EPTChristianity Questions - Page 3
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Yuljan
2196 Posts
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Texas
Germany2388 Posts
You shall not murder. 8] | ||
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FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On January 30 2008 01:31 Wonders wrote: All of moral philosophy is dedicated to coming up with such a basis. And the effort has failed, I believe. The fundamental basis for human morality is our existence as (primate (mammal (animal))) organisms with the associated ancestral feelings and emotions. Logic and rationality are just modes of thinking used for justification and exploration. Its totally impossible to logically prove the most fundamental aspects of morality, such as the equality of all human beings before God, the idea of treating all with dignity and respect, etc. On January 30 2008 01:53 Hawk wrote: Scientology is just as much of a religion as Christianity, Buddism or whatever. Only true if you have a narrow minded, literal interpretation of religion. Scientology is basically a cloistered cult created by a documented charlatan (L Ron Hubbard) with the intent to defraud. | ||
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Ancestral
United States3230 Posts
Here's my contention / question. My grandfather was an atheistic humanist, whose goal was the betterment / prosperity / brotherhood etc. of all mankind. He died, and obviously according to the Bible he's going to hell. I know earlier it was mentioned that people who are good but atheistic have no rational reason to be good, but I disagree with that entirely. If you hit someone, they take vengeance on you and hit you back. If you bake them muffins, they might give you pumpkin seeds, if you massage their back they may give you a BJ. Being compassionate has lots of advantages. Anyhow, that's not related to my inquiry, just a fundamental feeling. Now you can debate that aspect, but it's not what's important. So, my grandpa, who was renowned by the people who knew him as compassionate and humble, died and (supposedly) went to hell. And though I go to Bible study and Sunday worship, I'm not certain of my faith. The underlying point is, you are supposed to love your family. Abraham rescued lot with God's help etc, even though Lot wasn't a perfect God fearing man. So if I am to love and cherish my grandfather, and speak highly of his name, and also love and revere God, who sent him to hell, there is obviously a discrepancy here. If I love my grandfather and believe he was a good and worthy man, then I am denying God because he was an atheist and that is obviously bad. But if I love God and follow all the teachings, then I am neglecting the memory of my grandfather because I have to say "though I loved and cherished you, you are now in hell and since you didn't follow the way you must be punished." And how could a man who neglects his family and thinks low of their life deeds be allowed into heaven, or be considered Christian-like? A man should be a blessing to those around him, and my grandfather was. I can't see following Christ and taking this view that my grandpa is deservedly in hell, or honoring my grandpa and strictly following the way. Lots of other questions, but I don't want to fill up the entire page. I also have plenty of other people to ask obviously, but on this one subject I yearn for the opinion of every God fearing man, regardless of his level of expertise. To expand my understanding I must talk with people, because the people you met and interacted with are the only legacy after your death, since material goods hold no value. | ||
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Mindcrime
United States6899 Posts
"Three persons in one God," is how the Trinity is normally explained. How is that not polytheism? | ||
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FieryBalrog
United States1381 Posts
On January 30 2008 07:07 Ancestral wrote: Hi Here's my contention / question. My grandfather was an atheistic humanist, whose goal was the betterment / prosperity / brotherhood etc. of all mankind. He died, and obviously according to the Bible he's going to hell. I know earlier it was mentioned that people who are good but atheistic have no rational reason to be good, but I disagree with that entirely. If you hit someone, they take vengeance on you and hit you back. If you bake them muffins, they might give you pumpkin seeds, if you massage their back they may give you a BJ. Being compassionate has lots of advantages. Anyhow, that's not related to my inquiry, just a fundamental feeling. Now you can debate that aspect, but it's not what's important. I could, because that isn't any rational basis for morality. Its just a form of Hobbesian social contract where people are nice to each other and enforce lawful/unlawful behaviors for purely self-interested reasons. The problem with that is, well first of all, thats not the only or even major reason why people actually refrain from immoral behavior. Second, if you punch someone in the face they might beat you up, sure, great reason not to hit someone. However if you steal their money or woman or whatever and blame it on someone else, you get free stuff and someone else gets fucked. Sounds like a great advantage so must be a good thing to do, right? The idea behind basing morality on "do the most advantageous thing" is that it in order to be logically consistent, if the most advantageous thing happens to be to fuck someone over and get away with it, well that must be the right thing to do then. On January 30 2008 07:07 Ancestral wrote: So, my grandpa, who was renowned by the people who knew him as compassionate and humble, died and (supposedly) went to hell. And though I go to Bible study and Sunday worship, I'm not certain of my faith. The underlying point is, you are supposed to