The Beatles were bigger than Jesus, they may still be. Jesus keeps getting smaller.
There are right leaning evangelical denominations that have woman ministers - Pentecostals for one.
Nice!
There’s some good ones here. If you want to dig deep, I have one in the vault that actually made one Christian cry. But it’s not an easy one-liner.
In all the Christian religions, it seems to me that the practice boils down to doing the “right things” (or believing the right things or…whatever) in order get the reward of Heaven or punishment of Hell. It all boils down to the disposition of the soul after death. Something in the dreariness of living results in a soul that’s ready for judgment. So, here’s my question…
First, name someone who’s definitely going to Hell…Manson, Hitler, Obama (if you’re in Texas). Second, name someone saintly, who’s definitely going to Heaven. Now, supposing some tricksome Angel had switched the souls of those two before birth. Would it have made a difference?
To my mind, this has long been the ultimate trick question:
If YES, then the soul was good or evil to start with, and the exercise of living was just pointless. An all-knowing, all-powerful God could sort us out without putting us through the trials of life.
If NO, then the behavior is the result of the living creature, and the soul is just along for the ride. Which is unimaginably cruel…a perfectly good soul gets thrown into Hitler’s body, and winds up spending eternity in Hell. How fair is that?
There’s an equivocal answer: The soul may lean good or bad, but then be changed by life, resulting in a different Heaven/Hell outcome. To me, that’s just a variation on NO, as all human circumstances differ.
This line of thinking goes all the way back to when I was in gradeschool (Catholic school). Someone suggested to me that life was a test, and I answered that the test wasn’t fair–some people got hard ones and some people got easy ones.
That line of thinking carried me a long way down a path of recognizing the fundamentally ridiculous notions underlying pretty much every organized religion. Back when I cared to argue about such topics, I used this line of argument to ruin several folks’ religions for them. Now, I ask myself, was that a nice thing to do, or was it a mean thing to do? Increasingly, I find that I can’t decide. Maybe the answer to that is clearer for you.
Of course, if you just want to be mean, there’s the obvious question of why something as awful as a crucifixion would “pay for” our sins or “save our souls”. In a world full-to-plenty of people hurting each other, how can being a willing party in one more horrific act somehow make up for other awful acts? (There’s way too much blood; I know, let’s add some more blood. That’ll fix it.) Seems to me that if Jesus were going to save our souls, it would be by doing something really nice, not by passively allowing Himself to be tortured. That is, unless God really likes human suffering…if it’s hurts bad enough, I might just let you and your friends into Heaven. So you can be with Me.
-VM
I think this leaves out some middle ground. Suppose (as I do) that every baby is pretty much a tabula rasa, and it is life’s circumstances that turn people good or bad.
But we, ourselves, participate in those circumstances, and we make decisions that influence our own destiny. The good person – and the bad person – are, in part, their own creation. Their status is, in part, the consequence of decisions they make during their life.
At some point, Hitler chose to be nasty, cruel, hate-filled, and ugly. It wasn’t wholly his choice; society worked on him, providing him with plenty of material. But he lived in a society that had art, philosophy, science, religion, and a vast array of good examples.
I must reiterate my emphasis on to some degree. I believe it is fallacious to say we are wholly responsible for our individual estates. But it is also wrong to say that we bear no responsibility for it at all. We’re a learning-adaptible species, and we participate materially in our own growth, education, and development.
There was probably still room for Hitler to turn his life around, perhaps as late as 1925. Many, especially Christians, might even say he was not beyond hope until the day of his death.
Another difficult question, and this is kind of a big one I think, is “what did Jesus actually do?” By the time he was ten or twelve, there can be no doubt that he already knew what was laid out for him, it must have been kind of like walking through a scripted play. He antagonized the Pharisees, because that was what he had to do, to make dad’s scheme come to fruition. It is rather like he was one of those angels, who are just factory floor workers for the big guy, with no volition of their own. He was basically just following orders (not to, like, godwinize the thread, or anything).
He was jehovallah in the flesh, so the suffering on the cross must have seemed pretty trivial. Then he “died” and, as I understand it, spent a day and a half in Tartarus or whatever (the accounts seem to have him dead for something like 38~40 hours, from Friday evening to Sunday morning, but they keep saying “3 days”, which seems a bit off).
But what did that amount to? Count the eternal or quasi-eternal existence of the Son of Man, the ridiculously vast Gallifreyan timescale of his life, then measure the suffering on the cross against it. Must be glad to have gotten than done with. Now he is a happy camper in the city of glory, sitting next to dad and helping football teams win important games. In retrospect, it sure does not look like he sacrificed much.
They’d only answer about 4 questions per service. The questions could be about 3 sentences - not just one-liners. I’d love to hear what you said to that Christian.
Yeah in the type of Christianity in that church they’d believe you’ve got to let Jesus into your heart and live for Jesus and repent, etc.
Gandhi would be definitely going to hell according to the church I attend. A serial killer/rapist who genuinely repented before they died would definitely be going to heaven.
