Yes. Thanks to both you and Diogenes for your responses.
Polycarp:
quote:
Would you acknowledge that people frequently use subjective proof to establish beliefs that are false. Would you also acknowledge that people have a tendency to believe and find evidence to support (adequate or not) what they want to believe? If yes would this acknowlegement increase or decrease your 99.99999% surety that god exists.
Yes, yes, and no – it would do neither. My reasoning here is that subjective beliefs can, of course, be true or false; the proof must lie elsewhere. And it’s certainly a truism that people tend to engage in wish-fulfillment fantasies – believing in that which they want to. However, insofar as my conscious mind goes (and I do feel I have a good handle on my subconscious motivations, but we both know they can be tricky, so I’m putting in that reservation) what I experienced and its aftermath was nothing I had any real interest in experiencing, let alone desired.
In the other thread in which we started this, you wrote:
“I think that God does exist in a form that manifests Itself as a Person who loves me and whom I love in return.”
As noted earlier I maintain that world as a whole is a fairly hard place and life if often problematic. Having a god who looks after and loves you sounds warm and fuzzy to a degree that many might be motivated to beleive it, even with scant evidence. So I don’t think I can take your comments at face value that this belief is not something you would have no interest in or desires.
quote:
Sounds like a nonsense statement to me. I think to have a personal relationship he would actually have to interact with you. I don’t think that experiencing an unlikely event, to which one got goosebumps qualifies.
With humbleness and absolutely no intent to get us back on a hostility kick, I feel that you’re reading something into what I’m saying here. It may be that I have not made myself clear. I have indicated two things, interrelated but distinct, regarding my relationship with God: a single overwhelming event of great impact in which I came to recognize Him as Person and present to me, and an ongoing sense of the Divine Presence (metaphorically) “hovering” and from time to time noodging and guiding me in what I do.
Neitzsche would call the latter the “herd instinct in the individual.”
- I can refer you to Lib’s efforts to demonstrate Him by logic,*
Please don’t. While I know you like him, I think he crosses the border into insanity when speaking of religious matters. I don’t mean this as an ad hom, it’s what I really think and why I won’t be wasting any of my time engaging with him. However, if you think he has any points which are particularly meaningful to you in this discussion feel free to bring them up.
And yes, I grant that there are tragedies and pathetic endings to lives, and that positing ‘spiritual’ growth – intellectual and emotional maturity and character development – as a possible partial answer to the Problem of Pain/Evil does in fact assume that bias. I said I didn’t have an answer for it; I speculated on a partial answer. Is it acceptable to you that we table the question of why human pain/evil exists in a universe claimed to have an omnipotent and beneficient creator?
Sure but only after pointing out that these tragedies seem to happen about as frequently as I would expect if there were no god in charge, or a god that doesn’t care. As such I think the evidence fits my atheistic world view pretty well and I don’t think I need to do any post hoc theorizing about growth and lessons.
- That it does exist does not disprove Him*
In your opinion. In mine he either wants the world good and can’t do so or can make it good but won’t do so. As such I think it may not disprove a being but it by definition disproves his being both omnipotent and omnibenevolent, but of course we can’t understand god’s ways. I will agree that this is not the focus of this thread.
quote:
I think you have contradicted yourself. If god wrote a clean operating system then he would not have cause these coincidences. Also, outside of survivorship bias, what makes you think that these coincidences are in your favor? What makes you think that these coincicdences happen any more frequently then they ought to given a world without a watchmaker?
You mean a good program should not have built-in safeguards against aspects of it crashing?
A program desinged by a perfect being wouldn’t need safeguards as it would never crash.
I see the “coincidences” as integral parts of a monstrously complex Plan. And, of course, there’s Eddington’s (?) famous comment, “The laws of probability not only permit coincidences; they demand them.” I’m missing where you see a inherent contradiction in my comment – please rephrase, and I’ll try to answer better.
I think the coincidences you see are nothing more than confirmational bias. That given equal probablity of events the world will screw you as often as it helps you leading to no evidence of a being helping you out and guiding you along. Though there is survivorship bias in that those who got really screwed are no longer around to talk about it. However testing my hypothesis in the past would be problematic, though I do think I could come up with a way to test my hypothesis going forward.
We could have you or someone else who trusts in the lord as a subject. Flip a fair coin 100 times. For every time it’s heads the subject would get a hug from their most favorite person. Every time tails comes up they would be flogged. If floggs vs hugs came up as often as we would expect from chance then I think this would weaken the benevolent coincidence theory. You up for it?
quote:
What do you estimate the probability of heaven as paradise is, vs. annihilation of your consciousness? What do you think is the probability of hell as eternal torment?
I presume from the few descriptive passages associated with the promises made that whatever heaven may be, it’s a sense of intimacy with God, comfortable and pleasurable, presumably with ongoing new input to pique interest to avoid any sense of boredom. In view of the fact that He promised it to those who follow Him, I’d give it 100% probability
So when you said this you really didn’t mean it?
“I don’t rule out total annihilation of my consciousness”
By the way are you basing your belief on god’s or Jesus’ promise here from other source than the bible. Jesus did make some other promises in this source that did not come true, I’m sure you are aware. So why the 100% certainty here? Perhaps that heaven was just another concept not to be taken literally.
