From the looks of Poly’s last post, would it be fair to call his views narrow? 
Dinsdale: “Narrow minded” – LOL!! Moderators and/or Admins., would you be so kind as to correct my {/quote} in my 10-13 post that seems to have lost its “/”, please?
Lolo:
Huh? “A universal, unchanging concept” of what?
If you’re talking about the Bible, as your next paragraphs suggest, then my response is:
With the exception of a small minority of fundamentalists who practice the heresy of Bibliolatry, there is no Christian who “believes in” the Bible – not even those who would assert its inerrant truth. We believe in God, I.e. YHWH Lord God of Sabaoth, present in three Persons, one of whom took on human nature. The Bible is simply a collection of ancient literature in which He had a hand (“inspiration”) in moving the authors to compose – how much of a hand, and with what consequent accuracy, is a debatable (and hotly debated) question, but secondary to the main point.
If you’re rejecting Christianity because there may be some errors here and there in the Bible, or because the partial pictures it gives one of the nature of God seem to some extent contradictory, you need by the same line of thought to reject evolution because Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species neglected to take punctuated equilibria and modern genetic theory into account, or physics because Sir Isaac Newton neglected to deal with relativity or quantum mechanics.
I grant you may have grounds for rejection. But that one is quite facile.
You know, that’s the problem with the SDMB. Around here, we think. 
Oh? I’ve seen a lot of Christians of all sorts and flavors. Very few “don’t know why or what they believe” although many have failed to ask the hard questions behind some of their beliefs. And I will agree that the minority who parrot an evangelist are downright annoying. But most don’t.
PLDennison:
Skipping over my seemingly arrogant hyperbole…
My money’s on point (3). (It’s a sucker’s bet that you’re going for (1).) Anybody taking position (2), or have a (4) argument to raise?
Dinsdale:
I may be biased, but I see the majority of Christians as thoughtful and willing, in the absence of hostility, to admit their limitations – though, like me, they’re prone to theorize (and call it that). BTW, “mystic shortcuts” is not necessarily an evil thing – given the idea of a spiritual aspect to reality beyond the sensorially accessible.
And yes, emphatically, it’s the jerks that attract your attention. Of the several hundred thousand medical doctors in this country, the ones that make the news are the shameless self-promoters who have invented radical new diets or whatever and the ones who get involved in major malpractice scandals. The vast majority of them who make a profitable living doing what they feel called to do – treat the sick and if possible make them well, prevent illness when possible – don’t get the publicity.
Of the following names: Fred Phelps, George Reed, John Shelby Spong, Al Sharpton, Michael Curry, Pat Robertson, O’Kelley Whitaker, Jesse Jackson, Bennett Sims, Jerry Falwell, Barbara Chaffee, which ones do you recognize? They’re all ordained clergy, all but one of which have sent out press releases or held press conferences in the past 12 months. (Of one, I’m not sure.) Betcha the names you recognize are the “noisemakers” among the group.
Original sin: My only “take” on the subject is that every child is born into a world in which sin is pervasive. I detest the image of throwing babies into the fires of Hell that seems to accompany it.
But there’s one aspect to this whole gamut of doctrine that seems to have escaped everyone: Suppose there to be a God, He’s under no obligation to give anybody Heaven as a reward or Hell as a punishment. Our ideas of “justice” and the inability of most people to conceive of their own nonexistence lead to a sense of “Well, if He does exist, He oughta…” But the stance of historical, Scholastic theology is that the natural state of Man is to die dead after his threescore years and ten, like a bacterium, fungus, muskrat, or penguin. God simply made it possible to advance to the Bonus Round, so to speak. 
Vile Orb:
Me, too. Except the “since becoming an atheist” part. I don’t like “boring church services” and only go (intentionally) at least to ones that are not boring to me. I’m disgusted with moralistic Pharisees that presume to tell others that they should be ashamed of their God-given sexuality, just like you. (We’ve been down that road a bunch of times here already.)
“Eyes of faith” and “of IPUnian faith” –
I trust you’ve missed my stance on this. For me “faith” is a word with a very specific meaning, in almost any context. (Though I admit I do buy into the standard usage when discussing doctrinal systems.) I have faith in a person (or rarely thing) in which I know I can trust. I have faith in God because I know I can trust Him. I have experienced His love.
