Questions about Christianity from a confused agnostic

[PBear42]

Sorry for the delay. Had a few long days there with no time for this. And glad to see you’re stilll around, Reply. Prior posts on this strand of the debate: #65, #66, #71-74, #77-79 & 82. This is a response to #78.

Liberal: Who says He had to? I cannot imagine a single logical deontic assertion about God. He simply chose to because of His own aesthetical essence. He found it to be edifying that His Son, in one act, would satisfy all sacrificial requirements for all time. It was a triumph of aesthetics over ethics.

Hello! That’s precisely the point. God being God, there can’t be anyone to whom he is beholden. Thus, he can’t have had to sacrifice his Son in order to extend grace to the world. It becomes, then, an irrational thing to have done and I assume God is rational. Not-B implies not-A.

Your comment about aesthetics, though, is an interesting admission. I’ve long maintained that the early Christians adopted the sacrificial explanation of Joshua’s crucifixion (assuming that to be historical) because, to them, it was the epitome of sound religious practice. (How can mere men have killed the Son of God? Only could have happened if God let it happen. Why would He? Must have been a sacrifice.) We moderns don’t feel the same way about sacrifice, so the aesthetic doesn’t appeal. Also, please bear in mind that whether Joshua was in fact the son of God is the point in question.

Liberal: Oh sure, I agree — if your son is attached to the end of a fishing line. But if he is allowed to make his own decisions and might decide that your will is not his own, then you’ve lost a son.

Like so much apologetics, you made that up. I guess it sounded good in your head, but it doesn’t actually say anything. The sacrifice was letting Jesus be nailed to a tree. But whether he died by crucifixion or heart attack, he was coming home eventually (indeed, a mere blink of an eye, cosmologically speaking). In any event, being omniscient, God knew how it would turn out.

Liberal: But if one accepts the duality of man — flesh and spirit, Son of Man and Son of God — it becomes perfectly sensible, as I explained already.

You’re ducking the issue and I think you know it. The point was that, if the Trinity is true, God was sacrificing a part of Himself to another part of Himself and accepting that as vicarious atonement for mankind’s sins. The duality of man hypothesis has nothing to do with that.

[Liberal]

@aldiboronti

This article on Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom is the best I’ve seen on this vexed question. It gives a complex logical argument for theological fatalism and then goes into the five well-known compatibilist responses.

It actually destroys the classical fatalist argument with proof that the Transfer of Necessity Principle cannot obtain so long as (1) propositions about the past entail propositions about the future and/or (2) there is past/future assymetry with respect to necessity and contingency (i.e., the past is necessary while the future is contingent). It is noteworthy that your linked article was written by Linda Zagzebski, an incredibly insightful epistemologist.

[Psilocybe]

@Liberal

Aside from its miraculous nature (a physiological accounting for an entire and simultaneous re-wire of synaptic connections throughout the brain is seldom made except in cases of massive physical trauma), and aside from the simple logic I’ve presented and you’ve examined, there is another, more inductive, reason that the brain could not have been the initiater: it had no basis upon which to initiate an event; that is, it did not know enough to synthesize the knowledge that it possessed one moment later. You must know something at least in order to make deductions, examine facts, and learn something new.

You act as though you know every single thing that is going on inside your brain. This would be entirely overwhelming, to understand the impossibly complicated inner workings of ourselves. I imagine the brain filters out about 95% of itself to “us”. We know nothing of what it does. I don’t see why this experience you speak of couldn’t just be the brain revealing another of its infinite faucets to you.

Theres always the drug analogy: Just because one experiences something ineffably amazing on magic mushrooms that before he never thought possible, doesn’t mean it didn’t come from the brain.

[Liberal]

@PBear42

Hello! That’s precisely the point. God being God, there can’t be anyone to whom he is beholden. Thus, he can’t have had to sacrifice his Son in order to extend grace to the world. It becomes, then, an irrational thing to have done and I assume God is rational. Not-B implies not-A.