Hell is an interesting concept to try to decipher. I reject the Hell-as-vengeance-on-unbelievers style of belief
Unless your source for Jesus’ teachings is different from mine, I think this is what Jesus taught. I don’t see how you can talk your way out of this and not have that emotional response saying “I’m lying to myself.”
it’s too much like “when my Daddy gets through with you, you’ll be sorry you picked on me, you big bully!”
I agree. However I feel that heaven is too much like “if you are good boys and girls Santa will bring you lots of presents for Christmas.” Remove your bias for accepting pleasant thoughts and I don’t see how you can disagree.
God does not punish by sending non-believers to Hell; they choose to pursue paths that inevitably lead there by the very nature of mankind, and his offer to save them from it is always open.
Luke 12:5
But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which AFTER he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
Matthew 13:41-42
The Son of man (Jesus) shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Romans 9: 14-20 NLT
What can we say? Was god being unfair? Of course not! For god said to Moses, “I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.” So receiving god’s promise is not up to us. We can’t get it by choosing it or working hard for it. God will show his mercy to anyone he chooses.
For the scriptures say that god told Pharoah, “ I have appointed you for the very purpose of displaying my power in you, and so that my fame might spread throughout the earth,” So you see, god shows mercy to some and just because he wants to, and he chooses to make some people refuse to listen.
Well then, you might say, “Why does god blame people for not listening? Haven’t they simply done what he made them do?
No don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to criticize god? Should the thing that was created say to the one who made it, “Why have you made me like this?”
Now let me guess, unlike the passages you want to believe, these one’s aren’t to be taken literally. Do you see what I’m getting at?
quote:
Are you going to tell me that the bible does not describe some pretty strange senses of justice? I think I can give you plenty of examples, as many or more than described in the Iliad. Though I know with your nonliteral interpretation you’ll just say those don’t count for some reason or other or say that we are too small minded to understand the full wisdom of god, bla bla bla. I can apply such statements with equal ease to the Iliad, so if you have a less generic line of argument let me know.
*Nope, I completely agree. But you’re (I think) operating on the assumption that the Bible is supposed to be (according to Christians) the infallible Word of God – I see it as the record of their growing understanding of how He operates and what He wills. *
Conveniently by your definition you can make god say just about anything you want him to. You make him fit your morality, not vice versa. Do you see what I’m getting at?
quote:
Well, that is clearly the god of the bible, both old and new testiments. Again, which is the reason why I started this whole discussion. If you throw away much of the literal interpretation from the bible you throw away much of what you base your beliefs on. Yet you won’t admit it. That is why I think your position and the position of all “reasonable nonliteral christians” is so intellectually dishonest. At least the literalists think they have proof of miracles and 1000 correct propheseys of the bible in which to base their beliefs.
Well, thank you! It is certainly wonderful to have you acquaint me with what I base my beliefs on; I had thought that I founded them on something completely different, and had been trying to explain that to you. I’ll have to introduce you to His4Ever; you and she, being literalists, will get along just fine!
I think His4ever is unreasonable to take the bible literally. I think that you think she is too. I think that you think that you are more reasonable than her in your outlook. I think you are wrong. I think believing in magic or believing in a supernatural morality or believing a supernatural being loves you based on such a shaky source requires an equal degree of irrationality as believing the earth is only 6000 years old while standing in a bed of fossils.
I think that most atheists on this board almost give you a pass on your superstitious beliefs because your geology and biology agrees with them and your morality more closely parallels what is often times their secular humanism than it does christianity. I’m saying that regardless of your admirable views on morality (which I emphasise are admirable), or your reasonable views on many scientific matters, your superstition still sucks. This is what pulled me out of my lurker mode.
Perhaps I should not be offended – but I’m going to let that paragraph stand, as a signal that you have pushed one of my buttons.
The truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you off.
I do not base my beliefs on the Bible. It is a very useful, if oftentimes flawed, reference point for information about God.
I’m pretty sure you said you follow the teachings of Jesus. Where other than the bible are Jesus’ teachings in print?
I’d like a bit more explanation of why you see my position as “intellectually dishonest” before I argue the contrary – it’s your assertion; your turn to do the explanation and defending.
I think I have been doing so througout this thread and the thread when we started. I don’t think I can be more clear than I have. When I compared your views to His4ever’s a few paragraphs up, that is the best nutshell I can come up with.
You’ve begun mixing apples and oranges in what you’ve said towards the end, and it feels like some of the remarks are personal potshots, so I will address them later when I feel less emotionally disturbed by them.
I don’t (generally) mean my remarks to be personal pot shots, however when you attack someones philosophy that makes up a large part of who they are it is hard not to feel it a personal attack. When one says they follow the teachings of Jesus and one points out a teaching of Jesus that they don’t follow, I don’t think that is a pot shot, though I expect it will get a visceral reaction. However, not to do so would be to teach with one hand tied behind my back.
Badchad, I apologize for bringing emotion into an intellectual discussion – but you would have gotten far worse from a wide range of other believers, and far sooner. Which is, of course, no excuse for me! The point is, one’s beliefs and are always of emotional value to one, and I try to do my best to “take my skin off and hold it at arm’s length to see if I can see what you see on it” – but like everyone else, I have my limits.
What if you were wrong in your outlook? You said that you would still live by your same moral code but would you want to know that you were wrong? Would you want someone to take the time to point it out to you, even knowing you would be offended in the process?
