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i wouldn't exactly compare him to rosa parks or anything but people need to stand up more for their beliefs. there's a lot of what if's but i think at some point this kid realized that he had a moment to decide to stand up for his beliefs at a price and go beyond just "showing those religious crazies" and he took that, and for that i applaud him. too many people, especially if you read this thread, are willing to just let things go for the sake of not making trouble, even if it goes against their beliefs.
that's not to say the article isn't insanely biased and hardly gives any information, it is. but it was interesting nonetheless, and especially interesting how mob-like even TL members show themselves to be.
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I think the kid was wrong in this situation. If they want to pray,let them? How hard can it be,I don't get it. Seems very egoistic by him,going officially for this thing. Ofc it goes without saying that what the community did after that is also wrong.
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But you're missing the point Steveling. Just because it was Christianity or whatever, doesn't change the fact is someone is forcing you to pray, which is against the law, you can't stand up to it, because it's a majority religion? How would that make you feel if you were a Buddhist etc? How bout schools teaching creationism over evolution in science class? Did you grow up believing the world was made in 7 days or 4 billion?
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On May 28 2011 12:34 fakingit wrote:
I am a christian, have been my whole life and for ever will be. And this story makes me sick and ashamed to be part of a community that would treat someone so horribly. These "christians" should hang their heads in shame! I see no love, respect, or support in how they treated that young man. Can you imagine as a christian haveing to sit threw someone preaching that God doesn't exist? And that if you do believe in him your a fool or an idiot. I'm sure there are millions of people that believe that, but should we as christians have to be subjected to it? What these people did is the same thing. It's no wonder that athiest's and other religions go running from christianity when this is how the community treats people. It's gotten to the point where christians have some sort of "god complexe" (sorry about the pun) that they think they are better or have the right to treat people however they see fit. When what they should really be doing is loving and supporting eachother AND the people outside of christianity. What happened here ISN'T of God, muchly the opposite. These people need to get their heads out of their asses, climb off their high horses and seek what being of God truly means, cause this isn't it.
I'd say, "for people who actually read the Scriptures," except they have. But they tend to ignore or forget important things. For example, Jesus was with a bunch of sinners, basically drug dealers and prostitutes and the like. His disciples were like, "um wth are you doing with these riff raff?" And Jesus basically said, "because a physician tends to the sick."
In other words, Christians tend to forget that their leader who said to emulate Him set the example of caring for the sick, the elderly, the destitute, etc. The easy stuff to fake is loving your family; in fact most people aren't faking that, fortunately. It's less easy to love strangers.
Regarding the kid in the OP, I feel it was a somewhat cocky choice by this kid. It seems more likely he was protesting this prayer with a "sticking it to the man" attitude than a completely guileless "standing up for his beliefs." It's very understandable (edit: as in natural, not condonable) that the community would react with anger toward him. What's the first thought going through most of their heads? Well, most of the kids probably thought, "good, we can get this over with two minutes faster." Parents probably thought that as well. But the inevitable growing thought which is largely a result of assumed peer pressure, will be something like, "Well, why is this one kid who's not really being forced to participate ruining it for everyone else."
At a normal meeting of this type where a prayer is offered by someone not necessarily of the same faith or more specifically, denomination (Baptist vs Methodist, e.g.), what people normally do is analyze the prayer and what sort of phrases the person uses. There's lots of recycled phrases most people are used to and such, but if someone recites the Lord's prayer, for instance, other Christians who don't normally do that are probably going into a small overdrive wondering which people use rote recitations and going over the pros and cons, etc., etc., etc. That's a full "King and I" et cetera chain by the way. I forget where I was going with this....Oh yeah:
Those might be small petty seeming differences to an observer, and whether they are or not is a separate issue. The problem is that atheism and atheists are another thing altogether. They are perceived, by and large, as a threat. I'm not speaking specifically of what various religious teach (whether they do or not, I certainly don't have full knowledge), but again how perceptions grow in the mind. The horrible behavior and retaliation against the atheist student are a result of this perception in addition to a presumed sense of peer pressure between a large chunk of the community. This isn't just hearing someone from another denomination say a prayer in a way you don't think is quite as good as your church's, it's having an entire tradition halted by someone who is completely on the other side of your ideals.
