(01-04-2019 09:34 AM)Rob Wick Wrote:  First, Steve, I'm glad I wasn't drinking something when I read your post. Otherwise, my screen would have been soaked.

Given that Lincoln struggled with his religious beliefs (even up to the day he died, I believe) this kind of discussion is certainly apropos to the site, although I agree with Gene that such a topic is far too complex to be properly handled here other than in a cursory manner. Everyone comes to their point of view on just about any topic through a journey rather than a blinding light in the sky moment. Growing up I attended a fundamentalist church. Yet I could never get my questions answered. "You just have to accept it on faith," was the reply. Sorry, but if I had the faith in the first place, I wouldn't have the questions.

John, I stopped trying to figure out how the universe began a while back. While certainly a legitimate intellectual exercise, I question how knowing what started things would change the way I live my life. Even if it could be proven that a higher power put things into motion, I'm not sure what it would tell me that I don't already know. I don't know how my surgeon performed my quadruple bypass. I could learn if I chose to, but given that I'm still vertical I accept that what he did he did correctly. Knowing the procedure doesn't change the outcome.

What I can't understand is touched on by Gene. I don't accept that just because I can't understand God's reasons for allowing suffering in the world, that somehow it means I have to accept it. If God is all-knowing even to the point of taking care of the sparrow, he knows what I will face in my lifetime, up to the end. Yet, if he won't, or can't, make it so I don't have to suffer, but chooses to heal some other person with the same condition, then either he isn't all-powerful or is cruel. Either way, he's not someone I would chose to follow.

The other issue I have is in eternal punishment. No matter how evil someone is, at some point their evil will cease. Yet, for a determinate crime, someone faces indeterminate punishment. How is that fair? Christians are fond of saying that people have free will. Yet, if God gave me that free will, and I exercise it and decide that he doesn't exist, I'm condemned to an eternity of punishment for denying he exists. Again, how is that fair?

Finally, people often ask me "what if you're wrong?" Richard Dawkins, who can be too caustic for my tastes, had a good response. Most people are born into a particular faith. If you're born in America, you will likely be some type of Christian. If you're born in India, you'll likely be a Hindu, and so on. I turn the question around as ask "what if you're wrong?" Their usual reply is that they've lost nothing by believing (Pascal's wager). I then respond, "only if I'm right."

Best
Rob

Rob:

Well said.

I suppose I would say that if it could be shown that a god really exists and that he created the universe and life on earth and that he is most accurately represented by this or that faith (all the others being in error), I would then adopt that faith and begin to honor its precepts and not violate them as I do, as does just about everyone else, every day. There is nothing as pervasive in human history as religious hypocrisy. It is certainly no deterrent to war, killing, etc. Indeed, it is war's second casualty, after truth.

As for suffering and eternal damnation, your comments are well taken. I wonder why God bothered creating 225,000 Indonesians if he was going to allow them to be wiped out by the 2004 tsunami. A rabbi once told me that the holocaust was God's punishment of the Jews for not obeying the Torah. I said that I thought it was Hitler who killed 6 million Jews. He said "God used him". A stretch, I would say.

John

Put me down as a Cargo Cultist.

Taking him out of context, John wrote "Belief is not a matter of volition; it is a matter of faith and conviction."

I'd agree with that.

I certainly do not take everything that is in the Bible as being the literal truth.

I find it difficult to believe the tenets of the Catholic faith. That Mary was a Virgin. That a priest can transform a piece of bread into God. (Do I dis-believe them? No. Because if there is a God, then surely all things are possible)
I do have difficulty accepting that God would allow children to suffer pain, even though I think I could write pages on why a loving God would. (The quote below from Madeleine L'Engle goes some way to doing so)

I find it impossible though to believe that the love that human beings have shown for each other is coincidental or something that results for evolution. Its been said that humans are the only specie that kills its own kind for no real purpose. But humans are the only ones that devote their lives for altruistic purposes or even give up their lives for others.

"I will have nothing to do with a God who cares only occasionally. I need a God who is with us always, everywhere, in the deepest depths as well as the highest heights. It is when things go wrong, when good things do not happen, when our prayers seem to have been lost, that God is most present. We do not need the sheltering wings when things go smoothly. We are closest to God in the darkness, stumbling along blindly." Madeleine L'Engle

Am a bit surprised so many want to blame God for the problems, pain and misery in the world.
The Bible is quite clear that Satan is responsible for this. God gave man free will, the ability to decide between right and wrong.
Making the wrong choices has consequences and often innocents suffer. That's the reality of sin in the world.
If you think that's not fair, then recognize sin and evil for what it is. It ruins lives.
Live the way God wants you to and be given the promise of a future world without pain and suffering. Sounds so simple doesn't it. Give it a try, and keep trying.