Seven years after having that experience, I felt the nigh-onto-irresistible urge (‘sent by God’ at least IMHO), totally out of character for me, to reach out to help a neighbor boy (M) in trouble. The consequences of that act brought a boy (C) who was his cousin’s best friend and his brother-in-law-to-be into my life at a time when C desperately needed a man whom he could rely on, who cared about him as a person, and the consequences of C coming to rely on me as a father figure and a source of emotional stability were such as, combined with his own insightful personality, he drew me out of my emotional shell and “made me whole.”
It took 7 years after your heart attack for you to help help someone? I’m not sure if I have your story straight, but I think that most people who have a brush with death want to make positive changes in their lives a little quicker. After which point you discovered that helping someone sometimes makes you feel better about yourself? I still don’t think this makes the god hypothesis, let alone the Jesus hypothesis, sufficient nor necessary.
For the record, since it seems we’re talking “Bible” at cross purposes, let me say quite clearly where I think there is validity in it, and where not. It’s an anthology of writings produced over a period somewhat greater than 1,000 years, in a variety of genres and using a variety of literary techniques. It also exhibits a naivete bordering on the superstitious about events – an earthquake is seen as God’s wrath, for example.
I got ya. The bible is valid when it confers with your current view on morality. When it doesn’t, it’s not to be taken literally for any number of long winded post hoc excuses. Loud and clear.
In this it is no different from the hundreds of other writings that date from before the Renaissance
Again I agree. This is much of my point. Part of the problem is that you want to believe that the some of the magic Jesus and heaven stuff is for real. The bigger problem IMNSHO is that you want to maintain that it is reasonable to do so.
BADCHAD –
Personally, I’d want to know I was wrong. I’d be less excited to have someone inform me that I was wrong, when what they really mean to say (all they really can say, in intellectual honesty) is that it is their unproven opinion that I may be wrong. Then it’s like someone telling me that a color I think is pretty, is not really pretty. Annoying, in other words. Disproof is compelling; opinion less so. You know the old saying: Opinions are like assholes; everybody’s got one.
I’d just point this out as an example of you walking the line of being a jerk, and egging POLY into disengaging from further discourse with you. He did not say for the seven years after his heart attack he did nothing. If a person says “In X year, Event A took place; in X+7 year, Event B took place,” you cannot infer that nothing else took place in between. This is not religion, it is basic logic. But by making this leap, you again obliquely insult POLY by drawing an unsupportable conclusion that nevertheless insinuates bad conduct on his part. I’m not saying he won’t talk to you further in light of comments such as these, but I will say I wouldn’t be surprised if he chose not to.
:: Patiently :: If someone takes the time to in good faith explain their position to you, and at some length at that, and you in return choose to construe the courtesy of that detailed explanation as “any number of long-winded post hoc excuses,” you are once again inviting the other conversant to disengage from further discourse with you. And he may. But as I said in the other thread, do not delude yourself into thinking that if you succeed in alienating your opponent into silence by insulting him repeatedly, your possession of the field will be construed as a “victory” by anyone who cares enough to follow this thread. It won’t be. That’s a tired old tactic here in Great Debates, and one that is widely understood to be beneath anyone who could actually support their position through relevant and persuasive argument.
Actually, the problem at this point is that you’ve failed entirely to explain why it is not reasonable to believe in that “heaven stuff.” As I’ve already said: It’s your thesis; you prove it. Oh, wait, that’s right – you can’t. Better go back to insulting POLY, then. Eventually even he will get fed up and wander off, and then you can congratulate yourself on “winning” this “debate.”
Oh, and thanks to DIOGENES and POLY and LIB for the explanation of the particulars of Q.
Jodi
You’re welcome! But Badchad has declared me insane. 
Huzzah!
He wrote (to Poly):
Speaking for myself…
If I thought a man were lying to me, or I had to examine the interstices and penumbras of his post to discern his meaning, I would not debate with him. But apparently, you have your reasons.
Sometimes love is warm and fuzzy, but sometimes it is not. It depends, of course, on what you mean by love. If love is a flood of chemicals in the brain, then love is always warm and fuzzy by definition, since the very chemicals themselves are designed to cause warmth and fuzziness.
But if love is the conduit of goodness, then love can cause sorrow, pain, and even dispair. How? Easy. Not everyone values goodness. Many of us delight in a beautiful summer rain, and aim our faces at the sky as we play catch-the-drops with our tongues. But some of us cannot bear even to have a drop fall on our countenance, and so we run for the nearest shelter that will provide an obstacle to the rain.
No. Morality is what Nietzsche called “the herd instinct of the individual”. It sounds like you’ve confused his views on morality with his views on conscience: the sting of the herd. He postulated that at one time, man disdained to be alone physically. He then extrapolated that conjecture into another, namely, that early man sought out not only the physical presence of others, but their validation of his worth as well. Of course, his premise presumes that an individual early man was just as content to be universally condemned as to be validated. It is actually fairly incredible to imagine that a man being beaten about the head and shoulders with sticks and stones is on his knees pleading, “More! Oh, please and thank you!”
I suspect that you ignore me because you find my argments formidable. Just as you are wont to neglect in general the full implications of what you say, so have you forgotten here that there is a gallery present. Its members are likely to interpret your ignoring me as intellectual fear — particularly since I have not been rude to you, but have addressed you point for point. But while you may feel free to pass on debating me, I will continue to assail your argument, tear it into pieces, and identify your fallacies. So, suit yourself.