I’ll agree with you so long as we stipulate that by irrational, we mean that rationality does not apply, just as it would not apply to “the lake is beautiful” versus “the lake is not beautiful”. I want to clear this up because of my response to your next comment. His act, in the other sense of rational, was completely logical.

Your comment about aesthetics, though, is an interesting admission. I’ve long maintained that the early Christians adopted the sacrificial explanation of Joshua’s crucifixion (assuming that to be historical) because, to them, it was the epitome of sound religious practice. (How can mere men have killed the Son of God? Only could have happened if God let it happen. Why would He? Must have been a sacrifice.) We moderns don’t feel the same way about sacrifice, so the aesthetic doesn’t appeal. Also, please bear in mind that whether Joshua was in fact the son of God is the point in question.

As per our agreed upon premise, God was under no obligation to sacrifice His Son; rather, His Son was the thing of greatest value that He could logically sacrifice. That’s where the aesthetics comes in on this point: His Son was the sheep without blemish, the perfect thing Whose sacrifice was worth more on its own than the sacrifice of all other things combined. It was the value of the sacrifice (the aesthetic) and not the obligation of it (the ethic) that mattered.

Like so much apologetics, you made that up. I guess it sounded good in your head, but it doesn’t actually say anything. The sacrifice was letting Jesus be nailed to a tree. But whether he died by crucifixion or heart attack, he was coming home eventually (indeed, a mere blink of an eye, cosmologically speaking). In any event, being omniscient, God knew how it would turn out.

Well, I think we can hold a discussion without condescending remarks about the contents of one another’s heads. God might be omniscient, but you’re not. God’s omniscience had nothing to do with how anything might have turned out, and thanks to Dr. Zagzebski, I can prove it by assuming your point arguendo. Then,

1. God knew infallibly that Jesus would rise from the dead [reductio]
2. Either it must have been the case that God knew Jesus would rise, or it must have been the case that God knew Jesus would not rise [PNP + EM]
3. It must be the case that both (God knew Jesus would rise) and (God knew that Jesus would not rise) [1, definition of omniscience]
4. Either it must be the case that Jesus would rise or else it must be the case that Jesus would not rise [TNP, 2, 3]
5. Either it is not possibly the case that Jesus would rise or else it is not possibly the case that Jesus would not rise [4, definition of necessity]
6. It is possibly the case that Jesus would rise and it is possibly the case that Jesus would not rise [PCF]

Number 6 contradicts number 5, therefore God could not have been omniscient with respect to whether Jesus would or would not rise.

You’re ducking the issue and I think you know it. The point was that, if the Trinity is true, God was sacrificing a part of Himself to another part of Himself and accepting that as vicarious atonement for mankind’s sins. The duality of man hypothesis has nothing to do with that.

You really should get out of the mind reading business. Pay more attention to the words I give you than to the ones you are receiving telepathically. Jesus, the Son of God and the Son of Man was as fully man as He was God. Therefore, He fully experienced the doubts that man experiences. He acted in faith when He offered Himself up for sacrifice because He was, in that event, a temporal being.

[Liberal]

@Psilocybe

You act as though you know every single thing that is going on inside your brain. This would be entirely overwhelming, to understand the impossibly complicated inner workings of ourselves. I imagine the brain filters out about 95% of itself to “us”. We know nothing of what it does. I don’t see why this experience you speak of couldn’t just be the brain revealing another of its infinite faucets to you.

Theres always the drug analogy: Just because one experiences something ineffably amazing on magic mushrooms that before he never thought possible, doesn’t mean it didn’t come from the brain.

Well, I was stoned. Of course, that was thirty years ago. I’m not stoned now.

[Psilocybe]

@Liberal

Well, I was stoned. Of course, that was thirty years ago. I’m not stoned now.

Ah, so you were actually under the influence during this life changing event?

