My relegation to agnosticism

[Lutiferre]

Well, during the last couple of weeks or the last month or so and for a variety of reasons, I have fortunately or unfortunately (depending on perspective) started having doubts and become relegated -unwillingly- to an awkwardly agnostic position, with regard to Christianity.

Given my extensive posting about Christianity here, I at least owe to share these considerations.

This thread is simply an outline of some reasons for it; anyone who is not interested can stop reading here.

I will quote some meditations that I wrote elsewhere:

Well, one thing is this.. which simply started with a consideration. Consider the present for a while: what do you see in the present world? We see a world full of what by Christian standards is evil, we see humanity and animals dwelling in a process of organic death, where the weak are indifferently killed and the strong survive.. natural selection and acquiring of new traits to survive and feed on others, the very process by which evolution suggests we and all other things came to be.

We see a near infinite universe which extends billions and billions of years back into the past, with everything ending up in utter destruction, whether it gets swallowed in a black hole or a nearby sun. And then.. are we supposed to believe all of this evil comes from original sin? Doesn't that just seem like an excuse, a denial of reality, an escape from the present reality? If we say it's just because some evil choice by a human in the distant past, then we have projected the root of the present into that distant past evil choice.. and if we say God will make all things right at judgement day, then we have projected justice into the distant future..

we can never go into the past to check if the world was ever different, and we can never go into the future to check if it will change. In other words, because Christianity predicts another universe, we make up excuses for why the universe we see isn't that universe, excuses which are unfalsifiable. We make a "double" of the world, rather than accept that -this- is what the world is.


The very process which we were created by itself involves death and what Christianity certainly considers "evil" (evolution, survival of the fittest). Lust, envy, hate, murder, and so on, are all things that are built into us from the beginning by natural selection. It seems to be me that there is too much so-called "evil" which is out of our hands, to claim that this universe is created by a God who is on the same time "good" and still is the creator of this universe. Venomous snakes, blood sucking insects that infect and kill people with malaria, indifferent climates that kill everything living, evolution, death everywhere, a big cosmic infinity of destruction.. which could only be created by God - but that isn't the case if he is omnibenevolent.

Christianity seems to predict another universe.. a good little cosy planet, with an unshakable foundation and an instant creation of man and animals in perfect harmony. That was certainly the view that the Church Fathers had of the universe; and any other view was even condemned as heresy, along many other things. I just remembered reading Origen, that the "Mosaic account of the universe" says that it's "no more than 10,00 years old", unlike "pagan views" which claim it to be "eternal". Well, doesn't it seem that the "pagan" view was closer to the truth, by human standards? The universe's age would seem to be an infinity, and even it's size. What Christianity predicts does not seem to be the sort of "deistic" universe, in which God is just a "distant creator" who merely "starts evolution"; it predicts rather the directly intervening God, who does not seem to have created this world. Evolution of animals killing and feeding off each other to even survive and to even evolve.. A seemingly random and indifferent process which just kills and kills for eternity.. destruction for millions of years before we even came.

Theres also the question of the impossible justice of God.. the God of the Old and New testaments seems to be simply lethal to humanity. God, being utterly transcendent, is impossible to please by anything else than total subjugation; and even one sin, and we are supposedly going to suffer for a half eternity. The Old Testament is filled of commands with people to kill, even a child who curses his parents, or someone who has sex outside of marriage, should be stoned to death. Even a father should stone his own child for cursing.

And only the killing of Jesus, only the deeds of God himself, is worth anything.. Whatever we do is worthless, so we are just imputed to Jesus and his death. It seems like creation and we, are just pointless then; because we cannot do anything on our own, except rely on God anyway. Creation, indeed, is simply pointless then.
This is not all, but simply a short excerpt of some of my thoughts. I have many others, and even if these thoughts were to change, there would be too much else to write here. One notable thought is this: that Christianity itself posites a truth claim which it cannot live up to.. it posites that the Christian God is the absolute truth in a literal sense, and so, because that is the case, this dogmatism results in being forced to recognize the problem with any real truth which we have knowledge of, which contradicts Christianity; because then we supposedly have the truth which we must respect (from science for instance) because all truth can only be from God; and the truth which we must also respect (the absolute truth of Christian dogma).

Another thing is that, if the Christian God was truly omnipotent, I cannot bring myself to accept that he doesn't say something to me or do something, to convince me not to doubt. I really have prayed that God gave me some reason not to doubt.. but all I experience compared to that is total silence; total abandonment of me and the rest of creation. Total absence... at best, I can feel a presence and a spiritual mode of consciousness, but not one that I can definitely say must be "the omnipotent Christian God". It could be a spirit, a lesser god, or a self-delusion; any explanation goes. It is not warranted to say it is an omnipotent deity. My spiritual experience is not enough on itself to say that the Christian God is the case. This also signifies another problem, which is really the problem that practically no warrant can justify the idea of a revelation from an omnipotent deity; something much lesser than that can explain the same facts; like when an angel reveals itself to Moses, or some natural phenomena occured in the bible stories, it was enough to convince back then, but today even humans could do similar things; and if not humans, then some lesser spirits, lesser gods, or other things. The warrant for explaining it with an omnipotent deity is not there.

This summarizes what I mean with the "absence":

If God is omnipotent, the sort of things he could do to convince a waverer are limitless. The argument that God wants us to have a choice about following him, rather than overwhelming us, makes little sense. A person who argues that God would not or cannot intervene supernaturally to provide an unbeliever with evidence is getting perilously close to deism, where God is supposed to have created the universe and then stepped back, no longer intervening in it.

A Christian might argue that there's a limit to how much evidence God can give before negating our free choice. C.S. Lewis says, for example, that God "cannot ravish, he must woo". I'd reply that, correctly understood, the claims of Jesus on a believer are so huge that they demand miraculous evidence. If you doubt this, consider what it might mean to "Take up your cross and follow me", or how a person who really feared only God and not men might behave. There's also the inconsistency of God's dealings with people, if he truly wants everyone to come to know him. The Bible itself refers to some people, such as St Paul, who have very convincing conversion experiences. Was St Paul's free will unimportant to God? How about the salvation of people who don't have an experience like St Paul's?

1. God is Silent

If God wants something from me, he would tell me. He wouldn't leave someone else to do this, as if an infinite being were short on time. And he would certainly not leave fallible, sinful humans to deliver an endless plethora of confused and contradictory messages. God would deliver the message himself, directly, to each and every one of us, and with such clarity as the most brilliant being in the universe could accomplish. We would all hear him out and shout "Eureka!" So obvious and well-demonstrated would his message be. It would be spoken to each of us in exactly those terms we would understand. And we would all agree on what that message was. Even if we rejected it, we would all at least admit to each other, "Yes, that's what this God fellow told me."[2]

Excuses don't fly. The Christian proposes that a supremely powerful being exists who wants us to set things right, and therefore doesn't want us to get things even more wrong. This is an intelligible hypothesis, which predicts there should be no more confusion about which religion or doctrine is true than there is about the fundamentals of medicine, engineering, physics, chemistry, or even meteorology. It should be indisputably clear what God wants us to do, and what he doesn't want us to do. Any disputes that might still arise about that would be as easily and decisively resolved as any dispute between two doctors, chemists, or engineers as to the right course to follow in curing a patient, identifying a chemical, or designing a bridge. Yet this is not what we observe. Instead, we observe exactly the opposite: unresolvable disagreement and confusion. That is clearly a failed prediction. A failed prediction means a false theory. Therefore, Christianity is false.

Typically, Christians try to make excuses for God that protect our free will. Either the human will is more powerful than the will of God, and therefore can actually block his words from being heard despite all his best and mighty efforts, or God cares more about our free choice not to hear him than about saving our souls, and so God himself "chooses" to be silent. Of course, there is no independent evidence of either this remarkable human power to thwart God, or this peculiar desire in God, and so this is a completely "ad hoc" theory: something just "made up" out of thin air in order to rescue the actual theory that continually fails to fit the evidence. But for reasons I'll explore later, such "added elements" are never worthy of belief unless independently confirmed: you have to know they are true. You can't just "claim" they are true. Truth is not invented. It can only be discovered. Otherwise, Christianity is just a hypothesis that has yet to find sufficient confirmation in actual evidence.

Be that as it may. Though "maybe, therefore probably" is not a logical way to arrive at any belief, let's assume the Christian can somehow "prove" (with objective evidence everyone can agree is relevant and true) that we have this power or God has this desire. Even on that presumption, there are unsolvable problems with this "additional" hypothesis. Right from the start, it fails to explain why believers disagree. The fact that believers can't agree on the content of God's message or desires also refutes the theory that he wants us to be clear on these things. This failed prediction cannot be explained away by any appeal to free will--for these people have chosen to hear God, and not only to hear him, but to accept Jesus Christ as the shepherd of their very soul. So no one can claim these people chose not to hear God. Therefore, either God is telling them different things, or there is no God. Even if there is a God, but he is deliberately sowing confusion, this contradicts what Christianity predicts to be God's desire, which entails Christianity is the wrong religion. Either way, Christianity is false.

So this theory doesn't work. It fails to predict what we actually observe. But even considering atheists like me, this "ad hoc" excuse still fails to save Christianity from the evidence. When I doubted the Big Bang theory, I voiced the reasons for my doubts but continued to pursue the evidence, frequently speaking with several physicists who were "believers." Eventually, they presented all the logic and evidence in terms I understood, and I realized I was wrong: the Big Bang theory is well-supported by the evidence and is at present the best explanation of all the facts by far. Did these physicists violate my free will? Certainly not. I chose to pursue the truth and hear them out. So, too, I and countless others have chosen to give God a fair hearing--if only he would speak. I would listen to him even now, at this very moment. Yet he remains silent. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that I am "choosing" not to hear him. And therefore, the fact that he still does not speak refutes the hypothesis. Nothing about free will can save the theory here.

Even when we might actually credit free will with resisting God's voice--like the occasional irrational atheist, or the stubbornly mistaken theist--the Christian theory is still not compatible with the premise that God would not or could not overcome this resistance. Essential to the Christian hypothesis, as C.S. Lewis says, is the proposition that God is "quite definitely good" and "loves love and hates hatred." Unless these statements are literally meaningless, they entail that God would behave like anyone else who is "quite definitely good" and "loves love and hates hatred." And such people don't give up on someone until their resistance becomes intolerable--until then, they will readily violate someone's free will to save them, because they know darned well it is the right thing to do. God would do the same. He would not let the choice of a fallible, imperfect being thwart his own good will.

I know this for a fact. Back in my days as a flight-deck firefighter, when our ship's helicopter was on rescue missions, we had to stand around in our gear in case of a crash. There was usually very little to do, so we told stories. One I heard was about a rescue swimmer. She had to pull a family out of the water from a capsized boat, but by the time the chopper got there, it appeared everyone had drowned except the mother, who was for that reason shedding her life vest and trying to drown herself. The swimmer dove in to rescue her, but she kicked and screamed and yelled to let her die. She even gave the swimmer a whopping black eye. But the swimmer said to hell with that, I'm bringing you in! And she did, enduring her curses and blows all the way.

Later, it turned out that one of the victim's children, her daughter, had survived. She had drifted pretty far from the wreck, but the rescue team pulled her out, and the woman who had beaten the crap out of her rescuer apologized and thanked her for saving her against her will. Everyone in my group agreed the rescue swimmer had done the right thing, and we all would have done the same--because that is what a loving, caring being does. It follows that if God is a loving being, he will do no less for us. In the real world, kind people don't act like some stubborn, pouting God who abandons the drowning simply because they don't want to be helped. They act like this rescue swimmer. They act like us.

So we can be certain God would make sure he told everyone, directly, what his message was. Everyone would then know what God had told them. They can still reject it all they want, and God can leave them alone. But there would never be, in any possible Christian universe, any confusion or doubt as to what God's message was. And if we had questions, God himself would answer them--just like the Big Bang physicists who were so patient with me. Indeed, the very fact that God gave the same message and answers to everyone would be nearly insurmountable proof that Christianity was true. Provided we had no reason to suspect God of lying to all of us, Christianity would be as certain as the law of gravity or the color of the sky. That is what the Christian hypothesis entails we should observe--for it is what a good and loving God would do, who wanted us all to set right what has gone wrong. And since this is not what we observe, but in fact the exact opposite, the evidence quite soundly refutes Christianity.

Despite this conclusion, Christians still try to hold on to their faith with this nonsense about free will--but they haven't thought it through. Meteorologists can disagree about the weather forecast, but they all agree how weather is made and the conditions that are required for each kind of weather to arise. And they agree about this because the scientific evidence is so vast and secure that it resolves these questions, often decisively. It can't be claimed that God has violated the free will of meteorologists by providing them with all this evidence. And yet how much more important is salvation than the physics of weather! If God wants what Christianity says he wants, he would not violate our free will to educate us on the trivial and then refuse to do the same for the most important subject of all. Likewise, if a doctor wants a patient to get well, he is not vague about how he must do this, but as clear as can be. He explains what is needed in terms the patient can understand. He even answers the patient's questions, and whenever asked will present all the evidence for and against the effectiveness of the treatment. He won't hold anything back and declare, "I'm not going to tell you, because that would violate your free will!" Nor would any patient accept such an excuse--to the contrary, he would respond, "But I choose to hear you," leaving the doctor no such excuse.