And yet, you do. In fact, that is why you are here. If it didn’t matter to you one way or the other, you wouldn’t care about whether anyone shares your worldview, or whether Poly holds his. You are theorizing growth and lessons post hoc your observations about the world around you. You posit growth as the shedding of what you perceive as superstitions and you declare the lesson to be that there is no god.
Even so, your view is naive and otiose. Things are bad enough with so many people obstructing goodness so much of the time. If there were no goodness facilitated at all, I shudder to imagine the moral chaos. There would be no charity at all; there would be only the warm and fuzzy feelings brought about by doing whatever is necessary to rise to the top. All other men would be a threat to you by their very existence, and humanity would be a Nietzscherian nightmare of murder, consumption, and rape.
It is in fact simple to understand, depending on your epistemology. You have not established that forcing goodness upon a person against his will is itself an act of love, or facilitation of that goodness. It rather seems to me that forcing goodness upon a free moral agent who is not interested in what you offer is akin to tossing pearls to a herd of swine.
You have failed to show that God’s offer of goodness on His part is tantamount to a reception of goodness on your part. Even a staunch materialist like yourself can look around him and see countless examples of unrequited goodness, people who are good to others but who are spurned and abused in spite of their goodness. You blame one free moral agent (God) for the sins of another (me).
You have not established that God’s “program” crashes.
It is interesting that a man who cowers away from a challenge offered to him offers up one of his own. But unlike my challenge to you, yours to Poly is disingenuous and Neanderthal in its conception. God submitted Himself to be flogged by vicious and spiteful men who, like you, presumed that their display of evil proved his impotence.
The believer in your test would rejoice equally in the hugs and the floggings, and would interpret both as God’s facilitation of goodness. After all, when the rug of temporality is pulled out from under your feet, you stand naked in your immorality while the one whom you are hugging and flogging stands clothed in God’s own righteousness. Your coin flip test proves nothing except that you are capable of evil.
A rather astounding claim. I know of nothing that merits accusing Jesus of breaking promises. He bore the sins of the world. He gave Himself over to its judgment. He rose from the dead. And He returned in His full glory and power. What promise do you think He did not keep?
Because I’m intellectually honest. The fact that you are free to choose heaven or hell is definitively contrary to your notion that hell is for vengeance. Vengeance is “infliction of punishment in return for a wrong committed” (American Heritage). Inasmuch as God is willing to forgive your wrongdoings, your charge that He is vengeful is dishonest.
The only man we know of who is in Paradise with Jesus is a convicted criminal. Therefore, your argument rings hollow.
I have the power to shoot my wife, but that does not mean that I compel myself to do so. Interestingly, the entire context of the snippet you’ve provided confirms what I’ve already told you about your errant perceptions of what you call God’s “murders”.
I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. — Luke 12:4-5
Death of the body is trivial. That is the point of the passage. For one who decries cherry-picking, you seem enamored of it yourself.
And here are the rest of those cherries:
The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. — Matthew 13:41-43
I have ears. And what I hear is that His angels will escort us to wherever we want to go. Why would God force people who despise goodness to remain in His company? That would be rude.
You also quoted Romans, but sometimes Paul had his share of bad hair days. I can’t speak for Poly in this, but I do not worship Paul. If we are to allow Badchad his erroneous interpretations of the teachings of Jesus, then the least we can do is allow Paul the same.
What, did you think you were opaque?
We take the teachings of Jesus about heaven figuratively as well. We don’t really think that heaven is a field with a pearl, or a house with rooms, are any of the other images in His parables on heaven and hell. That’s the whole point of parables. They are metaphorical analogies.
Yes, but you’re wrong. By describing God as the Facilitator of Goodness, I am indicting myself since I often obstruct goodness. If I were fitting Him around my morality, I would describe Him as the facilitator of whatever I enjoy.
I rather think that if I were to deny God’s existence, it would be like “believing the earth is only 6000 years old while standing in a bed of fossils”. When I see His grace and power all around me, I am a fool if I deny Him. Just because you are blind does not mean that I would see the world more clearly if I would put on a blindfold.
I cannot imagine a more pointed insult aimed at the atheists on this board. I have seen the testimony myself from many atheists here who have expressed how they envy him his faith, and how they wish they could share it. You accuse them basically of pitying Poly for what they perceive his delusion. But in fact, that’s exactly what you and the other few hand-stabbers here do. You are very much like the man who has declared, “I believe it is bad luck to be superstitious.”
Ah! Then you at least accept the Bible as an authentic account of a historical figure. You will then accept that His Pentacostal return imbued countless others with the authority to give accounts of His teachings. Here is one. And here is another. There are quite a lot of them.
But it still doesn’t make any sense. You have an incredibly bizarre discernment of prudence. You refuse to debate a man whom you view as insane, but choose to debate a man whom you view as dishonest. If your purpose for delurking were as you have stated, it would seem that you would dismiss the dishonest man and target the insane one. After all, every argument from the dishonest man is disingenuous and may be given a boilerplate response of “You’re a liar”. The insane man, however, would make for a much more interesting debate. He would be like the proverbial box of chocolates.