I agree with everybody from Lolo to yourself that believing something for which there is no evidence, or at minimum inadequate, doesn’t make sense. That’s not the case with me. And I’m perfectly well aware that the evidence which suits me is subjective and/or subject to a different valuation on reliability and truth by others. It’s not my job to change that view, except insofar as I can make points that might lead them to change their valuation in such debates as this. It’s my job to testify to my own certitude and the good things it has done in my life. And in His allegation that He intends to make this available to everybody.
The latter. In fact, I think (not “believe”) that it is a falsifiable statement, not a religious-dogma one, that an entity with the characteristics of omnipresence and instanteous action attributed to God would, by the Lorentz transform equations, have the characteristic of experiencing all time at once. I’d need somebody with better math skills and capability at cosmological conception than myself to push the numbers (“V”) to a limit of infinity and interpret what “T” tends to in consequence.
For all practical purposes. He is unable to do things defined by logical paradoxes. And He may refrain from doing things of which He is capable for reasons known but to Him.
Same answer. The consequences to free will are intriguing, and we can have a go at them some time if you like. (It ties into the “eternity” idea.)
IMHO, yes. Fully so, and of all things. However, I see a possibility for mysticism creeping in here.
No. We’re human; He’s not. God does not suffer an adrenaline rush when someone provokes Him. But he has states of existence that parallel many of our emotions, so a “Yes” answer is also not incorrect.
Yep. One that was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered uner Pontius Pilate, crucified dead and buried…
But, as you may have concluded, I don’t hold with the Doctrine of Eternal Progression and the interesting pre-lives of God in my (admittedly limited) understanding of Mormon theology.
Love.
Oh, you mean about the doctrine. Handy way of explaining to human beings how one God can be at the same time one and three. Gets into complex Aristotelian metaphysical concepts that are positively annoying to deal with. See Ben’s thread for further details.
N/A. However, Jesus as “the only-begotten Son of God” is the concept that Mark (and to a lesser extent the other three Evangelists) use to describe His special role in bringing home God’s plan to man. You and I and others are, to quote Paul, “God’s sons and daughters by adoption and grace.”
God operating in such a manner as to be able to impart to our own spirits (i.e., the inner selves we experience) His will and His convictions, encouragement, etc. I have no idea why it needs to be a separate entity; I merely have the testimony of the authorities and my own sense that it is. Why is a neutron a neutron and not merely the close union of an electron and a proton?
Yes. But sometimes the answer is silence. Sometimes the answer is “No” or “Not yet.” Sometimes the answer is, “You’re asking the wrong question.” And sometimes we refuse to hear the answer.
Assault on others, to hear some evangelists. :rolleyes: Personal guidance, research into Hebrew history and culture, instruction into right behavior, background on God, you name it. But only within the context of faith in God.
Not having gotten there yet, I don’t know. My presumption from what little Jesus had to say about it is “yes” – but I will not be surprised (obviously! :D) to find out otherwise.
God doesn’t expect worship as though He were the Grand Duke of Grand Fenwick, needing assurance that He really counts in the scheme of things. Worship is good for humans in that it puts us into our proper place in the scheme of things, and gives us a chance to “align” our spirits with His. (Kindly take that “align” as the metaphor it is, please!)
No clue. Though why he’d want to, I don’t know.
Presumably. Hell is the state of being in the absence of God. So if God gives free will, and allows people to turn from Him, there needs to be a place for them to go.
The variety with sulphurated fires, little red men with pitchforks, and so on, probably not.
Nah. Most sins are simply repetitions of things people came up with to sin long before you were born!
I answered this above – each newborn child comes into a world full of sin (and after 9/11 I suspect nobody wants to doubt that the world is sinful), and will inevitably come into contagion from it. As far as I’m concerned, that’s the extent to which I have any use for the concept.
Can the Admins. and Moderators eliminate trollery from this board without censoring every post beforehand to ensure it’s not trollery?
I suspect that this question is “loaded.” The answers are “absolutely” and “No, that doesn’t mean people are free to sin there.” I think that ultimately it ends up being a four-sided triangle sort of conundrum. It sounds not only meaningful but profound, but ends up in paradox.