[Liberal]

@Psilocybe

Ah, so you were actually under the influence during this life changing event?

Yes, marijuana. Plus, I was in a microbus full of hippies listening to loud bluegrass music and transcribing the book of John from Greek to English.

[Psilocybe]

@Liberal

Yes, marijuana. Plus, I was in a microbus full of hippies listening to loud bluegrass music and transcribing the book of John from Greek to English.

And they say todays marijuana is “200% times as potent as the pot found in the 70’s” . Riiiight…

[cosmosdan]

@PBear42

Hello! That’s precisely the point. God being God, there can’t be anyone to whom he is beholden. Thus, he can’t have had to sacrifice his Son in order to extend grace to the world. It becomes, then, an irrational thing to have done and I assume God is rational. Not-B implies not-A.

FWIW, I don’t see the physical death of Jesus as a sacrifice. You could say that leaving heavenly bliss to come and teach us was a sacrifice even knowing that you would return to said bliss. Look at the classic

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It doesn’t say anything about believing in the sacrifice of Christ. The chapter is Jesus talking about spiritual renewal. I used to believe that Jesus had to come and be the first one to conquer death. Now it seems death was already conquered and Jesus came to show us that. To raise our spiritual consciousness by his presence and set that belief in motion. Believing in Jesus, Faith in Christ, is believing that we are more than these physical forms. Jesus didn’t waver on the truth when confronted with the death of his physical body.

Your comment about aesthetics, though, is an interesting admission. I’ve long maintained that the early Christians adopted the sacrificial explanation of Joshua’s crucifixion (assuming that to be historical) because, to them, it was the epitome of sound religious practice. (How can mere men have killed the Son of God? Only could have happened if God let it happen. Why would He? Must have been a sacrifice.) We moderns don’t feel the same way about sacrifice, so the aesthetic doesn’t appeal. Also, please bear in mind that whether Joshua was in fact the son of God is the point in question.

I tend to believe the connection between the animal sacrifices in Jewish practice and the blood of Christ being the ultimate sacrifice, was contrived after the fact. A misinterpretation of the message of Jesus. I think the question is whether Jesus was the *only begotten * son, or was his message " I am the son of God, and so are all of you"

[PBear42]

First, Liberal, an apology. I was in the process of writing an explanation of “you made that up” when you posted your reply. It was not intended as an ad hominem attack. Rather, I meant only that I could think of no scriptural basis for the argument. Please feel free to explain.

Now, to substance. Let’s start with a recap of the point in issue. I have presented an objection (one of three) to Christian theodicy:

From #65: Second, by what power or principle was God required to sacrifice his only Son to extend grace to the world. I understand the conceptual need for grace - have issues with it, but understand - it’s the sacrifice that baffles me. I mean, he’s God. To whom is He sacrificing his Son? Himself? And let’s remember the Trinity, so God is actually sacrificing a part of Himself to another part of Himself and accepting that as vicarious atonement for mankind’s sins. That makes my brain hurt.

I have argued further that this conception of sacrifice is irrational, by which I mean it’s incoherent. Either the wrong person is making the sacrifice or the wrong person is receiving it. For God to be on both sides of the “transaction” makes no sense.

You say, “I’ll agree with you so long as we stipulate that by irrational, we mean that rationality does not apply.” Nope, I don’t accept that premise. On the contrary, I expect God to be rational. Bear in mind that I’m not presuming to judge God. Rather, I’m presuming to judge a human conception of God. If the conception doesn’t make sense, i.e., posits that God did something which doesn’t make sense, I become skeptical of the conception. FWIW, I honestly believe (whether I’m right is, of course, another issue) that the sacrificial conception of the crucifixion arose as I described above.