There can't be any excuse for God, either. There are always disagreements, and there are always people who don't follow what they are told or what they know to be true. But that doesn't matter. Chemists all agree on the fundamental facts of chemistry. Doctors all agree on the fundamental facts of medicine. Engineers all agree on the fundamental facts of engineering. So why can't all humans agree on the fundamental facts of salvation? There is no more reason that they should be confused or in the dark about this than that chemists, doctors, and engineers should be confused or in the dark.

The logically inevitable fact is, if the Christian God existed, we would all hear from God himself the same message of salvation, and we would all hear, straight from God, all the same answers to all the same questions. The Chinese would have heard it. The Native Americans would have heard it. Everyone today, everywhere on Earth, would be hearing it, and their records would show everyone else in history had heard it, too. Sure, maybe some of us would still balk or reject that message. But we would still have the information. Because the only way to make an informed choice is to have the required information. So a God who wanted us to make an informed choice would give us all the information we needed, and not entrust fallible, sinful, contradictory agents to convey a confused mess of ambiguous, poorly supported claims. Therefore, the fact that God hasn't spoken to us directly, and hasn't given us all the same, clear message, and the same, clear answers, is enough to prove Christianity false.

Just look at what Christians are saying. They routinely claim that God is your father and best friend. Yet if that were true, we would observe all the same behaviors from God that we observe from our fathers and friends. But we don't observe this. Therefore, there is no God who is our father or our friend. The logic of this is truly unassailable, and no "free will" excuse can escape it. For my father and friends aren't violating my free will when they speak to me, help me, give me advice, and answer my questions. Therefore, God would not violate my free will if he did so. He must be able to do at least as much as they do, even if for some reason he couldn't do more. But God doesn't do anything at all. He doesn't talk to, teach, help, or comfort us, unlike my real father and my real friends. God doesn't tell us when we hold a mistaken belief that shall hurt us. But my father does, and my friends do. Therefore, no God exists who is even remotely like my father or my friends, or anyone at all who loves me. Therefore, Christianity is false.

The conclusion is inescapable. If Christianity were true, then the Gospel would have been preached to each and every one of us directly, and correctly, by God--just as it supposedly was to the disciples who walked and talked and dined with God Himself, or to the Apostle Paul, who claimed to have had actual conversations with God, and to have heard the Gospel directly from God Himself. Was their free will violated? Of course not. Nor would ours be. Thus, if Christianity were really true, there would be no dispute as to what the Gospel is. There would only be our free and informed choice to accept or reject it. At the same time, all our sincere questions would be answered by God, kindly and clearly, and when we compared notes, we would find that the Voice of God gave consistent answers and messages to everyone all over the world, all the time. So if Christianity were true, there would be no point in "choosing" whether God exists anymore than there is a choice whether gravity exists or whether all those other people exist whom we love or hate or help or hurt. We would not face any choice to believe on insufficient and ambiguous evidence, but would know the facts, and face only the choice whether to love and accept the God that does exist. That this is not the reality, yet it would be the reality if Christianity were true, is proof positive that Christianity is false.
Some more reasons are outlined here: Why I Am Not a Christian (2006) by Richard Carrier (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html)and what's more, Nietzsche's psychological analysis of "otherworldliness" and ressentiment (http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth/AnthMore.htm) in various forms of it, including Platonism and Christianity, has dealt another strike to my faith in Christianity. Losing my religion: thoughts on leaving Christianity (http://www.noctua.org.uk/paul/losing.html) which I quoted from above, echoes my thoughts too.

This means my enthusiastic advocacy of Christianity here is over for now, that I am humbled, and no longer have any certainties, whether I like it or not. I would be lying if I said I had certainties at this point.. and even by Christian standards, the Old Testament says not to bear false witness.

What I tried to do on the apricity was really overcome my own doubts by facing some challenge from non-Christians. It didn't challenge me enormously though; my doubts come from my own consideration and thought.

I had a good reason to keep defending Christianity, though.

Jessep (Jack Nicholson): You want answers?
Kaffee (Tom Cruise): I think I'm entitled to them.
Jessep: You want answers?
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessep: You can't handle the truth!

-- A Few Good Men

If it's not the absolute truth, then I know enough to know that reality is meaningless and indifferent much like we observe evolution, this eternal process of death and "evil", to be, and this cold, infinite universe. There is then no absolute foundation for truth, morality and above all, meaning, which means I will have to find a way to deal with that. Which I am sure is something most people don't want to face, not even atheists, who live on in their God delusion. The sheer dread and angst associated with first coming to realize this nihilism, is enough emotional reason not to face it, not to stare into the abyss, in fear of dying inside from the truth.


THE MADMAN—-Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.]

[anonymaus]

If it's not the absolute truth, then I know enough to know that reality is meaningless and indifferent much like we observe evolution, this eternal process of death and "evil", to be, and this cold, infinite universe.

"Devant cette nuit chargée de signes et d'étoiles, je m'ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_%28novel%29)

[Trog]

Perhaps you no longer need to look for God, maybe he will come find you. But beware, the forces of darkness are all around, the internet was perhaps not the place to find God.

[Lutiferre]

"Devant cette nuit chargée de signes et d'étoiles, je m'ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stranger_%28novel%29)

Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Sisyphus) really captures the essence of the meaninglessness of existence, and why it is still worth to live, why Sisyphys is yet a happy man.

Ecclesiastes (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1&version=NIV) on the same note, is almost Camus precursor; only it doesn't really give any substantive reason why to go on living, like Camus does.


"Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow.

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

What is twisted cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.

I thought to myself, "Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge." Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.

[MeorgeGichaels]

Perhaps you no longer need to look for God, maybe he will come find you. But beware, the forces of darkness are all around, the internet was perhaps not the place to find God.

Ignore this vile woman. Come to the dark side.

Goodluck with the soulsearch.

[Lutiferre]

Perhaps you no longer need to look for God, maybe he will come find you. But beware, the forces of darkness are all around, the internet was perhaps not the place to find God.
You are right. But I never really searched for God on the internet; especially not at the Apricity. And whatever resistance I met here was not enough to give me doubts; my doubts came from myself.

[Loki]

Lutiferre, you are a man who is able and willing to admit when you have moved on from one conviction to another. That is very respectable, and I wish you all the best in your life-long search for reality and reason. :)

[Anthropos]

Well Luti, my fellow traveller, you need to go to Church. :)

[Lutiferre]

Well Luti, my fellow traveller, you need to go to Church. :)
I have already gone to Church.

If the Church had no dogma, and no absolute certainties, I would go there now to find consolation.

[Trog]

Well Luti, my fellow traveller, you need to go to Church. :)

No, he just needs to come to Glasgow and meet Eoin and I. We had already planned his inception.

[Trog]

You are right. But I never really searched for God on the internet; especially not at the Apricity. And whatever resistance I met here was not enough to give me doubts; my doubts came from myself.

Having doubts doesn't make you an unbeliever. We've all been there, you're either chosen or you're not. You've been chosen. Tiocfaidh ár Lá

[Anthropos]

I have already gone to Church.

If the Church had no dogma, and no absolute certainties, I would go there now to find consolation.

The Church goes beyond rational certainties. The inner nature of Christianity is neither irrational nor confined within rationality. It is suprarational.

[Lutiferre]

Ironically, you don't agree where or what "the Church" is :D

But I have at least gone to the major churches, capital c and plural.

[Trog]

Ignore this vile woman. Come to the dark side.

Goodluck with the soulsearch.

As a member of the faithless, you have no right to be in this thread, and even less of a right to be addressing me.

"Let them be as chaff before the wind: and let the Angel of the Lord chase them" (Ps 35:5).

[Trog]

Ironically, you don't agree where or what "the Church" is :D

But I have at least gone to the major churches, capital c and plural.

You've obviously been searching for something; that needs seems unfulfilled. I saw you attempt to reach God more than halfway, maybe now is not your time.

[Jamt]

Lut needs the Lutheran catechisms.

[Lutiferre]

Having doubts doesn't make you an unbeliever. We've all been there, you're either chosen or you're not. You've been chosen. Tiocfaidh ár LáChosen to do what? Believe blindly? I wish for everything in the world I could.. I can try to force myself, but how long does it hold before such a measure simply disintegrates? It makes little sense to go to Church each sunday and forcing yourself to suppress doubts that are just building up and eating away faith from the inside, when you already know what the priest is going to preach (Christian teaching), and why you doubt what the preacher says.

The Church goes beyond rational certainties. The inner nature of Christianity is neither irrational nor confined within rationality. It is suprarational.
Of course it goes beyond it or below it or into it, or other spatial metaphors.

But there is no doubt that it includes it and that having correct and true belief and worship and so on, is much, much more integral to Christianity than to many non-Christian cults. That is why the Church you attend to is called the Orthodox church above all else.

And if not, then I guess I can just go to Church and deny all the truths it preaches every sunday and be a total ignoramus and heretic?

[Smaland]

16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

II Timothy 3:16-17, KJV

God has not been silent. He has given us the Scriptures to tell us what He thinks, how He feels, how we should order our lives, and what He expects of us.

*****

When He was on the cross, even Jesus felt forsaken, as is shown in Mark 15:34 (KJV): "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Because Jesus had taken the sins of the world upon Himself, I believe that the Father may have had to avert His gaze for a moment. But we know that this was only temporary, because the Resurrection occurred shortly afterward.

I earnestly hope that you will not give up, but stand fast in the faith.

[Lutiferre]

Lut needs the Lutheran catechisms.
How does Lutheranism evade the doubts I've expressed (incompletely and imperfectly) here?

[Monolith]

Luti, life is not supposed to be easy, we're not supposed to be all knowing, and every single action we make, however insignificant it might seem, while we live on this piece of rock determines who we really are. If the world we live in is filled with evil, which in turn is caught in a seemingly endless cycle of death and destruction, then what do you think, what is the most valuable thing to be found in it?

If we didn't have a choice, if God revealed us everything, then what would be the point? If we lived perfect lives, with nothing troubling us, would there be anything to conquer? Would there be any obstacle for us to overcome? What would be the point of such existence?

[Lutiferre]

God has not been silent. He has given us the Scriptures to tell us what He thinks, how He feels, how we should order our lives, and what He expects of us.

When He was on the cross, even Jesus felt forsaken, as is shown in Mark 15:34 (KJV): "And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Because Jesus had taken the sins of the world upon Himself, I believe that the Father may have had to avert His gaze for a moment. But we know that this was only temporary, because the Resurrection occurred shortly afterward.

I earnestly hope that you will not give up, but stand fast in the faith.
Well, I appreciate you trying, but I already know Christian teaching with regard to revelation.

Gods silence is not that; but rather why he doesn't say or do something like he did with Paul's conversion experience; why an omnipotent deity seems impotent (and God forgive me if that is a blasphemy; but I don't say that of the true God, only of a certain idea of him).

[Lutiferre]

Luti, life is not supposed to be easy, we're not supposed to be all knowing, and every single action we make, however insignificant it might seem, while we live on this piece of rock determines who we really are. If the world we live in is filled with evil, which in turn is caught in a seemingly endless cycle of death and destruction, then what do you think, what is the most valuable thing to be found in it?
Well, I don't think it is necessarily. If Christianity is not true, then there is no "problem of evil"; then the world is not "filled with evil"; then what Christians have condemned as evil is simply a necessary part of existence, which, like joy and sorrow and pain and pleasure, we must take both at the same time: good and evil, yin and yang, making up one whole.



If we lived perfect lives, with nothing troubling us, would there be anything to conquer? Would there be any obstacle for us to overcome? What would be the point of such existence?
I agree fully.. and my point of doubt is exactly that Christianity denies that evil is a necessary part of existence, and relegates it to a "free will" choice of our own, while creation and God are only "good", not "evil"; only mans choice is "evil".

[Trog]

I've read all your reasons for not believing. But what were your reasons for wanting to believe?

[Amapola]

Let him be or do whatever he wants. As Trog said, he has been searching, life will probably bring him back to religion for the "potencial" in him exists... Actually I was surprised that being so young he was into religion. There is a Spanish saying, *perhaps more universal than just Spanish* that says something like this: a person in his 20's that is not "left-wing" has no heart :D but a person that is still left-wing at an old age has no brain, hehe ... well something similar happens to religion... many convinced atheists have called out God's name previous moments before their deaths (and it's pretty common) so... just let him be.

[Lutiferre]

I've read all your reasons for not believing. But what was your reasons for wanting to believe?
I still have reasons to want to believe. I still want to believe.

One reason was the deep intuition of a higher existence; indeed, an otherworldly hope. Another was the longing of my whole being after the meaning and meaningfulness in Christ and Christianity.

[Lutiferre]

Let him be or do whatever he wants. As Trog said, he has been searching, life will probably bring him back to religion for the "potencial" in him exists... Actually I was surprised that being so young he was into religion. There is a Spanish saying, *perhaps more universal than just Spanish* that says something like this: a person in his 20's that is not "left-wing" has no heart :D but a person that is still left-wing at an old age has no brain, hehe ... well something similar happens to religion... many convinced atheists have called out God's name previous moments before their deaths (and it's pretty common) so... just let him be.

I was very left-wing when I was even younger. But I don't think I would be different from most Catholic saints age-wise, or indeed from Jesus, who was debating with the Rabbis at twelve.

But I will still be interested in religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and so on, even if losing faith in Christianity.

[Smaland]

Well, I appreciate you trying, but I already know Christian teaching with regard to revelation.

