Journal btlzu2's Journal: [religion] jesus is just alright with me 35
"And that servant [slave], which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."
he was pretty good at repeating some already established good ideas (golden rule, etc.) and performed some *cracking* miracles, but he was a bit overboard at times with his lashing of slaves and what-not. i know the current thinking is god wanted us to have slaves so we could grow to learn to not have slaves, but it would've been a bit nice if old hayzeus had suggested that having slaves is a bad idea.
also, what's with the "abandon your family and follow me [hale-bopp is coming 'round again]!" (comment mine) stuff?
and, as julia sweeney so aptly puts it, jesus "suffering for our sins" was basically a bad weekend. she watched her brother suffer from cancer for 6 months--canker sores covering his throat, dropping to 60 pounds, lying in bed vomiting for an entire week at a time.
and WHAT THE HELL kind of "father" sends his son to die a miserable death when he supposedly has the power to clean things up with a "bewitched" nose wiggle?
oh...yeah...the old testament god is that kind of father. the one obsessed with sacrifice and ordering the people he "loved" so much kill their own children.
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Trinity (Score:2)
God's power is unknown. But this whole piece about the father and son.... this is the old Catholic fun of describing the holy trinity.
"God" is three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Someone who's a better Catholic from me will hopefully explain this better, but Jesus is just the human avatar for God, its not a literal 'son' of Go
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science doesn't purport to have all the answers and filling in unknown answers with an arbitrary hypothesis, like "God", is unscientific and specious.
my favorite question to ask christians is: "Who created god?"
christian's favorite cop-out to that is: "God is eternal." Thanks a lot Thomas Aquinas.
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Yep. I would except that, "Sure", "Possibly", etc...
my favorite question to ask christians is: "Who created god?"
I get this all the time. The way I see it (which is just my humble belief) is that God/Heaven exists about the dimensions we live. There is no 'time' in heaven... in fact, maybe God 'created' time? So, yeah, 'eternal' would work, but its misleading to say that. Try to think outside of time... that's where God
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so...how do you know all these details about god's existence?
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it's not about having all the answers--which science doesn't and religion *certainly* doesn't--it's the quest to find them and it's utterly fascinating for some.
thanks for being honest! it's really refreshing to hear
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it takes some thinking to become an atheist, but there's a definite logical path there. i'm sure some people are atheists out of spite, but most are because they've got good and logical answers for being atheists. i never wanted to admit it until the logic was so overwhelming i couldn't help it and it would've been dishonest to stay a christian or agnostic.
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i'm not so sure they think a god started the universe though. :)
Buddhism is a bit unusual among religions in that it leaves that question blank. ;-)
i never wanted to admit it until the logic was so overwhelming i couldn't help it and it would've been dishonest to stay a christian or agnostic.
But there you've made a glaring mistake. It is no more logical to be an atheist (at least if you are a positive atheist, i.e. you think it is proven no God exists) than to be an agnostic. It is, however, more lo
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wish i could find a way to quantify
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my question should be: why are you satisfied with coming up with conjecture (iow: your humble belief) for details of God's existence when you most likely don't do that in any other area of life?
do you create a whole belief-based explanation of other things based purely on what you think it should be or do you learn about it and research the facts?
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You ask all the hard questions, eh? My 'humble opinion' was the whole God living about the dimensions we are bound by. The reason is that it is the most satisfying (scientific) theory that I have come up with. I do that with everythign I don't understand and, for some reason or another, can't find the right sol
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The problem I have with that argument is that for me, it's more likely that the Universe just sprang into existence than it is that a God capable of creating the universe, time and the other observable aspects of our
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Finite Infinity (Score:2)
Is there an answer that allows someone to come to a compromise between these? Or are they an unreconcilable contradiction?
It's interesting; I offer no sure explanation to it
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nothing like creating a speculative concept and then debating all sorts of issues around it when it doesn't hold together, you know?