No – just that one cookie. BTW, refute the idea that God planted that particular fortune there to guide this discussion.
Watsonwil: Thoughtful, profound post. I have nothing to add. Except that a demand for deductive proof is not appropriate in science, nor an inductive proof in Euclidean geometry or Cartesian logic. What kind of proof would a nonbeliever want of a God whose operations are not within the purview of the sciences?
Drastic:
My posts, TUBADIVA’s posts, Lolo’s posts, and the troll of the moment’s posts are all legitimate expressions on the SDMB. How then are we to judge among them? I have no doubt of your experiences and the of idea that God is found within nature. I merely say to that, as I do to those who try to confine him within the pages of the Bible, the monstrance, or the needs of the poor – He’s there. And beyond that too.
Me: I too have a major problem with the standard doctrine of the substitutionary atonement, particularly since it makes God the Father look like a bloodthirsty, barbaric tyrant who wants somebody to suffer, and if not the sinners, His Son will do. But focusing on Jesus’s self-sacrifice without asking why it was necessary or appropriate does paint a quite different picture, especially if the idea that He too was God Incarnate is kept in mind.
Drastic: You had me right along until the second sentence, which I just don’t follow. It’s a different picture, but not a particularly helpful one to my eyes.
Focusing on the self-sacrifice, without taking into account the Why of it, and what I see is a good person suffering, and then dying in agony. Absent the context of a reason for the act, sacrifice is merely destruction, self-sacrifice simply suicide. There’s a lot of that going around, and of course the Problem of Pain is right around that corner (lots of roads lead to it). What should I be seeing in the act, absent its reasons, that I am not? What do you see that I’m missing?
[/quote]
I don’t know. I am just aware that the giving of oneself for another strikes a poignant chord in most humans. Fr. Mychal Judge OSF, chaplain of FDNY, is an example that immediately comes to mind.
I suspect strongly the answer is there – in why we react as we do. Lib.? Mr. Billy? RT? Mangetout? Got any answers – or at least guesses – on this?
It’s not so much as that I believe christianity is evil. On the contrary, I believe that christianiy posseses many admirable traits, namely love thy neighbor, be good to people, etc etc.
It is more the pervasiveness of christianity in America which I find particularily irksome. This combined with the following reasons listed below sum up why I think christianity needs to go the way of the dodo.
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Christianity’s identity crisis. One one end you have the whole based on love thing. But on the other hand, you have the whole fear-driven ‘avoid hell’ thing. These two cannot logically co-exist. It’s like all christians have this hidden motive to get to heaven, and that’s why they’re being nice. When I do a good deed, it’s to simply aid the world by being a good person, not to secure my place in the afterlife. I feel that existence based on fear (christian existence) is simply silly and outdated.
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The whole ‘if you don’t believe then you’re going to hell’ thing. If you consider yourself a christian, then you have automatically subscribed to the belief that anyone who doesn’t believe in what you do is doomed to hell. Furthermore, you are therefore shitting on the beliefs on others, because no matter what they might believe, they are still going to hell, so ha ha ha. This superiority complex cannot simply exist in a peaceful world. World peace or Jesus. The choice is yours.
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Lutheran, Baptist, Protestant, Catholic, Methodist, Mormon… It’s goddamn 31 flavors of jesus. How could christianity ever take itself seriously as a wholewhen so many different sects exist. It makes no sense.
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Ignorance. Man and dinosaurs co-existed? Please. Noah built an ark? Please. Evolution is completely false? Please. People actually believe this stuff. Christianity feeds on ignorance, or is it the other way around?
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The vocal ones. The ones who preach and pray. The ones who condemn others to hell in the name of God, while they’re busy stealing money or fondling altar boys. So sad.
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This right here:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0041/0041_01.asp
The good news is, Christianity is becoming less and less popular. Especially in Europe. People are realizing the utter ridiculousness of the whole thing. I recently read an article which said that Christianity is basically eliminated in England, much to the dismay of the Church. I find this extremely encouraging. The world is finally waking up and ridding itself of dogma. I have no doubt that this is spreading.