Gods silence is not that; but rather why he doesn't say or do something like he did with Paul's conversion experience; why an omnipotent deity seems impotent (and God forgive me if that is a blasphemy; but I don't say that of the true God, only of a certain idea of him).

I am only speculating, but perhaps a dramatic conversion experience was necessary for Paul. In his ignorance, Paul was directly and energetically persecuting Jesus, and so the Savior may have had no choice but to "shut him down," at least temporarily.

God is certainly omnipotent, but He does not need to say everything with thunder and lightning, to make sure that we understand Him and know that He is there. I do believe that He prefers to express Himself more calmly and more quietly. Sometimes, we may be in such a mental whirl that this drowns out what He is trying to say.

[Lutiferre]

God is certainly omnipotent, but He does not need to say everything with thunder and lightning, to make sure that we understand Him and know that He is there.
Well, he does actually, at least if he wanted people to know he is there. As long as there are ignorants who don't know he is there, you would then be forced to claim that they do know every truth of the Christian faith; and if not, then they certainly don't know "He" as in the Christian God, is there.


I do believe that He prefers to express Himself more calmly and more quietly. Sometimes, we may be in such a mental whirl that this drowns out what He is trying to say.
But that explanation is just so much weaker on the scale of immediate experience, than the overwhelming fact of absence, silence, and nothing.

[Trog]

How would you have expected God to show to you that he is there, that he exists? Because this is the true test of faith.

[Lutiferre]

How would you have expected God to show to you that he is there, that he exists? Because this is the true test of faith.
Well, first of all, it isn't really a question I, by Christian standards, can answer. There, it's a question you can only ask God. "The Lord works in mysterious ways".

But, generally speaking, we speak about Gods creation, including me; I would have expected that God created a world that is "good" by Christian standards, which Christianity claims, but which fails to be true, for which reason all evil is brushed off as human sin, while natural evil before humanity even existed is simply ignored, or it's evil denied, which seems to have created the very human nature (evolution) that denies Gods existence and lusts, hates and murders as a part of natural selection. I would have expected that God created such a world, in which we knew by nature and grace that specifically the Christian God existed, if he indeed had created us and our nature, and we had no need of doubts. For Satan does not doubt.

My point is summarised in this:


4. Christianity Predicts a Different Universe

I mentioned before that the Christian hypothesis actually predicts a completely different universe than the one we find ourselves in. For a loving God who wanted to create a universe solely to provide a home for human beings, and to bring his plan of salvation to fruition, would never have invented this universe, but something quite different. But if there is no God, then the universe we actually observe is exactly the sort of universe we would expect to observe. In other words, if there is no God then this universe is the only kind of universe we would ever find ourselves in, the only kind that could ever produce intelligent life without any supernatural cause or plan. Hence naturalist atheism predicts exactly the kind of universe we observe, while the Christian theory predicts almost none of the features of our universe. Indeed, the Christian theory predicts the universe should instead have features that in fact it doesn't, and should lack features that in fact it has. Therefore, naturalism is a better explanation than Christianity of the universe we actually find ourselves in. Since naturalism (rejecting the supernatural) is the most plausible form of atheism I know, this is what I shall mean by "atheism" from here on out.[8] Let's look at a few examples of what I mean.
Origin and Evolution of Life

First, the origin of life. Suppose there is no God. If that is the case, then the origin of life must be a random accident. Christians rightly point out that the appearance of the first living organism is an extremely improbable accident. Of course, so is winning a lottery, and yet lotteries are routinely won. Why? Because the laws of probability entail the odds of winning a lottery depend not just on how unlikely a win is--let's say, a one in a billion chance--but on how often the game is played. In other words, if a billion people play, and the odds of winning are one in a billion, it is actually highly probable that someone will win the lottery. Now, if the game is played only once, and the only ticket sold just happens to be the winner, then you might get suspicious. And if the game was played a billion times, and each time only one ticket was sold and yet every single time that ticket happened to be the winner, then you would be quite certain someone was cheating. For nothing else could explain such a remarkable fact.

Therefore, the only way life could arise by accident (i.e. without God arranging it) is if there were countless more failed tries than actual successes. After all, if the lottery was played by a billion people and yet only one of them won, that would surely be a mere accident, not evidence of cheating. So the only way this lottery could be won by accident is if it was played countless times and only one ticket won. To carry the analogy over, the only way life could arise by accident is if the universe tried countless times and only very rarely succeeded. Lo and behold, we observe that is exactly what happened: the universe has been mixing chemicals for over twelve billion years in over a billion-trillion star systems. That is exactly what we would have to see if life arose by accident--because life can only arise by accident in a universe as large and old as ours. The fact that we observe exactly what the theory of accidental origin requires and predicts is evidence that our theory is correct.

Of course, we haven't yet proven any particular theory of life's origin true. But we do have evidence for every element of every theory now considered. Nothing about contemporary hypotheses of life's origin rests on any conjecture or assumption that has not been observed or demonstrated in some circumstance. For example, we know porous rocks that can provide a cell-like home were available near energy-rich, deep-sea volcanic vents. We know those vents harbor some of the most ancient life on the planet, indicating that life may well have begun there. And we know these vents would have provided all the necessary resources to produce an amino-acid-based life, and that they had hundreds of millions of years of time in which to do so. In a similar way, we have evidence supporting every other presently viable theory: we know homochiral amino acids can be mass-produced in a supernova and thus become a component of the early comets that bombarded the early Earth; we know that amino acids that chain along a common crystalline structure in clay will chain in a homochiral structure; we know simple self-replicating chains of amino acids exist that do not require any enzymes working in concert; and so on.[9] So by the rules of sound procedure, the accidental theory is well-grounded in a way intelligent design theory is not. We have never observed or confirmed the existence of any sort of divine actions or powers that God would have needed to "create" the first life--nor have we demonstrated the existence of any such agent, not even indirectly (as we have for natural theories of life's origin). So the intelligent design theory is completely ad hoc, in exactly the way our accidental theory is not, and is therefore not presently credible.

The situation is even worse than that, really. For the Christian theory does not predict what we observe, while the natural theory does predict what we observe. After all, what need does an intelligent engineer have of billions of years and trillions of galaxies filled with billions of stars each? That tremendous waste is only needed if life had to arise by natural accident. It would have no plausible purpose in the Christian God's plan. You cannot predict from "the Christian God created the world" that "the world" would be trillions of galaxies large and billions of years old before it finally stumbled on one rare occasion of life. But we can predict exactly that from "no God created this world." Therefore, the facts confirm atheism rather than theism. Obviously, a Christian can invent all manner of additional "ad hoc" theories to explain "why" his God would go to all the trouble of designing the universe to look exactly like we would expect it to look if God did not exist. But these "ad hoc" excuses are themselves pure concoctions of the imagination--until the Christian can prove these additional theories are true, from independent evidence, there is no reason to believe them, and hence no reason to believe the Christian theory.

The same analysis follows for evolution. The evidence that all present life evolved by a process of natural selection is strong and extensive. I won't make the case here, for it is enough to point out that the scientific consensus on this is vast and certain.[10] And as it happens, evolution requires billions of years to get from the first accidental life to organisms as complex as us. God does not require this--nor does taking so long make much sense for God, unless he wanted to deliberately fabricate evidence against his existence by planting all the evidence for evolution--all the fossils, all the DNA correlations, the vast scales of time over which changes occurred, everything. Again, there is no credible reason to believe the Christian God would do this, and no actual evidence that he did. In contrast, the only way we could exist without God is if we live at the end of billions of years of meandering change over time. Lo and behold, that is exactly where we observe ourselves to be. Thus, atheism predicts the overall evidence for evolution, including the vast time involved and all the meandering progress of change in the fossil record, whereas Christian theism does not predict any of this--without adding all manner of undemonstrated ad hoc assumptions, assumptions the atheist theory does not require.

Even DNA confirms atheism over Christianity. The only way life could ever arise by accident and evolve by natural selection is if it was built from a chemical code that could be copied and that was subject to mutation. We know of no other natural, accidental way for any universe to just stumble upon any kind of life that could naturally evolve. Also, as best we know, the only chemicals that our present universe could accidentally assemble this way are amino acids (and similar molecules like nucleotides). And it is highly improbable that an accidentally assembled code would employ any more than a handful of basic units in its fundamental structure. Lo and behold, we observe all of this to be the case. Exactly as required by the theory that there is no God, all life is built from a chemical code that copies itself and mutates naturally, this code is constructed from amino-acid-forming nucleotide molecules, and the most advanced DNA code only employs four different nucleotide molecules to do that. The Christian theory predicts none of this. Atheism predicts all of it. There is no good reason God would need any of these things to create and sustain life. He could, and almost certainly would, use an infallible spiritual essence to accomplish the same ends--exactly as all Christians thought for nearly two thousand years.

Again, the only way a Christian can explain the actual facts is by pulling out of thin air some unproven "reason" why God would design life in exactly the way required by the theory that life wasn't designed by God--a way that was demonstrably inferior to what he could have done. Either God must have a deliberate intent to deceive, which no "good" or "loving" God who "wanted" us to know the truth would ever have, or God has some other motive that just "happens" to entail, by some truly incredible coincidence, doing exactly the same thing as deceiving us into thinking he doesn't exist, which at the same time just "happens" to require adding needless imperfections in our construction. In the one case, Christianity is refuted, and in the other it becomes too incredible to believe--unless the Christian can prove from actual evidence that this coincidental reason really does exist and really has guided God's actions in choosing how to design life and the universe it resides in. The possibility is not enough. You have to prove it. That has yet to happen.

We can find more examples from the nature of life. For example, a loving God would infuse his creation with models of moral goodness everywhere, in the very function and organization of nature. He would not create an animal kingdom that depended on wanton rape and murder to persist and thrive, nor would animals have to produce hundreds of offspring because almost all of them will die, most of them horribly. There would be no disease or other forms of suffering among animals at all. Yet all of these things must necessarily exist if there is no God. So once again, atheism predicts what we see. Christianity does not.
The Human Brain

As a more specific example, consider the size of the human brain. If God exists, then it necessarily follows that a fully functional mind can exist without a body--and if that is true, God would have no reason to give us brains. We would not need them. For being minds like him, being "made in his image," our souls could do all the work, and control our thoughts and bodies directly. At most a very minimal brain would be needed to provide interaction between the senses, nerves, and soul. A brain no larger than that of a monkey would be sufficient, since a monkey can see, hear, smell, and do pretty much everything we can, and its tiny brain is apparently adequate to the task. And had God done that--had he given us real souls that actually perform all the tasks of consciousness (seeing, feeling, thinking)--that would indeed count as evidence for his existence, and against mere atheism.

In contrast, if a mind can only be produced by a comparably complex machine, then obviously there can be no God, and the human brain would have to be very large--large enough to contain and produce a complex machine like a mind. Lo and behold, the human brain is indeed large--so large that it kills many mothers during labor (without modern medicine, the rate of mortality varies around 10% per child). This huge brain also consumes a large amount of oxygen and other resources, and it is very delicate and easily damaged. Moreover, damage to the brain profoundly harms a human's ability to perceive and think. So our large brain is a considerable handicap, the cause of needless misery and death and pointless inefficiency--which is not anything a loving engineer would give us, nor anything a good or talented engineer with godlike resources would ever settle on.

But this enormous, problematic brain is necessarily the only way conscious beings can exist if there is no God nor any other supernatural powers in the universe. If we didn't need a brain, and thus did not have one, we would be many times more efficient. All that oxygen, energy, and other materials could be saved or diverted to other functions. We would also be far less vulnerable to fatal or debilitating injury, we would be immune to brain damage and defects that impair judgment or distort perception (like schizophrenia or retardation), and we wouldn't have killed one in every ten of our mothers before the rise of modern medicine. In short, the fact that we have such large, vulnerable brains is the only way we could exist if there is no God, but is quite improbable if there is a God who loves us and wants us to do well and have a fair chance in life. Once again, atheism predicts the universe we find ourselves in. The Christian theory does not.[11]
Finely Tuning a Killer Cosmos

Even the Christian proposal that God designed the universe, indeed "finely tuned" it to be the perfect mechanism for producing life, fails to predict the universe we see. A universe perfectly designed for life would easily, readily, and abundantly produce and sustain it. Most of the contents of that universe would be conducive to life or benefit life. Yet that is not what we see. Instead, almost the entire universe is lethal to life--in fact, if we put all the lethal vacuum of outer space swamped with deadly radiation into an area the size of a house, you would never find the comparably microscopic speck of area that sustains life. Would you conclude that the house was built to serve and benefit that subatomic speck? Hardly. Yet that is the house we live in. The Christian theory completely fails to predict this--while atheism predicts exactly this.

The fact that the universe is actually very poorly designed to sustain and benefit life is already a refutation of the Christian theory, which entails the purpose of the universe is to sustain and benefit life--human life in particular. When we look at how the universe is actually built, we do find that it appears perfectly designed after all--but not for producing life. Lee Smolin has argued from the available scientific facts that our universe is probably the most perfect universe that could ever be arranged for producing black holes.[12] He also explains how all the elements that would be required to finely tune a perfect black-hole-maker also make chemical life like ours an extremely rare but inevitable byproduct of such a universe. This means that if the universe was designed, it was not designed to make and sustain us, but to make and sustain black holes, and therefore even if there is a God he cannot be the Christian God. Therefore, Christianity is false.