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of course, all hypothesis begins with speculation, but if it never can move past that, you would think it should at least be put on the back burner for a while instead of basing your life on it for t
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however, i'd contend that edison had evidential reasons to believe the light would work. it wasn't raw, unbridled speculation with no hope of testing the hypothesis. but, when you get here (i'm not a philsopher), i imagine you can't define a generalized limit of when speculation is worthwhile or when it isn't.
That is the definition of an untested anecdote. And you say there is no hope of testing a religious hypothesis. Logically that is not true. That is the definition of trying to prove a negative, the same connundrum behind the Halting Problem. Because we haven't found a way of testing for God doesn't mean he does or doesn't exist nor that we won't. The closeness of the probability to 100% or 0% doesn't mean anything: it either is true or it isn't. But the only way to find the truth is to exhaustively
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would you say Carl Sagan *believed* in the mysticism of numbers or was fascinated by the idea of it? i always thought he had cool ideas about what it could be, but never *believed* in a supernaturalism of them. i certainly don't, unless something is found in them to prove otherwise.
Sagan is often considered a pantheist, a panentheist, an atheist, and/or an agnostic. Personally I think he was a pantheist, or at least that's the label that would have fit him best.
As for 'believing in the mysticism' of n
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he's recent posthumous book (sagans' not sielwolf's--ha) is very clear on the religion points actually and i, of course, interpret his views a bit differently than you. seems to me he was using "religion" as a loose metaphor for fellowship with each other and with reality. the latest book's a good read--a collection of speeches. (sure you'd like it too) he also sa
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he also said the god of the bible is a small meaningless god.
I would actually agree with him on that point in a sense, because I don't think it would be terribly rational or helpful or useful to insist on a definition of God solely based on the text to be found in the Bible. The Bible to me is an ultimate and primary source -- a starting point -- but the experience of God is something that has to unfold though a great deal of reflection.
It would be as if someone insisted that the Universe is only that
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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-- Epicurus, c.300 BC
(There are various alternate translations, and indeed, no written original from which to work. But the one I'v
Wel... (Score:2)
he was pretty good at repeating some already established good ideas (golden rule, etc.) and performed some *cracking* miracles, but he was a bit overboard at times with his lashing of slaves and what-not. i know the current thinking is god wanted us to have slaves so we could grow to learn to not have slaves, but it would've been a bit nice if old hayzeus had suggested that having slaves is a bad idea.
It's actually kinda obvious and didn't have to be said. Having slaves doesn't really fit too well with "
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do you honestly believe god is sitting up there picking and choosing who to let die mercifully?
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The short answer is yes. Unfortunately, the short answer is also rather misleading and incomplete, and I really have to get some work done now, so you'll have to wait for the long answer. :-) But yes, I believe that God is active in our Universe.
Cheers,
Ethelred
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anyway, i think you explained a bit about that already. since you used the word 'believe', i really can't argue with that.
An interesting snippet (Score:1)
He didn't really believe in any god, because he couldn't see the logic and was unable to simply have faith.
An average person will walk up to a light switch that is down, switch it up to the on position and has faith that the light will come on. (Most people don't know the ins and outs of how the light switch works.)
He, on the other hand, would flip the switch, knowing that the light
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if i were arguing with ya, i would've said there's much more reason to have faith in a light switch than an invisible all power supernatural being that no one can prove the existence of!
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Absolutely!! My point to him was the fact that he couln't simply have faith in a light switch. Why could anyone ever *think* that he could have faith in any diety?
^_^
On death and redemption (Score:2)
Too many of my peeps don't understand this, so let me lay the 411 on you...
Ancient Jews had a custom, a sacred right. Once a year they would take a lamb and each member of the village would lay their hands upon the lamb. By laying hands on the lamb, they would transfer - at least symbolically - their own sins to the lamb. Then the lamb would be s
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furthermore it's a concept entangled with