So, why do you bother explaining anything to a man whom you perceive as immoral? Oh, wait. You actually believe that Poly’s morality is, what was your word? Admirable, I believe. Yes, that’s what you said. In fact, you felt a calling to emphasize that his views on morality are admirable. But he is dishonest. But his morality is admirable. But he is dishonest. But his morality is admirable. Do you see what I’m getting at? 
The fact of the matter is that there is no more intellectually or morally honest person than Poly, and I know that for a fact. Just the other day, as one example among many, I called him out for what I perceived as a moral infraction. His response? He thanked me, and he expressed regret for what he had done.
Oh, dear lord! :eek: You mean you presume that you are teaching here?
[…shudder…] That’s rather like the football coach teaching advanced English, isn’t it? I mean, you don’t even believe that Jesus is Who He says He is, so how can you presume to teach about what He is saying? Bizarre. At any rate, your admission does much to bolster the agenda theory about you.
I disagree with Poly here. I myself am not intrinsically good. I love goodness, but not because I am good; rather, I love it because I need it. Just like I need an aspirin when my head hurts. But if I thought that goodness did not exist, I cannot imagine the monster I would become. I rather think that I would take out my migraine on everyone around me.
Since you’re presuming to teach, you might wish to work on your expository skills. I fear that you would teach that the theme of Atlas Shrugged is from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
You are certainly loud, but you are as clear as mud. I bet that at your parties, you play pin the donkey on the tail.
Um, the Scarecrow is in Oz. Poly and I are over here.
[all quotes are Libertarian’s]
I am a relative newbie, and merely a bystander here, but I have a couple of questions. If they could be addressed it would add clarity to my own thought process. Thanks.
Can you help me understand what leads you to this perspective? I’m not convinced that one needs to have goodness facilitated. From my personal perspective, the goodness that I attempt to display is internally motivated.
It seems to me that “teaching” was perhaps a bad choice of words. I read this as badchad trying to educate and elucidate regarding his personal beliefs and opinions. I don’t see a problem with that, even if that could be characterized as an “agenda”. On the contrary, isn’t that what this forum is for? Am I misguided?
Algernon
Who can say? Only you know for sure.
An opinion is a fine thing. I express mine here often, and on a variety of topics from cheese to chess. Sometimes, I witness about my personal beliefs. I’ve done that on everything from Jesus Christ to Andrew Jackson (the Indian hater).
But Badchad is neither opining nor witnessing. He is debating. He is responding to Poly in a point-counterpoint, line-by-line parsing of Poly’s posts.
It is exceedingly remarkable, to me at least, that a man believes he can educate a dishonest man, and he has said that he finds Poly to be intellectually dishonest. You don’t need a Bible to tell you the folly of trying to teach business ethics to a snake oil salesman. Moreover, if Badchad is elucidating, then what he is attempting to elucidate is Poly’s position, and not his own. He is sharing practically none of his own worldview (other than that he is an atheist), and yet is picking every nit that he can manufacture from Poly’s worldview, fashioning points out of straw, and then arguing against them.
With respect to goodness and its facilitation, you are right that it comes from within you. Jesus Himself teaches, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” That which is in you that values goodness is spiritual. Metaphysical. The goodness that is within you comes from your heart, where you are created in the image and likeness of God. It is by love that you express goodness so that a hungry man is fed, or a naked man is clothed, or a lonely man is visited. Whenever goodness flows from you to another moral agent, recall this discussion so that you will know that it is the conduit through which that goodness flows that I worship and call God. Or love.
I think Libertarian and Jodi, between them, have said most of what I need to say. Two comments remain, though:
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I had my conversion experience in 1983. I was led to do a lot of things in the interim. The heart attack was in 1990, the life-changing experiences with the kids in 1991. I know that my exposition of what happened in my life was not clear, and I happened to highlight three critical points with eight years between first and third. I didn’t mention, for example, the work my wife and I did between 1984 and my heart attack with the Urban Mission and Christian Care Center – because that was not essential to the exposition of the impact of my experiences on how I was personally changed by them.
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It’s my contention that the Bible is, not a standalone unitary document containing “God’s Word” (it itself says it isn’t – read the first and last verses of the Gospel of John as proof) – but rather as the evolving understanding of the Jewish people and the group among them called to follow Christ of whom God really is. Isaiah 6, 53, 55, 58, 61, and 65, Ezekiel 34, 36, and 37, and almost all of Micah, but particularly 6:6-8, serve as examples of this growing knowledge of the nature of God and the morality which he taught. Any one of the people intent on finding ‘Biblical contradictions’ can show you an equal number of passages where the writer ascribes to God the condoning or even commanding of genocide, hatred of others, and so on. What you’ve described as “cherry picking” is attempting to figure out what from this mass of confusing evidence is supposed to be the “real picture of God” – and I find that in the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels – keeping in mind that each writer had his own personal agenda and paints Jesus from a slightly different perspective, but reading past the individual portraits to the Man they all illuminate different aspects of.
This differs only in the fact that it relates to religious belief from doing much the same thing with Herodotus, Hecataeus, Tacitus, and Livy to get information about the history and cultures of which they wrote, weeding out the superstition and naive legend they report alongside factuality. To accept that a group called the Blennyes existed in North Africa and did X, Y, and Z, at the time Herodotus wrote does not require that I also accept that their faces were mounted on the front of their abdomens, as Herodotus reports with apparently a straight face!
