FriendofGod, since evidently I’m not allowed to be angry, please e-mail me at esprix@aol.com so that we may continue our discussion in private, if you are so inclined. Thank you.
Esprix
Thanks for the explanation, Lib; it is essentially what I thought you would say. But I would like some clarification on one point. Poly believes that God made a new covenant with mankind with Jesus’ death. As a libertarian, would you say I would be bound by that covenant, since I did not explicitly consent to it, and God has given me all my rights back? Now, I am not arguing that “love your neighbor as yourself” is not a great thing and something we should strive for, I just want your perspective on this. I am not certain of the libertarian position on covenants as opposed to contracts anyway.
Seeing as the consensus appears to be the I am beating a dead horse here with FoG, I guess I will stop responding. I think anyone who has followed my previous reasoning can figure out what my response would be, and if anyone has any questions I will answer them (including FoG). And yes, FoG, I have read the book of Job, and my impression is basically God says “I made the world, so just shut your face.” Sorry, but I think we should require more than just “because I’m the mommy, that’s why” as a valid justification. We certainly wouldn’t allow it as a good defense for a parent who did as many nasty things to a child as Job had to suffer through. Should we hold God to a lower standard?
UncaStuart said:
[QUOTE
andros said,
I think I gotta agree with you on this one… the ol’ Atheism = Amorality chestnut, even ironically, would come from someone who had any understanding of what constitutes atheism.
[/QUOTE]
:rolleyes: Great, just great. Now I’ve got to be a “good person” to even be an atheist. Sic transit gloria munda! Well, if you want to convince me to leave my “evil ways” and return to the one true “non-god”, we can take that up on another thread. Otherwise, to quote the bard: “Will Smith doesn’t have to curse to sell records…”
Gaudere
(Note: the following are my opinions)
No one is bound by any covenant to which he has not freely and willfully consented. God’s covenant, though offered to mankind, is not with mankind. It is with, and only with, all those who love.
A nit: God did not give you your rights back; He gave you your rights. He is their source. (Libertarianism, of course, holds that you may define rights as natural, rather than divine, e.g., saying that your rights — and life — come from nature.)
Lest it be misunderstood, loving your neighbor is not good because it is altruistic; on the contrary, it is in your self-interest to love your neighbor because of who your neighbor is.
“To judge another is to judge God.” — Marshall Stewart Ball
Dang, that’s a mighty big chip on your shoulder, jm.
If you’ll recall, you said
You were the one who brought up atheist morality, not UncaStuart, and not I.
Once again, I am left with the feeling that you’re trying awfully hard to not believe. And failing.
Gaudere
Wow. I just realized that all three of my aspects spoke at once.
Gaudere wrote, er… I’m paraphrasing a bit
[QUOTE]
So, the development of agriculture and [lollipops and puppy dogs] is “original sin”.
[QUOTE]
Alright, I didn’t really do my math. Maybe the fall of man dates to 6000 BC, and agriculture dates to 10,000 BC. I really never studied history. The concept of the fall relates to the bondage of man. I doesn’t have to do with farming. I don’t remember Jesus being very anti-farm.
Gaudere continued with some math problem I couldn’t follow, then:
Spiritually? She wants me to go the the remains of the first empires and ask around! Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, Communist China. :eek: In the Yellow river valley such a question would get me shot. Help, Gaudere is trying to kill me!
xtianity isn’t a cure for original sin, but a cure for the punishment of original sin. A Lagrange point isn’t a cure for gravity, there just doesn’t happen to be any gravity there, because it all gets canceled out.
I said nothing about poverty. Gaudere is putting words into my mouth again.
I want you to provide some basis for your assertion that things were much better 6000 years ago. Simply saying we have more people now does not establish that they are worse off.
Well, then, how will Christianity cure the punishment for original sin?
You also said: “I said nothing about poverty. Gaudere is putting words into my mouth again.” However, I do recall this exchange:
It certainly sounded to me as if you were listing all those nasty things as “the resultant evils” of original sin. In fact, that is the only conclusion I can draw by you specifically listing a group of evils, then saying in the exact same brief paragraph that “the resultant evils are bad”. What are the resultant evils of original sin, then, if they are not “the wars, the famines, the abject poverty, the weapons of mass destruction, the suffering of the poor and the weak, etc.”? You mentioned that we have a lot of people around, and that the Sahara is now a desert, but that seems simply the fact that climates and enviroments do change over the years, and a steady food supply will encourage human population growth.
