The "Jesus" Symposium

[John_Silver]

I'm gonna disagree with you that a christian chooses to be one. I'd say the vast majority of Christians are indoctrinated since there is an overwhelming probability (something like 99.8% i'll have to find my source again) that you will be a part of the religion your parents are a part of. Now I know this isn't true for you John but you seem to be the exception, not the rule.

Before I delve into our previous discussion, I wanted to let you know that I believe your assertion that most children inherit the religion of their parents. In the case of a Christian, this doesn't make him a Christian in the sense that a Scotsman is a Scotsman. As you know, one can unlearn his Christianity (or unbind himself from the tenets of his faith) that appears to be the case with many of the people on this board. A Scotsman can do no such thing (no matter the strength of his desire to be German as the pure, driven snow like myself...but not everyone can be so fortunate ) Therefore,  people who act outside of the tenets of the teachings of Jesus (I'll use His Anglicized name here because Yeshua is kind of a personal one to me and to make it less confusing to those who stumble upon this for the first time), are acting outside of His Character. Christianity, as carried on by His Talmidim (Disciples), taught that this faith is all about Christ's Character. Let me ask you this, if a person, for whatever reason claimed he held an atheist world-view but began suddenly believing that aliens built the pyramids and voodoo magic heals the sick, would you identify him as one who truly holds an atheist world-view?

I am currently working on the responses to your post in the other thread. Stand by.

John

[John_Silver]

To LoneMateria:

Wow I never heard of an application process to become part of a church. WTF?

Behold the new face of the organized, mega-church. I could tell you stories for days but it wouldn't be ethical for me to throw that kind of information into the “wolves' den” now would it? Because He shows us that anger over gross abuse of His children specifically by religious leaders is not tolerated. We know that the brunt of Jesus anger was targeted at religious leaders because ultimately they were the ones who murdered Him.

When you said: What these cults do is find a way to make you dependent on them, (tell you a sinner but wait we happen to have a cure for just that sort of thing), then once you become dependent on them you are expected to follow everything they say without question.
you couldn't have been closer to the mark. In fact, it's a bulls-eye sure as I'm standing here.

Wow I can honestly say I never expected a Christian to agree with me on that. I'm stunned.

Why wouldn't you expect that? There must be some truly ignorant Christians who frequent this board. Most Christians I know would be horrified to be associated to the notion that they are expected to follow without question. Only one person said “follow Me.” There was (as we read in Paul's letters to the churches) a church leadership of some sort set up in the first century and they did include elders. But, again, looking at first century Christianity, which was only separated from Judaism by the belief that Ha Moshiach (The Messiah) had come in the person of Jesus, we see “church” being done very differently. First of all, an elder was an overseer, not a schoolmaster. He was to ensure that false doctrine wasn't being introduced. In other words doctrine which would place undue hardship on the followers of Christ. False doctrine almost always asks more of people than Christ did! The apostles at the time, Yaakov (James), Cephas (Peter), Yochanan (John) and others, roamed the empire and outlying lands where churches were springing up despite widespread persecution to make sure everyone was holding together and remaining strong in the faith as well as to “spread the wealth” evenly so everyone had enough (it was a sort of socialist society).

But here's the amazing thing to me. A church service included input, sometime at random, from the followers during the service! Try that in today's church. There were prayers, songs and even debate! Right in the middle church. Everyone participated. Today that would get you brought right before the church board!

Christians will do exactly what you say they can't do and say, "I hold here the cure to everything that is wrong in your life". I understand this is part of your faith ... but it's certainly not across the board. Evangelicals are notorious for this behavior as well as faith healers.

Yes, we definitely agree. Faith healers are something I really don't want to talk about because I get physically ill and often find myself in sham rage. There is healing to be had, I do believe that. But when when someone makes one goddamn red cent from the “services rendered” it is no different from voodoo. Even worse, if they make a public spectacle of healing and say things like “if you have enough faith...” you should run! Seriously, God has a special conversation He's going to have with them in the end. I have been studying Benny Hinn for a very, very long time and I can't even look at the man's face for more than a sideways glance. He and those like him bring up inside of me a part I thought I had long put to death.