Thank you Libertarian for responding to my questions. I appreciate it. Your answers provided the additional clarity that I was seeking.
That’s understandable about many parts of heaven being figurative that you describe, but what about any aspect of it? According to his teachings, does eternal life await for a few of his followers in some kind of heaven? Very few Christians would be believers if it didn‘t promise this. And the resurrection is important to even liberal Christians, is it not? Parables are often put there by others to help understand a story. This isn’t always the case with Jesus‘. Not all that heard his parables were meant to understand them, they were supposedly esoteric.
I mean, you don’t even believe that Jesus is Who He says He is, so how can you presume to teach about what He is saying? Bizarre.
Even among Christian scholars there is often heated debate over his teachings, especially his parables so Christians don’t have a lock on it. Some certainly seem more plausible than others. There are over 35,000 different Protestant sects of Christianity alone. Badchad asked why would a Christian follow some of Jesus’ teachings, but ignore others. Being an atheist doesn’t prevent one from understanding what some/many of the teachings are saying. His interpretation may not be the correct one for one sect or for any one believer, but it may very well be for another. You’ve got at least a 1/35,000 chance of being right at least once in any sect. Then you‘ve got millions of individual Christians that too, interpret the way they think it should be interpreted. I’m no scholar myself, but to quote Mark Twain, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible I can’t understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
He bore the sins of the world. He gave Himself over to its judgment. He rose from the dead. And He returned in His full glory and power.
So did many other crucified saviors that came well before him as has been pointed out. You seem like a very well read person to me so surely you‘ve read about comparative religions and seen their parallels with the Bible. Why do you keep thinking Jesus is so unique?
Since polycarp had wrote that people were convinced that some event happened, and when he didn’t address a one page post I wrote earlier addressing this which dealt with the resurrection, I’m hoping you can, but keeping this in mind: If the higher critics are correct that the miracle stories aren’t in the original drafts of the gospels, how can a believer be so sure of any event happening?
JZ
John, I apologize for missing that in dealing with badchad’s rather lengthy disquisitions on my thinking.
In very quick summary form: Something happened on that first Easter morning that led people who had known Jesus intimately and were quite aware He was dead to believe He had arisen. It’s not a dateless, placeless event symbolically associated with the “burial” of the seed grain and its “rising to new life” – though the early Church did make much of that parallel, borrowed from the mystery religions, to be sure!
And while I personally would have no problem with the idea of the dead body of Jesus of Nazareth being raised and revivified, I don’t think that’s what happened. Prior to this He had been seen as a human being like any other, a miracle-worker to be sure according to the accounts, but limited by the constraints of the human body. After the Resurrection He appears inside locked rooms, is unrecognized by two of His disciples until He breaks the bread, vanishes and appears like an IL&M special effect in a particularly cheesy SF movie. Yet they’re convinced it was Him – and they place a big point on “the resurrection of the body” (see the Apostles’ Creed on this).
Key to me here is two things: (1) the afterlife in both Jewish and Greek thought was one of being a powerless ghost, flitting to and fro but with no ability to do anything, other than perhaps to scare someone superstitious. Whatever happened was the farthest thing in their mind from seeing a ghost. (2) Paul goes into the doctrine of the Resurrection in great length in the 15th chapter of I Corinthians – and to me one point is signficant: “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” (I Cor. 15:44) Whatever one of these things is, it’s not limited by what mortal man can do (cr vv. 35-53 of that chapter). And it’s the farthest thing from what the Greeks and Jews conceived of as the nature of the afterlife.
Over and above this – and in consequence of it – the communion of all believers is for Paul the Mystical Body of Christ – and one sees Christ in each and every one of them (or at least one is supposed to, and they’d better be making an effort to be showing Him to people). This is very much metaphorical, but does convey a salient point about how His work is supposed to be carried out.
I need to get offline; I’ll be glad to expound more on how I read this in response to questions, if you like.
I appreciate it, polycarp. I purposely kept my post short hoping you would find time to address it, but knew you had an a rather lengthy inquisition to attend to. I was beginning to think you was purposely ignoring me. Grrrr… I’ve got a few questions, but most of it would take us further away from the OP and would create a major hijack. I’ll get them in here and there through other threads. Get some rest.
Thanks again,
JZ
My pleasure, John, and ask away.
I wonder if your familiar with John Dominic Crossan’s controversial theory that “Easter Sunday” actually occurred over a period of years. Crossan argues that it was not a single historical event on a specific day, but a decade long series of events, visionary experiences and evangelism which “resurrected” Christ in a spiritual sense. The emphasis on a physical, bodily resurrection was unique tp Paul, and in fact he fixated on the resurrection to the exclusion of everything else in Jesus life and ministry. In the gospels we do not see the resurrection as being the definitive event in Jesus’ life. (There is no resurrection at all in Mark).