In the Old Testament sacrifices kept God happy - even right in the beginning when Cain and Abel gave sacrifices. There was also the “passover” where an angel of death “passed over” houses that had lamb’s blood painted on the door. Jesus is the sacrificial lamb.
I don’t think Jesus suffering for a couple of days is enough to save people from an eternity of Hell. I think it makes more sense for Jesus to stay in Hell forever to be there in our place.
Seems to me that you’re talking about whether Free Will exists. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; however, what I was trying to dig into was the separating of the soul from these mortal remains. I think that, logically, soul/body duality as Christians conceive of it is absurd, and that’s what I’m trying to get at.
On the subject of Free Will, I don’t necessarily disagree with any of your points.When I try to resolve the question for myself (am I a clockwork robot or an independent actor?), I never seem to be able to come to a final answer. For me–for now–the question of Free Will is unresolvably relativistic: It depends on where you’re standing. From where I’m standing, I find it easy to believe that I’m an independent actor and you’re a clockwork robot. Which suggests that I don’t have a clear enough view to put much faith in my perceptions on this point.
-VM
Well, I was speaking, not writing, but what I wrote in my previous post is basically what I said, in a conversational form. I asked her those questions and, at the punchline, she started crying. When I’ve led other Christians down that path, they haven’t cried, but their existential discomfort was palpable, and lasting.
Exactly my point. What sort of loving AllFather accepts pain/misery as a kind of currency? Seems to me it would have to be a Being that gets off on the pain of His creation. Not saying that no such God could exist, but you won’t find ME in the line to worship it.
I like the way you’re thinking here, in the sense that it sounds like you’re creating a better plot structure than whoever wrote the Bible.
If time is an issue, here’s a quick-hitter for you:
Do you think that Job’s wife and children had hopes and dreams? Did their feelings or their suffering matter, to God or anyone else? Because the Bible treats them like the Disposable Crew Members on Star Trek.
It’s bad enough the way God and Satan treat the main character, but no one seems to care about an entire family that was, essentially, collateral damage.
We all seem to think that we’re Captain Kirk in our personal stories. However, for me, the Book Of Job’s key message has always been that, in the eyes of the God of the Hebrews, the vast majority of us are Disposable Crew Members, and our suffering does not matter, other than as a way of keeping score in some sadistic bet.
-VM
My tough question for Christians: How would you live your life if there was no Heavenly Payoff-if this was the only life you get?
That doesn’t strike me as a very tough question. The answer is “it makes no difference how I live my life if there is no God and no heaven”.
A Tough Question for atheists: If you knew the world was ending tomorrow, would you pay your credit card bill today?
Regards,
Shodan
Thank you ever so much for giving us “The answer”-hope you don’t mind if other Christians weigh in on the conversation.
As per your question, speaking only for myself, absolutely not-I won’t have the money in the bank until next Friday, then I’ll pay it off completely right on schedule.
Makes no difference to whom? Whether there is a God or not, I suspect that He does not particularly care whether I ever get to eat pizza again.
But I sure do.
Maybe it’s because I’m not exactly an atheist, but I think the answer is easy: “No, I wouldn’t. It probably wouldn’t even cross my mind, what with the world ending and everything.”
I suspect that this was supposed to have some deeper metaphysical meaning, but it missed. How about this: If you knew the world was ending on Monday, would you still watch Game Of Thrones on Sunday, knowing you’d never find out how the story ends?
-VM
Makes no difference of any sort.
If there is no God and no heaven, then all moral statements are meaningless, because there is no standard that can be shown to have objective value. That’s why Czarcasm’s question is meaningless.
[QUOTE=Czarcasm]
Thank you ever so much for giving us “The answer”-hope you don’t mind if other Christians weigh in on the conversation.
[/QUOTE]
No, the question has been settled once and for all.
Regards,
Shodan
That’s one perspective.
But consider a 22-year-old Army corporal from Indiana who dies in a tank that took German anti-tank fire while assaulting a German village in 1945. As we tell the story of World War II, we don’t tell his story. Of course, someone cares about him; he left a grieving family behind. But YOU don’t know his name, or anything about him. His suffering and loss is just one tiny fraction of the aggregate sacrifice that people experienced during World War II.
But it had a reason – a very good and just one.
Right?
Now, suppose you didn’t know the specifics of that very good and just reason. Suppose you were three years old and that 22-year-old kid was your dad.
Does your lack of understanding change the validity of his sacrifice? Does the fact that three year old you can’t understand why your dad isn’t coming home make his sacrifice meaningless?
I say it doesn’t.
And I say that the suffering of both Job and his family is of similar dimension. You demand to know what good it was, and assert that the only value was a sadistic bet. But I say that you’re three years old when it comes to understanding what kinds of second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-order ripple effects came from the experience. And if you could comprehend it, I aver that you’d nod, and say that now you get it.
But of course I can’t prove this claim of mine.
Nothing has “objective value”. The notion of value is inherently subjective. I don’t see how adding God into the mix would change this fact. It just makes the math trickier.