Then you give me a syllogism. Maybe I’m just being stupid today, but I don’t see it. Rather than conflicting, #5 and #6 seem to me merely alternate ways of saying the same thing. You need something which conflicts with #1 to defeat omniscience. In any event, how God’s non-omniscience makes this a sacrifice is the thing you’ve not yet explained

As for the last point, it would be helpful to know whether you accept the Trinity. If not, this is a non-issue between us (though it should trouble others). If yes, please explain what it means for God to sacrifice a part of Himself to another part of Himself and accept that as vicarious atonement for our sins.

[PBear42]

Hey, cosmosdan. I’ll agree that, internally, the Christian message could have been that death was (already had been) conquered. I’ll agree further that belief in Jesus as the Son of God (as distinguished from the crucifixion) might be what John 3:16 is mostly about. What I don’t get is why “leaving heavenly bliss to come and teach us was a sacrifice.” In cosmologoical terms, that was (as I said earlier) merely a blink of an eye. In any event, the protracted treatment of The Passion in all four Gospels suggests that, to early Christians at least, it was the crucifixion that loomed large.

[monavis]

@Liberal

Circulus in demonstrando. You are presuming the necessity of existence in your premise; therefore, your argument fails.

If something is not in existence then it does not exist,even if you do not want to accept that fact. if it does not exist… it is non existent. Nada, nothing!!! There is no essence to nothing!!!
You are stating that essence exists, then you say it is not in existence, not very logical, but hey…you can have your non essence all you want.Me, Iwill take existence over non existent any day.

Monavis

[Tevildo]

Monavis, would you say that “being non-existent” is an essential characteristic of something that doesn’t exist? If so, you’re accepting Liberal’s point that something can have an essence without existing. If not, what would you say?

[Reply]

Thanks for the patience, everyone. I finally read through the replies and tried to understand them to the best of my ability. Heh, my first thought is… this would definitely have been better as a multi-part thread. Sorry about that. Wonder if it’s too late to split it now? Anyway, in the meantime, here are my late responses:

(I believe I read everything and I’m replying only when it hasn’t already been talked about and only when I feel I have something to contribute. If I accidentally missed something you posted and you wanted a response, please let me know the post # and I’ll carefully re-read it and reply!)

Free Will:
Even if God’s foreknowledge occurs “outside of time”, that doesn’t really help the situation any. I don’t think “outside of time” is really that difficult a concept to understand: Imagine if God had simply written all of our lives down in a giant book. Words are also, in a way, “outside of time”. For example, the passage “John is born. John gets married. John dies.” can exist well before and well after John’s actual life. If that sentence was, like God, incapable of error… then John’s life would’ve been set in stone regardless of when he actually lived. It’s got nothing to do with our perception of time and everything to do with the fact that a wrong choice would make an unerring thing wrong, something that logically cannot happen.

Put it another way: You draw two mazes on two sheets of paper. One maze has two valid exits. The other maze has only one exit. The passage of time will allow you to draw a line from the entrance to the exit in either maze, but only if the exit actually exists. If you play the maze with only one exit, you only have one way out regardless of whether you actually take the time to draw a line up to the point where your path would’ve split. That’s my concern with free will. It’s ok with me if time is just an illusion of some sort, but I’m not ok with the idea that my choice won’t actually exist when the time to make it comes (well, I AM ok with choicelessness in a universe without God, but choicelessness is not something I’d want to be punished for in a theistic universe).

Sophistry and Illusion: Thanks for the free will link. I wasn’t able to understand all of them, but none of the ones that I did understand solved the issue completely. However, there is one that points out that God may only know things which are logically knowable – i.e. he cannot know our free will ahead of time because that would create a contradiction. That’s an explanation I can live, but it does sort of put a limit on God’s omnipotence and omniscience. Can he really do anything or is he, too, limited by the forces of logic and contradictions?