That doesn't mean this particular student is also gay, communist, an art major (okay just kidding), and pro choice, but that's the sort of preconception that's likely to form. For anyone in the community who didn't know him or know him well, the first thing they learn is that he's got the prayer at graduation put to a halt, and from there the assumptions spread like the blowing wind of the wildfire known as gossip. Next comes the bullying. A brief aside: that makes this story all too typical even though it may be newsworthy. If you think about it, none of this is really surprising at all.
The sad thing is, given the context of how meaningful a prayer offered by someone of a different denomination is (read: listeners tend to be critical), most of these people could have just let the whole thing blow over since they likely didn't care that much about the graduation prayer anyway, but as I said it comes down to social pressure.
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On May 28 2011 10:42 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 10:40 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:37 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:34 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:27 domovoi wrote:Why must religion be (i hate this cliché, but its fitting) shoved down everyone's throats? Was he forced to convert? Sitting through a boring-ass one minute prayer is not shoving religion down your throat, feel free to ignore it if you're an atheist. I've had to sit through bullshit political commencement speeches by ultra-liberal speakers, which is way worse than a school prayer in terms of shoving ideology down someone's throat, but who cares? Just suck it up like everyone else does when sitting through a speech they disagree with. Way worse according to whom? While you may not put much behind school prayers, this guy obviously does. It could be much worse for him to sit through that. Given how religious his community is, he probably had to sit through it his entire life. This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Ok, let's say the guy hates religion. I'm sure he would've found it way worse for the commencement speaker to give a 10 minute sermon about how atheists are going to hell. Which is perfectly legal. Well sure, but that's not what happened. My point is that sitting through a commencement speech that you strongly disagree with is way worse than sitting through a one minute prayer. Yet somehow it's the innocuous prayer that offends. People against school prayer or the pledge of allegiance are just way too sensitive. Lighten up.
Where do you want to draw the line though? What if the teachers at that school decided to have prayers at the beginning of each class or ban the teaching of evolution? Would that still be innocuous? If you let the separation of church and state lapse, you're going to invite fundamentalists to push their agendas more aggressively.
Remember this?
In the beginning, creationists tried to ban the teaching of evolution altogether. Most famously, 80 years ago, John Scopes was tried for breaking a Tennessee law outlawing such instruction. He was found guilty, and evolution effectively disappeared from the high school curriculum shortly thereafter, though it continued to be taught in universities.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-14-evolution-teach_x.htm
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On May 27 2011 13:40 Slaughter wrote:
*rolls eyes* cue the mass shitstorm from TLs about how religion is horrible. The same crowd that is equally as ignorant and annoying as the religious fanatics.
User was warned for this post
Wow, I don't think this deserved a warning at all.
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On May 28 2011 05:22 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 05:19 ChellaPopper wrote:
If he didn't want to pray, then he didn't have to pray. Trying to have it canceled for everyone else because he opposed it was a dick move. He wasn't the only one opposed, there is this thing called the law you know.
You do realize that the president is sworn in over a bible, any many government positions still require the phrase so help me God in their oaths.... I suppose someone who attending the inauguration would of been able to get the supreme court to change that as well.
He wasn't being forced to pray, he was being asked to pray or be respectful for the 30 seconds to one minute that it would take for those who chose to pray. Hell if he just chilled and thought about how stupid those bumbling idiots were for praying to a God that doesn't exist there would of been no problem. Now I don't think anyone in this thread is defending the communities response, but going in he had to know that he wasn't making any friends by screwing everyone else around.
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On May 28 2011 13:20 DarKcS wrote:
How would that make you feel if you were a Buddhist etc??