Smolin explains how a universe perfectly designed to produce black holes would look exactly like our universe. It would be extremely old, extremely large, and almost entirely comprised of radiation-filled vacuum, in which almost all the matter available would be devoted to producing black holes or providing the material that feeds them. We know there must be, in fact, billions more black holes than life-producing planets. And if any of several physical constants varied by even the tiniest amount, the universe would produce fewer black holes--hence these constants have been arranged into the perfect combination for producing the most black holes possible. The number and variety and exact properties of subatomic particles has the same effect--any difference, and our universe would produce fewer black holes. Christianity predicts none of these things. What use does God have for quarks, neutrinos, muons, or kaons? They are necessary only if God wanted to build a universe that was a perfect black hole generator.

Think about it. If you found a pair of scissors and didn't know what they were designed for, you could hypothesize they were designed as a screwdriver, because scissors can, after all, drive screws. In fact, there is no way to design a pair of scissors that would prevent them being used as a screwdriver. But as soon as someone showed you that these scissors were far better designed to cut paper, and in fact are not the best design for driving screws, would you stubbornly hang on to your theory that they were designed to drive screws? No. You would realize it was obvious they were designed to cut paper, and their ability to drive screws is just an inevitable byproduct of their actual design. This is exactly what we are facing when we look at the universe: it is not very well designed for life, though life is an inevitable byproduct of what the universe was more obviously designed for: black holes. So if the universe was intelligently designed, it clearly was not designed for us.

But that is not the only explanation. If the universe was indeed perfectly designed to sustain and benefit life--if the whole cosmos was hospitable and beneficial--that would be evidence it was intelligently or supernaturally designed, since only an intelligent or supernatural being would ever have such a goal in mind. But this does not follow for black holes. Smolin explains why. Black holes possess all the same properties that our own Big Bang must have possessed before expanding into the present cosmos, so it seems likely that every black hole might produce a new universe inside it. Smolin then demonstrates that if every black hole produces a new universe slightly different than its parent, then our universe is the inevitable outcome of literally any possible universe that could arise at random. If any universe emerges randomly from a primordial chaos, no matter what arrangement of particles and physical constants that universe accidentally ends up with, it will always produce at least one black hole (even if only by collapsing in on itself), which in Smolin's theory will reset the whole slate, producing an entirely new universe with a newly randomized set of properties. This new universe will in turn produce at least one more black hole, and therefore one more roll of the dice, and on and on, forever. There is nothing that could ever stop this from continuing on to infinity.

Some of these early random universes will just by chance have properties that produce more black holes than other universes, and will thus produce far more baby universes than their cousins do. The more black holes a universe produces, the more likely it is that some of the new universes this causes will also be good at making black holes, or even better. And eventually this chain of cause and effect will generate perfect or near-perfect black hole producers, after an extended and inevitable process of trial and error. Therefore, if the whole multiverse began with any random universe from some primordial chaos, eventually a universe exactly like ours would be an inevitable and unstoppable outcome. Hence Smolin's theory predicts exactly our universe, with all its finely tuned attributes, without any God or intelligent design.

Now, Smolin's theory has yet to be proven. It is at present just a hypothesis--but so is Christianity. Just like Christianity, there are elements to Smolin's theory that are conjectural and not independently proven to exist. However, the most important element--the fact that unintelligent natural selection can produce incredibly precise fine tuning over time--has been proven, whereas any sort of divine activity has not. We have never observed a single proven case of a god causing anything, much less any fine-tuning of the properties of our universe. But we have found overwhelming evidence for a process that produces very amazing fine-tuning without any intelligence behind it, and that is evolution by natural selection. This is a known precedent--unlike bodiless minds or divine causation. And a theory based on known precedents is always less ad hoc than a theory based on completely novel and unobserved mechanisms. So Smolin's theory already has an edge over creationism.

Even so, there are still some ad hoc elements to Smolin's theory, and therefore it is not yet a fact, just a hypothesis. But suppose for a moment that Smolin's theory is the only possible way our universe could come to exist without a God. It is certainly one possible way. No Christian can yet refute Smolin's theory or prove it is not the correct explanation. There are also other theories now that explain our exact universe without a God, like chaotic inflation theory. But let's assume we ruled out all those alternatives, and all we had left was Smolin's theory and the Christian's theory. Then, if Christianity was false, Smolin's theory would necessarily be true.

Now observe the facts: the universe is exactly the way Smolin's theory predicts it would be, right down to peculiar details--such as the existence and properties of obscure subatomic particles, and the fact that the universe is almost entirely devoted to producing and feeding black holes, is almost entirely inhospitable to life, and almost never produces life. Christianity predicts none of these things, and in fact many of these details seem quite improbable if Christianity is true. In contrast, atheism would predict every single one of those details, exactly as we observe. Once again, Christianity predicts a different universe than the one we have--while atheism predicts exactly the universe we have. This even extends to the Big Bang theory itself. In no way does Christianity predict God would "create" a universe with a long deterministic process from a Big Bang. But if Smolin's theory is the only possible explanation of our universe without God, then it necessarily follows that our universe must have begun with a Big Bang and evolved slowly over many eons. Yet again, atheism predicts a Big Bang universe. Christianity does not.

Even aside from physics, the nature of the world is clearly dispassionate and blind, exhibiting no value-laden behavior or message of any kind, and everything we find turns out to be the inevitable product of mindless physics. The natural world is like an autistic idiot savant, a marvelous machine wholly uncomprehending of itself or others. This is exactly what we should expect if it was not created and governed by a benevolent deity. Yet it is hardly explicable on the theory that there is such a being. Since there is no observable divine hand in nature as a causal process, it is reasonable to conclude there is no divine hand. Conversely, all the causes whose existence we have confirmed are unintelligent, immutable forces and objects. Never once have we confirmed the existence of any other kind of cause. And that is strange if there is a God, but not at all strange if there isn't one. Nowhere do we find in the design of the universe itself any sort of intention or goal we can only expect from a conscious being like us, as opposed to the sort of goals exhibited by, say, a flat worm, a computer game, or an ant colony, or an intricate machine like the solar system, which simply follows inevitably from natural forces that are fixed and blind.

Given the lack of any clear evidence for God, and the fact that (apart from what humans do) everything we've seen has been caused by immutable natural elements and forces, we should sooner infer that immutable natural elements and forces are behind it all. Likewise, the only things we have ever proven to exist are matter, energy, space, and time, and countless different arrangements of these. Therefore, the natural inference is that these are the only things there are. After all, the universe exhibits no values in its own operation or design. It operates exactly the same for everyone, the good and bad alike. It rewards and craps on both with total disregard. It behaves just like a cold and indifferent machine, not the creation of a loving engineer. Christianity does not predict this. Atheism does.

The Original Christian Cosmos

A Christian might still balk and ask, "Well, what other universe could God have made?" The answer is easy: the very universe early Christians like Paul actually believed they lived in. In other words, a universe with no evidence of such a vast age or of natural evolution, a universe that contained instead abundant evidence that it was created all at once just thousands of years ago. A universe that wasn't so enormous and that had no other star systems or galaxies, but was instead a single cosmos of seven planetary bodies and a sphere full of star lights that all revolve around an Earth at the center of God's creation--because that Earth is the center of God's love and attention. A complete cosmos whose marvelously intricate motions had no other explanation than God's will, rather than a solar system whose intricate motions are entirely the inevitable outcome of fixed and blind forces. A universe comprised of five basic elements, not over ninety elements, each in turn constructed from a dizzying array of subatomic particles. A universe governed by God's law, not a thoroughly amoral physics. A universe inhabited by animals and spirits whose activity could be confirmed everywhere, and who lived in and descended from outer space--which was not a vacuum, but literally the ethereal heavens, the hospitable home of countless of God's most marvelous creatures (both above and below the Moon)--a place Paul believed human beings could live and had actually visited without harm.

That is, indeed, exactly the universe we would expect if Christianity were true--which is why Christianity was contrived as it was, when it was. The first Christians truly believed the universe was exactly as Christian theism predicted it to be, and took that as confirmation of their theory. Lo and behold, they were wrong--about almost every single detail! Paul truly believed that the perfect order of the heavens, the apparent design of human and animal bodies, and the perfect march of the seasons had no other explanation than intelligent design, and in fact he believed in God largely because of this, and condemned unbelievers precisely because they rejected this evidence.[13] But it turns out none of this evidence really existed. Christians have long abandoned their belief that the perfect order of the heavens can only be explained by God, since they now know it is entirely explained by physics and requires no intelligent meddling or design. And a great many Christians have abandoned their belief that the apparent design of human and animal bodies can only be explained by God, since they now know it is entirely explicable by natural evolution.

All the evidence we now have in hand only compounds Paul's error. For what we know today is exactly the opposite of what Paul would have expected. It is exactly the opposite of what his Christian theory predicted. Paul certainly would have told you that God would never use billions of years of meandering and disastrously catastrophic trial and error to figure out how to make a human. God would just make humans. And Paul certainly believed that is exactly what God did, and surely expected the evidence would prove it. But the evidence has not. It has, in fact, proved exactly the opposite. Likewise, Paul naturally believed God simply spoke a word, and Earth existed. One more word, and the stars existed. That's exactly what the Christian theory predicts. But that isn't what happened.

Again, Christians can fabricate excuses for why God did things differently--but that's all just ad hoc. Like Christianity, none of these excuses have been demonstrated to be true. It is even doubtful such excuses would be compatible with Christianity. As noted earlier, God can do essentially anything, so what he does is pretty much limited only by what he wants to do. Christianity says he wants us to be good and set things right, which entails that God wants us to know what is good and how to set things right. Christianity says God wants to do what is good, and his choices are guided by his love of love and his hatred of hatred--therefore anything he designed would be the good and admirable product of a loving being. There is no way to "define away" these conclusions. If any of these conclusions are false, Christianity is false. But these conclusions entail that certain things would be true about our universe that are in fact not true.

The existence of a divine creator driven by a mission to save humankind, for example, entails that his creation would serve exactly that end, better than any other. And that means he would not design the universe to look exactly like it would have to look if God did not exist. Instead, if I wanted people to know which church was teaching the right way to salvation, I would lead the way for them by protecting all such churches with mysterious energy fields so they would be invulnerable to harm, and its preachers alone would be able to work miracles day after day, such as regenerating lost limbs, raising the dead, or calming storms. The bibles of this church would glow in the dark so they could always be read and would be indestructible--immune to any attempt to mark, burn, or tear them, or change what they said. Indeed, I would regard it as my moral obligation to do things like this, so my children would not be in the dark about who I was and what I was about, so they would be able to find out for sure what was truly good for them.

So, too, the Christian God would design a universe with moral goals built in. For example, if I were to make a universe, and cared how the people in it felt--whether they suffered or were happy--I would make it a law of nature that the more good a person really was, the more invulnerable they would be to harm or illness, and the more evil, the weaker and more ill. Nature would be governed by survival of the kindest, not survival of the fittest. Obviously, such a law would not be possible unless the universe "knew" what good and evil was, and cared about the one flourishing rather than the other. And unlike mere survival, which does its own choosing through the callous mechanism of death, if the very laws of the universe served a highly abstract good instead, that would be inconceivable without a higher mind capable of grasping and caring about all these deep abstract principles--as we know humans do, and the universe does not. So a physical law like this would indeed provide good evidence the universe was created by a loving God.

But, lo and behold, that is not the universe we live in. Even if a God made this universe, it could not be the Christian God because no God who wanted us to know the truth would conceal it by making a universe that looked exactly like a universe with no God in it. The simple fact is that Christianity does not predict our universe, but a completely different one. Atheism, however, predicts exactly the kind of universe we find ourselves in. So the nature of the universe is another failed prediction, confirming our previous conclusion that Christianity is false.

[Trog]

Well, this is the atheist view, you're not quite there yet. It seems to me this has still not answered you.

[Lutiferre]

Well, this is the aesthetic view, you're not quite there yet. It seems to me this has still not answered you.
Millions of years of meaningless death, suffering, murdering, envying, raping (in other words, by Christian standards, "evil") in a universe of infinitude with possibly countless other planets with the same process going on, is hardly just an aesthetic matter, but also an ethical one. The god who creates such a world is indifferent.

[Trog]

Millions of years of meaningless death, suffering, murdering, envying, raping (in other words, by Christian standards, "evil") in a universe of infinitude with possibly countless other planets with the same process going on, is hardly just an aesthetic matter, but also an ethical one. The god who creates such a world is indifferent.

Error, I meant to say Atheist. Death is not meaningless if you believe in Christ. The other ills you speak of are man-made, not God made.

[Smaland]

Millions of years of meaningless death, suffering, murdering, envying, raping (in other words, by Christian standards, "evil") in a universe of infinitude with possibly countless other planets with the same process going on, is hardly just an aesthetic matter, but also an ethical one. The god who creates such a world is indifferent.


24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn.

Matthew 13:24-30

God will certainly bring this age of evil to an end; see the Book of Revelation. Also, He not indifferent, He is being merciful; for if He judged the world now as He will some day, He would uproot the wheat with the tares.

[Lutiferre]

Error, I meant to say Atheist.
Ah.
Death is not meaningless if you believe in Christ.
But it is meaningless and even an evil, according to Christianity; Christ only gives what is a meaningless evil a new meaning, by conquering death. So it is precisely in him overcoming death that death gets a meaning; death is precisely something which is seen as evil in itself.

The other ills you speak of are man-made, not God made.But yet those evils existed before humanity existed; they existed in the very process by which humanity was created (evolution, natural selection). Lust, envy, murder, hatred, and all other evils, are a natural part of animals and humans bodies and psyches, a natural part of the drive to survival.