Liberal said: Again, it is all too easy to equivocate. There is a difference between theological freewill and teleological freewill. Freewill in the Christian sense means freedom to exercise your moral will, and has nothing to do with the order or randomness of physical events. It is all about your essential self (your spirit) making aesthetical choices. God does indeed know what choices you will make, but that is because He knows your essence. And here’s the thing — note that, in that regard, God has no advantage over you. You also are omniscient with respect to God’s will. You know with a certainty that His aesthetical choice will always be goodness. And that is because you know His essence. Thus, freewill is an aesthetical issue, not an epistemic one; that is, it is about what is valued, not what is known. God’s omniscience has no bearing on your freewill any more than yours has a bearing on His.

Sorry, I did not understand this paragraph at all. What do you mean by “theological” vs “teleological”, “aesthetical”, and “essence”? Or could you put it another way, please?

Free Will & Computer Programs:
The discussion on this topic seems to have centered around 1) whether a program can have free will and 2 ) whether the programmer is responsible for the program’s actions if the program does has free will.

1. Maybe? Nobody has been able to give a program true free will so far – randomness is as close as we’ve gotten, but even that is not truly random (is anything?). But let’s just ASSUME it’s possible for the sake of discussion, like divine/human free will is supposed to be.

2. treis: Assuming the program actually has free will, why would its choices be dependent on its programmer? The choices would be limited by the programmer, yes, but the program would still have the ultimate capability to choose between Choice A and Choice B, right? If the programmer doesn’t/can’t know which choice the program is going to make, doesn’t that mean the program is actually doing the choosing?

Liberal: But why even give the program the possibility of displeasing you in the first place? What are you trying to accomplish by giving it that power, especially if one of the choices might even piss you off? Why not just make it a choiceless program that does exactly what you want it to do?

The Bible:
C K Dexter Haven: Thanks for the Staff Report links. So nobody really knows where it all came from, but there are a lots of hypotheses. Okay, I can live with that. But what about the latter, more important, half of the question? Why is the Bible like that instead of being a direct-from-God carbon copy? Why does God rely on people and people’s works to spread his word?

DiggitCamara: (Regarding the OT and NT) I wasn’t asking so much why the OT was barbaric, but simply wondering if it’s not too convenient for a more benevolent (and yes, I meant LOVING, not LIVING) God to suddenly appear in a new book and create a new religion. This same God could’ve shown his kinder side in the one whole book, without needing a later addendum, thereby preventing the splintering of his worshippers into three distinct religions (not including the countless sects).

Science:
Voyager said: *[Regarding science and bear tracks:] “Nonsense. You can hypothesize that a bear made the tracks, and then predict that you’ll find bear fur on branches. If you find it, you don’t prove anything, but you do increase your confidence. You can also predict that it will shit in the woods.”

[…and later…]

“I want to believe in the things with the highest chance of being true”*

I have a question for you about both of these scenarios. How do you know (or why do you have confidence) that what we have seen and what we have learned so far are actually significant indicators of what is actually out there? As you agreed, it’s possible that a very intelligent being is manipulating the tracks. And as for believing in things with the highest chance of being true: In order to calculate probabilities, you need to know the odds, yes? But all we know is what we know – we don’t know what we don’t know – so how can we measure how likely the stuff we know is true?

Um… what I’m saying is, even if science had a good track record, how do we know that its truthfulness is univeral? What if our laws only apply to the world we’ve seen so far, and that somewhere out there is a much bigger place with vastly different laws? If science correctly observes, say, 80% of our world but our world is only 1% of what’s out there, would science still be enough? We can predict what we can observe, but what about the things we can’t observe?

Other responses:

PBear42: (Regarding the “wrong way” to think about in Christianity) I’m OK with the Bible being a source of tales, many of which are useful as moral guidelines in a society similar to ours. However, that’s understating its purpose, and if I were ever to become a “real” Christian, I would have to put more faith in the book, no? See, my issue is that – as I pointed out in the OP – I’m somewhat (well, ok, quite a bit) of a skeptic. I don’t KNOW that the Revolutionary War happened. I “believe” in it in the sense that I believe there’s a possibility that it happened – based on the lack of counter-evidence that it didn’t – but that’s all. I don’t argue about it because I don’t see any reason to and I’m OK with casually trusting in its occurrence because it’s simply more practical to.