Let's look at how Jesus healed in Scripture. He had conversations with people individually. Often joking with them. He did weird things like putting a spittle and mud mask in their eyes. Strange. The apostles healed some people just by walking by them. But again this was the work of Jesus and they made that clear. It was never “Jesus and me healed you”.

I'm going to contend that he doesn't have the right to do it. I can make a long argument for this and if you are interested in what i'm about to say let me know and we can start a new thread even though we are kinda hijacking this one.

Let's start that new thread whenever you're ready.  

1:) you believe Jesus died to remove Original Sin and all future Sins.

Jesus died to repair the broken relationship between us and God caused by sin.  He took upon Himself God's Wrath because God had to spend His Wrath on someone in order to be Just.

2:) Jesus either is God or is so close to God that their words would be identical.

Jesus is God according to my belief.

3:) That you have read enough of Genesis and the Old Testament to follow what I am saying.

Too many times to remember how many. Both in English and Hebrew.

Okay lets start with the story of Adam and Eve. God makes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for whatever reason and then tells Adam and Eve not to eat it. The talking snake (or Satan depending on your personal views) convinced Eve to eat it and to give it to Adam. This is considered the moment of original sin when they ate from the tree.

First of all, the serpent in the garden was Hebrew allegory if you are asking me. I believe the original sin took place in heaven. It was pride. That's what got Lucifer tossed. But that is a fringe belief that I hold. Angels are created beings, however, they are no longer in need of Grace. A third of the angels that made their choice that fateful day and went with Lucifer. Their “era of choosing” is over.

Now was it really a sin? If they didn't know going into it what was good and evil and they committed this act without that knowledge then why would it be a sin? And why would God punish all snakes for the actions of one.

Great question. You are about to hear another very, very fringe belief that I hold about this. Lucifer, having already sinned (as we know sin to be), and being second in rank only to God had waged war on God. Sin existed before Adam and Eve (again, my belief). Here is the crux for me. In order for God to be loved by His human creation (why He should want to be loved I don't know but I can certainly understand the feeling one gets when he is loved), they must choose to love Him. Which means they must choose love in the face of “not-love”. Or, of course it isn't anything that resembles the real thing.

So, where does the Tree of Knowledge come into play?

I'm sorry, I'll have to come back to that. I have a few things I need to finish up before work tomorrow so I'll come back tonight. I just wanted to get something out there. I must say though, this is a truly great discussion. One of the better ones I've had in a good long while. Thanks!

John

[Whitney]

if a person, for whatever reason claimed he held an atheist world-view but began suddenly believing that aliens built the pyramids and voodoo magic heals the sick, would you identify him as one who truly holds an atheist world-view?

Yes, but I'd also think he was insane.  A friend of mine (crocoduck here on the forum) has pointed out that almost all self described skeptics have something weird that they still hold onto as a belief (paraphrased).  

To form an analogy...I support earth friendly choices and am therefore part of that movement.  However there are others who also care about the earth who (imo) take things to the extreme and demand that everyone become vegan.  We are both part of the same overall view but there are rather large differences in how we see the details.

It is a similar case for an naturalist athesit vs a spiritual atheist.  The naturalist has his baloney detection kit sending off alarm bells when voodoo magic is mentione but the spiritual atheist would (for whatever reason) accept voodoo as real.
Or, an even better example, Christians and Hindus are both theists; however they both think the other is wrong.

This is another reason why many of us prefer skeptic or freethinker as a worldview because atheist is simply too broad.

[John_Silver]

Yes, but I'd also think he was insane.

Ha! Nice.

To form an analogy...I support earth friendly choices and am therefore part of that movement.  However there are others who also care about the earth who (imo) take things to the extreme and demand that everyone become vegan.  We are both part of the same overall view but there are rather large differences in how we see the details.

Ok, I should just stop using atheism as an anology. LOL. Seems like I have a lot to learn yet. But I still think the Scotsman fallacy doesn't work in this case. But I think we all understand each other.

John

[SSY]

Question: Do you believe god is all powerful? Can he do anything at all? Is he bounded in anyway, by any rules, as to what he can and cannot do?

