd do well to understand what he is saying.
Originally posted by knightmeisterAll you are saying is that you got this feeling and somehow I'm supposed to accept there is some truth out here, outside of your head, regarding that feeling.
What? Where did all that come from?
I am simply saying that Jesus knows what hurts us , he is acquainted with our suffering. He weeps within us. He feels our anguish.
He is not remote. He get's his hands dirty.
Sorry, you'll have to do better than string together a bunch of comforting sounding words.
Originally posted by ScriabinThey are indeed comforting words but they are also painful because it's through facing our pain that we find comfort. Jesus did not offer comfort the walt disney way , he died a bloody , lingering and humiliating death. That counts for something in my book. No longer can God be accused of being remote or unacquainted with death and suffering.
All you are saying is that you got this feeling and somehow I'm supposed to accept there is some truth out here, outside of your head, regarding that feeling.
Sorry, you'll have to do better than string together a bunch of comforting sounding words.
Anyway , I don't want to pick a fight here. I was impressed by your honesty and touched by your life story. I'm not offering you pity because you would not want it. I'm just saying that there are aspects of Christianity that are much closer to your philosophy than you realise.
"Do you have a world view? What are your presuppositions? Of course no position is the easiest to defend. So what do you have as an alternative to life's meaning as spelled out in the Bible?"
Read Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning -- the alternative to accepting a bunch of printed words that are no more true or valid than any other work of its kind is to choose your own meaning for your life and then live by that.
"What do you have as an alternative to what I portray as the truth about God and human life?"
Freedom and responsibility, combined with the desire to serve others, my family, my community, my fellow humans, my pets, other animals, I'm not all that picky -- just making sure what I do squares with feeling right about myself. I don't need to check in with anyone else about this -- after 6 decades of life, if you don't know by now, you never will.
" I don't think that being a follower of Christ is being religious. I think it is more like simply being in love."
I think it is more similar to a mental or personality disorder. You strike me as irrational. Further, you appear to be frightened of personal responsibility and anxious for some other agency to undertake responsibility for you - to take the burden of life off you. Accepting what you accept as true for the reasons you cite is simply an inadequate basis in my world view -- I take nothing at face value and I question everything that I observe happening as it happens in an effort to increase my awareness of and ability to distinguish reality. You, on the other hand, are not interested in what is real, what is happening now as it happens. You are content to leave all that to a convenient and irrational system of belief that has no referrant other than to its own jargon. You believe in a tautology wherein you have assumed, a priori the truth of your premise absent evidence sufficient to convince a rational, disinterested observer of the truth of your premise.
" No there is more than that, O Logical One. There is HISTORY. There is the events of HISTORY and the impact and meaning of those events."
You are very quick to accept as historical fact, without qualification, that which is still very much in controversy among scholars who do not share your view or the views of each other. History, a subject I majored in so many decades ago, is not written on stone tablets by the finger of a deity. History is composed of words set down by humans - and whether they were set down contemporaneously with the events the words describe or later, such words may be objectively false or subjectively slanted for a given purpose -- I offer Josephus as a good example of this.
" The New Testmament is not a "Once Upon a Time in a Far Off Land" kind of document. It is rooted in historical events."
Rooted, perhaps, but it has flowered into a fantasy, actually several or many fantastic versions of the same implausible yarn. That anything happened in any part of either the OT or the NT just as written is something you simply cannot demonstrate to me. All you can do is assert it as true based on an assumption in your mind that it is so.
" We have good reason to believe tha God was revealed interacting with mankind in human history. Did you notice that the Western world divides history into two periods - [b] B.C. "Before Christ" and A.D, "In the Year of Our Lord."
Yes, you have "good reason" and it is called wishful thinking or faith. But WE don't have good, rational reasons to accept any such thing happened at any time in fact back then in the real world. All we have are words written for the purposes of those who set them down, men who sought followers, men not that different from many today who gather thousands together under huge roofs and on broadcast media and deliver "the good news" in return for a few coins now and then.
In short, it is a business of sorts.