But that’s not good enough for a religion. I can’t be a Christian that says “Yeah, Christianity is probably real and I’m willing to believe in it because it’s convenient and because there’s little contrary evidence.” I have to be willing to place much greater confidence – even if not the absolute confidence that it technically wants – for it to have any meaning at all as my religion; I can’t do that with so many unanswered questions. A few minor ones, maybe… but not so many and so many big ones at that.

EEMan said: Using the term ‘Christian’ is like using the term ‘American’… you can’t answer these complicated questions from a universial belief… (well at least the metaphysical ones) …

Actually, that is part of my concern with Christianity – and other similar religions. One God, presumably non-schizophrenic, right? Why, then, is his Will somehow split into Judaism, Islam, and Christianity… and within each, countless sects, and within each sect, countless individuals? I’m trying to understand how people can at once believe in the certainty of their religions and yet not see the very individual interpretations that arise out of the uncertainties of said religions.

And the biggest question of all that ties all these posts together:
Why? Why is it so hard to understand all this? Why aren’t we simply all gods? Why would God make us intellectually incapable of understanding our own creation and then expect us to anyway or risk eternal punishment?

[cosmosdan]

@PBear42

Hey, cosmosdan. I’ll agree that, internally, the Christian message could have been that death was (already had been) conquered. I’ll agree further that belief in Jesus as the Son of God (as distinguished from the crucifixion) might be what John 3:16 is mostly about. What I don’t get is why “leaving heavenly bliss to come and teach us was a sacrifice.” In cosmologoical terms, that was (as I said earlier) merely a blink of an eye. In any event, the protracted treatment of The Passion in all four Gospels suggests that, to early Christians at least, it was the crucifixion that loomed large.

I agree that 33 years or so is a mere blink. Would I give myself over to several days of intense suffering if I knew it would save the lives of many others, knowing that after those few days I would live in bliss? I hope so. We’ve heard of more courageous acts than that from people who had no such assurance. I try to focus on the teachings of Christ and the example of his life rather than the details of his death. His resurrection is the exclaimation point on the lesson. The lesson being, “We are much more than these fleeting physical forms”

I think the focus on the crucifixtion is a misinterpretation of what Christ taught, I believe what he focused on was our spiritual rebirth as described in John 3. I see things changing slowly but there are still many Christians who focus on an adoration of the name and image of Jesus rather than a personal transformation through the spirit. That’s why I’m no longer a part of mainstream Christianity.

[other-wise]

Tevildo, your post highlights one of the semantic problems I keep tripping over in trying to understand this whole essence/existence thang:

@Tevildo

Monavis, would you say that “being non-existent” is an essential characteristic of something that doesn’t exist? If so, you’re accepting Liberal’s point that something can have an essence without existing. If not, what would you say?

What something? There is no “something” to have any characteristics whatsoever. “Being non-existent” is literally a contradiction in terms; there is nothing there to “be” anything.

Same thing goes for monavis’s post: referring to “it” or “something” as non-existent is like referring to a location north of the north pole: the grammatical structure of the statement is correct, but it asserts nothing.

(By the way Tevildo, nice to meet ya. I highly appreciated your posts over on the color and consciousness thread.)

[monavis]

@Tevildo

Monavis, would you say that “being non-existent” is an essential characteristic of something that doesn’t exist? If so, you’re accepting Liberal’s point that something can have an essence without existing. If not, what would you say?

No, I am saying that existence has always been, because if any thing exists it is in existence.You are saying something can have essence that is true, essence needs something and some where to exist; to exist there fore it is in existence. Or it is non existent. There can be no essence to nothing there must first be something of which to have an essence. There is no characteristic to, nothing that is why it is nothing.