I mentioned this article in my previous post. Here’s a link to it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1527000/1527876.stm
it brings sweet joyous tears to my eyes.
We WILL overcome!
How did you first aquire that faith or trust? How did you first achieve faith? Can it be duplicated?
So, everyone’s souls are immortal?
Do we have to go through ForceFieldWorld again? It seems apparent that there are at least some acts of evil that could be blocked without affecting free will. Either that or we’re already notfree because we are not omnipotent. Only omnipotent creature can be totally free from restraint. Since, we’re not omnipotent , we’re not totally free. By my understanding of your belief, since God made the rules, he also drew a line past which we cannot go, i.e. we cannot kill people with thoughts, we cannot fly, we cannot teleport, etc… It seems to me that the line could be drawn differently to everyone’s benefit. My conclusion, were I a believer, would have to be that either God’s definition of evil is different from mine, God isn’t paying attention, or God is not as powerful as I thought.
I think we’re actually making some progress on figuring out exactly what Poly believes here. This is good. Any other christians out there with similar beliefs?
He is what I would refer to as a ‘relaxed christian’. He selectively chooses those areas of christianty that suit him best and adopts these. Any aspect of christianity that would otherwise impede his normal everyday life are discounted as silly and old-fashioned.
In other words, he does the bare minimum in order for him to get to heaven.
Now one might think that I, one who is highly opposed to the presence of christianity, would prefer the relaxed views of Polycarp, in contrast to the more strict views of those who take the Bible seriously and try to adhere to all the tenets of christianity.
But this is not so. I respect the fundamentalist christians a whole lot more than the fence-straddlers (hereafter referred to as the polycarps) who only subscribe to certain christian beliefs and claim to be christian. At least the fundamentalists have enough guts to devote their lives to an ideal. The polycarps, on the other hand, realize all the shortcomings of christianity, but for some silly (cowardly?) reason, still adhere to some christian teachings, probably out of fear of going to hell. These polycarps would be much better suited abandoning the silly christian dogma.
I think most christians in America today are polycarps. They claim christianity because they are scared of what might happen if they disband it.
Cmon Polycarp. If you’re gonna be a christian, be a real christian. Unfortunately, you don’t seem to realize the mutual exclusiveness of reason and christianity.
But I think you will soon. There’s hope for you yet Polycarp. I’ll be praying for you.
EternalStudent,
I can see why it might take you forever.
There is not a more learned, more pious, more loving Christian on these boards than Polycarp. I’m not worthy even to wash his feet. If you think a Christian is a person who believes in a book, you are mistaken.
Please Poly, we’ve got one Stoid already, and she is more than enough! I had just finished reading yet another Gore won thread and the similarity seems appropriate for a moment. As for mixing religion and sex, I still have SOME vestiges of my Christianity left :D! If I see Jesus the next time me and the woman are going at, I swear . . .
Of course it comes down to what one believes has the better interpretation. I think part of this is whichever one you WANT to believe more, you will. For myself, perhaps part of it is the backlash I had when I left the church (not as bitter as Lolo though), but I did not abandon faith entirely. But I’ve found the best defense to Christianity while keeping in a theistic mindframe is that of Judaism. Not that I don’t have problems with Judaism either, but we aren’t talking about this. I see the words “Christian God” and I think of Jesus, not God in general.
Ok, paganism galore may have been a bit too strongly worded, but there can be a connection, but again how much you want to believe this is up to the person. Hell, I don’t put a lot of stock in some of the things presented at that cite, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t there and don’t make one think. Personally, I have a problem with the similarities between Mithraism and Christianity, the Dualistic nature of Christianity (which is a pagan concept, I guess it depends on how you define paganism though) and the more recent problem of glossahola (sp?) and it’s frequency in the Mystery Religions of Corinth and other religions (I came out of a Pentecostal church).
Truth is what you put the most stock in. Some people claim the “truth” is that we never landed on the moon, Kennedy was killed by the mob and Hoffa is burried in the Meadowlands. Do they have subjective facts to support such, yes. Is it true? To them it is.
As for your reasonings behind choosing Christianity, I would agree with everything up to the last sentance. I don’t think God needs to prove mastery over death, he’s God! He created life and death, and Jesus was not the first Biblical figure to rise from the dead.
