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 08-19-2016, 10:41 PM | #25801 |
HalvOnHorseracing Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Denver Posts: 4,163 | Quote: Originally Posted by VigorsTheGrey That position is just dutch betting Paschals wager.....whatever the outcome, you're on the winner...I find this a rather dubious position...like the horse racing fan who bets both horses to win in a two horse race....and shows his buddies the winning ticket after the race.....I happen to believe most of the catholic theologians don't really believe most of the dogma either....it is just part of playing the game...I know they are very intelligent.... I just think they are not hung up on the content per se....it is not what you believe that is really important... IT IS THAT YOU BELIEVE that is....it is more a matter of towing the line and not making any waves, go along to get along mentality...the emperor is not naked but is adorned in splendor It's not dutching in my mind. You can accept Jesus as your savior, but still believe the universe started with the Big Bang and God just let the board play out. Which is to say you don't believe in the literalness of Genesis, or the parting of the Red Sea, or the sun stopping in the sky or the great flood. You are only buying one ticket - there is a God, but he isn't boxcar's God of the literally highly improbable. You don't have it both ways. If boxcar is right and you not only have to believe in Jesus the redeemer, but also all the literal stories - and the probability of that would make Arcangues seem odds on - then you are doomed. There is only one winning ticket. Jesus is the savior, the Bible is metaphorical, and the scientific explanations are in fact the correct ones. If you are asking whether the Jesus/salvation nexus is correct, that is a different proposition. I am only suggesting you can accept Jesus as your savior, believe in what science can explain, and you are still good with God. In other words, believing the earth is billions of years old, the six days were not solar days, there were animals millions of years before the appearance of hom*o sapiens, there was no flood that covered the entire earth with water, and so on doesn't disqualify you from the eternal reward, except to boxcar and those of his ilk. |
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| 08-19-2016, 11:39 PM | #25802 |
VigorsTheGrey Veteran Join Date: Feb 2016 Posts: 4,553 | Yes I understand... But do you also believe in such things as the Ascension of both Jesus and Mary into the clouds bodily? That seem to be the same far fetched stories as those you discount....? And where is Jesus been for the last 2000 years? And judgment for the living AND the dead....come on halv, surely you don't believe in such patent absurdities? Last edited by VigorsTheGrey; 08-19-2016 at 11:46 PM. |
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| 08-20-2016, 01:17 AM | #25803 |
thaskalos Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 28,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing It's not dutching in my mind. You can accept Jesus as your savior, but still believe the universe started with the Big Bang and God just let the board play out. Which is to say you don't believe in the literalness of Genesis, or the parting of the Red Sea, or the sun stopping in the sky or the great flood. You are only buying one ticket - there is a God, but he isn't boxcar's God of the literally highly improbable. You don't have it both ways. If boxcar is right and you not only have to believe in Jesus the redeemer, but also all the literal stories - and the probability of that would make Arcangues seem odds on - then you are doomed. There is only one winning ticket. Jesus is the savior, the Bible is metaphorical, and the scientific explanations are in fact the correct ones. If you are asking whether the Jesus/salvation nexus is correct, that is a different proposition. I am only suggesting you can accept Jesus as your savior, believe in what science can explain, and you are still good with God. In other words, believing the earth is billions of years old, the six days were not solar days, there were animals millions of years before the appearance of hom*o sapiens, there was no flood that covered the entire earth with water, and so on doesn't disqualify you from the eternal reward, except to boxcar and those of his ilk. Fine...but, where do the allegories end, and where does the factual reporting begin? Or is the ENTIRE bible "metaphorical"? Because...if we agree that the great flood, the parting of the sea, and the sun stalling in the sky all never occurred...then...what is there to stop us from thinking that the miracles of Jesus never took place either? Last edited by thaskalos; 08-20-2016 at 01:20 AM. |
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| 08-20-2016, 01:24 AM | #25804 |