Monavis

[cosmosdan]

@Reply

The Bible:
C K Dexter Haven: Thanks for the Staff Report links. So nobody really knows where it all came from, but there are a lots of hypotheses. Okay, I can live with that. But what about the latter, more important, half of the question? Why is the Bible like that instead of being a direct-from-God carbon copy? Why does God rely on people and people’s works to spread his word?

DiggitCamara: (Regarding the OT and NT) I wasn’t asking so much why the OT was barbaric, but simply wondering if it’s not too convenient for a more benevolent (and yes, I meant LOVING, not LIVING) God to suddenly appear in a new book and create a new religion. This same God could’ve shown his kinder side in the one whole book, without needing a later addendum, thereby preventing the splintering of his worshippers into three distinct religions (not including the countless sects).

The Bible is a great book,but only a book. So are the others. It’s value is that it is about our relationship with God, so if we have questions about that sort of thing it’s a great place to start. Ultimatly we must learn to trust our own connection and our inner voice that is the Holy Spirit.
There’s lots of newer books than the Bible and newer religions that include Jesus in some way. LDS, and other children of J. Smith. Islam, and a few others. A Course in Miricles is pretty interesting, which is presented as clarifying what Jesus taught.
Why doesn’t God make it easier to understand? Why do we resist understanding?
I think the experience of free will is the point, not just “getting to Heaven” If you had the power to make your children into exactly the kind of adult person you want them to be would you do it? Would you call it an act of love? We don’t expect our kids to act like adults, we help them grow into it, and they don’t always choose wisely. Another example I like is the prisoners shackled in a cave. If all they’ve ever known is the darkness of the cave and the familiar weight of their shackles how do you suppose they would react if they were suddenly unshackled and thrust into the bright sunlight? Would they rejoice or would they be terrified? What happens when you come from the darkness into the bright light ? It hurts. We have to adjust gradually, and in this case we choose the light and freedom a liitle at a time.

But all we know is what we know – we don’t know what we don’t know – so how can we measure how likely the stuff we know is true?

That’s where faith comes in, and trust. We act on what we believe is true even while we acknowledge that we don’t know. We act on what we believe might be true. Jesus described it as the desire to have faith. We don’t have to know for sure to go forward and try it on.

But that’s not good enough for a religion. I can’t be a Christian that says “Yeah, Christianity is probably real and I’m willing to believe in it because it’s convenient and because there’s little contrary evidence.” I have to be willing to place much greater confidence – even if not the absolute confidence that it technically wants – for it to have any meaning at all as my religion; I can’t do that with so many unanswered questions. A few minor ones, maybe… but not so many and so many big ones at that.

We will always have a lot of unanswered questions. Even apostle Paul recognized his limitations. "Now I know in part and see in part, as through a dark glass. " 1 Cor 13
You don’t need to wonder which person or group is right. None of them have all the answers. You are free to decide what you believe and what you value. You can explore beliefs and choose what is meaningful to you. It requires some personal honesty and maybe a some courage to explore different things.

Actually, that is part of my concern with Christianity – and other similar religions. One God, presumably non-schizophrenic, right? Why, then, is his Will somehow split into Judaism, Islam, and Christianity… and within each, countless sects, and within each sect, countless individuals? I’m trying to understand how people can at once believe in the certainty of their religions and yet not see the very individual interpretations that arise out of the uncertainties of said religions.

All part of the human condition. It’s the same as kids argueing over whether the Hulk can beat up Superman or not. Eventually they grow out of it and look back and see how silly the arguement was. Religious tradition and ferver is powerful. People are taught that “this is the truth about God” and anything that challenges it must be some kind of threat. Fortunatly not everyone feels that way. We can claim our right to worship as we choose with the knowledge that we are still have a lot to learn. We can allow others that same privilage.

And the biggest question of all that ties all these posts together:
Why? Why is it so hard to understand all this? Why aren’t we simply all gods? Why would God make us intellectually incapable of understanding our own creation and then expect us to anyway or risk eternal punishment?