I'd let them pray to what they believe is true as I would stand in the back waiting for them to get over with it. They didn't make him pray or anything,or am I wrong?
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and this is one of the countless reason why i hate this world shakes head
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On May 28 2011 13:28 tomatriedes wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 10:42 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:40 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:37 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:34 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:27 domovoi wrote:Why must religion be (i hate this cliché, but its fitting) shoved down everyone's throats? Was he forced to convert? Sitting through a boring-ass one minute prayer is not shoving religion down your throat, feel free to ignore it if you're an atheist. I've had to sit through bullshit political commencement speeches by ultra-liberal speakers, which is way worse than a school prayer in terms of shoving ideology down someone's throat, but who cares? Just suck it up like everyone else does when sitting through a speech they disagree with. Way worse according to whom? While you may not put much behind school prayers, this guy obviously does. It could be much worse for him to sit through that. Given how religious his community is, he probably had to sit through it his entire life. This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Ok, let's say the guy hates religion. I'm sure he would've found it way worse for the commencement speaker to give a 10 minute sermon about how atheists are going to hell. Which is perfectly legal. Well sure, but that's not what happened. My point is that sitting through a commencement speech that you strongly disagree with is way worse than sitting through a one minute prayer. Yet somehow it's the innocuous prayer that offends. People against school prayer or the pledge of allegiance are just way too sensitive. Lighten up. Where do you want to draw the line though? What if the teachers at that school decided to have prayers at the beginning of each class or ban the teaching of evolution? Would that still be innocuous? If you let the separation of church and state lapse, you're going to invite fundamentalists to push their agendas more aggressively. Remember this? Show nested quote +In the beginning, creationists tried to ban the teaching of evolution altogether. Most famously, 80 years ago, John Scopes was tried for breaking a Tennessee law outlawing such instruction. He was found guilty, and evolution effectively disappeared from the high school curriculum shortly thereafter, though it continued to be taught in universities. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-14-evolution-teach_x.htm
This isn't a slippery slope bro, we let it lapse all the time at other levels of government. And you draw the line where it begins to diminish the quality of education that someone receives. Is spending 1 minute every day in class praying a good use of class time for learning....NO and Ta-DA line drawn.
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A moment of silence where people individually pray is fine. However, the girl who was handling the microphone on behalf of the school said The Lord's Prayer over the microphone, which is illegal. This is because it shows favoritism towards Christianity by the school, which is a government instutition, and government institutions can't favor one religion over any others.
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Hmm,dunno about the laws there,but don't you guys have a national religion or something like that? Something that is allowed in government institutions?
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On May 28 2011 13:36 Steveling wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:20 DarKcS wrote:
How would that make you feel if you were a Buddhist etc?? I'd let them pray to what they believe is true as I would stand in the back waiting for them to get over with it. They didn't make him pray or anything,or am I wrong?
It is specifically and unambiguously unconstitutional for a public school to endorse a prayer of any faith like this. That is why he called them out on it.
This isn't a slippery slope bro, we let it lapse all the time at other levels of government. And you draw the line where it begins to diminish the quality of education that someone receives. Is spending 1 minute every day in class praying a good use of class time for learning....NO and Ta-DA line drawn.
Just because US politics is one massive shitshow of failures, contradictions and shallowness doesn't mean we should just let the small things go.
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Mostly disappointed at the students hazing him! Very un-christianlike.
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On May 28 2011 13:46 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:36 Steveling wrote:On May 28 2011 13:20 DarKcS wrote:
How would that make you feel if you were a Buddhist etc?? I'd let them pray to what they believe is true as I would stand in the back waiting for them to get over with it. They didn't make him pray or anything,or am I wrong? It is specifically and unambiguously unconstitutional for a public school to endorse a prayer of any faith like this. That is why he called them out on it.
Well,disturbing the neighborhood in the midnight is against the law too,but I don't call the police whenever my cool neighboor is having a party every once in a two months. I just can't understand why he was so offended by it.
