So, medstar, it isn’t as if you were new to religious teachings entirely. 
This makes the situation different from what I thought I understood from your previous post. Although I am an atheist, I have more respect for someone who takes on a belief after having at least a basic understanding of said belief. In most cases, putting your entire trust in a belief system without first knowing what it is you’re getting into in the first place can lead to disappointment and disallusionment, or worse yet self delusion.
May the road you choose to travel on be filled with hope, and may your final destination be all that you desire.
Esse quam videri. The ideas given to me are for me, only me, and no one else but me. I do not hold you to my standards. Do you understand?
Perfectly.
God sends you messages.
God sends other people messages that contradict your messages.
Now, which of these following statements are true:
- The messages God sends you are real, and the ones others get are fake.
- The messages that contradict are from different gods.
- The messages that contradict are from the same God, and he’s crazy.
- There are no messages from God.
- Though he tells some people to love, and others to kill, and others to gather power, the messages somehow do not contradict, and we are supposed to shut up and not question that which on the surface just doesn’t add up.
It’s nice that the ideas he gives you are for you and you only, but it follows as certain as a day in court follows a night of drinking ouzo that this means that God may be giving other people a totally different message, and thus you shouldn’t be trying to spread your message because, and I quote,“The ideas given to me are for me, only me. and no one else but me.”(emphasis mine)
- People say He has told them to kill when He hasn’t.
- Your own perceptions are tainted by bias and prejudice.
- Each of us has a consciousness separate from everyone else.
- Subjective experience is a valid epistemology.
- You don’t really care, you just enjoying stirring up enmity.
Any or all of those will do.
- Perceptions (including those of “true messages by God”) are always amplified by the “fill-in” function of the mind’s “perception analyzer” (does anyone have the technical terms for that commonly-accepted function?), and hence one draws erroneous conclusions from a valid perception.
IMHO, this might include “God loves me and my brother and sister Christians” as the valid perception, and “…and not those evil sinners” as the erroneous amplification. Or “God demands that I speak the truth about His will” as the valid perception, and “…and that truth is…” as the erroneous amplification. Or, in a classic case, Mohammed’s perception that “God is one, and totally distinct from His creation” as the valid perception, and “… and therefore Jesus was not God, and it is the height of pious behavior to conduct a jihad against the unbelievers enslaved by their impious rulers” as the erroneous amplifications.
Lib, are you now claiming that you know what God tells other people when you say “People say He has told them to kill when He hasn’t.”? The question then is why should we believe that the messages you recieve are real, and the messages others recieve that differ from your messages are not? I believe there is a contradiction between saying “The messages God sends individuals are different because they are meant only for that individual.” and “The messages that other individuals recieve are not from God because they differ from the real messages God sends me.” You cannot say that God has not told people to kill without dismissing the parts of that Bible that show that he has done exactly that before.
BTW, I see that we have yet again reached that point in our conversation where you claim that you know my thoughts and motives. And yet again you are wrong. There is a real conflict here between personal reality and collective religious thought that I think needs to be resolved, and I don’t really see a solution in the claim that messages from God can be both personal and universal.
Czar, you seem to be saying that you know what God thinks and how He is perceived by others, including me. If that’s the case, I don’t know why you’re asking me anything. Because you would already know that while our reference frames are subjective in this temporality, God’s is objective since His is eternal. You would also know that there is nothing needing resolution other than your own personal conflicts that you’ve been expressing in quite some detail. And of course, you would know that God is not our perceptions. I guess the problem that I have with your intimate knowledge of all this is your express skepticism that any of it is true. Therefore, what you are skeptical of is your own perception. And that’s pretty neat in a Salvador Dali meets Albert Camus kind of way.
Who’s telling us that he knows what God tells other people?:rolleyes:
Look, I don’t have to perceive how you view Jesus-you have told us outright in this and other threads. What I am doing is asking about the consistancy of having a personal religion with the need to describe this religion as suitable for others, especially if the personal religion they have conflicts with yours. Nowhere have I said that that the way you view Jesus is wrong(though I believe I have mentioned that the way you describe the relationship as vague to me.) BTW, If the subject I bring up is the consistancy of someone else’s religious views, my personal beliefs have no bearing what so ever on the conversation being held, do they? Either your views are consistant or they are not.
Quote from Czarcasm, "Although I am an atheist, I have more respect for someone who takes on a belief after having at least a basic understanding of said belief. In most cases, putting your entire trust in a belief system without first knowing what it is you’re getting into in the first place can lead to disappointment and disallusionment, or worse yet self delusion.
Exactly, Czarcasm. My faith is uniquely my own. No one else has the same exact relationship with God than I do. Therefore,I am in no position to judge anyone else’s relationship with God and whether they are a good Christian. I’m not convinced that homosexuals cannot be good Christians because God has not made that clear, in my opinion. All I can do is live my life in as good a fashion as I can without focusing attention on someone else.
Now all bets are off concerning thoughtless jerks who talk while a movie is running.
I think it’s been pretty much established that such people are EVI*L, and will rot in a Hell designed as a tiny multiplex movie theatre playing extended 200 hour director’s cut of"Battlefield Earth", said theatre filled with screaming babies, and said theatre’s toilets being out of order.