We understand gradually, according to our own choices. I don’t believe any of that eternal punishment stuff. I think it’s more accurate to say we reap what we sow and bear the consequences of our own choices. If we choose anger, and fear over love and forgiveness there are consequences. If we choose to remain in darkness we shouldn’t be surprised when the light hurts our eyes.

[monavis]

@other-wise

Tevildo, your post highlights one of the semantic problems I keep tripping over in trying to understand this whole essence/existence thang:What something? There is no “something” to have any characteristics whatsoever. “Being non-existent” is literally a contradiction in terms; there is nothing there to “be” anything.

Same thing goes for monavis’s post: referring to “it” or “something” as non-existent is like referring to a location north of the north pole: the grammatical structure of the statement is correct, but it asserts nothing.

(By the way Tevildo, nice to meet ya. I highly appreciated your posts over on the color and consciousness thread.)

Strange but I agree with you, there is no such “thing” as nothing. If “it” is something it exists.( No…thing). If there is no existence then nothing would be said to exist, which is impossible. Get it?

What ever exists is in existence.

Monavis

[Reply]

@cosmosdan

The Bible is a great book,but only a book. So are the others. It’s value is that it is about our relationship with God, so if we have questions about that sort of thing it’s a great place to start. Ultimatly we must learn to trust our own connection and our inner voice that is the Holy Spirit.

So it can be whatever I want it to be? Hmm. I never quite thought of it that way. Always figured religion = (relatively) strict adherence to the holy books, church, or some other body of rules. But you seem to be saying that they’re only guidelines and that it’s really up to me and it can be whatever I want it to be? That’s kinda nice in a way, but also disappointing in that it’s no different from what I’m doing now. What happens if I run out of answers?

Why doesn’t God make it easier to understand? Why do we resist understanding? I think the experience of free will is the point, not just “getting to Heaven” If you had the power to make your children into exactly the kind of adult person you want them to be would you do it? Would you call it an act of love? We don’t expect our kids to act like adults, we help them grow into it, and they don’t always choose wisely.

Well, two things. First, I wouldn’t sentence the child to eternal damnation for growing up different from what I hoped for. I know you don’t believe in hell, but many do.

Second, if I were omnipotent, I could just skip the entire “innocent child” part and create a full adult with a complete set of implanted experiences of free will. Whether I would is another issue, because the question then becomes whether the experience itself is somehow inherently worth it – something I can’t answer. I have no other lives to compare my current one to so I wouldn’t know.

That’s where faith comes in, and trust. We act on what we believe is true even while we acknowledge that we don’t know. We act on what we believe might be true. Jesus described it as the desire to have faith. We don’t have to know for sure to go forward and try it on.

But faith and subjective belief can be dangerously blinding if misused, no? What I want to believe may be vastly different than what actually is.

At one extreme, I could believe whatever I want as long as it makes me happy. At the other extreme, I could doggedly pursue some sort of external truth even if it does nothing to make me happy. I dunno which one is better.

You don’t need to wonder which person or group is right. None of them have all the answers. You are free to decide what you believe and what you value. You can explore beliefs and choose what is meaningful to you. It requires some personal honesty and maybe a some courage to explore different things.

This is why I’m agnostic. But suppose I want to settle down with a religion of some sort someday… wouldn’t some of them require a bit more conviction than this? They all want to offer the answers, and I’d love to take them – if only there was some way to gauge their accuracy beforehand.

All part of the human condition. It’s the same as kids argueing over whether the Hulk can beat up Superman or not. Eventually they grow out of it and look back and see how silly the arguement was. Religious tradition and ferver is powerful. People are taught that “this is the truth about God” and anything that challenges it must be some kind of threat. Fortunatly not everyone feels that way. We can claim our right to worship as we choose with the knowledge that we are still have a lot to learn. We can allow others that same privilage.

Well, if everyone felt that way, the world would be a lot less… dangerous, shall we say.