But the message of love is what I enjoy. I don’t see God being angry at someone for not choosing one man’s word over another. And I do enjoy your posts as well and will continue to look forward to them in the future. While we are at it, I too respect Chaim’s insight and was touched when he offered to converse privately through email (thanks again Chaim!) with some questions I had. And more recently, I enjoy Mr.Billy’s postings as well. My journey of faith continues and is continually shaped and challanged by most posters here, both athiestic and thiestic.
Now please continue with others. They need more help than me
I’m sorry, I was under the impression the bible was the Christian guide book, so to speak. is there another book you learned about being a Christian from?
I can predict the answer to this one.
“It’s not about the Bible or the hell/heaven thing. It’s about believing that Jesus died for us, and that we should all strive to be like Jesus, who was a humble man who treated others with love and care”
or something like that.
But this basically proves my point. Christians who actually discount the Bible!? These are the polycarps I mentioned earler. They have molded their own definition of what christianity is. But unfortunately, they have created some weird spirituality-christian hybrid. They see the christian shortcomings and long to leave, but they’re scared.
Both Lolo and EternalStudent are from Florida according to your profiles. You two wouldn’t happened to both be around the Pensacola area, would you? I know Brownsville Church is pretty vocal down in that area, and it would explain some things.
Several books give insight into Christianity.
Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes by Charles Hawthorne.
The God We Never Knew by Marcus Borg
Oh, I almost forgot about this thread. Not that I’m trying to resurrect an old thread, but it has a good reading list.
Lolo, you and others seem to be under the false impression that there exists only one brand of Christianity that speaks with one voice on all issues. Christianity, like Islam and Judaism and Buddhism, has many different sects. Some of those sects are what you seem to hate. I, too, have problems with what those sects preach. However, you are painting with too broad of a brush if you think Polycarp is the same kind of Christian as Fred Phelps or Jack Chick.
Jesus said to Love God. Love Everyone. Every other commandment in the Bible or anywhere else must conform to these two tenets, otherwise they are void. That is how I define Christianity.
If you define Christianity by Fred Phelps, then I can understand your hostility. But I ask that you reexamine your feelings honestly and realize the differences. I was once a rabid anti-theist. When you calm down and realize that there are many hues and tones in life, that everything is not black and white, you might find some of the anger and stress can be released.
First off, I’m quite confident that Polycarp believes that his salvation is secure.
“Bare Minimum”?! I have never met a “layman” Christian who has devoted more of his time to the proclamation of the gospel, just from what I see here at the SDMB.
To whom?
ETERNAL STUDENT, I was actually going to take the time to respond to your first post, when I read your second. Now it is clear that you don’t deserve the time of effort of a reasoned or civil response. So you can find my personal welcome to you in the Pit.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=93223
Eternal Student, you are the most vile and despicable person I have ever met on these boards. My friend Polycarp is everything you wish you could ever be, and then some. You are not fit to inhabit the same planet as he.
Esprix
I have presumed no such thing. It is my belief that no one runs the world, that it operates on its own.
I find that a very interesting question. On the one hand, I don’t know a good short answer.
But on the other hand, judging between your posts and a troll’s posts is the simplest thing in the world.
And on my third hand (it’s like the mystic third eye, only more handy <rimshot> ), I disagree that trolling is ever a legitimate expression.
We agree on that. It’s simply been my impression that the majority of Christendom, its popular theology, does not. Thus the original listing of the issue, and that I have difficulties even beginning to reconcile a salvationist narrative’s sense without including a world:God dichotomy/duality as part and parcel of it.
I’m seeing two possibilities here: one, there’s simply a wall in worldviews right along this issue. They happen. But two is, we’ve managed to start talking past each other somehow–that certainly happens too. I’ll attempt to clarify my position:
Giving of oneself for another does strike a poignant chord. It does that because of context. A relative unhesitatingly giving a kidney is poignant because of what it says about the ability of human beings to act nobly–likewise more final forms of sacrifice. Dying to rescue others, to keep the helpless safe, etc. Those acts are what they are because of their context, even if that context is only, doing the best thing.