I remember something motivational speaker Zig Zigler said, "The Bible is not hard to understand, sometimes what you understand is hard."

In actuality Gene, I'm not blaming God for the problems. Nor do I blame Satan. Given that in my mind neither exist, neither can be held responsible.

When my mother was dying from cancer, I was still a believer, albeit not a very strong one. I was angry with God for allowing her to die. I was told by several good-meaning people that God could cure her immediately, yet he never did. When she died, I was mad. But I stopped believing in God not because he caused my mother to die, but because my mother died from a tumor that developed in her colon which did not respond to treatment. It was then I realized, God doesn't cause people to die, because there is no God. They die of disease because their body does not respond to treatment.

Some people in the world need the benefit of the myth that there is something higher and more powerful in existence. Some people need to have something external to blame when in reality the problem is with themselves. When people ask where was God during the Holocaust, I ask where was man? Some people need for God to exist.

I don't.

Best
Rob

Everyone:

Well, this has gone far beyond what I thought it would, but it's OK; this kind of mental stimulation will keep us from getting Alzheimer's.

AussieMick (which, I gather, means you are of Irish descent?)

I too do not accept the tenets of Catholicism (I have an especially hard time with those tenets that find no authority in the Gospels, e.g. limbo, purgatory, the exclusion of women from the priesthood, celibacy for priests, etc.), and apparently that can be said for a lot of other people too inasmuch as there has been schism in the Church since the moment Jesus breathed his last (Aryans, Gnostics, Albigensians, Waldensians, Hussites and all the various stripes of protestants from the 16th century to the present). Why should you have difficulty believing that mutual help among humans is a product of evolution? Clearly early humans had to cooperate for a successful hunt and for defense against their own kind, biological cousins, predators, the elements and the whims of nature. Thus, according to Hobbes, we have the social contract (or compact) and the state. We don't kill each other "for no real purpose". Ask any killer why he or she killed and he or she will give you a reason, especially in time of war. I believe you are mistaken about altruism. I believe there are many examples of lower animals (lower than us, that is) and insects that help their own kind and even sacrifice their lives for the survival of the group.

Eva: "If all people, etc." That isn't going to happen, because the love of money is the root of all evil (St. Paul). Most people love money (more accurately, the things it will buy) than they hate injustice. Furthermore, if you read the commandments carefully, you will see in them a prescription for the preservation of private property, not a code for achieving and securing justice.

Gene:

Please don't sell yourself short: There is nothing wrong with your writing skills. Further, it is not a case of "blaming" God for the problems, pain and misery in the world, it is a case, rather, of expressing surprise (incredulity really) that he would allow and tolerate flagrant injustice, which occurs everywhere and for all time. Injustice does not mean suffering for making the wrong choices, it means suffering even when one makes the right choices or makes no choice at all. What choice did the 225,000 Indonesians make to deserve to be drowned? Satan? Is that the talking snake in the garden? Snakes don't talk. "Live the way that God wants you to." Which God? The one who has a son, but not a prophet (The Father)? Or the one who has a prophet, but not a son (Allah)? Or the one who has neither a son, nor a prophet? (Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, etc.)? Or the one who reigns in the spirit world with other Gods, including Brahma, Krishna, Vanu, Ganesh, etc. Or the God who is not a God, but a great teacher of ethics (Guatama (Buddha), Confucius, Lao Tze, etc.)?Which do you accept and why? Why does one have a greater claim to truth than the others? By what standard and according to whose authority?

Rob: They don't need someone to blame, but to appeal to for help. The person who does not have to go outside of himself or herself occasionally for help in the struggle for survival has not been born. I believe that it is this need for help in the struggle for survival, a process ongoing for eons, that has implanted religion in our brain chemistry so that it is now almost as much a part of our being as eating, drinking, sleeping and procreating. Those who attack it (the "New Atheists"), therefore, are wasting their time, energy and money. Leave it alone (benign neglect).