dnlgfnk Registered User Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: St. Louis suburb Posts: 1,788 | Quote: Originally Posted by hcap Why not excerpt the pertinant material or even better express it YOURSELF in your own words.Explain foundational. What is missing in your history of religion is the origins of that religion in the perspective of many other religions before. Although you begrudgingly acknowledge Christians' Judaic forefathers, most Jews and Christians shy away from Babylonia, Egypt, and earlier influence of various Bronze Age civilizations 33001300 BC. So Judaism, and then Christianity and Islam derive from previous belief systems. However most importantly along with this larger historical perspective showing how the external forms of earlier beliefs influenced present beliefs, what is not so obvious are the esoteric beginnings of religion. The external forms or orthodoxy are the end result of teachings of advanced individuals who adjust those external forms to time and place and culture. Each form is an invitation or "net" to draw honest seekers in deeper. Yes there are some useful behavioral codes but the essence is below the surface. Those codes stand in relation to the real code as traffic laws are to the US Constitution. Unfortunately the initial energy of a religion degrades unless transmitted from teacher to pupil personalty. And even that often fails. So foundational. is open to further interpretation. The historical accounts using "events" only internal to various scripture( a la boxcar ) are NOT THE MEANING OF those religion. You say I "describe the trees instead of the forest" No, I take into account the intertwining root system of many "trees", which in fact is the forest of the worlds religions . Boxcar is the one that views the world through his literal minded own strained forced INTERPRETATION of so-called "biblical Christianity" To him he is orthodox within his belief system and curiously he also objects to my connecting the dots to other belief systems. Simple question. As a Jew I ask you according to orthodox Christianity, taking this literally "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."..John 14:6 Sort of rules me a Jew out of a Christians exclusive club pass. Not only me but all of other religious persuasion. Anything wrong with this picture? [/QUOTE][/QUOTE] In a nutshell, while admiring the practitioners of Eastern mysticism, Chesterton generally would state that it was rooted in Pantheism and the unification of the individual with the world. Authentic love is the realization of the separateness of our souls, i.e., distinction and difference. His thought drew from the Christian implications of considering the Trinity, of course. In one act of being, the Father contemplates himself. Since that thought is the perfect expression of himself, the thought ("Word", since we think in words [Jn 1:1]) is God. The Father loves the thought with a perfect expression of love, and therefore the love is God (Holy Spirit [1 Jn 4:8]). Thus, there is distinction-in-unity, and unity-in-distinction. The highest truth about "being" is that it is intrinsically relational. At the core of individuality is relationality. Plotinus, et.al, would error in the monistic reduction of worldly difference to "One", whereby the world is an illusion or a place where all distinction is viewed as a false dualism of consciousness, needing to be overcome by dissolving all differences into a universal non-being. Only Christianity, i.e., Trinitarian love properly grounds the world, and difference and distinction as real by giving them standing. Creation is the extension of the relational love between Persons of the Trinity to each other, and to the world. This is most obvious to me in the husband-wife relational aspect, helped by Paul's communicating it (Eph 5), as well as John Paul II unpacking it over roughly 4 years of consecutive weekday audiences, "The Theology of the Body". I get that earlier civilizations attempted to explain their existence. It was a primitive search corresponding to their being "hardwired for God". Beyond that there are plenty of sources able to rebut the old "Christianity is warmed over paganism", to cite my own tradition. For an interesting discussion on the startling change in the "scapegoat mechanism" as recorded in the New Testament, see Rene Girard. Jn 14:6...and the position of the Catholic Church... The Church and non-Christians 839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325 The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ",328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329 840 And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus. 841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330 842 The Church's bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .331 844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333 "Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337 __________________ |
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| 08-20-2016, 03:57 AM | #25805 |
hcap Registered User Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 30,398 | Quote: Originally Posted by thaskalos Fine...but, where do the allegories end, and where does the factual reporting begin? Or is the ENTIRE bible "metaphorical"? Because...if we agree that the great flood, the parting of the sea, and the sun stalling in the sky all never occurred...then...what is there to stop us from thinking that the miracles of Jesus never took place either? The main distortion that creeps into the interpretation of scripture, is confusing allegorical themes meant describing one individual's psychological/spiritual inner life with external "events". We may never know whether or not Jesus walked on water literally, until we ourselves first internalize "truth" as told by the allegory and symbolism of this teaching story. Building ones spiritual foundation on water----is one meaning. Truth is the message sent by those who formulated these allegorical tales, and losing track of the that perspective, our understanding easily disintegrates into confusing the inner truth with that outer picture painted to make us wonder and think. Esoteric Christianity uses words with their own meaning. In fact scriptures of other teachings do so as well. http://www.gurdjieffwork.com/site/in...