But those acts become very much less poignant when there are other options–and any God worthy of the name has access to more options than any small spark instantiated in some hydrocarbons can even conceive of. Throwing oneself onto a grenade is poignant if it’s fallen right into the foxhole and everyone is going to die if you do not–but it’s absurd if it fell several dozen yards away, and anyone it could harm is already behind cover, and in order to throw yourself onto it you have to charge out of cover, into the middle of an empty field, in order to do so. Like a Secret Service agent diving in front of a bullet–when the bullet was fired at an empty backstop, and the President is in a fully bulletproof enclosure. Not poignant–senseless. And I think a senseless and premature death also strikes a chord with most humans–not a poignant one, really, but a tragic one. Can it be argued that Christ couldn’t have done any more good if he’d lived even one more day? How about if he’d been able to continue teaching right till dying of a peaceful old age–or if his suffering was necessary to prove some kind of point, of the non-peaceful degrading kind that most of the rest of us grunts face? Would that have been worse? If the answer’s “yes”, then that’s a wall.
And that combines with my honest disgust at the substitutionary-sin-offering/whipping boy popular theology–to say God could not forgive without incarnating, suffering, and being crucified is, to me, absurd. It places limits on the Without Limit, ties the En Sof into a false package. Not needed for Him, but for us? I cannot agree–all that’s needed for that is God saying so, whether with words or silence–I suspect both are unmistakeable to those who’ve felt them, and none who do need that anyone have suffered agony for it.
This is the point of view of a religiously uneducated atheist, and it’s just my opinion, so don’t take it like fact
I think there’s a reason the religion is called “Christianity” instead of “Biblianity”. (Damn, it was really, really tempting to stick another ‘n’ into that word …)
The religion exists to worship the teachings of Christ, the one described as the Son of God, and since the belief in Christ as God’s Son necessitates the belief in God, the religion also worships God.
The Bible is the only book that contains within it “eye-witness accounts” of Jesus’ words. Thus the Bible is the “official” book of Christianity. But this does not mean that every Christian must follow everything in the book. Look at Leviticus, and see how many who call themselves Christians actually follow the plethora of laws set down in that book.
The relevant part of Christianity is Christ. Why else would it be called Christianity? If the relevant part of the Bible is to follow every word as literal truth, the religion might have picked another, less confusing word.
Personally I respect anyone who takes the time to think long and hard about his/her beliefs and the way of life s/he wants to live. If that means this person adopts some aspects of the Bible - most people I know who follow some but not all choose to follow Jesus’ teachings as closely as possible - but eschews others - Leviticus being an example - then … that’s great, that’s wonderful, and I think it should be encouraged. Christianity isn’t about turning everyone who believes in God into an automaton and erasing all possibility of individuality and thought in order to acheive its goals; it’s about giving everyone a personal relationship with their God.
Granted, I don’t think Christians who flub the really big things, like, say, the Ten Commandments, deserve the title. But I’m not a Christian either, so I can’t - and I don’t - pass judgement on them. They believe what they want to, and that’s great.
To me it’s the similar to choosing a political party. I’m more willing to respect those who belong to a party but admit that it has some flaws, than to respect those who blindly agree with everything the party says and vote straight-party tickets without knowing the first thing about the candidates, just because it’s “their party, and it’s always been their party, and it always will be.” Of course if you pick the “wrong” political candidate you don’t go to Hell, but you certainly feel like you live in it for 4 years
Though I don’t believe that Jesus was the son of any God (thus precluding me from being a Christian, I’m fairly sure grins) I do think that his words could teach everyone a lot about how to live, and that, forgoing the whole water/wine things, he was a model human being and a person whose humanitarian efforts I, indirectly, attempt to emulate. shrugs
Ad hominem attacks do very little to give credibility to your arguments, Eternal Student. It’s also patently the case that every claim you’ve made against PolyCarp is very easily defended - you accuse him of being a coward, where another could say he’s brave enough to question his own beliefs and find his own answers, etc, etc, etc.
Can I ask on what basis you offer such a thorough analysis of Polycarp’s beliefs and faults? It’s just that as far as I can see you don’t know him from Adam (no pun intended), and if that is the case I can happily just skip over the rest of your posts knowing that you happily post assumptions and falsehoods.