And anyway, this was precisely what I was talking about to begin with. And the same here:

God will certainly bring this age of evil to an end;
Original Sin, Day of Judgement, etc..

Consider the present for a while: what do you see in the present world? We see a world full of what by Christian standards is evil, we see humanity and animals dwelling in a process of organic death, where the weak are indifferently killed and the strong survive.. natural selection and acquiring of new traits to survive and feed on others, the very process by which evolution suggests we and all other things came to be.

We see a near infinite universe which extends billions and billions of years back into the past, with everything ending up in utter destruction, whether it gets swallowed in a black hole or a nearby sun. And then.. are we supposed to believe all of this evil comes from original sin? Doesn't that just seem like an excuse, a denial of reality, an escape from the present reality? If we say it's just because some evil choice by a human in the distant past, then we have projected the root of the present into that distant past evil choice.. and if we say God will make all things right at judgement day, then we have projected justice into the distant future..

we can never go into the past to check if the world was ever different, and we can never go into the future to check if it will change. In other words, because Christianity predicts another universe, we make up excuses for why the universe we see isn't that universe, excuses which are unfalsifiable. We make a "double" of the world, rather than accept that -this- is what the world is.


The very process which we were created by itself involves death and what Christianity certainly considers "evil" (evolution, survival of the fittest). Lust, envy, hate, murder, and so on, are all things that are built into us from the beginning by natural selection. It seems to be me that there is too much so-called "evil" which is out of our hands, to claim that this universe is created by a God who is on the same time "good" and still is the creator of this universe. Venomous snakes, blood sucking insects that infect and kill people with malaria, indifferent climates that kill everything living, evolution, death everywhere, a big cosmic infinity of destruction.. which could only be created by God - but that isn't the case if he is omnibenevolent.

Christianity seems to predict another universe.. a good little cosy planet, with an unshakable foundation and an instant creation of man and animals in perfect harmony. That was certainly the view that the Church Fathers had of the universe; and any other view was even condemned as heresy, along many other things. I just remembered reading Origen, that the "Mosaic account of the universe" says that it's "no more than 10,00 years old", unlike "pagan views" which claim it to be "eternal". Well, doesn't it seem that the "pagan" view was closer to the truth, by human standards? The universe's age would seem to be an infinity, and even it's size. What Christianity predicts does not seem to be the sort of "deistic" universe, in which God is just a "distant creator" who merely "starts evolution"; it predicts rather the directly intervening God, who does not seem to have created this world. Evolution of animals killing and feeding off each other to even survive and to even evolve.. A seemingly random and indifferent process which just kills and kills for eternity.. destruction for millions of years before we even came.

[Jägerstaffel]

Another thing is that, if the Christian God was truly omnipotent, I cannot bring myself to accept that he doesn't say something to me or do something, to convince me not to doubt. I really have prayed that God gave me some reason not to doubt.. but all I experience compared to that is total silence; total abandonment of me and the rest of creation.

This is my huge hang-up with Christianity as well. If God knows all, he knows what it takes to convince me. If God can do all, he could make himself known to me. If God LOVES all, why wouldn't he convince me in a way that he knows would work?

[Óttar]

OK buddy. We all had a good laugh. The joke is up. :thumbs up

[Lutiferre]

OK buddy. We all had a good laugh. The joke is up. :thumbs up
Right, because I was just kidding.. :rolleyes:

[Guapo]

God? who? what? where?

[Loddfafner]

One of the few points I think Freud was right about was that the instinct that drives people towards an emotional belief in god is a mix of an internalized father figure and a desire to return to the womb. I do, however, accept the possibility that Jung was on the right track with his implications that religious impulses may well be of psychological origin but they are not merely that, and knowledge of the psychological dimension could be the basis for insight into religion.

[Nodens]

my doubts came from myself.

And are thus the only doubts that matter.


Right, because I was just kidding.. :rolleyes:

To be fair, that can be difficult to determine around here.

[Óttar]

Right, because I was just kidding.. :rolleyes:
Sounds like something you and Eoin would be up to.

[Murphy]

Fuck you Lutiferre, seriously :coffee:..

The Papist.

[Poltergeist]

I never took Luti's "Christianity" too seriously, anyway. Too rationalistic, too formalistic and legalistic, almost mechanical. To his credit, he has to be praised though for having read plenty of things, in order to inform himself better on the Christian faith. Something very few youngsters venture into these days.

Rationalism is just turning in circles, whether it be of "religious" or "non-religious" nature.

But perhaps this is just one phase of Luti's spiritual journey. We may see more surprises coming from him.

[Fred]

Millions of years of meaningless death, suffering, murdering, envying, raping (in other words, by Christian standards, "evil") in a universe of infinitude with possibly countless other planets with the same process going on, is hardly just an aesthetic matter, but also an ethical one. The god who creates such a world is indifferent.You could easily study Deism without Humanism and look at God from this perspective, but still be Christian. In fact, you just may be more in tune to God the Father rather than God the Son. At least you recognise your link with the Holy Spirit. Only those who refuse to even consider these things are blind to its animation of their joy and platitude.:D

[Trog]

I never took Luti's "Christianity" too seriously, anyway. Too rationalistic, too formalistic and legalistic, almost mechanical. To his credit, he has to be praised though for having read plenty of things, in order to inform himself better on the Christian faith. Something very few youngsters venture into these days.

Rationalism is just turning in circles, whether it be of "religious" or "non-religious" nature.

But perhaps this is just one phase of Luti's spiritual journey. We may see more surprises coming from him.

I agree. I also feel that Lutiferre will go through his life often dabbling and challenging things, and sail close to the edge in many spheres. In this venture, he has challenged God himself. He has dared to ask the questions that many Christians are afraid to ask. A Christian should have the courage to question their Faith and expect it to not fall down under scrutiny, instead many of us somehow feel we will offend God if we do examine our practices and known why we do it. Do we follow through fear or through love? I can't really answer Lutiferre's points or even of that atheist he has quoted directly from, because I don't have the answers due to accepting what I have been raised to believe, rather than conducting my own personal research. However, it has been the personal things that have happened in my life that alert me to God. No one can anticipate these.

Lutifere is somewhat of a maverick, I know God will answer him at some point, but it will on God's terms and in God's time. For now Lutiferre should enjoy his freedom from the moderating aspects of Faith. Perhaps go out and live a little; how a guy as deep and as naturally spiritual as this will enjoy a life without acknowledging God, I don't know.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBj2wsimvQ
For Lutiferre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fBj2wsimvQ

[Trog]

Fuck you Lutiferre, seriously :coffee:..

The Papist.

C'mon you, this is not necessary nor appropriate. You're supposed to lead. You can't take it personally that Lutiferre has not yet found God, I know I've experienced these moments of doubt. Don't give up on Lutiferre, and especially not on God. If God wants him, then he will answer him. If not, then Lutiferre is not as fortunate as those of us who are to believe have been specially chosen.

Lutiferre is right to ask the questions - we all should ask the same of our faith. However, Lutiferre seems to have found the answer via an online atheist portal
(http://christianpwnage101.blogspot.com/2008/05/richard-carrier-why-i-am-not-christian.html) which surprises me, as such theological answers should be arrived at using both sides of debate.

[Loki]

C'mon you, this is not necessary nor appropriate. You're supposed to lead. You can't take it personally that Lutiferre has not yet found God, I know I've experienced these moments of doubt. Don't give up on Lutiferre, and especially not on God.

It is possible to "find God", and lose him again. I know. :coffee:

[Fred]

It is possible to "find God", and lose him again. I know. :coffee:One could go one further.:D:thumb001:

[Lutiferre]

I never took Luti's "Christianity" too seriously, anyway. Too rationalistic, too formalistic and legalistic, almost mechanical.
I guess I am very much Catholic then :D

I think I read too much Aquinas, Anselm and Scotus.

But then again, these are, like me, willing to ask and answer almost any hypothetical question, and now what has given me doubts are not hypothetical questions, but real facts about the world.

If it is rationalistic to mention that, oh by the way, this world has been full of death, meaningless suffering and indifferent killing and raping for the last few two thousand million years (or whatever), well, then let's just say you are ignoring reality.

Lutiferre is right to ask the questions - we all should ask the same of our faith. However, Lutiferre seems to have found the answer via an online atheist portal
(http://christianpwnage101.blogspot.com/2008/05/richard-carrier-why-i-am-not-christian.html) which surprises me, as such theological answers should be arrived at using both sides of debate.

Nope, I haven't visited that site.

[Lutiferre]

I guess I am very much Catholic then :D

I think I read too much Aquinas, Anselm and Scotus.

But then again, these are, like me, willing to ask and answer almost any hypothetical question, and now what has given me doubts are not hypothetical questions, but real facts about the world.
And really, this shows again my point that Christianity shoots itself in the foot, by being personally responsible for creating the most truth-obsessed civilization in the world, by being responsible for setting up the most uncompromising and absolute truth condition.

It is no coincidence that only Christendom could produce an Aquinas, who in turn could produce 15,000 pages of Aristotelian speculation.

[Trog]

If it is rationalistic to mention that, oh by the way, this world has been full of death, meaningless suffering and indifferent killing and raping for the last few two thousand million years (or whatever), well, then let's just say you are ignoring reality.

Okay, so take God out of the equation, let's say there is no God. The raping, killing, death...shit happens, right?


Nope, I haven't visited that site.



You quoted passages from a Richard Carrier, a prolific internet atheist.

[Lutiferre]

Okay, so take God out of the equation, let's say there is no God. The raping, killing, death...shit happens, right?
Exactly.. it makes sense that this has been happening for billions of years, if there was no God.


You quoted passages from a Richard Carrier, a prolific internet atheist.
Yes. Though I didn't find it on that site.

[Fred]

And really, this shows again my point that Christianity shoots itself in the foot, by being personally responsible for creating the most truth-obsessed civilization in the world, by being responsible for setting up the most uncompromising and absolute truth condition.

It is no coincidence that only Christendom could produce an Aquinas, who in turn could produce 15,000 pages of Aristotelian speculation.Aristotle is an officially supported philosopher of the Catholic Church.:eek::coffee:

[Lutiferre]

Aristotle is an officially supported philosopher of the Catholic Church.:eek::coffee:
I am quite aware ;)

If there was a founder of the Catholic Church other than Jesus, it would have to be Aristotle.

[Monolith]

If Christianity is not true, then there is no "problem of evil"; then the world is not "filled with evil"; then what Christians have condemned as evil is simply a necessary part of existence, which, like joy and sorrow and pain and pleasure, we must take both at the same time: good and evil, yin and yang, making up one whole.
That's exactly what I meant, though I do not consider evil to be absolute, unlike good. Evil is rather a state of being removed from good, which is God.


I agree fully.. and my point of doubt is exactly that Christianity denies that evil is a necessary part of existence, and relegates it to a "free will" choice of our own, while creation and God are only "good", not "evil"; only mans choice is "evil".
Hm. One should discern misfortune from evil, as the latter indeed is a matter of choice.

Exactly.. it makes sense that this has been happening for billions of years, if there was no God.
Why? You think He wouldn't allow it? God didn't spare his own Son of the cross, which was his terrible torment, so why would he spare me and you?

[Loki]

One could go one further.:D:thumb001:

Yes. The next logical step would be atheism. :) My spiritual evolution also started out with agnosticism, and it eventually turned into atheism.

[Fred]

I am quite aware ;)

If there was a founder of the Catholic Church other than Jesus, it would have to be Aristotle.How does endless suffering equate with godlessness, though? That's the point put forth by God's little sinning critics, who like to deflect...:p

[Fred]

Yes. The next logical step would be atheism. :) My spiritual evolution also started out with agnosticism, and it eventually turned into atheism.I went from unofficial agnosticism and mysticism, gnosticism and formal conversion, even if not formally committed membership, but usually so. I was raised Methodist in a family only recently Anglican and before that, Mormon. I wanted something more real and Catholicism offered that in droves. You could say that Lutiferre's reference to Aristotle was one of the reasons, but I have always appreciated the Bible itself just as I have always been happy to learn of the pagan circumstances of those who fell from grace and whatever way that is connected to God as descendents of Noah or Adam. I don't believe in empirical doubt as a conceivable reality. In fact, that is an oxymoron.:cool:

[Lutiferre]

Why? You think He wouldn't allow it? God didn't spare his own Son of the cross, which was his terrible torment, so why would he spare me and you?
But he, God, was exactly suffering innocently, for man's sins.

So unless you would suggest mans sins are the reason why man was created in a process which itself involves "evil", which is failed metaphysics, then really.. the issue stands. God would not have created such a world.

[Fred]

But he, God, was exactly suffering innocently, for man's sins.

So unless you would suggest mans sins are the reason why man was created in a process which itself involves "evil", which is failed metaphysics, then really.. the issue stands. God would not have created such a world.I wonder though, how God's logic could be boxed into a human mind. Every step we take, one way or the other, God will always be one step ahead and our understanding is limited by our via media with the animals as His other creations. This is enough to drop the hubris of omniscience in mankind.

[Lutiferre]

I wonder though, how God's logic could be boxed into a human mind. Every step we take, one way or the other, God will always be one step ahead and our understanding is limited by our via media with the animals as His other creations. This is enough to drop the hubris of omniscience in mankind.
Well, that is just an argumentum ad ignorantiam, not very Thomistic by the way, which evades an issue which we have too much knowledge about to ignore.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted Trog
The other ills you speak of are man-made, not God made.