=102390&DL=243 Commentaries on Maurice Nicoll These new and powerful ideas from higher consciousness, for example, ideas expressed in many of the world's great spiritual teachings, cannot be received if one's mind is not receptive. ....These concepts can only be represented by ordinary images or objects, because no one can draw a mind or see wrong ideas. However, using images and objects recognizable to the senses can help us to visualize things not visible to the senses, such as a mind or ideas. In other words, by using objects visible to the senses, it is possible to express the invisible in terms of the visible. This is possible provided that one realizes that the visible things made use of represent invisible things, and so are not to be taken literally, but rather, psychologically. So, a bowl can represent the mind; empty and turned upright it can mean that the mind is receptive to new ideas from higher consciousness; full of filth it represents the mind as full of false, wrong, or dead ideas; and a mind full of "water," (in the Bible, "water" refers to truth) represents a mind full of living or "life-giving" ideas. ....You cannot, when dealing with ideas coming from higher mind or spiritual mind, leave your thinking to others; you must crave for new ideas, which are able to transmit truth, as if they were so much water in the desert. No one is going to help you if you do nothing for yourself. If you think in a new way, you will see things in a new way? If you change, as a result of thinking from new ideas, your view of the world willin factmust change. And, if your view of the world changes, you willand mustchange. "WHAT is meant by the word water? In the phrase: Except aman be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven the word obviously has a special meaning and belongs to a language of words used in a particular way." ..THE MARK Maurice Nicoll |
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| 08-20-2016, 05:17 AM | #25806 |
hcap Registered User Join Date: Nov 2002 Posts: 30,398 | Quote: Originally Posted by dnlgfnk In a nutshell, while admiring the practitioners of Eastern mysticism, Chesterton generally would state that it was rooted in Pantheism and the unification of the individual with the world. Authentic love is the realization of the separateness of our souls, i.e., distinction and difference. His thought drew from the Christian implications of considering the Trinity, of course. In one act of being, the Father contemplates himself. Since that thought is the perfect expression of himself, the thought ("Word", since we think in words [Jn 1:1]) is God. The Father loves the thought with a perfect expression of love, and therefore the love is God (Holy Spirit [1 Jn 4:8]). Thus, there is distinction-in-unity, and unity-in-distinction. The highest truth about "being" is that it is intrinsically relational. At the core of individuality is relationality. Plotinus, et.al, would error in the monistic reduction of worldly difference to "One", whereby the world is an illusion or a place where all distinction is viewed as a false dualism of consciousness, needing to be overcome by dissolving all differences into a universal non-being. As I said Chesterton is looking through Christian/Catholic glasses. Pantheism is only part of eastern conceptualization and not directly applicable . Yes there is a place that man stands in relation to the vast cosmos and that relationship when understood is humbling as that of man to the western god. But the east does not use that intellectual framework specifically dividing man from his surroundings as the west does. Consequently especially in Zen "thinking" your way to salvation is not what it is about. A more useful description, might start with the Pantheism of Spinoza although roughly related to the east, is not a proper term to describe Buddhist beliefs. For the most part Buddhism does not address in depth the topic of the nature of God. (Although there are schools of Buddhism that discuss 'devas'. Not really western like gods.) I mentioned "dualistic". A word often heard in Buddhist discussions. This has to do with interconnectedness, which is not the same as pantheism. Nothing exists in isolation. Quote: Authentic love is the realization of the separateness of our souls. So you say. I think many of us here would criticize your choice to limit love to a man/god dualistic distinction when love certainly extends as Buddhists say, to our fellow sentient beings. Ask your cat or dog for more info Last edited by hcap; 08-20-2016 at 05:25 AM. |
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| 08-20-2016, 08:47 AM | #25807 |
boxcar Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 46,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by hcap "WHAT is meant by the word water? In the phrase: Except aman be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven the word obviously has a special meaning and belongs to a language of words used in a particular way." ..THE MARK Maurice Nicoll LITERALIST Catholics take the term "water" literally, and so they use this passage to "prove" baptismal regeneration -- that is to say, water baptism is absolutely necessary to be saved. I just don't know how that repentant thief ever made into paradise...so many salvation conditions to meet and so little time and energy to meet all of them... __________________ |