FriendofGod:
Regarding David B., you said:
First off, he is a Moderator, not an Administrator. On another board we are acquainted with, the Adminstrators do not delegate. Here, they do. David’s “job” is to maintain a level of peace and decorum in this particular forum while encouraging healthy debate. David tends to ridicule anybody who refuses to engage in discourse using a common set of assumptions. To briefly move out of the religion area, I can recall him ridiculing a UFO buff who posted “evidence” that had a very low level of believability. I do have problems with that common set of assumptions, and have said so elsewhere. The point is, you may not assume the existence and nature of God and the veracity of the Bible to try to convince people who are not convinced of His existence and nature and its veracity. And you are, fairly ably, arguing from those premises, and hence making no headway.
Now I have a fairly good online friend, former member of this board who has taken a sabbatical from here for educational reasons, who is a “soft atheist” as the term is used here. Because of his willingness to get at the truth, despite previous failed efforts, he underwent an experiment aimed at “connecting with” God, proposed by another Christian member. I am utterly convinced of the good motives of the proposer and the good faith with which the atheist underwent the experiment. That experiment met with mixed results. At the risk of ridicule, I would have to say that “God moves in a mysterious way” as regards that situation. For reasons known only to Him, He gave no clear evidence of Himself to a person welcoming such evidence in good faith and openness, and willing to undergo full Christian discipleship if called to do so by the results of the experiment.
Further, by dwelling on the “all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God” aspect of our faith, you are making God seem like a sadistic psychopath intent on punishing everyone from Cain to the present for their nature, who was bought off by the death in agony of his son, who created a world that, according to your probable viewpoint, contains lies about his work in creation, who demands intellectual adherence to a contrary-to-the-evidence-or-to-logic philosophic structure as the price of being spared eternal torture. In short, the parody of God that I have christened the Divine Weasel.
Fairies are quite real, and sometimes possessed of magical power. It’s you, not the rest of us, who condemns them! 
I have read, marked, learned, and inwardly digested the Gospels. While I see a minimal amount of evidence for the theory of the Divine Weasel in them, the general thrust of them is that of the God of love I have been trying to warp this thread and its predecessor around into discussing as originally proposed by Pepperlandgirl (remember?).
::: dyes hair in rainbow shades, hangs banner over stadium wall :::
Not “believes in the system of the substitutionary atonement.” Not “believes in the theory of the existence of the Holy Trinity.” Not “turns away from the world, the flesh, and the devil.” Not “accepts the doctrine of original sin.” Not “and believes in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and such other dogmas as I care to list off here.” And most especially, in view of the original post and some of the comments on the first thread, not “and refrains from engaging in sexual acts with somebody I disapprove of having sex with.” Believes in Him – accepts the Guy who clearly and evidently walked around in Palestine as Friend, and from thence, ineluctibly, as Lord and Master of one’s life. Because, even stripped of any miracles and suppositions about his status vis-a-vis God, what that Man had to say leads one to enter into a new and richer life.
Get off the “the Bible says” kick, and the attempt to justify God’s ways to Moderators. [In keeping with Housman’s advise, Poly hands Gaudere and David a draft ale.] Reread Triskadecamus’ post – and be humbled at the words of a living saint. Then respond to this post.
I’m sorry, but I’ve gotten tired of ducking the Bible passages thrown in one direction and the anti-theism scrap irony hurled in the other. They are both full of sound and fury, and signify nothing. And I’m reclaiming this thread to deal with what Pepperlandgirl asked way back when.
Andros wrote
jmullaney proclaims:
“I’m not a cow. I don’t moo.”
later a stranger shows up at his door…
“Pardon me, I’m here from the society of humans who moo. We’d like to file a complaint.”
“humans who moo?”
“HAH! See? You do moo.”
“Pardon?”
“I heard you just then, and I caught it on tape!”
“Er… and what are you getting at?”
“You moo, and yet you claim not to be a cow.”
“Well, I like to think I know a thing or two about cows.”
“Well, sir, I strongly suspect you are in fact a cow. This mooing of yours is just the evidence I’ve been looking for!”
Dang. Well, I’ll be over here chewing my cud.
Poly wrote:
:eek: Poly, you make it sound like this verse is talking about belief ala belief in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny! You can’t just uncontext something like this and use it to tear down FoG’s whole belief system.
Malt does do more than FoG can/ to justify God’s ways to man.
pin"where is my damned necktie"qy
Gaudere wrote:
Then wrote:
I’m sorry, Gaudere. Since the majority of mankind belongs to one of the major religions, I thought you meant all these problems were fixed since I last checked. But having taken a peek at the morning paper, I see you had mislead me. Here I thought the kingdom of god had come to earth. Shame on you. I confuse easily.