love your family. Abraham rescued lot with God's help etc, even though Lot wasn't a perfect God fearing man. So if I am to love and cherish my grandfather, and speak highly of his name, and also love and revere God, who sent him to hell, there is obviously a discrepancy here. If I love my grandfather and believe he was a good and worthy man, then I am denying God because he was an atheist and that is obviously bad. But if I love God and follow all the teachings, then I am neglecting the memory of my grandfather because I have to say "though I loved and cherished you, you are now in hell and since you didn't follow the way you must be punished." And how could a man who neglects his family and thinks low of their life deeds be allowed into heaven, or be considered Christian-like? A man should be a blessing to those around him, and my grandfather was. I can't see following Christ and taking this view that my grandpa is deservedly in hell, or honoring my grandpa and strictly following the way. Lots of other questions, but I don't want to fill up the entire page. I also have plenty of other people to ask obviously, but on this one subject I yearn for the opinion of every God fearing man, regardless of his level of expertise. To expand my understanding I must talk with people, because the people you met and interacted with are the only legacy after your death, since material goods hold no value. Not all Christian denominations stress the notion of hell, or how one enters it. Remember that a lot of political control has been exerted on the shape of Christianity over the past 2000 years. I am not a Christian, but what Jesus says in the Bible is this: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life; no man comes to the Father but through me." That to me sounds a lot more open to interpretation than tradition holds. Maybe its worthy of some study. What exactly does it mean to go through the path that is Jesus? | ||
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TechniQ.UK
United Kingdom391 Posts
Basically what im trying to say is leave the judging up to God and just because you become a Christian doesn't mean you need to hate that person or think any less of them. Also all things are taken in to account in the judgement, there are lesser punishments and there are greater punishments for greater sins etc... i don't know completely how it works but our God is a just and kind God. You don't need to neglect the memory of your grandfather just think of it as he was a great man and he was a kind and loving man, his punishment may not be as bad and you will always love him and the people around him will always love him. God wouldn't really sit there and make you hate your own family members or dislike your own family members i mean a persons salvation is between them and God really. Well of course we christians have a duty to help God as we are all led by him but we are to love our family and friends and those around us, not condemn them in our hearts or by our mouths. | ||
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Ancestral
United States3230 Posts
However, I'm not sure what the RIGHT interpretation is, therefore I try to mix an approach of: 1)Studying the Bible 2)Going to church 3)Talking with Christians 4)Studying history 5)Praying And just for the 6th, making things up. It happened in history, but I guess I don't have any kind of authority. My view on Christianity is far more Unitarian than most others, and for that some might discount or ostracize my views, but the ultimate goal is to find the truth. And in order to do that, I must sift through a LOOOT of stuff. So I feel and believe the way I feel and believe now, but the ultimate goal is the truth, and also unity, friendship etc. And you're right about the logic behind compassion, but optimism seems to be most logical for me. I am more productive and happy when I believe that good actions result in good results, and that f***ing people over, while it may lead to short term gains, is not a sustainable way to prosperity. However, I must digress here, as my argument there is rooted in my own feelings and not any sort of logic or precedent (at least, it is rooted in logic only to a less that complete sense). Edit: At technique Yes, leave the judging up to God. I am glad you put it that way. It is only that American Evangelicals (the kind of Christians I am used to interacting with, at least outside my own church and group of friends) tend to do a lot of judging. The way I see it, and this is probably more progressive than what you're used to is that faith will always end up with the most favorable result. When I see the clouds on a rainy day, I know the sun is behind them. And although they can explain this with physics, I don't have any reason to believe these massive phenomnae other than they are observed over and over again. But if someone did not take that for granted, they might be more surprised. So I can't say for sure how Jesus will judge all the living and the dead, but living faithfully should ensure that when judgment comes, the best possible things will occur. I tend to be a little "happy-go lucky" with my Christianity, much to the dismay of some others, but it works for me at the moment. There is some controversial evangelist, I forget his name. Though I disagree with some of his arguments he said "Don't tell people they're saved, tell them how to be saved." I guess it's also true "Don't tell people they're damned, tell them how to be saved." Just my thoughts. Edit again: My original post was written with the assumption that you were like a lot of the churchgoers I've met at school etc., which may be a bad assumption. Not that I doubt their noble intent, but the reality is often different. | ||
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TechniQ.UK
United Kingdom391 Posts
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mel_ee