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On May 28 2011 13:38 feanor1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 13:28 tomatriedes wrote:On May 28 2011 10:42 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:40 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:37 domovoi wrote:On May 28 2011 10:34 TOloseGT wrote:On May 28 2011 10:27 domovoi wrote:Why must religion be (i hate this cliché, but its fitting) shoved down everyone's throats? Was he forced to convert? Sitting through a boring-ass one minute prayer is not shoving religion down your throat, feel free to ignore it if you're an atheist. I've had to sit through bullshit political commencement speeches by ultra-liberal speakers, which is way worse than a school prayer in terms of shoving ideology down someone's throat, but who cares? Just suck it up like everyone else does when sitting through a speech they disagree with. Way worse according to whom? While you may not put much behind school prayers, this guy obviously does. It could be much worse for him to sit through that. Given how religious his community is, he probably had to sit through it his entire life. This might have been the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Ok, let's say the guy hates religion. I'm sure he would've found it way worse for the commencement speaker to give a 10 minute sermon about how atheists are going to hell. Which is perfectly legal. Well sure, but that's not what happened. My point is that sitting through a commencement speech that you strongly disagree with is way worse than sitting through a one minute prayer. Yet somehow it's the innocuous prayer that offends. People against school prayer or the pledge of allegiance are just way too sensitive. Lighten up. Where do you want to draw the line though? What if the teachers at that school decided to have prayers at the beginning of each class or ban the teaching of evolution? Would that still be innocuous? If you let the separation of church and state lapse, you're going to invite fundamentalists to push their agendas more aggressively. Remember this? In the beginning, creationists tried to ban the teaching of evolution altogether. Most famously, 80 years ago, John Scopes was tried for breaking a Tennessee law outlawing such instruction. He was found guilty, and evolution effectively disappeared from the high school curriculum shortly thereafter, though it continued to be taught in universities. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-08-14-evolution-teach_x.htm This isn't a slippery slope bro, we let it lapse all the time at other levels of government. And you draw the line where it begins to diminish the quality of education that someone receives. Is spending 1 minute every day in class praying a good use of class time for learning....NO and Ta-DA line drawn.
Is allowing state sponsored prayer legal and not in any way a violation of the US Constitution? NO and ta-da, line drawn.
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On May 28 2011 13:33 feanor1 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 05:22 Olinim wrote:On May 28 2011 05:19 ChellaPopper wrote:
If he didn't want to pray, then he didn't have to pray. Trying to have it canceled for everyone else because he opposed it was a dick move. He wasn't the only one opposed, there is this thing called the law you know. You do realize that the president is sworn in over a bible...
That is a personal choice. The President isn't forced to swear in over a Bible, and an atheist President would most likely not swear in over anything (but his own rational, critical thought, of course).
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On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians.
And let me guess - you've been listening to Chuck Swindell? Because only idiot apologists like him try to use examples like that as if it's of any authority. I used to listen to bullshit like that - Chuck Swindell, Charles Colson, James Dobson - you name the Christian apologist, I studied their books. But then I started to see that they purposely ignored evidence that was against their favour, and chose only to rely on citations that supported their arguments. Ideas like 66 books over 22 authors - you don't realise how severely bad their academic research is in coming up with that as an argument. There are far more theologies, far more historical issues and far more philosophies than you realise. You're like a little frog in a pond who thinks he knows the Bible and God inside out, when you've never been to the sea. I suggest you start by enrolling for a Bible College that teaches the history of Christianity and views the Council of Nicaea from a contextual, objective perspective.