"Why does this one man from whom we hear little of except for three and one half years have such an impact on the calender? This is not to say everyone who has historical enfluence is Son of God or even good. But the Man Jesus occupies a class of people in human history of which there may be only ONE member - Himself."
Because his followers ran the most effective marketing campaign of which we know and it convinced an Emperor of Rome to believe them -- and his word was the law of the land, the Emperor -- that is --- And so the calendar changed because men in power made it so. That they chose to do it out of faith in the same fantasy in which you also believe does nothing to establish the truth of the premise on which this fantasy is based.
" I think it has to do with His claims, His deeds, the deeds of His followers. I think it has to do also with actual historical miracles of God associated with this man - for instance His resurrection from the dead. My faith is rooted in history not merely existential thinking on abstract philosophical issues."
What's a miracle, please? Seen any lately?
Originally posted by knightmeisterI'm not surprised that there are elements of Christianity not that far removed from what I choose as the basis for my life's meaning.
They are indeed comforting words but they are also painful because it's through facing our pain that we find comfort. Jesus did not offer comfort the walt disney way , he died a bloody , lingering and humiliating death. That counts for something in my book. No longer can God be accused of being remote or unacquainted with death and suffering.
Anywa ...[text shortened]... there are aspects of Christianity that are much closer to your philosophy than you realise.
I diverge only from my refusal to rely on that of which I cannot become aware and must accept as an a priori assumption as true. I won't.
Being vulnerable to such manipulation of what is the case and what is not the case has much more of a downside than an upside for me and, I think, for most of human kind. We have been led astray at the cost of too many lives needlessly lost, sometimes out of the best of intentions, all in pursuit of a fiction, something not demonstrably the case.
I have chosen to face what is real - life happening as it happens, including the pain of loss, my own physical pain, and not deny it. But I do it against a discipline that makes no allowance and has no room for the supernatural or irrational.
I live here and now -- that is what I know. I have lost one and he is not here, not now, but what there is of him that matters is still with me. I do not need to make that into some sort of theory or philosophy or have a religious basis for that. As any of the thousands of parents who daily suffer the kind of loss I do and the answer is the same -- we all go through very similar feelings and have very similar thoughts at different points in time.
I sound annoyed and I am often annoyed by the smugness, the constant preaching and recruiting and fund raising of religious people.
I feel the same way about just about all political groups, as well.
Everyone is so convinced they have to know the truth -- I am content to realize I do not know, cannot know the truth of the whole -- life, the universe, everything. I can accept my lack of control over life; I can accept that there always will be more questions than answers, more conjecture than confirmation. So long as people are willing to stand in the same posture, admitting they also do not know that which we do not and cannot know, I'm fine. So I'd rather wear a question mark around my neck than a cross -- the former at least means I'm trying to increase something useful to me and others, namely, the awareness of reality. The latter is, I'm afraid, simply of no relevance to me and my life because that is my choice to make. Anyone who claims otherwise is infringing on my rights, encroaching on my freedoms. What I believe or don't believe is no one's business but mine -- and I care not a bit whether I have a congregation of like minded people around me.
As it happens, there are sufficient people in my life who have more or less the same outlook. One must tolerate those who do not share one's outlook -- everyone is entitled to their own. No one is entitled, however, to deny me mine.
Originally posted by ScriabinI wear both a cross and a question mark around my neck. I think I have many questions. To me faith in christ is a messy unfinished business and a committment to reality as well.
I'm not surprised that there are elements of Christianity not that far removed from what I choose as the basis for my life's meaning.
I diverge only from my refusal to rely on that of which I cannot become aware and must accept as an a priori assumption as true. I won't.
Being vulnerable to such manipulation of what is the case and what is not the ca ...[text shortened]... k -- everyone is entitled to their own. No one is entitled, however, to deny me mine.
I firmly believe that if we commit to finding ourselves and facing what is true and real about life then we end up getting closer to God anyway.
I like the way you think and applaud it. I loved those Frankl quotes , have you got any more?