John

John,
You make the usual comments re. Catholicism. Not being a very good Catholic, I hesitate (but not for long) to respond. I'd simply say that many Catholics are Catholics despite the Catholic Church. Maybe that's why Catholicism has lasted for so long, even though many have predicted its death over the centuries, and maybe why it has given comfort to so many.

(01-05-2019 04:52 AM)AussieMick Wrote:  John,
You make the usual comments re. Catholicism. Not being a very good Catholic, I hesitate (but not for long) to respond. I'd simply say that many Catholics are Catholics despite the Catholic Church. Maybe that's why Catholicism has lasted for so long, even though many have predicted its death over the centuries, and maybe why it has given comfort to so many.

AussieMick:

In my opinion, it survives and has given and will continue to give comfort to billions because it weaves a beautiful tapestry and recites a magnificent poem. Couple these with the innate need for help that I spoke of and we have a perfect fit. Few know the details of dogma and fewer still care about them. So billions stay in the Church despite absurdities like limbo and purgatory and despite scandalous priests. I was raised Protestant and was therefore initially hostile to Catholicism, but I long ago made my peace with it, when I felt I truly understood it.

John

Hello all. This is a very interesting subject although maybe difficult for some having to defend their faith. Seeing that this discussion is based on the scriptures, I have a question. Due to all the revisions and translations (witness the King James Version of the bible), how can we be sure of the meanings of the original versions? From what I understand it is like playing "telephone" through the ages and different languages.

(01-05-2019 07:40 AM)Rsmyth Wrote:  Due to all the revisions and translations (witness the King James Version of the bible), how can we be sure of the meanings of the original versions?

Good question.
Here is an article that hopefully can answer your question better than I can.
"3 Good Reasons To Believe the Bible has Not Been Corrupted" - Apologetics Press website
http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.as...ticle=5196

The website offers some very good information on Christian Apologetics.
I have not read every article here, but it's a nice resource to pursue this subject.

John - you raise some questions that are mine, too.
As for the 10 Commandments being "a prescription for the preservation of private property, not a code for achieving and securing justice" - I think life and respect (love) are way more than (material) property.
"My" passage despite that I do appreciate the 10 Commandments is Ecclesiastes 3 because that seems "reasonable" to my simple brain.

"19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
22 Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?"

Thank you Gene! I also learned why the New Testament was written in Greek.

(01-06-2019 07:53 AM)Rsmyth Wrote:  Thank you Gene! I also learned why the New Testament was written in Greek.

I admit I rather skimmed the site (although it's interesting) and missed the why - so why? Thanks for enlightenment...

Given that the vast majority, if not the whole of humanity, has an innate need to appeal to a higher power for help at some point in our lives, when God is taken out of our lives, it leaves a vacuum that must be replaced with something else. Elitists who promote communism/fascism/socialism/totalitarianism/liberalism substitute big government (with themselves at the apex of power and wealth) for God. They control the masses by supplying their basic needs while taking away their inalienable rights and liberties (which the elitists do not believe in, and most definitely do not believe come from God.)

So the question comes down to this: Who will each of us choose to serve? God or man? God or (fill in the blank)?

The world is proof that there is a God. You cannot get something (the world) from nothing. Something had to have always existed. You can call it energy, or you can call it spirit, but it is all-encompassing (except for evil, which is the result of free will.) I've always thought that the more legitimate question is: Does God take an interest in his creation?

It is abundantly obvious to me that what happens to our bodies is not a top priority with God. We all must die sometime, and we owe God a death. I think it is safe to say that God's interest is not in anything in the material world, but in the spiritual only. Everything is on loan to us, including our bodies and our lives. We may not like that fact, but all evidence points to it being the truth.

The day will never come when human beings will fully understand God. Science does its best to understand this fallen world, but it cannot explain the First Cause. Rather than acknowledging that fact, some choose to ridicule those who believe in a "God of the gaps." To them, as scientific knowledge increases, God decreases, until finally, some day, God will be eliminated altogether and human beings will at last have progressed beyond their silly superstitious religious beliefs. That is the goal of the globalists who are trying to seize control of this world from the peoples of all countries.

I spent too many years of my life as a frozen chosen Episcopal Church organist to ever want to debate religion with anyone - especially when a number of the priests that I served under could not get their interpretations in sinc either. That said, Kate, I think you have posted excellent points here.

There have been times when I suspected that I was a Deist and other times when I almost converted to Catholicism. I have often wondered why I could not have "blind faith." I have no answers, and now that I am approaching the end of my life, I am really getting concerned...