Is god all knowing? Does he know everything that happened in the past? Everything now? Everything that will happen in the future? Is there anything he does not know?

These questions will help us set down some common ground, so we can agree as to what we are debating over, too many times I have asked questions, to met with, "God is all knowing, but . . . ." which is invariably some form of goalpost shifting. I am of course not pre-emptively accusing you, but would simply like to iron out any misunderstanding before they occur.

[John_Silver]

Question: Do you believe god is all powerful? Can he do anything at all? Is he bounded in anyway, by any rules, as to what he can and cannot do?

The short answers are yes, yes and no. However...

The purpose of the thread I started here was to continue a conversation with Lonemateria from another thread which you are more than welcome to participate in, of course

John

EDITED FOR CLARITY

[John_Silver]

which is invariably some form of goalpost shifting.

"Goalpost shifting" is the stuff of conversation. Some folks would love for the goalposts to remain where they are based upon their view of the field. And others are just addicted to kicking balls into anything that resembles a net.

John

[SSY]

Well let me tell you where I was going with that, since you seem reluctant to be straight forward about it, this way you will be able to choose your words more carefully.

God created Lucifer
Lucifer went bad
God knew Lucifer would go bad (I assume god is all knowing)
Since god is bound by no rules, the only reason he would create Lucifer, in such a way as he knew he would turn out bad, was because he wanted Lucifer to turn out bad, he could have made him turn out perfect, had he wanted to.

As an analogy, say I write a computer program, I know the program will infect peoples computers and delete their hard drives. The only reason I would do this is because I wanted it to delete peoples hard drives, if I wanted it to do something else, I would have not included the command to start deleting peoples stuff. For the sake of absolute clarity, Lucifer is the program, and god the programmer.

Now, to counter the inevitable argument of choice, I would include the following explanation as to why that is not an excuse for god's actions. I, as the computer programmer, know exactly how my program will behave (for the sake of this argument, we will assume I am actually a good programmer). Likewise, god knew, before he ever created Lucifer, exactly how he would behave, he knew that if he made Lucifer to the plan he had written down on his napkin, that Lucifer would turn against him, yet, he still made Lucifer to be treacherous and prideful, despite knowing Lucifer would go bad if made to that recipe. Lucifer could be considered as having made a choice, but god knew which way Lucifer was going to choose anyway. Furthermore, since he knew that Lucifer would go on to royally fuck up the world, for his supposedly beloved humans, he is responsible for that fucking, he made the agent that he knew would go on to ruin a whole bunch of shit, knowing full well that the ruination would take place.

There are basically three ways out of this that I can see, that either god is not all knowing, or not all powerful or he intended us to suffer. I was anxious we could clear this up before hand, so that you would not succumb to the temptation of goal shifting. I consider arguments of this form to be the strongest refutation of an all knowing, all loving, all powerful god, if you can defeat it without resorting to "We don't understand the ways of god" or relinquishing one of his omni powers, I would be both surprised and impressed.

[AlP]

I encourage SSY to be less antagonistic; "argument" from outrage is a fallacy. There is an interesting argument in here of course. I just wonder if we could eliminate the outrage. I remember one time I swore at a Christian for condoning the torture of children in Nigeria and SSY corrected me. He pointed out that the person concerned (I forget his name, he left a while ago) was reasonable.

[SSY]

I am honestly have not tried to be antagonistic, nor do I see where I have been outraged (if indeed that point was directed at me). Having said that, refusal of stating ones beliefs certainly rings alarm bells with me, which is why I probably came off a little brusque, for which I am sorry, I am merely anxious to avoid a poor dismissal or or dodge of the argument, years of bitter cynicism have no doubt contributed as well. Truth be told, this argument is one I have been working on for a while, and have thus far not found any serious challenge to it, and since we rarely get a theist who seems to have such an affinity for reasoned discussion, I was very anxious to try it out.

Speaking of testing it, I would welcome the pointing out of any flaws other people see.

By the way, Reginus was his name, he seemed more open than most to the possibility he might be wrong, which is one of the things i like about him.