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On May 28 2011 12:22 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 12:12 ryanAnger wrote:On May 28 2011 12:10 JesusOurSaviour wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On May 28 2011 11:57 Olinim wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows. So God planned for me to go hell? That's basically what you're saying. How old are you Olinim? Lemme guess, somewhere between 14-22 (90% of TL-ers are anyway) I am 20 years old. Will I continue to believe in God till I die? I hope so. But life has many distractions and Satan is powerful. Do I know who God has chosen to be his Elect? No. Why did Jesus tell us to spread the good news then? If God is the one who chooses, then whats the point of us telling everyone the good news if people are going to just reject him and God has already "chosen" those who will accept him? We evangelise because we don't know who God has chosen to be saved. We evangelise because we know that you will go to hell otherwise. So we reach out and tell you the good news which saved us. I guess you could argue that any Christian who does not evangelise through action or word, is a selfish prick. Back to your point Olinim - your life is still ahead of you and who knows what kind of suffering you are going to go through in your life. You may find God in a time when all is lost. On the contrary you may never find God but live your life out in peace as a rich businessman. Whatever the case may be, life hasn't ended so don't speculate too quickly whether or not God has chosen you to be in his Kingdom yet.  Just out of curiosity, how do you know that you are "saved"? How could anyone possibly know that they are "saved"? Has God spoken to you, first hand? I'm going off topic and have been for the last few posts. Last post for this thread from me, Ultimately we live by faith. Yet is this faith blind? Have not God's prophecies been fulfilled time and time again? When Jesus said he is the fulfilment of the Law and the prophets, he wasn't kidding. The ENTIRE Old testament Post-TheFall is about the longing for the messiah. Now the messiah has come, what more proof do we need of God's good promises? I guess people always want more proof. "If God came to earth and destroyed all the wicked and corrupt authorities, I will believe in Him". "If God saved that baby which was starving, then I would believe in him". Yet, did the Jews believe when Jesus came and did countless miracles? No. They killed him. And you are no better than a Jew. I am no better. I would have killed Jesus as well if I was a Jew in that day. Once again, we believe because we have reestablished this relationship which was once severed. We feel the bonds of the relationship, while those who arent' friends with God obviously don't feel the same way. Faith man!
You are so ridiculously deluded beyond comprehension. A Muslim can write something similar to what you've written in support of Mohammad - does it make what he believes valid? I bet you wouldn't think so. You seem to think that apologetics has won the argument and therefore everything in the Bible is real. This is a very immature way of seeing the world and as you grow older and start to question things more, hopefully develop a more critical take on theology, you might realise what you're writing today is how someone who is 20 years old thinks. I suggest you read this blog:
theogeek.blogspot.com
Trust me, there was a time in my life when I was just as retarded you as in my ways of thinking. I wholly believed that God was the answer to everything in life and my life was all about being an evangelical Christian. I could recite every single argument you're using right now, but in even better and a more convincing manner than you are, using better examples and greater paragraphs. But I was severely limited in my maturity and knew jack shit about the world.
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On May 28 2011 11:54 JesusOurSaviour wrote:Show nested quote +On May 28 2011 11:44 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:33 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:28 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 11:10 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 11:05 JesusOurSaviour wrote:On May 28 2011 10:58 Tony Campolo wrote:On May 28 2011 10:39 JesusOurSaviour wrote:
Christians should not force anyone to do anything. Right from creation, right from the very beginning, God gave his children (us), free will to choose to obey, or choose to disobey. By disobeying, we make up our own rules!! (see Devil's conversation with Eve, "Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." Ha - this is partially true - you won't "know" good and evil, you will DEFINE it once you reject God) Load of crap. See the following: + Show Spoiler +God allowed evil to enter the world as part of the risk He took in giving humanity free will. i.e. He loved mankind so much that He wanted to give us the chance to grow and mature and choose Him and the good life for ourselves, rather than being set on auto-pilot. All of which I'm sure you're all familiar with. I think it's a nice idea - the end goal being that God gets a family of children who have developed hearts and wisdom like His, and turned away from evil.
Obviously there are questions as to whether it was fair of Him to allow us to stuff things up so badly when a little more guidance might have spared us a lot of pain, and might have made His 'family' rather bigger. But I guess I'm basically willing to give Him the benefit of the doubt on that one, and assume He knew what He was doing, and has some kind of plan to tie up the loose ends. We'll see.