Man in his quest to become alike to the Gods is punished by the Gods for his presumption….very Neitzschean and I quite like it. Suffering as the cauldron of birth/rebirth, the future born of pain…..

You know if Baldr epitomised human innocence then was Loki doing us a favour? Perhaps, perhaps not, however he may represent what we could be but also the reason why we spend so much of our time weeping…..

I applaud Lutiferre for abandoning the doctrine of absolutes, it is, in my opinion, the single biggest block to growth.

[Fred]

Well, that is just an argumentum ad ignorantiam, not very Thomistic by the way, which evades an issue which we have too much knowledge about to ignore.The devotion to wisdom is the pursuit of religion, not empiricism, which is perhaps more utilitarian and relevant to evolutionary technologists.


Man in his quest to become alike to the Gods is punished by the Gods for his presumption….very Neitzschean and I quite like it. Suffering as the cauldron of birth/rebirth, the future born of pain…..

You know if Baldr epitomised human innocence then was Loki doing us a favour? Perhaps, perhaps not, however he may represent what we could be but also the reason why we spend so much of our time weeping…..

I applaud Lutiferre for abandoning the doctrine of absolutes, it is, in my opinion, the single biggest block to growth.Well, man can never be God, only a pale imitation. Satan obviously argues otherwise, which is why he is given a special place for those who wish to destroy themselves in their own arrogance away from God. Absolutism is itself, subject to change by profound wisdom of an even higher order. The accumulation and aggregation of wisdom is building on top of lesser knowledge. It is learning, plain and simple.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Ødhvidh Fridhason
Well, man can never be God, only a pale imitation.

Maybe, maybe not, at the moment I’m inclined to disagree……maybe the Gods (or some of them) are scared of what man could be…..after all Odin showed the way to those who would follow. Man’s potential is unlimited I believe, only limited in our ability to control ourselves.


Satan obviously argues otherwise, which is why he is given a special place for those who wish to destroy themselves in their own arrogance away from God.

Whether you believe Yahweh is the cause and the One (in the neo-Platonic sense) is a matter of opinion. For me he is just a God, nothing more.

Man cannot be the One……that is impossible…… but to be as a God…..who knows.


Absolutism is itself, subject to change by profound wisdom of an even higher order. The accumulation and aggregation of wisdom is building on top of lesser knowledge. It is learning, plain and simple.

The one thing I have learned about absolutes is that there are no absolutes…..probably…..

[Fred]

Maybe, maybe not, at the moment I’m inclined to disagree……maybe the Gods (or some of them) are scared of what man could be…..after all Odin showed the way to those who would follow. Man’s potential is unlimited I believe, only limited in our ability to control ourselves.



Whether you believe Yahweh is the cause and the One (in the neo-Platonic sense) is a matter of opinion. For me he is just a God, nothing more.

Man cannot be the One……that is impossible…… but to be as a God…..who knows.



The one thing I have learned about absolutes is that there are no absolutes…..probably…..I believe that such men as Alexander the Great could have become demigods, but not fully God, because he never had the powers of the Creator. Self-control is only as good as the morals and outlook one has. It has to be cultivated by a higher purpose, not given to vanity and self-deception.

[Poltergeist]

If it is rationalistic to mention that, oh by the way, this world has been full of death, meaningless suffering and indifferent killing and raping for the last few two thousand million years (or whatever), well, then let's just say you are ignoring reality.

What makes you think it is meaningless? You can't be sure about that. We know from our experience that every evil deed or suffering has some consquence, for the perpetrator and for others. And often something good proceeds from evil, through Providence. Of course, it doesn't mean that evil-doers are to be excused, no-one should do evil things hoping that some good may come out of it (as Jesus Christ said). I could also say that you are ignoring reality because glossing over good which happens in the world and focusing only on evil instead.

What on earth is "indifferent killing" supposed to mean? No killing ever is "indifferent", except in cases when you kill someone by accident. That doesn't make any sense.


I guess I am very much Catholic then :D

I think I read too much Aquinas, Anselm and Scotus.

But then again, these are, like me, willing to ask and answer almost any hypothetical question, and now what has given me doubts are not hypothetical questions, but real facts about the world.

Only reading Aquinas, Anselm and Scotus and basing one's view on Christianity upon their writing, doesn't make one Christian or Catholic for that matter. Life in Christ, regular prayer (possibly combined with fasting), attending liturgy/mass, trying to live according to Jesus Christ, inner reflection on the mysteries of faith (and immersion into them during liturgy), self-examination - these are Christian things. And one small part of this life in Christ can consist also of reading Aquinas or who ever else. But it is not the essence of faith. Many secular philosophers read Aquinas and find many of his philosophical arguments meaningful, without becoming Christians themselves.

[Lutiferre]

What makes you think it is meaningless? You can't be sure about that. We know from our experience that every evil deed or suffering has some consquence, for the perpetrator and for others. And often something good proceeds from evil, through Providence. Of course, it doesn't mean that evil-doers are to be excused, no-one should do evil things hoping that some good may come out of it (as Jesus Christ said). I could also say that you are ignoring reality because glossing over good which happens in the world and focusing only on evil instead.
Note that I said evil in quotation marks. I don't gloss over good or evil, because if Christianity is not true, then there is no definitive "evil"; then they, like I said, are more likely to be simply things that either benefit us or harm us, yin and yang, two sides of one reality that we divide.

What on earth is "indifferent killing" supposed to mean? No killing ever is "indifferent", except in cases when you kill someone by accident. That doesn't make any sense.
It does make sense. I was obviously speaking of indifference to the life, needs, existence and suffering - or if we were to be modern sentimentals, then rights - of others.


Only reading Aquinas, Anselm and Scotus and basing one's view on Christianity upon their writing,
Who said that I did so? I never said that I did.


doesn't make one Christian or Catholic for that matter. Life in Christ, regular prayer (possibly combined with fasting), attending liturgy/mass, trying to live according to Jesus Christ, inner reflection on the mysteries of faith (and immersion into them during liturgy), self-examination - these are Christian things. And one small part of this life in Christ can consist also of reading Aquinas or who ever else. But it is not the essence of faith. Many secular philosophers read Aquinas and find many of his philosophical arguments meaningful, without becoming Christians themselves.
I agree, that is the essence of Christian life indeed. But one who does not accept their very foundation does not (nor may he, at least fully) participate in it; since you cannot have them without the worldview from which they spring forth.

[Fred]

Note that I said evil in quotation marks. I don't gloss over good or evil, because if Christianity is not true, then there is no definitive "evil"; then they, like I said, are more likely to be simply things that either benefit us or harm us, yin and yang, two sides of one reality that we divide.

It does make sense. I was obviously speaking of indifference to the life, needs, existence and suffering - or if we were to be modern sentimentals, then rights - of others.

Who said that I did so? I never said that I did.

I agree, that is the essence of Christian life indeed. But one who does not accept their very foundation does not (nor may he, at least fully) participate in it; since you cannot have them without the worldview from which they spring forth.You do know that corroborations between Christianity and other religions, are only more proofs to buttress existant reasons for the Faith? I can always be happy with added incentive to keep with it!:D

[Poltergeist]

Note that I said evil in quotation marks. I don't gloss over good or evil, because if Christianity is not true, then there is no definitive "evil"; then they, like I said, are more likely to be simply things that either benefit us or harm us, yin and yang, two sides of one reality that we divide.

Indeed, there is no "good" and "evil" as absolutes. Put in this way, these are abstractions. And certain currents of European culture are utterly obsessed with abstractions (maybe a legacy of some distorted Platonism?) I use such terms as a matter of convenience, as mere tools to make my points clearer. Individual acts can be good and can be evil. By the way, according to Christianity there is no such thing as "defenitive evil". It is Manichaeanism and I don't know where you drew it from.

Moral philosophy, distinction between good and bad acts does exist in many non-Christian systems, cultures etc. And it is certainly not the essence of Christianity, just one of its accidental parts. The pivotal element of Christianity is Jesus Christ, alpha and omega. From that on everything has to be judged.

That the notion of "good" and "evil" comes from Christianity only is fruit of the legalistic view of Christianity.


It does make sense. I was obviously speaking of indifference to the life, needs, existence and suffering - or if we were to be modern sentimentals, then rights - of others.

Proofs....? None. Such views of existence are extremely naive, masquerading as allegedly "non-naive". Passions are the constant of human condition and not indifference. Why did then Buddhists invent an entire system based on attaining something like "indifference"? Indifference is for them solution and not a "problem". A solution to combat passions and emotions. Which can be of various nature: love, hate etc.

And universe is by no means indifferent to you. It is also a very superficial view. Universe (the outside world, that is) can kill you (therefore not "indifferent"), it can also feed you etc.


I agree, that is the essence of Christian life indeed. But one who does not accept their very foundation does not (nor may he, at least fully) participate in it; since you cannot have them without the worldview from which they spring forth.

Boils down to the same. One does not accept these "foundations" merely by reading Aquinas. Or by reading Bible for that matter.

There is no such thing as: first worldview and then practices. It is all part of some larger whole. Christianity is not about "worldview", it is not philosophy, although it has elements of both.

[Jamt]

How does Lutheranism evade the doubts I've expressed (incompletely and imperfectly) here?

It’s not so complicated, faith is enough. You are acting right now as Luther himself did before he saw the light and married his nun and made a conscious decision to be happy, not be afraid anymore and instead enjoy life. This is what made the Scandinavians the happiest and sanest on earth.

[Fred]

It’s not so complicated, faith is enough. You are acting right now as Luther himself did before he saw the light and married his nun and made a conscious decision to be happy, not be afraid anymore and instead enjoy life. This is what made the Scandinavians the happiest and sanest on earth.It is also what made them naive to the pitfalls of life, having things so good that they'd give it away and not worry about the results, which is why we're all crying about it...antinomianism is not the path to virtue and is why Protestantism fails.

[Lutiferre]

Indeed, there is no "good" and "evil" as absolutes. Put in this way, these are abstractions. And certain currents of European culture are utterly obsessed with abstractions (maybe a legacy of some distorted Platonism?) I use such terms as a matter of convenience, as mere tools to make my points clearer. Individual acts can be good and can be evil. By the way, according to Christianity there is no such thing as "defenitive evil". It is Manichaeanism and I don't know where you drew it from.
There is definitive good, so long as God is seen as omnibenevolent, and creation as good (rather than evil) which excludes anything that is deemed evil.

Seeing creation as evil would be manicheanism.


Moral philosophy, distinction between good and bad acts does exist in many non-Christian systems, cultures etc. And it is certainly not the essence of Christianity, just one of its accidental parts. The pivotal element of Christianity is Jesus Christ, alpha and omega. From that on everything has to be judged.
Nor did I say otherwise.


That the notion of "good" and "evil" comes from Christianity only is fruit of the legalistic view of Christianity.
Whatever. The Christian notion of the omnibenevolent God is the essence of what I was speaking about.


Proofs....? None. Such views of existence are extremely naive, masquerading as allegedly "non-naive". Passions are the constant of human condition and not indifference. Why did then Buddhists invent an entire system based on attaining something like "indifference"? Indifference is for them solution and not a "problem". A solution to combat passions and emotions. Which can be of various nature: love, hate etc.
Yet again you distort my words. That was not what I meant with "indifference"; I've already said what I did mean with it. You can twist and turn the word "indifference" to mean a hundred other things, but you know well what I meant with it, because I've already spelled it out.

And universe is by no means indifferent to you. It is also a very superficial view. Universe (the outside world, that is) can kill you (therefore not "indifferent"), it can also feed you etc.
Oh, you are such a dishonest manipulator. The universe is indifferent to your desires, your interests, your preferences, your self-perceived rights, your life or death. That is why the universe kills you - the universe does not care about preserving you, even if you do, it is indifferent to your preference.


Boils down to the same. One does not accept these "foundations" merely by reading Aquinas. Or by reading Bible for that matter.
I never said so! You are attacking a straw man.


There is no such thing as: first worldview and then practices. It is all part of some larger whole.
I never said so, either.

I said that if you don't accept Christianity (and its implied worldview, meaning the entire phronema of Christianity and Christ), neither can or may you (and certainly not fully) participate in the life in Christ.

[Fred]

There is definitive good, so long as God is seen as omnibenevolent, and creation as good (rather than evil) which excludes anything that is deemed evil.

Seeing creation as evil would be manicheanism.

Nor did I say otherwise.

Whatever. The Christian notion of the omnibenevolent God is the essence of what I was speaking about.

Yet again you distort my words. That was not what I meant with "indifference"; I've already said what I did mean with it. You can twist and turn the word "indifference" to mean a hundred other things, but you know well what I meant with it, because I've already spelled it out.

Oh, you are such a dishonest manipulator. The universe is indifferent to your desires, your interests, your preferences, your self-perceived rights, your life or death. That is why the universe kills you - the universe does not care about preserving you.

I never said so! You are attacking a straw man.

I never said so, either.

I said that if you don't accept Christianity (and its implied worldview, meaning the entire phronema of Christianity and Christ), neither can or may you (and certainly not fully) participate in the life in Christ.Plotinus did not falsely ascribe views to you...only warn you of them. You appear to be dishonestly manipulating his purpose here in order to deceive yourself, nobody else. Sure, invent more fantasies as excuse to run from God, all because Plotinus reached out to you in your distress...