2447 Posts
anyways since we have some very intelligent people reading this, i thought i can ask this following question: why do different christian denominations believe in the same (almost the same) bible but not have the same denomination? Did they just happen to make over 30,000 different types of christianity based on what they like? | ||
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man
United States272 Posts
On January 30 2008 01:57 f0rgiv3n wrote: The bible taken alone, proves nothing-- In my opinion I believe it proves everything, everything about the human race. This is one reason why I personally believe in Christianity. Reading through the bible, the bible is the only religious book that shows the disgusting and disturbing ways of how we all are. Reading through the bible you'll find things such as murder, rape, stealing, and lots of other things that you would think religions would want to hide. Another thing about the bible is unlike all other religious texts it was written by 40 different authors over 1600 years. 1600 YEARS! Can you believe that? Yet reading through it the thematic content flows amazingly. from 40 different authors???????? That just blows my mind. In my opinion if how the Bible was written and how it flows doesn't prove there was some sort of higher being influencing these authors, I don't know what would. My question is this: What are good reasons for a belief in Christianity or indeed any religion? Which reasons are not valid reasons? Which reason(s) do you base your own beliefs upon? I don't want to waste your time by typing out a bunch of archaeological finds of scripts, and other things but I will say this: I would like to bring up for a good reason to believe there is a God is look at the odds! If anyone hasn't ever read about Pascal's Wager I would recommend you to it. it's quite interesting. In a nutshell it talks about if you were to believe in God, and there was a God you get to go to heaven, if you believe in God and there isn't a God, you lose nothing and perhaps live a life with more hope than if you didn't. However if you don't believe in a God and he is, you lost, if you don't believe and he doesn't exist still... you lose nothing. The odds are in our favor guys. : ) That's one logical reasoning that I find interesting and applicable to my belief in God. Sorry to type a lot I find it good stuff to discuss this stuff. Thanks for the fun blog TechniQ.UK! Yes, the Bible's thematic contents flows so amazingly. In fact, there are no contradictions... http://ffrf.org/books/lfif/?t=contra http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html#good_to_all Pascal's wager? I hope you believe in all religions and not just Christianity, otherwise your odds are still pretty bad. | ||
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-WGT-Stars-
United States888 Posts
On January 30 2008 02:54 suresh0t wrote: Because then your obviously not living as a Christian by faith, you are living it by fear. Which means you don't really believe, which means you don't get to go to heaven  The fear of the lord is the beginning of Wisdom -_-;;;;; so you're wrong | ||
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Alethios
New Zealand2765 Posts
On January 30 2008 01:57 f0rgiv3n wrote: The bible taken alone, proves nothing-- In my opinion I believe it proves everything, everything about the human race. This is one reason why I personally believe in Christianity. Reading through the bible, the bible is the only religious book that shows the disgusting and disturbing ways of how we all are. Reading through the bible you'll find things such as murder, rape, stealing, and lots of other things that you would think religions would want to hide. Another thing about the bible is unlike all other religious texts it was written by 40 different authors over 1600 years. 1600 YEARS! Can you believe that? Yet reading through it the thematic content flows amazingly. from 40 different authors???????? That just blows my mind. In my opinion if how the Bible was written and how it flows doesn't prove there was some sort of higher being influencing these authors, I don't know what would. If the bible is slightly more bloodthirsty than other religious texts.. so what? If the bible claims to be written by 40 different people, what evidence is this that god exists? Thats even leaving aside many contradictions inherent within the bible. [Samuel 15:29 The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent. // Amos 7:3, 6 The Lord repented for this.] So the bible must be the imperfect work of man, perhaps not influenced by a higher being in some cases. That being said, the word you've seemed to have missed here is "empirical". It may well be evidence for God's existence, but it is NOT proof. On January 30 2008 03:44 TechniQ.UK wrote: My reasons : I was an aethiest but turned Christian over 2 days where i just started having these thoughts which i did not think about myself, i believe in relevance to the bible that it was my calling from my Father or the Holy Spirit because of how sudden it was. I've witnessed the power of the Lord in me even before i read more than 5 pages of the bible, just by taking the prayer i was instantly changed in many ways. I've witnessed the power of the Lord when i helped another Christian that was getting chased and bullied for being known to be an ultra-religious kinda geeky person where as i usually would be laughing at him as normal. I've witnessed the power of the Lord when i asked for a specific thing to happen and it did 4 minutes later which was so specific that it can't have been a coincidence, the way it happened was like 1 in a million chance for this to happen the way it did. I've witnessed the power of the Lord when i was in church for the first time and i was half way through a hymn when i got like complete happiness that was not my own, i was getting bored