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| 08-20-2016, 08:53 AM | #25808 |
boxcar Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 46,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by dnlgfnk Boxcar is the one that views the world through his literal minded own strained forced INTERPRETATION of so-called "biblical Christianity" To him he is orthodox within his belief system and curiously he also objects to my connecting the dots to other belief systems. Simple question. As a Jew I ask you according to orthodox Christianity, taking this literally "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."..John 14:6 Sort of rules me a Jew out of a Christians exclusive club pass. Not only me but all of other religious persuasion. Anything wrong with this picture? In a nutshell, while admiring the practitioners of Eastern mysticism, Chesterton generally would state that it was rooted in Pantheism and the unification of the individual with the world. Authentic love is the realization of the separateness of our souls, i.e., distinction and difference. His thought drew from the Christian implications of considering the Trinity, of course. In one act of being, the Father contemplates himself. Since that thought is the perfect expression of himself, the thought ("Word", since we think in words [Jn 1:1]) is God. The Father loves the thought with a perfect expression of love, and therefore the love is God (Holy Spirit [1 Jn 4:8]). Thus, there is distinction-in-unity, and unity-in-distinction. The highest truth about "being" is that it is intrinsically relational. At the core of individuality is relationality. Plotinus, et.al, would error in the monistic reduction of worldly difference to "One", whereby the world is an illusion or a place where all distinction is viewed as a false dualism of consciousness, needing to be overcome by dissolving all differences into a universal non-being. Only Christianity, i.e., Trinitarian love properly grounds the world, and difference and distinction as real by giving them standing. Creation is the extension of the relational love between Persons of the Trinity to each other, and to the world. This is most obvious to me in the husband-wife relational aspect, helped by Paul's communicating it (Eph 5), as well as John Paul II unpacking it over roughly 4 years of consecutive weekday audiences, "The Theology of the Body". I get that earlier civilizations attempted to explain their existence. It was a primitive search corresponding to their being "hardwired for God". Beyond that there are plenty of sources able to rebut the old "Christianity is warmed over paganism", to cite my own tradition. For an interesting discussion on the startling change in the "scapegoat mechanism" as recorded in the New Testament, see Rene Girard. Jn 14:6...and the position of the Catholic Church... The Church and non-Christians 839 "Those who have not yet received the Gospel are related to the People of God in various ways."325 The relationship of the Church with the Jewish People. When she delves into her own mystery, the Church, the People of God in the New Covenant, discovers her link with the Jewish People,326 "the first to hear the Word of God."327 The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ",328 "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."329 840 And when one considers the future, God's People of the Old Covenant and the new People of God tend towards similar goals: expectation of the coming (or the return) of the Messiah. But one awaits the return of the Messiah who died and rose from the dead and is recognized as Lord and Son of God; the other awaits the coming of a Messiah, whose features remain hidden till the end of time; and the latter waiting is accompanied by the drama of not knowing or of misunderstanding Christ Jesus. 841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."330 842 The Church's bond with non-Christian religions is in the first place the common origin and end of the human race: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city. . .331 844 In their religious behavior, however, men also display the limits and errors that disfigure the image of God in them: Very often, deceived by the Evil One, men have become vain in their reasonings, and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and served the creature rather than the Creator. Or else, living and dying in this world without God, they are exposed to ultimate despair.333 "Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body: Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it.336 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.337 If God "willed to call all humanity (without exception) together into his Son's church", then God is a very weak, impotent. pathetic being since scripture teaches that only a remnant is being saved. __________________ Last edited by boxcar; 08-20-2016 at 09:05 AM. |
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| 08-20-2016, 09:03 AM | #25809 |