[Lutiferre]

Plotinus did not falsely ascribe views to you...only warn you of them.
He was addressing select parts of what I said, and even said that what I said "boiled down to the same" as some other view he then presented. So yes, he did say that it "boiled down to the same"; he did ascribe views to me.


You appear to be dishonestly manipulating his purpose here in order to deceive yourself, nobody else. Sure, invent more fantasies as excuse to run from God, all because Plotinus reached out to you in your distress...
I don't want excuses to "run from God". To the contrary. I still want to believe. You are just being silly if you think I have any interest in dishonesty. The only reason I created this thread was honesty.

[Lutiferre]

It’s not so complicated, faith is enough. You are acting right now as Luther himself did before he saw the light and married his nun and made a conscious decision to be happy, not be afraid anymore and instead enjoy life. This is what made the Scandinavians the happiest and sanest on earth.
You may be right. I am almost open to any suggestion right now.

[Fred]

He was addressing select parts of what I said, and even said that what I said "boiled down to the same" as some other view he then presented. So yes, he did say that it "boiled down to the same"; he did ascribe views to me.

I don't want excuses to "run from God". To the contrary. I still want to believe. You are just being silly if you think I have any interest in dishonesty. The only reason I created this thread was honesty.Plotinus showed you where your views were being compromised by perhaps, unwitting influences that you may actually disagree with, if you had them in full view to objectively analyse.


You may be right. I am almost open to any suggestion right now.That's wonderful! Don't stop believing!

[Lutiferre]

Plotinus showed you where your views were being compromised by perhaps, unwitting influences that you may actually disagree with, if you had them in full view to objectively analyse.
No, my views were not compromised by "influences I disagree with". Plotinus misinterpreted what I said, attacked strawmen, for which I corrected him.

[sturmwalkure]

I hope someday you will discover Islam. May Allah bless you.

[Fred]

No, my views were not compromised by "influences I disagree with". Plotinus misinterpreted what I said, attacked strawmen, for which I corrected him.If somebody cautions you about a road you are on, even if you haven't even gotten there, is that so bad?

[Lutiferre]

If somebody cautions you about a road you are on, even if you haven't even gotten there, is that so bad?
When he falsely attributes my views as "boiling down to" something that they simply don't, then yes.

I hope someday you will discover Islam. May Allah bless you.

http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/prayer.jpg

[Fred]

When he falsely attributes my views as "boiling down to" something that they simply don't, then yes.Perhaps all of the wordiness sourced on other websites doesn't make your own beliefs clear, so you have in effect, cause your own miscommunication. After all, you chose the representations of your thought process and put your own appendices to them. Why blame somebody who takes you for the positions you present and actually cares about you? It's not like the one who wrote that stuff was even considering your personal views, so just move on.

[Lutiferre]

Perhaps all of the wordiness sourced on other websites doesn't make your own beliefs clear, so you have in effect, cause your own miscommunication. After all, you chose the representations of your thought process and put your own appendices to them. Why blame somebody who takes you for the positions you present and actually cares about you? It's not like the one who wrote that stuff was even considering your personal views, so just move on.
Does not justify directly quoting my words and taking them out of context into a misinterpretation, even after I've corrected it already.

[Fred]

Does not justify directly quoting my words and taking them out of context into a misinterpretation, even after I've corrected it already.I think you've only come to correct it by your answer here...

Lutiferre Quote:
Originally Posted by högaffel
It’s not so complicated, faith is enough. You are acting right now as Luther himself did before he saw the light and married his nun and made a conscious decision to be happy, not be afraid anymore and instead enjoy life. This is what made the Scandinavians the happiest and sanest on earth.

You may be right. I am almost open to any suggestion right now.

[sturmwalkure]

Christianity is the cancer, Islam is the answer!

[Lutiferre]

I think you've only come to correct it by your answer here...

Lutiferre Quote:
Originally Posted by högaffel
It’s not so complicated, faith is enough. You are acting right now as Luther himself did before he saw the light and married his nun and made a conscious decision to be happy, not be afraid anymore and instead enjoy life. This is what made the Scandinavians the happiest and sanest on earth.

You may be right. I am almost open to any suggestion right now.
I was speaking of correcting his misinterpretations.

[Fred]

I was speaking of correcting his misinterpretations.No, you are making him be your straw man so you don't have to think from a Christian-oriented perspective. You're very much digging yourself into a bigger whole with justification for denial and basically, Plotinus is the one being crucified here.

:eek:

[Lutiferre]

No, you are making him be your straw man so you don't have to think from a Christian-oriented perspective. You're very much digging yourself into a bigger whole with justification for denial and basically, Plotinus is the one being crucified here.

:eek:
No. I am not. You are just being a troll right now. I have no time for that.

[sturmwalkure]

No. I am not. You are just being a troll right now. I have no time for that.

Don't listen to the infidels, the truth is to be found in Islam.

[Poltergeist]

Yet again you distort my words. That was not what I meant with "indifference"; I've already said what I did mean with it. You can twist and turn the word "indifference" to mean a hundred other things, but you know well what I meant with it, because I've already spelled it out.

Indifference is indifference. There is no twisting here.


Oh, you are such a dishonest manipulator. The universe is indifferent to your desires, your interests, your preferences, your self-perceived rights, your life or death. That is why the universe kills you - the universe does not care about preserving you, even if you do, it is indifferent to your preference.

Who says I care for my preservation at all? How do you know that?

Something that can harm you (or do you good) cannot be indifferent to you. Those who talk about "indifference" of the universe, posit that they are somehow separated from everything else, therefore everything else can be seen as "indifferent" to them. Far from being humble, these are in fact very conceited people. The apparent "I mean nothing" means in reality: "I am independent of everything". No coincidence that such views come from a certain breed of atheist existentialists.


I never said so! You are attacking a straw man.

That's exactly what you are doing while ascribing to the essence of Christianity of things that don't belong to it.


I said that if you don't accept Christianity (and its implied worldview, meaning the entire phronema of Christianity and Christ), neither can or may you (and certainly not fully) participate in the life in Christ.

Yes. A truism, obviously. Yet you claim that Christianity can be accepted or refuted on rationalist terms and that rationalist view of Christianity is the beginning of life in Christ, which is something I oppose. So you didn't answer to any of my objections, just repeated what you already said.

[Fred]

No. I am not. You are just being a troll right now. I have no time for that.Look, I like you a whole lot but I also think you're angry that you've gone this far with your disassociation with Christianity, but don't want to be told it by those you've exposed yourself to for the cause of empathy or sympathy. You wanted only enablers and circular logic, not anything to break this box you've now supplanted Christianity with. The more people disagree with you, the angrier you get. If so, come to your conclusions in private...but I believe you also instinctively know you need help, but your pride is getting in the way of humility. That is the price to pay for rejecting the Faith. Since I protect another from unreasonable attacks, you castigate me. Cain asked if he was his brother's keeper. I prefer to be both yours and for Plotinus. If this really bothers you, then your actions don't really make this altogther evident. I like seeing your point of view, even if I believe it to be in error. Don't take offence.:coffee:

[Lutiferre]

Indifference is indifference. There is no twisting here.
You are wrong. There are many different senses in which the word "indifferent" can be used, according to any English dictionary. From the Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

1 : marked by impartiality : unbiased
2 a : that does not matter one way or the other b : of no importance or value one way or the other
3 a : marked by no special liking for or dislike of something <indifferent about which task he was given> b : marked by a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern for something : apathetic <indifferent to suffering and poverty>
4 : being neither excessive nor inadequate : moderate <hills of indifferent size>
5 a : being neither good nor bad : mediocre <does indifferent work> b : being neither right nor wrong
6 : characterized by lack of active quality : neutral <an indifferent chemical>
7 a : not differentiated <indifferent tissues of the human body> b : capable of development in more than one direction; especially : not yet embryologically determined

— in·dif·fer·ent·ly adverb
synonyms indifferent, unconcerned, incurious, aloof, detached, disinterested mean not showing or feeling interest. indifferent implies neutrality of attitude from lack of inclination, preference, or prejudice <indifferent to the dictates of fashion>. unconcerned suggests a lack of sensitivity or regard for others' needs or troubles <unconcerned about the homeless>. incurious implies an inability to take a normal interest due to dullness of mind or to self-centeredness <incurious about the world>. aloof suggests a cool reserve arising from a sense of superiority or disdain for inferiors or from shyness <aloof from his coworkers>. detached implies an objective attitude achieved through absence of prejudice or selfishness <observed family gatherings with detached amusement>. disinterested implies a circumstantial freedom from concern for personal or especially financial advantage that enables one to judge or advise without bias <judged by a panel of disinterested observers>.




Who says I care for my preservation at all? How do you know that?
I didn't say you did. Whether you do or not, doesn't have an implication for whether I or anything that is not you, does or not.


Something that can harm you (or do you good) cannot be indifferent to you.
Yes, it can. Both if it non-intentionally harms you (e.g. an unconscious object) or if it intentionally does, it can be indifferent to you in several ways; not indifferent one and the same respect, though.

Those who talk about "indifference" of the universe, posit that they are somehow separated from everything else, therefore everything else can be seen as "indifferent" to them.
No, they don't necessarily.


Far from being humble, these are in fact very conceited people. The apparent "I mean nothing" means in reality: "I am independent of everything". No coincidence that such views come from a certain breed of atheist existentialists.
In any case, that is not what I claimed. I am not "independent of everything". I am contingent.


Yes. A truism, obviously. Yet you claim that Christianity can be accepted or refuted on rationalist terms and that rationalist view of Christianity is the beginning of life in Christ, which is something I oppose. So you didn't answer to any of my objections, just repeated what you already said.
No, I did not claim to have "refuted" Christianity, or that it can be.

[Lutiferre]

Look, I like you a whole lot but I also think you're angry that you've gone this far with your disassociation with Christianity, but don't want to be told it by those you've exposed yourself to for the cause of empathy or sympathy. You wanted only enablers and circular logic, not anything to break this box you've now supplanted Christianity with. The more people disagree with you, the angrier you get. If so, come to your conclusions in private...
Disagreements don't anger me, though outright distortions do.

Anyway, I do come to my conclusions in private. You seem to have misunderstood the scope of this thread. It was not so ambitious so as to "come to conclusions".

but I believe you also instinctively know you need help,
I may need help, but not from you. And that has nothing to do with pride.
but your pride is getting in the way of humility. That is the price to pay for rejecting the Faith. Since I protect another from unreasonable attacks, you castigate me. Cain asked if he was his brother's keeper. I prefer to be both yours and for Plotinus. If this really bothers you, then your actions don't really make this altogther evident. I like seeing your point of view, even if I believe it to be in error. Don't take offence.:coffee:
I didn't make this thread to make you agree. Frankly, I couldn't care less whether you agree or not. Now, that is a case of indifference (just so we have a real example of what this word can mean).

[Fred]

Disagreements don't anger me, though outright distortions do.

Anyway, I do come to my conclusions in private. You seem to have misunderstood the scope of this thread. It was not so ambitious so as to "come to conclusions".

I may need help, but not from you. And that has nothing to do with pride.
I didn't make this thread to make you agree. Frankly, I couldn't care less whether you agree or not. Now, that is a case of indifference (just so we have a real example of what this word can mean).All right now, you have made your feelings entirely clear...even if your rationale behind them is entirely dishonest and lacking substantial evidence. That's fine...I don't intend to issue the Counter-Reformation with you anyways. Wow, you really take it personal but it was you who brought this to our attention. I'm done with this thread unless the atmosphere becomes significantly less hostile.:(

[Lutiferre]

All right now, you have made your feelings entirely clear...even if your rationale behind them is entirely dishonest and lacking substantial evidence.
What are you talking about? I don't need "evidence" in favour suspension of judgement (being agnostic). Nor have the (substantial) reasons for my doubt as I presented them in my first post, been actually addressed. And doubts nevertheless are realities in themselves, which don't need evidence, either.

That's fine...I don't intend to issue the Counter-Reformation with you anyways. Wow, you really take it personal but it was you who brought this to our attention. I'm done with this thread unless the atmosphere becomes significantly less hostile.:(
The only hostility I saw, started from Plotinus and you. I simply defended myself. I have no hard feelings about either of you, as I don't remotely know you. You came to this thread and created a hostile atmosphere. I never asked you to participate.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Ødhvidh Fridhason
I believe that such men as Alexander the Great could have become demigods, but not fully God, because he never had the powers of the Creator.

That depends on your definition of creation….Alexander created chaos, blood shed and a new culture from an excessive ego, politically misplaced revenge and subjective historicism.

Men create and, more often than not, destroy almost daily.

I actually wrote in my earlier post that man could never be the first cause, perhaps I’m incorrect here, we didn’t create this universe but we may create others……


Self-control is only as good as the morals and outlook one has.

True in itself.


It has to be cultivated by a higher purpose, not given to vanity and self-deception.

The purpose, I believe, is to push until you can’t anymore or you die, which may well be the same thing if you're to reckless. Man has potential what the limit of that is nobody knows, whether his aspiration and wisdom match his potential, exceed it, or whether it wasn’t up to much to begin with….

In the Iliad Diomedes cut Aphrodite’s arm and even attacked Apollo to get at Aeneas. It sounds sacrilegious, probably suicidal, but very delicious. Give a man a knife and put a God in front of him what will he do? Drop it and bend the knee or go right ahead and drive the point home…..