Crossan further argues (very controversially) that Jesus was never taken down from the cross. It was exceedingly rare for Romans ever to remove crucifixion victims for burial. (so rare, in fact, that of the thousands of people crucified by the Romans, the reamins of only one victim have ever been recovered) That was part of the horror of crucifixion. The body was left on the cross to to be desecrated by carrion birds and dogs. There was no reason they would have made an exception for Jesus. Crossan basically asserts that the apostles woulde have scattered after Jesus’ arrest, and that none of them were witness to the crucifixion itself (which would have been a routine and unremarkable affair for the soldiers who carried it out). To paraphrase Crossan, by the time Easter Sunday rolled around, those who cared about his whereabouts did not know where he was, and those who knew did not care. This would have been an unacceptable fate for the body of Christ by the time Christianity was picking up steam, therefore, according to Crossan, Joseph of Arimathea was an apologetic fiction invented by Mark to provide Jesus with a proper Jewish burial.
I’ve only presented Crossan’s conclusions in a highly summarized form, and there are far more substantial arguments for them than what I have presented here, but I think they’re intersting nonetheless.
John Zahn wrote:
He taught that “God gives the Spirit without limit.” (John 3:34) He said that He brought a sword. That does not mean that He came to wage war, but to divide the world in two. His Word is like Ockham’s Razor, slicing through the bullshit and separating truth from lies. His message was so simple that He thanked His Father for hiding its meaning from the learned and wise, and revealing it to simple-minded people and little children.
Those who understand His parables are those who are seeking what He is saying. For example, people who seek mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation see in the parable of the Prodigal Son a story about themselves leaving home and returning to a loving father. But those who are score-keepers, who seek vindication and recognition for their good deeds see in the same parable a story about watching someone undeserving being showered with attention while they are ignored.
He taught that many are called, but few are chosen. This means that He pours out His goodness fully and indiscriminately, but many people do not value goodness and so reject Him. How could someone not value goodness, you might ask. Look around you. Each man’s heart is betrayed by what he treasures. How many people treasure having material success, wielding political power, and executing petty justice? When you have found one among them who values goodness above all else, you have found God.
You couldn’t be more right. When a name does not identify its bearer, the name is worthless and meaningless. It isn’t a matter of no true Scotsman; rather, it is a matter of there is no Scotsman. Christendom is a body politic, but the Body of Christ is a body of faith. God does not divide in accordance with the divisions that man has made. He uses His sword to slice squarely between those who value what He values and those who don’t. He values goodness above any aesthetic. He is the Facilitator of Goodness; that is, He is Love.
Interpretations arise because of mediation. Only when men see God face to face for themselves will the interpretations end. Some men, during their earthly lives, see God more clearly than others do, and speak His words with greater clarity. What they teach about God is close to the truth. Others see God only very dimly, and what they say about Him might rightly be suspect. Those who know Him know which witch is which. But one thing is for certain: a man who declares that God doesn’t even exist is in no way speaking on His behalf.
For the reasons that I’ve already explained — the four tenets of His philosophy. You’re right that I have read much about this, and what I have found is that there are many claims and little evidence. From Osiris to Mithras, the parallels to Christ are no more statistically significant than the parrallels between the sun and a tennis ball.
But I did not mention those things about Jesus in a context of showing Him to be unique. I mentioned them in a context of showing that He kept His promises. I asked Badchad to cite any promies that He had allegedly broken.
Lib, I appreciate your explanation on the parables. If there is an answer in there about heaven being something more than just figurative, I missed it. I’m not seeking proof of it, only your opinion if it exists anywhere other than in some metaphorical form.
You don’t strike me as a simple-minded or as Matthew describes someone with a child-like mind that one needs in order to get to heaven, so maybe you and Polycarp both had better start looking for a loophole. Seriously, the whole notion that the parables are hidden from learned and wise, but revealed to simple- minded people and little children that seek him out wouldn‘t survive a simple demonstration. And there are plenty of atheist scholars that I’m sure have as much understanding of some of those parables as the most learned Christian scholars, so unless little children were coached ahead of time, they would probably never understand what probably most, if not all of those parables meant. This looks like a promise that has been broken.
Virtually all religions have tenets that deal with some kind of a ethical code of good and love. I think some scholars have traced down probably all of the good teachings of Jesus to some precedent. Other religions talk about a Holy Spirit. Mithras and Osiris were sun gods as you already know. In a tu quoque manner, Tertullian responds to one of his critics: You [Pagans] say we worship the sun; so do you. Mirthras and Osiris have other similarities to Christ, but not as much as they have found with Krishna and Buddha. Do we have any disagreements on who was established first? Other than conservative cites that won’t give an inch, it seems established that Jesus is definitely the latter. Unless all my sources that I’ve read from are faulty in their scholarship, I don’t understand why one would say the parallels of Jesus are not statistically significant. Surely you see it as more than just coincidence. Since you’re already familiar with the parallels, there is no reason to start comparing them.
Thanks for the clarification. Of course the biggest promise he made is eternal life in some kind of heaven, which I think that’s how most read it, and since we can’t demonstrate one way or the other if this is true, maybe we can concentrate on a couple of others. It seems he kind of got all of those end times messages wrong, but again it has various interpretations to where conservatives sees no problem at all, while I think most liberals would have a wide array of opinions on whether or not he got it right or not. Another point of contention I have would be when Jesus said he didn’t come here to cancel the laws of Moses, but to fulfill them. Setting aside what is in Romans and other parts of the NT of what Paul says about any of the new law, and only concentrating on what Jesus has to say in the Gospels, did he cancel the laws of Moses or not?