By the same token, the “meaningfulness” of moral statements depends on the consequences of trying to live by them. You are suggesting that only consequences that extend beyond your death are meaningful. If there’s no heaven or hell, then it doesn’t really matter what I do, because eventually we’ll all die, the universe will end, and none of it will have mattered.
I understand how you can see it that way, and a lot of atheists seem to really struggle with this “dark implication” of the lack of a God. How can any mortal result compare to an infinity of happiness (or misery)?
Still, in spite of it all, I find that I really hope to eat some good pizza soon.
Regardless of what you or I believe, God either exists or He doesn’t. Either Heaven awaits you or it doesn’t. And you won’t KNOW until it’s too late. And you SURE haven’t convinced me that the whole idea isn’t puerile wishful thinking.
So, like Schrodinger’s cat, your idea of “objective value” (i.e. “declared valuable by God”) hangs in the limbo-world of I-don’t-really-know.
Most of us who are NOT believers think that personal morality matters. That the moral stands that you take are significant and meaningful, even if there’s no Heaven hanging in the balance. We even go so far as to suggest that you should have some moral code independent of your religious beliefs, and we keep trying to trick you into revealing what it might be.
And when you say, “morality is whatever God says it is, and if there is no God, then there is no morality”, well, that just sounds like a cop-out to us.
-VM
Aren’t you telling it, like, right now?
Well, of course I don’t. I don’t know your name or anything about you, either. I also can’t fathom what this could possibly have to do with what I was saying. That is, unless you think I’m God.
I’ll just say right now that this whole thing about “meaningful sacrifice” is not a path you want to go down with me. It leads to dark and uncomfortable places. Never mind, too late…
It seems to me that these, um, inspirational stories always hinge on someone who suffers, but for a good cause, or that it somehow leads to a good result. And it’s all part of God’s beautiful plan to defeat Hitler, or to make this guy’s short life valuable, or to convince a kid he should be happy he has no living father, or whatever. Far be it from me to undervalue the loneliness of American children, but I can’t help but think a much BETTER divine plan would have put a stop to Hitler BEFORE he managed to exterminate 6 million Jewish humans. And where is the beautiful outcome that makes their “sacrifice” meaningful? At least your soldier had some say in his fate; 6 million Jews did not.
Never mind. Forget the Jews…they were probably asking for it, anyway. Let’s go for bigger numbers. Throughout much of our history (and before), there has been a preference for male children. Our caves, campsites, and cities have been littered with the corpses of unwanted female children. In some cultures, we’ve drowned them. In others, we left them in the woods for the wolves. Or buried them in a hole. Or quietly suffocated them and claimed they were stillborn. Since we started clothing ourselves, how many babies do you reckon have been murdered by their parents? Millions? Billions?
Look I’m not judging the parents. Historically, surviving for any length of time on this planet has been damn hard, and it has resulted in the need for damn hard decisions. But, it’s the world God gave us, right? My question is this: Where are the fifth-order ripple effects that make these “sacrifices” beautiful?
Looking at the whole of human existence, where is the happy ending that makes all this human suffering beautiful and worthwhile? Wait, let me guess, it’s in Heaven, right? Basically, you’re saying the same thing people have been saying to each other thousands of years: Everything will be much better after you’re dead.
As I recall, at the end of the story, Job is restored and gets a new family. However, his original family remain dead and–apparently–forgotten. I suppose it’s a happy ending for him, but for them, I’m not seeing the “beauty” in the this outcome.
God has won His bet, and Job is happy again. As for those Disposable Crew Members? Their sacrifice was so meaningful to God that they were never mentioned again. How many happy endings do you think God can give out, anyway?
I think your claim boils down to the notion that there is a benevolent God watching over us and somehow turning our suffering into beauty. And I say that a God that smiles down on suffering and finds it beautiful is a sadist. Pray to Him if you like. I don’t think it’ll do you much good.
-VM
This is where the theology becomes problematic. A person’s soul can only be saved by accepting the “sacrifice” of jesus, in the belief that it will redeem the soul from the stain of original+actual sins. Which means a believer can commit the absolutely most heinous act, the get all right with the lord, and if the believer times it right, so that repentance always follows transgression, up to the final breath, heaven will await. By that measure, if Hitler said a passel of hail mary’s or whatever in the bunker, and received communion before putting a bullet in his head, he could be walking streets paved with gold in the afterlife. If Ted Bundy got right with jesus before the executed him, he could end up strolling through the pearly gates.
Which is to say that redemption faith has more potential to support monsters than does atheism. For an unbeliever, if death leads to the void of nonexistence, there is great motivation to make the best of what we have here, right now, because it is all we will ever get to have.
Well, that shit wouldn’t fly with the Catholics. Suicide is a mortal sin. So, if you’re picking a Christian denomination, do choose carefully.
Well, this argument won’t probably won’t phase any of the believers, but TO ME, this whole paragraph is a total keeper. Particularly the part about eating as much pizza as you can. (That is what you meant, right?)
-VM
As long as it is not that crap that Peyton Manning is always shilling for. That stuff is beyond redemption. Support your local pizza parlor.