of the song and then it came to a part about Jesus rising from the dead and its like i didnt take much notice but when i sang that line a huge euphoria came over me. I couldn't stop smiling and just being happy for about 10 minutes straight, I'm pretty sure it was the Holy Spirit that day. So basically its my view that anyone who doesn't believe, make that leap of faith, take the sinners prayer in complete clean intentions and you will witness the power of the Lord in your own way, he will show you what you need to be shown, trust me, anyone who calls themselves aethiest etc... i don't think can truely justify themselves until you take that step and see what happens. Throw yourself out there and you will experience the truth first hand. These reasons are of course, rational and therefore highly commendable. Though I would wager that for every atheist/agnostic like yourself who asked something of God and were granted their wish, there will be 50 who weren't. Though there obviously will be reasons for this if God does exist. On January 30 2008 03:44 TechniQ.UK wrote: What are good reasons for a belief in Christianity or indeed any religion? Which reasons are not valid reasons? Which reason(s) do you base your own beliefs upon? Reasons in general: You really think we got put on this earth, so perfectly designed, more intellegent and different than anything else here without a higher being to create us. You think that if there was a superior designer he would be so un-intellegent to just be some floating spiritual substense that doesn't observe judge or communicate? There has been several people cured of illnesses and diseases in this day and age, an example would be doyle brunsons wife who was cured of cancer when a christian spiritual healer came to see her. There has also been supernatural events that people have experienced from all over the world. Supernatural events that involve things like ghosts seem to stop dead when someone rebukes that spirit or demon in the name of Jesus. Real Exorcisms.... Here is where I must disagree with you. Your reasons in general falter under the microscope. We are not, by any stretch, perfect; nor are we perfectly designed. Even from a Christian standpoint you must admit this is true. If we were all perfectly designed (by God) then there would be no war, no genetic diseases such as down's syndrome and most importantly... we would all be perfect Christians destined for heaven. I would also challenge your use of the word "different". Our differences from Monkeys for instance (sharing a common ancestor or not) are far less marked than those separating viruses from mammals... they truly are weird. People are cured of cancer every day. The cancer clears up. Perhaps God is responsible. However, this happens with the same frequency in Devil worshiping rapists as in nuns, so pinning it upon the spiritual healer is rather invalid. With ghosts and demons... you would admit that a large proportion of them are tricks of the mind right? They are often show as such on the discovery channel. By invoking Jesus, your belief allows you confidence that Jesus will banish the demons, and in so thinking, a persons mind can overcome the fear, see that the "demon" is in fact a pitchfork in hay and believe the demon banished. As of yet, I have not seen any evidence showing that any "supernatural" events are more than just fantasy. I can see that your faith is strong. Despite what you might think, I'm actually in approval. You faith in God is grounded and justified by personal experience. My next question, if I may, concerns different religions. Hindus, Muslims, Pagans the world over have had similar experiences with a god or gods. They, being in a different part of the world or living at a different time, chalk their experience up to a different entity. Presumably they are all wrong, what makes you think you are correct? | ||
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oneofthem
Cayman Islands24199 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On January 30 2008 13:13 oneofthem wrote: modern christians, or any religion that has undergone some social transformatino for that matter, do not much engage the original theology. the religious framework is sectioned off, only invoked during rituals and such, and this is a good thing for the most part. the contradictions and such in the belief system are never brought out, because nobody really believes in any of the stuff. That's kind of what I was getting at before. Making your own interpretation of the Bible and cherry picking which parts to follow (or not to follow certain parts like the "stone your relatives" section I referred to) is admitting that morality and Goodness exist independent and possibly prior to God. Socrates went over it a couple millenia ago. The fact that there's so many contradictions in the text makes things even cloudier. In that line of thought, I think it's fair to say that in some sense morality is relative and man made, which might scare people because they might infer that our definition might just as easily be flipped around in different circumstances. First, the same problem could be applied if Goodness was defined solely by God's will - good could be evil and so forth. Second, I agree with the utilitarian line of thinking that our current general ideals of morality and Goodness are beneficial both to our survival and our happiness, and those reasons alone are enough reason to abide by it. It may even be argued that under non-desperate circumstances, animals are biologically "good" or at least obey morality. After all, the 10 Commandments dealing with general morality (5-10) certainly did not begin with Christianity and they may not even have begun with human beings, as many animals observe these behaviors amongst their species. | ||
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ilj.psa
Peru3081 Posts