[AlP]

Yes "brusqueness" is a better way of putting it. I said "argument from outrage" because that is the name I know for the fallacy and I thought I saw it come across in your argument. Your argument is interesting and I am eager to see the outcome. I hope I have helped the exchange by making it more civil and by removing irrelevant brusqueness. And yeah his name was Reginus. I wish he hadn't left.

[SSY]

Having looked up the argument from outrage, I still fail to see where it applies my posts.

[AlP]

Lordy. SSY is correct. I looked up the argument from outrage again. SSY did not commit the fallacy. There was a little bit of brusqueness but it was all backed up by argument. A|P thinks John will laugh his ass off when he sees this. Apologies to SSY and anyone else I might have offended.

[John_Silver]

I still owe Lonemateria the second part to this post which is why things feel unfinished in relationship to my post.

SSY, I am fairly open about my beliefs and I don't tend to shift goalposts. But I do ask that you wait until I can get the second part (the Tree of Life portion) for LM before we start going down this road. I have been late on posting the second half because I am insanely slammed at present. I am happy to go over all of this with you. And I hope you haven't gotten the impression that I am not open-minded. If you knew how much I have progressed in my positions as I learn more (progress being a relative term for some) you might come to feel the same way about me.

John

[LoneMateria]

Okay well this is what i get for taking the day off from HAF and watching crappy football games.  50 new posts and a few big ones I'd like to respond to in depth.  ***Grabbing the coffee*** this could take a while ^_^

... I wanted to let you know that I believe your assertion that most children inherit the religion of their parents.

Thanx then you saved me some look up work.  

In the case of a Christian, this doesn't make him a Christian in the sense that a Scotsman is a Scotsman. As you know, one can unlearn his Christianity (or unbind himself from the tenets of his faith) that appears to be the case with many of the people on this board. A Scotsman can do no such thing (no matter the strength of his desire to be German as the pure, driven snow like myself...but not everyone can be so fortunate

Sure it would.  We already hate mega churches and assholes like Rick Warren ( who just recently got several million dollars from his congregation to make up for his bad business decisions which landed him nearly $1M in debt).  What's a little more kindling on the fire?

Yes, I always get a chuckle out of church leaders who make that sort of claim. I can easily imagine Jesus tapping them on the shoulder saying “uhhh....excuse me? Whose church is it?...perhaps you meant 'but we don't want you in His church!”

I don't think Jesus would care honestly.  In the bible he always hated the gentiles so I can see him just ignoring everyone and condemning us all to hell (as was the system supposedly before Jesus)

In fact, Jesus said just that many times when He was here. Even better...He called leaders like that a “den of vipers” and “sons of the devil” right to their faces. If you ever study ancient Hebrew culture and classical Semitic languages you'll discover that those words, said to pious rabbinical leaders, were akin to saying “f*ck you, you inbred stump-jumpers!”. Seriously. I like the cussing Jesus. lol.  If they don't show up to spam the forum then they show up to preach, make intellectually dishonest arguments, ignore any counter arguments we make as if we didn't make them, and/or leave before anyone has a chance to respond to their argument, thus, ensuring they maintain their ego-enhanced superiority.  19 out of 20 Christians who visit our forum make a mockery of Christianity to us and don't even realize it.

Most Christians I know would be horrified to be associated to the notion that they are expected to follow without question. Only one person said “follow Me.”

Then you don't know many fundamentalist Christians do you?

There was (as we read in Paul's letters to the churches) a church leadership of some sort set up in the first century and they did include elders. But, again, looking at first century Christianity, which was only separated from Judaism by the belief that Ha Moshiach (The Messiah) had come in the person of Jesus, we see “church” being done very differently. First of all, an elder was an overseer, not a schoolmaster. He was to ensure that false doctrine wasn't being introduced. In other words doctrine which would place undue hardship on the followers of Christ. False doctrine almost always asks more of people than Christ did! The apostles at the time, Yaakov (James), Cephas (Peter), Yochanan (John) and others, roamed the empire and outlying lands where churches were springing up despite widespread persecution to make sure everyone was holding together and remaining strong in the faith as well as to “spread the wealth” evenly so everyone had enough (it was a sort of socialist society).