My real conundrum, though, is about the actual story in Genesis 2-3 - and please note I don't wish to open the debate on the literal/metaphorical nature of this story, which I think I pretty much know all your various opinions about. Rather, I'm going to assume that, either way, the story has an emblematic status which somehow applies to theology.
My question is, if God wanted us to develop maturity and discernment, doesn't it seem slightly backward that the tree they were forbidden to touch was said to offer that very thing - the knowledge of good and evil? God says 'if you eat from it you will surely die'. Which is true of course - when they figure out they can try things their own way they pretty much immediately start stuffing things up and killing each other and things. The serpent says of it "You will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." And perhaps that's true too - there's no certainty they'll die; there's a slim chance they'll get it right themselves and not ruin everything. In any case the serpent is just trying to incite them to rebellion - don't listen to everything Mr Big says; don't submit to being His slave. Do what you want.
Some possible solutions to the puzzle:
1) My argument is wrong: God didn't want us to develop maturity etc.; He wanted us to get everything right, and for the world to stay perfect, and therefore when He said He didn't want them to eat the fruit, He meant it.
>>Question: so why put it there? To give them the choice? But if they're better off without the choice, isn't that kinda stupid?
2) God knew all along that they'd take the fruit, and put it there intentionally, so that they'd take it and learn some important lessons - painful though it would be for all concerned - which would ultimately be to their/humanity's betterment.
>>Question: so why does He forbid them to touch it?
>>Question: is it even plausible to say we're somehow better off in a post-fall world? Is that kind of sick and sadistic? Or is that like saying it's sadistic of a parent to take the training wheels off their kid's bike, knowing they'll fall off the first time, but will eventually acquire a new skill?
3) Perhaps it wasn't so much that He was forbidding them, but just that He had to warn them, in all fairness, that it would be a path of suffering, even though it would ultimately be the best.
>>But in that case, why not just say 'kids, you have the following two options - you decide'? Instead, He says 'you must not take option 2'.
4) Perhaps in their auto-pilot state they're not able to make decisions like that anyway, so He has to trick them, and maybe overstate the case a little just to make it more interesting.
>>Hm, oh dear, interesting questions arise as to the nature of God. Though potentially it could be seen as a parallel to a parent who tells his kid not to cross the road on her own, not because he never wants her to cross the road, but because she's not ready yet, and in this stage of her development what she needs is set rules that will keep her safe. So, uh, we're currently in the state of having disobeyed, strayed onto the road, been hit by a bus, and are now very slowly recovering, and very slowly figuring out how to conduct ourselves better in future - possibly mixed with a good deal of angst directed towards our dad who should have protected us better. What happened Tony? Why did you lose faith? Did you not read the gospels and were you not amazed at God's truth when you first believed? "For not all have faith", indeed there will be apostates from Christianity, but why Tony? Firstly, way to avoid the points made. Rather than admit that you don't have all the answers just turn the question around to something completely irrelevant. Secondly, if you're interested, you can see my previous blogs on the issue: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=6http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=5http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=4http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/blogitems.php?site=abc&page=3 Not avoiding mate, just not throwing pearls before swine. You of all should know that God is light and in him is only truth. If you failed to remain in truth and continue to believe in it, then I guess Satan's gripped you pretty well. No point wasting my time in a fruitless theology lesson And your attitude is the perfect reason why I no longer wish to be associated with Christians and the Church. I'm pretty sure you don't want to be associated with Christians and the church because you rejected God first. Christians and the church are made up by humans and humans are pretty fleshly. That doesn't change your relationship with God - it's your choice to not draw near to him, just as it is for me to ignore God when he teaches me something. To each is given a choice, will you take the right one? Or will you be a fool. Btw I just read your long spiel about the inconsistencies of Genesis. Immature, whiny and arrogant are the three adjectives I would use to describe your questioning. You really think a real God will knowingly pass on such erroneous