I don’t know if I can prove that people lived a more spiritual life 6000 years ago than they do today. Some people say that 50 years ago people had a better spiritual life. I can’t even prove that, and I don’t think it is either quantifiable or true. Did the Indian warrior of a mere two hundred years ago have a better life that his grandkid who runs a roulette wheel? Technological progress has been impressive over the past 100 years, but it is always a double edged sword, and that is not what I’m talking about. I’m not a Luddite.
You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Er… but, I gotta get back to work now. I will try to explain.
Man does not live by bread alone, G…
Something must have happened with your quote of my post. I don’t know how those little ellipses snuck in. Here is my original statement: “Certainly, the tenets of nearly all major religions would be effective, if properly used, against famine or poverty, so what is it about Christianity that makes it so much more effective at dealing with these things?” [emphasis not in original] Now, all the major religions have a lot of stuff about love your fellow man, help the poor, etc. As a general rule, practicioners of all religions tend to fall a bit short sometimes. This includes Christians. However, if any of the “do good to others” faiths were truly followed, I think they would be effective against poverty, etc. So again, how are you arguing that properly-followed Christian tenets are so much more effective than properly-followed tenets of any other religion?
Some evidence would be nice, though. Here, I’ll help you: religion was probably more important since people didn’t have scientific explanations for things. I don’t know that this is evidence that the spirituality of the average shepherd and the average officeworker has changed all that much; simply believing that a God makes the lightning does not necessarily make you “spiritual”.
Yes, but it does help a bit with those famines you mentioned.
OK. I’ll just throw this out. Property is theft. Discuss.
Well, I agree entirely. I was talking, of course, about spirituallity in the xtian sense of the word, not the pagan one. (of course, now I’ll have offended the Pagans. Good. The atheists, fundies, and satanists might as well have the company). Now, you’ll say pagans millenia ago couldn’t of had xtian spirituality because they didn’t have x. Well, true. Then I mean spiritually in the sense of the xtian idea of the holy spirit spiritually. Ya know?
But j.c. wasn’t talking about bandaids. I don’t want to judge, but most people turn stones into bread on a daily basis. Xtianity seems to say that was wrong. Discuss.
Anyway, a man can’t serve two masters, I must get back to serving my corporate sponsers. I’ll check back in later.
Good lord, it’s like debating with a quote-a-day calendar.
OK, so we fell from spiritual grace around 6000BC. Christianity offers the best way to cure the punishment for this original sin, this lack of spirituality, because of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. However, apparently we fell from grace around the time that Judaism came about, which has the Holy Spirit. It seems that the pagan non-holy-spirit spirituality is superior, since until a religion with the Holy Spirit came along, we didn’t suffer the punishment of original sin. It kind of sucks when the cure is the disease.
Are you still saying that the population increase is the punishment for the original sin? Are you still saying that poverty and famine are higher percentage-wise now as compared to at 6000BC, and that this is punishment for the original sin? Can you explain how Christianity alone can fix this punishment?
Gaudere
Did I satisfy you?
Poly
You are in contact with Glitch!?
Please tell him hello, and that Edlyn and I love him!
Poly, i just wanted to say that I loved your last post.
The only problem I see is that… Well, to attempt some theological innuendo…
You’re preaching to the converted! :eek:
Yer putz,
Satan :wally
I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Two months, two weeks, five days, 17 hours, 3 minutes and 32 seconds.
3228 cigarettes not smoked, saving $403.55.
Life saved: 1 week, 4 days, 5 hours, 0 minutes.
J Mullaney spake and said:
Sure I can. In fact, I just did. :rolleyes:
Why am I justified in doing so? Because the one key point that FriendofGod and I agree on, which makes this debate worth continuing for me, is that the Christian life subsists in an allegiance to a Person, not, at rock bottom, in adherence to tenets of dogma. Even the classic Creeds take the form “I believe in God…” Of course the entire rest of the creed is a longwinded discussion of the characteristics of the God in whom “I” believes, but that’s the Greeks for you. I’m not saved by Grecian Formula 16, or even the new Grecian Formula 5! In fact, attempting to adhere to it would probably turn my hair grey if it weren’t already. It’s radical followership of Jesus that counts. And FoG will agree without reservation to that statement, whatever else in my posts he finds to disagree with.
Satan, you’re a Christian? That’s just too good to be true.