I have a book you might like called "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Ehrman.  It talks about the accuracy of the Bible as well as the various mistakes, mistranslations, and flat out forgeries in it.  But it also talks about "heretics" like Marcion and how they changed the bible and the in-fighting amongst Christians in the first few centuries.  He talks a lot about Paul's letters and how one of Paul's disciples wrote in Paul's name after his death as well as the mystery authors we know nothing about.  Judging by what you said in this paragraph I think you'd like it, regardless if you agree with it's conclusion or not.

But here's the amazing thing to me. A church service included input, sometime at random, from the followers during the service! Try that in today's church. There were prayers, songs and even debate! Right in the middle church. Everyone participated. Today that would get you brought right before the church board!

Leave reason at the door before you come in.  I feel many churches want its patrons to suspend their critical thinking skills and just agree with them.  Then again I feel Churches today are more of a business then a spiritual reprieve.  They typically ask for 10% of your income and then require you to follow their strict guidelines or else you lose your chance for happiness, because they always push the crap like (you can't be happy without God, or you can't be a good person without God) thus leaving them turns you into a bad person who hates everyone and the all loving being will torture you forever and it's a good thing.  Church reminds me of a predatory lenders, you pay and do as we say or we will screw you over as best we can.

Yes, we definitely agree. Faith healers are something I really don't want to talk about because I get physically ill and often find myself in sham rage. There is healing to be had, I do believe that. But when when someone makes one goddamn red cent from the “services rendered” it is no different from voodoo. Even worse, if they make a public spectacle of healing and say things like “if you have enough faith...” you should run! Seriously, God has a special conversation He's going to have with them in the end. I have been studying Benny Hinn for a very, very long time and I can't even look at the man's face for more than a sideways glance. He and those like him bring up inside of me a part I thought I had long put to death.

One or two of my atheist books talks about Benny Hinn in depth (usually saying something along the lines of don't trust a man whose shoes are more expensive then your house payment).  As atheists we don't believe he will never be brought to the justice he deserves.  Which is depressing.  But we hope to spread reason, logic, etc. and make it so one day people like him won't be able to take advantage of people who want a little hope in life.

Jesus died to repair the broken relationship between us and God caused by sin.  He took upon Himself God's Wrath because God had to spend His Wrath on someone in order to be Just.

Why couldn't God just forgive?  He is supposed to be a loving God right?  Why did God have to take it out on every Generation for the "sins" of two?  Why does God have to spend is wrath like a $20 bill in a 8 year old's pocket?  I mean if i'm angry for something give me a week tops to calm down (normally give me five minutes) why can I be this forgiving but God can't be?

Jesus is God according to my belief.

Alright, I don't like making assumptions so this is good to know.

Too many times to remember how many. Both in English and Hebrew.

Okay I just know the basic stories.  We get a lot of Christians who come in here to preach but haven't opened a bible outside of Church.

First of all, the serpent in the garden was Hebrew allegory if you are asking me. I believe the original sin took place in heaven. It was pride. That's what got Lucifer tossed. But that is a fringe belief that I hold. Angels are created beings, however, they are no longer in need of Grace. A third of the angels that made their choice that fateful day and went with Lucifer. Their “era of choosing” is over.

Okay so let me ask you then ... why is the human race being punished for the actions of Lucifer?  How is that moral?

Great question. You are about to hear another very, very fringe belief that I hold about this. Lucifer, having already sinned (as we know sin to be), and being second in rank only to God had waged war on God. Sin existed before Adam and Eve (again, my belief). Here is the crux for me. In order for God to be loved by His human creation (why He should want to be loved I don't know but I can certainly understand the feeling one gets when he is loved), they must choose to love Him. Which means they must choose love in the face of “not-love”. Or, of course it isn't anything that resembles the real thing.

Why does he need this?  Why is he so insecure that he requires this?  And why must it be of free will?  Wouldn't it just be easier for God to make a Mrs. God who lives him like two partners do?  I don't see the logic in this i'm sorry.

So, where does the Tree of Knowledge come into play?

I'm sorry, I'll have to come back to that.