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Alethios
New Zealand2765 Posts
On January 30 2008 07:17 FieryBalrog wrote: I could, because that isn't any rational basis for morality. Its just a form of Hobbesian social contract where people are nice to each other and enforce lawful/unlawful behaviors for purely self-interested reasons. The problem with that is, well first of all, thats not the only or even major reason why people actually refrain from immoral behavior. Second, if you punch someone in the face they might beat you up, sure, great reason not to hit someone. However if you steal their money or woman or whatever and blame it on someone else, you get free stuff and someone else gets fucked. Sounds like a great advantage so must be a good thing to do, right? The idea behind basing morality on "do the most advantageous thing" is that it in order to be logically consistent, if the most advantageous thing happens to be to fuck someone over and get away with it, well that must be the right thing to do then. I feel as if I must respond to this. However, i'm weary of getting too off topic, so to that end, i've been compelled to create my own blog for such matters. You can read it here. Back on topic, ilj.psa. While i'm sure there is much of the story you aren't telling us (causing you to say that you are 100% sure of the reasons) Would you admit that, perhaps for some people, merely convincing oneself that something is about to go away causing it to go away. It is commonly known as the placebo effect. Also to FieryBalrog: On January 29 2008 22:49 FieryBalrog wrote: Only true if you have a narrow minded, literal interpretation of religion. Scientology is basically a cloistered cult created by a documented charlatan (L Ron Hubbard) with the intent to defraud. Can we not also apply this to Islam and Christianity? Like Hubbard, we cannot truly tell whether the founders of both religions truly believed what they were spouting (and does it matter anyway?). This shows us that like those currently profiting from the Scientology racket, high ranking religious individuals and organisations have profited from the beliefs of those underneath them. Your case for Scientology being a cult is accepted, but not your case for it being any different from the established religions. Perhaps the only difference is membership numbers and age. | ||
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TechniQ.UK
United Kingdom391 Posts
The way it works is that diety's like hindu gods, allah etc... (and allah is not the god of the bible so lets not even go there) they are a front for the devil, any man made false gods, or idols such as rocks etc... that are used in islam, this is also a front for the devil, therefore the belief and power from this worship goes to him and not the true living God of the bible, this is why its a sin. Now any experiences they got from their belief in islam, hinduism etc... is basically this, the devil throwing his worshippers a bone, to keep them believing and to rail them in deeper and deeper to do his bidding, this is how we get suicide bombers, islamic extremists. I mean how does the living God of the bible go from saying hey, your all saved by Yah'shua so stop sinning and hating, to sending another prophet muhammmad who is instructing people to kill and to go crazy and get angry for their religion, as i said before its also said that allah went down to hell to torture souls from time to time, do you really think his Holyness, the greatest being the most Holy and powerful and kind and loving God the father, went down to hell to satisfy his amusement? Ofcourse not. | ||
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Yuljan
2196 Posts
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OverTheUnder
United States2929 Posts
On January 30 2008 17:44 TechniQ.UK wrote: My next question, if I may, concerns different religions. Hindus, Muslims, Pagans the world over have had similar experiences with a god or gods. They, being in a different part of the world or living at a different time, chalk their experience up to a different entity. Presumably they are all wrong, what makes you think you are correct? The way it works is that diety's like hindu gods, allah etc... (and allah is not the god of the bible so lets not even go there) they are a front for the devil, any man made false gods, or idols such as rocks etc... that are used in islam, this is also a front for the devil, therefore the belief and power from this worship goes to him and not the true living God of the bible, this is why its a sin. Now any experiences they got from their belief in islam, hinduism etc... is basically this, the devil throwing his worshippers a bone, to keep them believing and to rail them in deeper and deeper to do his bidding, this is how we get suicide bombers, islamic extremists. I mean how does the living God of the bible go from saying hey, your all saved by Yah'shua so stop sinning and hating, to sending another prophet muhammmad who is instructing people to kill and to go crazy and get angry for their religion, as i said before its also said that allah went down to hell to torture souls from time to time, do you really think his Holyness, the greatest being the most Holy and powerful and kind and loving God the father, went down to hell to satisfy his amusement? Ofcourse not. god, how can you read this paragraph and not feel like a piece of trash? I'm really not so much trying to insult you....I really want to know:/ Do you see nothing wrong with this...because you "know" it's the truth without any evidence? Just remember, this is similar to what someone devout to another religion would say about Christianity and other religions. From an objective viewpoint, people of different religions arguing are like kids trying to have a snowball fight without any snow;( | ||
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