information full of mistake to his people? Well I guess you don't believe in God do you? So whatever you read from the bible is only to serve your purpose of debunking him. God did promise that if you seek you will find. If you seek to insult and blaspheme, then you will bear your fruits, just bad ones. The level of your delusion is incredulous. If you truly believed what you claim, then you should be a lot more considerate at how you address non-Christians, given that they are going to spend an eternity in Hell. Yet you treat it like some sort of "you fools should learn a lesson for not believing in God". Which really just goes to show you think you're being a Christian, where you're nothing more than just a judgmental Pharisee. Tony the truth is you are an apostate - meaning you already know all you need to know. Yet you did not humble yourself to find out WHY God wrote what he wrote in the bible. I went through the same stage, and my faith wavered when no one at my old church was could explain anything of import. I guess you just have to go somewhere else to find answers right? Try and find a reformed evangelical church. I could not find answers with Hillsong type churches as they live off baby food. www.carm.org is not too bad to start off. Learning about systematic theology is also a good way to shore up your faith. The problem is, too many Christians are just eating baby food and not maturing into their faith. If a long-time Christian doesn't even understand how the Old and New covenant relate and what "I came to fulfill the law" means, then I guess he really should spend more time thinking about how the bible fits together. 66 books, over a Huge time period with 22? authors? It all fits. Something which really shook me as a young Christian was the fact that so many Christians around me are just so ignorant and content with these 1-liner answers like "Oh it's the new covenant, so we don't do anything written in the OT". Sadly, this is the status quo for most Christians. Well Tony, you already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. Your choice to go to hell has no bearing on me, we have to make choices and some of us make the wrong choices. I will never convert you and I will never convert anyone. Each comes to faith because God wanted you to come to know Him. The ultimate decider on whether you have faith is God. I have already spent 4 posts and 1 PM trying to exhort you to humble yourself before God. Am I wasting my time? I don't know. God has his plans for everyone and the seeds that are sown here at TL in religious discussions may bear fruit, who knows.
You are so deluded by your superstition it's not funny. You say I already know that Jesus is the way the truth the life. What a load of bullshit - no I certainly do not, you seem to think so, but that is not how I view Jesus. I view Jesus simply as a fictional character, or if he was a real person, that his super powers were fictional. I certainly do NOT think he is the way, truth and light. But this is something your little mind is unable to comprehend. You think you know everything you need to know, but Christianity is nowhere near as black and white as you see it. I can only hope that one day you will be mature enough to see that you don't know as much as you'd like to think.
+ Show Spoiler +I think a lot about the kind of god I could believe in, and what her characteristics are, and why I’m no longer a Christian.
I come to this:
The god I imagine, the true one, the ‘fount of all being,’ is a wild limitless overflowing thing of life, joy, and love. A thing totally unconstrained and unpredictable. Has to be. Nothing less. As wild as Pan – god of the earth and forest and ocean as much as god of the sky and the stars. A being of sweet, terrible life. Something like the god whose back Moses is shown a glimpse of, up on that mountain.
Unfortunately, YHWH falls a little short of the ideal. He comes close at times, true – and party-Jesus doing wine-tricks is a glimpse of the ultimate truth – but ultimately YHWH is constrained by ‘rules,’ or ‘justice,’ or hand-waving about ‘the way things are.’ C.S. Lewis has Aslan speak of a ‘deep magic’ that cannot be undone or avoided; the penal substitutionists (and the satisfactionists) speak of some code or law that even YHWH must honour – and, therefore, that we also must yield to if YHWH is to save us. (I guess god did manage to create a rock so big even he can’t lift it?)
Even further – YHWH gets upset at the things people do. And not just for their sake, either (which would be permissible.) He gets offended! And jealous! He punishes people for doing obviously good things, because they contravene his arbitrary moral code! He endorses – encourages! – mass slaughter and pillage of people outside the chosen few.
I can imagine a god greater.
Of course, the flaw in the ontological argument is the assumption that imagining something means it must exist. I hold no such assumption. Nonetheless.
Any god who falls short of the best I can imagine is a god not worth worshipping.
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