boxcar Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 46,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing It's not dutching in my mind. You can accept Jesus as your savior, but still believe the universe started with the Big Bang and God just let the board play out. Which is to say you don't believe in the literalness of Genesis, or the parting of the Red Sea, or the sun stopping in the sky or the great flood. You are only buying one ticket - there is a God, but he isn't boxcar's God of the literally highly improbable. You don't have it both ways. If boxcar is right and you not only have to believe in Jesus the redeemer, but also all the literal stories - and the probability of that would make Arcangues seem odds on - then you are doomed. There is only one winning ticket. Jesus is the savior, the Bible is metaphorical, and the scientific explanations are in fact the correct ones. If you are asking whether the Jesus/salvation nexus is correct, that is a different proposition. I am only suggesting you can accept Jesus as your savior, believe in what science can explain, and you are still good with God. In other words, believing the earth is billions of years old, the six days were not solar days, there were animals millions of years before the appearance of hom*o sapiens, there was no flood that covered the entire earth with water, and so on doesn't disqualify you from the eternal reward, except to boxcar and those of his ilk. Vig, don't buy into Halv's explanation. First of all, he's selling you Deism but the bible teaches Theism. God didn't just wind the universe up and then sit back in his rocker to see how everyone would perform on planet earth. "Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:15; Rom 4:3; Gal 3:6; Jas 2:23.) So...the choice today is as simple as it was back in the Garden of Eden: Adam could have believed God but chose to believe Satan. And so it is today. Nothing has changed. Today, we choose to believe our Creator or the god of this world who has blinded the minds of all unbelievers. __________________ |
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| 08-20-2016, 09:07 AM | #25810 |
boxcar Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 46,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by thaskalos Fine...but, where do the allegories end, and where does the factual reporting begin? Or is the ENTIRE bible "metaphorical"? Because...if we agree that the great flood, the parting of the sea, and the sun stalling in the sky all never occurred...then...what is there to stop us from thinking that the miracles of Jesus never took place either? To the La La Land allegorists the only text in the bible to be taken with stone cold literalness is "God is love". __________________ |
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| 08-20-2016, 09:16 AM | #25811 |
boxcar Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Posts: 46,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by dnlgfnk Boxcar is the one that views the world through his literal minded own strained forced INTERPRETATION of so-called "biblical Christianity" To him he is orthodox within his belief system and curiously he also objects to my [B]connecting the dots to other belief systems. Is that right? And you Catholics don't take 6:54ff. literally? Or Mat 26:26? Or the water in Jn 3:5 literally? You should be the last one to be casting stones from your own glass house at other people's houses! __________________ |
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| 08-20-2016, 07:54 PM | #25812 |
HalvOnHorseracing Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Denver Posts: 4,163 | Quote: Originally Posted by VigorsTheGrey Yes I understand... But do you also believe in such things as the Ascension of both Jesus and Mary into the clouds bodily? That seem to be the same far fetched stories as those you discount....? And where is Jesus been for the last 2000 years? And judgment for the living AND the dead....come on halv, surely you don't believe in such patent absurdities? Frankly, it has a flavor of embellishing the legend, which is often the case when you are talking about larger than life people. But, and I think this is the kicker, whether that story is true or not, it doesn't have to discount the central point about whether there is a God. I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to why God would have waited 4,000 years to send his son, why he would have killed him in a most miserable way, why he chose a time period when people still thought pulling a dinar out of someone's ear was the work of the devil, much less how incredibly little they understood about the universe they lived in, and why he has put off showing up now, a time when he could solve an immense host of problems that seem to trace directly back to religion as their cause. The questions about how God has been acting pretty much since Genesis are perplexing to say the least, and the personality characteristics are often those of a petulant child or a raging narcissist. Would you ask anyone to kill their child to prove their loyalty to you? But somehow it is ok for God to do it. Just a normal day at the office. Which is why, again, I believe most of the stories are not real but metaphorical. God and the devil having a rousing good time messing with Job - simply a story to make a point about how great one's faith can be. Still, the New Testament is full of pretty good advice for how to live the life of a good citizen. People like boxcar start with the immutable assumption that every word of the Bible is true and the word of God. Once you start there, you disallow any sort of suggestion that the earth is billions of years old and hom*o sapiens have only been here for a tiny sliver of that time. The question is not so much whether there is a God. There certainly could be because we can't conceive of how we got to the Big Bang. And it is certainly perplexing how we could have an all knowing, all seeing, all loving being that is often more flawed than our worthless brother in law. If you were going to make up a God, you certainly could have cleaned up a couple of the pedantic stories. |