JZ
Please provide the definition. I was unable to find the exact definition he uses. I did however find this little blurb:
Which illustrates the problem pretty well. The way you seem to define God in that proof does not rule out God being a non-aware, non-sentient, process. I’ve brought this up several times, MeBuckner and a few others have as well. If this is true, then you and badchad would not be talking about the same thing and your challenge would not have much of a place in this debate.
So, provide the definition please. Or don’t. Of course, it would then appear that you ignore me because you find my argments formidable. There is a gallery present. Its members are likely to interpret your ignoring me as intellectual fear. But while you may feel free to pass on debating me, I will continue to assail your argument, tear it into pieces, and identify your fallacies.
DaLovin’ Dj
DJ, you bring up the exact point where I find it difficult to deal with “deductive proofs of God” – when you start with axioms about “necessarily existent phenomena” and such, it becomes very tricky, and requires theological prestidigitation, to turn that into a Trinity of which one Member is a teacher who walked the roads of Galilee. Not impossible – but very difficult.
That’s why I work from an empirical perspective. He is – I know Him to be – and what He’s done in my life is profound, and something that I can share. There are clear objections to the historical and anecdotal evidence for Him, but they can be dealt with on a fair basis, without recourse to any fancy dancing.
(This is not to slam Lib, of course – I am amazed at his ability to work the modal logic that links abstract first causes and the One who spoke to him and me. But it’s not the path I’m called to walk in witness for Him, and that’s all I’m saying in the above.)
I’ve seen a wide number of writings that attempt to “explain” the Resurrection, though not Crossan’s. Spong, for example, sees it in the disciples gathered in the Upper Room where they’d had a meal with Jesus three days before, that Sunday evening – and when Peter breaks the bread at the meal, and is brought to vividly recall Jesus doing so and the events that followed, he has a satori in which he realizes that they – the eleven sitting at table – are the ones called to carry on Jesus’s work – to be for others what He had been for them.
Me, I’m standing by what I said – something happened. It wasn’t an Urban Legend that became known as truth some 40 years later; it wasn’t exclusively a symbolic recognition that “His truth is marching on” though that surely played a large part in it. What that Something was, I refuse to guess. It might have been a bodily resuscitation, it might have been a visitation by Jesus’s surviving spirit, it might have been a theophany, it might have been hallucinatory, or it might have been something beyond our frame of reference. But the abrupt change in the apostles from the rather cowardly and doltish characters they portrayed themselves as in the Gospels to the fearless witnesses of Acts is profound enough to require some cause that convinced them that it was not the end when Jesus died.
Oh, and just one final comment on the story of the Prodigal that was mentioned earlier, the context is that he’s telling this story to the Pharisees and scribes (Luke 15:1-3), and while the point of the repentance of the younger son and his welcoming by his father should not be missed, one key element is the attitude of the elder son, the “good son” who followed his father’s commands. It’s a message against self-righteousness and judging of others as much as it is one of sin and repentance.
**Polycarp wrote:
I’ve spent two years trying to expand my conceptualization of what’s going on to allow for what happened to Freyr in his two distinct theophanic experiences (of YHWH/Jesus and of the Vana Freyr), and (which may be of particular interest to Elethiomel) we actually have a member here (of whose board name unfortunately I’m suffering a memory lapse) who is in fact a “soft atheist” as the term is used here who experienced a theophany.
Poly**, I think part of the problem is that you’re viewing the experience from a monotheistic paradigm. I had problems, too, but after getting out of that mindset, the puzzle solved itself. I realize it would be rather difficult for you to reconcile this with your own faith but that’s how I solved the problem.
John Zahn wrote:
Sorry. I didn’t see that in your question either. I thought your question was about who could understand the parables.
It’s not that I think heaven is “in some metaphorical form”. I don’t even know what a metaphorical form is. The metaphor isn’t a form; it’s just an instructive analogy. Heaven is like a field with a pearl, for example, that is bought by selling all of one’s possessions because of the fact that a man values the pearl (not the field) more than everything he owns. It doesn’t mean that heaven is in the form of a pearl.
Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, I am utterly simple-minded in matters of faith. Yes, I can expound on them at great length, tying them together with fancy rhetoric and sound principles of logic. But that part is just so much crap. It is for the benefit of those who don’t get the underlying simplicity: God values goodness more than any aesthetic; Love is the facilitation of goodness; God is love. It’s so simple that a child knows what this kind of love is, whereas a learned man — theist or atheist — who burdens the gospel with piddly shit about doctrine is merely obfuscating the message.
Apparently, you’re of the opinion that if I don’t find the alleged parallels to be significant, I’m wrong. Noted. Disagreement logged.
I know of no other philosophy wherein the metaphysic is Eternal Love, the ethic is Perfection, the epistemology is the Holy Spirit, AND the aesthetic is Goodness. (It isn’t pieces; it’s a unit. Recall One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest when MacMurphy said that the broken cigarette wasn’t two nickels, it was “shit”.)
I would characterize Buddhism, for example, this way: a metaphysic of True Permanent Reality, an ethic of Self-Realization, an epistemology of Total Supreme Enlightenment, and an aesthetic of Tranquility. Whatever similarities there might be that exist between the Buddha and the Christ, the Buddha will achieve his enlightenment when he sees the Christ.
I know of no “end times messages” that He got wrong. He said that He would return before their generation passed, and He did. He said that they would suffer greatly, and they did. He fulfilled the Laws of Moses, just as He said. Why is that a controversy?