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| 08-20-2016, 08:10 PM | #25813 |
HalvOnHorseracing Registered User Join Date: Apr 2015 Location: Denver Posts: 4,163 | Quote: Originally Posted by thaskalos Fine...but, where do the allegories end, and where does the factual reporting begin? Or is the ENTIRE bible "metaphorical"? Because...if we agree that the great flood, the parting of the sea, and the sun stalling in the sky all never occurred...then...what is there to stop us from thinking that the miracles of Jesus never took place either? There are some people who believe David Copperfield actually made the elephant disappear. You could spend a while speculating on whether Lazarus was actually dead when Christ revived him. The loaves and fishes? How he did that is beyond me. The more important point is this. If you live a life consistent with the overriding commandments - love thy neighbor, don't kill, don't steal and so on - you would indeed be a wonderful citizen of the world. The greatest value of the Bible is not to create fear of a vengeful God, nor to spin incredible yarns, but to provide a guide for those who need the roadmap. And even if at the end of your life there is no eternal reward but a great dirt nap, if you lived a good life that is enough in and of itself. In boxcar's world you have to believe in all those things, and you have to construct scenarios (the first time it rained was 4,222 years ago) that thoroughly defy every bit of physical evidence available. In fact, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - in the physical world that would support such a story. Believing you have won an argument by starting with, The Bible says... is effective for the boxcars of the world because they have a faith that goes far beyond rationality. I've also said when you die either boxcar was right or he wasn't. But we will all find out, or perhaps completely cease any sort of consciousness. |
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| 08-20-2016, 08:12 PM | #25814 |
VigorsTheGrey Veteran Join Date: Feb 2016 Posts: 4,553 | It seems you make my points...metaphorical?....maybe god is metaphor for something else.....like maybe....well you fill in the blank....I'm not sold on any of it...I'll go for now...I've made my points....I've spoken my truth...it is up to others now to do what they wish with my words....your friend as always, vigors.... Last edited by VigorsTheGrey; 08-20-2016 at 08:13 PM. |
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| 08-20-2016, 08:33 PM | #25815 |
thaskalos Registered User Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 28,891 | Quote: Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing There are some people who believe David Copperfield actually made the elephant disappear. You could spend a while speculating on whether Lazarus was actually dead when Christ revived him. The loaves and fishes? How he did that is beyond me. The more important point is this. If you live a life consistent with the overriding commandments - love thy neighbor, don't kill, don't steal and so on - you would indeed be a wonderful citizen of the world. The greatest value of the Bible is not to create fear of a vengeful God, nor to spin incredible yarns, but to provide a guide for those who need the roadmap. And even if at the end of your life there is no eternal reward but a great dirt nap, if you lived a good life that is enough in and of itself. In boxcar's world you have to believe in all those things, and you have to construct scenarios (the first time it rained was 4,222 years ago) that thoroughly defy every bit of physical evidence available. In fact, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - in the physical world that would support such a story. Believing you have won an argument by starting with, The Bible says... is effective for the boxcars of the world because they have a faith that goes far beyond rationality. I've also said when you die either boxcar was right or he wasn't. But we will all find out, or perhaps completely cease any sort of consciousness. Not to be argumentative, because I agree with every word of yours that I've shaded above...but, if what you say there is indeed "the more important point"...then, what is there to distinguish Christianity from the OTHER major religions in the world? Isn't living the "good life" what is advocated by every legitimate religion under the sun? What makes Christianity unique is the "Son of God", who visited us and performed death-defying miracles. And...if I remember the teachings of my childhood well...Jesus HIMSELF held his "flock" to a much higher standard of conduct than just to "live the good life". NO? |
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