[Óttar]

I know God will answer him at some point, but it will on God's terms and in God's time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI

[Lutiferre]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk6ILZAaAMI

Well, I think that is a superficial understanding of prayer, as simply a means of gaining material wealth, and it's a conception they took from some website, not an article of faith in Christianity.

Prayer seems to be more about aligning your own will to Gods will, a way of communing with God rather than of getting what you want. That is why Christians pray for their enemies. It's an ascetical, not a utillitarian device.

[Trencavel]

Hey Luti !

When I started reading your posts I felt somehow impressed. Maybe it was because of your strong christian views at your very young age.

I know nothing about your life, your current "state of being" with your family, what you've been through, etc.

I left my parents house when I was your age. Moving from this small city in the center-east to a bigger one in the north. It's been really HARD for me because of this decision.

Man... I can assume you're a VERY intellgent person. I can see your thirst for knowledge and the search for god (I'm the same type of guy :wink ). But relax... answers will come as long as you know how to place the questions. It's not just about being extremely analytical and digesting thousands of books.

Go find the truth out there too !! Discover new places, get a girlfriend, go get drunk, get into a fight, go meet some new people !! (I know I'm not the best counselor).

Open your mind to new ideas !! Not just by assimilating them in your mind... BE the idea itself !! Live through them !!

Atheism / Agnosticism aren't bad. I know thousands of intellgent atheists with a high level of morality in them.

For me, god is as simple as difficult to understand... Be prepared for this "dark night of the soul".

Discover yourself and you'll find the answers !

[Lutiferre]

Hey Luti !

When I started reading your posts I felt somehow impressed. Maybe it was because of your strong christian views at your very young age.
True. But not as young as St. Dominic Savio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Savio) ;)


Man... I can assume you're a VERY intellgent person. I can see your thirst for knowledge and the search for god (I'm the same type of guy :wink ). But relax... answers will come as long as you know how to place the questions. It's not just about being extremely analytical and digesting thousands of books.
True.

But seeing whether your beliefs in any way intersect with reality is, a pretty big part of common sense and finding answers, or at least in seeing whether you can call a certain belief the answer.


Go find the truth out there too !! Discover new places, get a girlfriend, go get drunk, get into a fight, go meet some new people !! (I know I'm not the best counselor).
Good advice! Not the advice I got when I asked a priest :D


Open your mind to new ideas !! Not just by assimilating them in your mind... BE the idea itself !! Live through them !!
I am more open than ever :)


For me, god is as simple as difficult to understand... Be prepared for this "dark night of the soul".

Discover yourself and you'll find the answers !
I'll try. But for now, I'll just say I don't have the answers and call myself "agnostic" :thumb001:

[Anthropos]

You can't rely on what one priest says like that.

And why do you care so much about what kind of -ic or -ist you are? Were you a jesusist just recently?

[Lutiferre]

You can't rely on what one priest says like that.
What makes you think I rely on "one priest"?


And why do you care so much about what kind of -ic or -ist you are? Were you a jesusist just recently?
I don't think it matters so much what we call it.

[Lutiferre]

Another thought I had was this.

If it's true that "only a few" make it to "life" and the majority will suffer for eternity, like Jesus' words imply:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Then maybe I'd rather burn for eternity with all of my ancestors and family and everyone I know, rather than be with the "few" who made it, who I have no identity to, and the God who condemned the majority to burning in hell for eternity.

[Trog]

How to Talk to an Atheist about Christianity (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resource.php?n=512)

Once upon a time, not so long ago, atheism was the belief system that dared not speak its name. Even the most ardent skeptic paid lip service to faith, or at least to the blessings that mankind derived from it.

But that's not the case anymore. Atheism is a strong and growing influence in our culture. You can see it everywhere from the bestseller table at your local bookstore to the Darwin-mutated Jesus fish on the car in traffic in front of you. Atheists are comfortable declaring themselves atheists, comfortable promoting atheism, and comfortable decrying religion, which, according to some of the more prominent atheists, resides on the list of mankind's blessings somewhere between diphtheria and Nazism.

And now that we're encountering it more often, Christians sometimes find themselves ill-prepared to deal with this kind of muscular atheism. Especially for lifelong Christians, atheist arguments are so foreign that they don't know how to respond, and too often lapse into anger ("How dare you?!") or fear ("What if they're right?!"), neither of which does anyone any good, harming the Christian's witness and leaving the atheist firmly entrenched in his atheism.

If we're going to be encountering more atheists (and we are, whether at work or the laundromat or around our own dinner tables), we should be prepared to explain our beliefs in a way that resonates with people outside the faith. As a starting point, what follows is a list of dos and don'ts to keep in mind when you find yourself discussing religion with an atheist:

1. Don't be afraid to admit that you have faith. Christians frequently report that they've been in situations where the topic of why they believe comes up, and all they can say is that they have faith even though they've never done any major investigation. They often seem embarrassed by this defense. If you get caught in a conversation about why you believe and that's all you've got, don't be afraid to go with that. Articulate it as best you can. For example, you might explain that your faith is not just a story you tell yourself to feel good, or talk about what leads you to believe that you have a real relationship with Something outside of the material world.

2. Don't assume that your atheist friends are secretly angry at God or feel like something is missing in their lives. Work from the assumption that this person is an atheist because he or she simply has not seen any evidence that God exists.

3. Don't quote the Bible, but do know the Bible. The Bible is a source of great wisdom, but if you quote it to an atheist as an authority, it will be like your doctor explaining his diagnosis by reading a passage from a Harry Potter book. Don't just cough up Bible verses and expect that to convince anybody. There are reasons why the Bible says the things it says. Know the reasons behind them and be prepared to explain them.

4. Don't feel like you have to have all the answers right then and there. It is far better to simply say, "Great question! I don't know the answer to that, but I'd love to research it and get back to you," than to wade into territory that you're not familiar with.

5. Explain the big picture. Familiarize yourself with the historical case for Christianity, and offer a high-level explanation of what makes this religion's claims compelling -- that Jesus' life and death fulfilled ancient scriptures that all historians agree existed before His time; that almost all the apostles were martyred for their faith; that Christianity spread like wildfire despite horrendous persecution. Study the writings of the earliest Christians, who were defending Christianity in a pagan world that was largely hostile to their beliefs (sound familiar?).

6. Be logical. Don't deny the validity of logical, scientific thought out of hand. It's true that science doesn't have all the answers, but it does have some of them, and if you try to deny that, you risk pushing yourself into crackpot territory. As Pope Benedict XVI is always reminding us, the God in whom we believe is a God of reason. There is a long, learned history of rational arguments for Christianity, and if you can use them, you'll be speaking in terms that your atheist friend can understand. Get to know some of the great Christian philosophers and apologists. If you haven't read C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, what are you waiting for?

7. Realize that your only goal is to plant a seed. In these discussions we can sometimes get so focused on the details that we lose sight of the big picture. It's extremely unlikely that the person you're talking to is going to be completely convinced of the truth of Christianity in one conversation. Just defend Christianity the best you can, and remember that conversion is ultimately God's job, not yours.

8. Put yourself in your atheist friends' position. What if, for example, Christianity was false and Greek mythology was actually true? What would it take to convince you of that?

9. Don't use a lot of Christian catchphrases. Christians "give their hearts to Jesus" and "the Holy Spirit indwells us" and we take a "daily walk with Christ" so that we're "in the world but not of the world." All these phrases are meaningful and profound and instantly understandable for almost any Christian, but they don't mean anything to people who are outside the faith. It's hard to avoid them, because we're used to using them as shorthand for some very complex concepts. But you should be able to explain those concepts in plain terms anyway.

10. Pray. Don't make the mistake of relying solely on your own smarts when you have the Holy Spirit at your disposal. Pray for guidance for yourself and for a receptive heart within your atheist friend. You might be surprised at the effectiveness of this technique. It'll be good for you, too.

We're not encouraging anyone to go out and pick a fight -- no one ever got harangued into the family of God. But with a little mental preparation, when the time comes, you'll be ready to present the case for faith in terms that are familiar to your non-believing friends and family members.

[Lutiferre]

Once upon a time, not so long ago, atheism was the belief system that dared not speak its name. Even the most ardent skeptic paid lip service to faith, or at least to the blessings that mankind derived from it.
Two things.. atheism is not a belief system, but the rejection/absence of theism (a - the - ism), and so, many belief systems could be "atheist" (not just one). Second.. I'm not an atheist, I am simply agnostic (for now). I don't reject theism or Christianity, but I don't affirm it, either. Being agnostic means not making a judgement, not claiming to know the answer, unlike an atheist (who claims to know that God does not exist) or a theist (who claims to know that he does). The agnostic makes no claim at all..

[Trog]

Two things.. atheism is not a belief system, but the rejection/absence of theism (a - the - ism), and so, many belief systems could be "atheist" (not just one). Second.. I'm not an atheist, I am simply agnostic. I don't reject theism or Christianity, but I no longer affirm it, either. Being agnostic means to consider the answer unknowable and suspend judgement, unlike an atheist (who claims to know that God does not exist) or a theist (who claims to know that he does). The agnostic makes no claim at all..

You relied on the writings of an explicit atheist to express yourself and your thoughts/reasonings. Atheists state that God does not exist; since this too can neither be proven, then their assertion qualifies as a primary shared belief.

[Lutiferre]

You relied on the writings of an explicit atheist to express yourself and your thoughts/reasonings.
Because it expressed what I had said myself. That there is a certain problem with Christianity which doesn't make sense.

It doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that Christianity must then be affirmed to be false. It probably significantly weakens the case for affirming it's truth, though, and instead suspending judgement (for an agnostic).


Atheists state that God does not exist; since this too can neither be proven, then their assertion qualifies as a primary shared belief.
Yes, and I certainly don't state that God does not exist. I don't know if the Christian description of God is accurate. But that doesn't mean I deny the existence of any God(s).

[Murphy]

C'mon you, this is not necessary nor appropriate. You're supposed to lead. You can't take it personally that Lutiferre has not yet found God, I know I've experienced these moments of doubt. Don't give up on Lutiferre, and especially not on God. If God wants him, then he will answer him. If not, then Lutiferre is not as fortunate as those of us who are to believe have been specially chosen.

Lutiferre is right to ask the questions - we all should ask the same of our faith. However, Lutiferre seems to have found the answer via an online atheist portal
(http://christianpwnage101.blogspot.com/2008/05/richard-carrier-why-i-am-not-christian.html) which surprises me, as such theological answers should be arrived at using both sides of debate.

My problem is that the bastard has not taken my advice. Quite frankly, I have little respect for Lutiferre right now, because I know he hasn't been to see a priest.

His problem is that he focuses to much on cold logic, and has damned his soul for it.

Regards,
The Papist.

[Trog]

There are Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit that grant the Christian merits to further their belief, thus Christianity can more readily be denied or dismissed by those who have been anointed Christians. Christianity demands that we participate in order for it to make sense. To bystanders, that's not so easy.

[Fred]

What are you talking about? I don't need "evidence" in favour suspension of judgement (being agnostic). Nor have the (substantial) reasons for my doubt as I presented them in my first post, been actually addressed. And doubts nevertheless are realities in themselves, which don't need evidence, either.

The only hostility I saw, started from Plotinus and you. I simply defended myself. I have no hard feelings about either of you, as I don't remotely know you. You came to this thread and created a hostile atmosphere. I never asked you to participate.Your attacks on the motives and approaches of concerned people is unsubstantiated self-deception.:confused:


That depends on your definition of creation….Alexander created chaos, blood shed and a new culture from an excessive ego, politically misplaced revenge and subjective historicism.

Men create and, more often than not, destroy almost daily.

I actually wrote in my earlier post that man could never be the first cause, perhaps I’m incorrect here, we didn’t create this universe but we may create others……



True in itself.



The purpose, I believe, is to push until you can’t anymore or you die, which may well be the same thing if you're to reckless. Man has potential what the limit of that is nobody knows, whether his aspiration and wisdom match his potential, exceed it, or whether it wasn’t up to much to begin with….

In the Iliad Diomedes cut Aphrodite’s arm and even attacked Apollo to get at Aeneas. It sounds sacrilegious, probably suicidal, but very delicious. Give a man a knife and put a God in front of him what will he do? Drop it and bend the knee or go right ahead and drive the point home…..Don't discourage him even more from his fidelity. Why iconoclasm and jacobinism? I really don't take human self-aggrandisement seriously. So, play "god" all you wish, but when it leads to any number of cruelties or perversions along the lines of Caligula or Robespierre, you only have yourself to blame as well.:coffee:

[Lutiferre]

There are Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit that grant the Christian merits to further their belief, thus Christianity can more readily be denied or dismissed by those who have been anointed Christians.
Once again, I don't deny it, or dismiss it; right now, I just suspend judgement.

And anyway, I am sure other religions have similar claims. That never hindered Christian apologists from arguing against them from the outside.

Edit: nor, for that matter, from defending Christianity dialectically and refuting arguments against it, or problems with Christian dogma.

[Trog]

Once again, I don't deny it, or dismiss it; right now, I just suspend judgement.

And anyway, I am sure other religions have similar claims. That never hindered Christian apologists from arguing against them from the outside.

Fair enough, but my point remains that until you've actually been a Christian, you're not in a position to deny it merits. Being Christian is an experience, not an experiment.

[Lutiferre]

Fair enough, but my point remains that until you've actually been a Christian, you're not in a position to deny it merits. Being Christian is an experience, not an experiment.
I don't deny that it has merits or what merits it may have.

And yes, being a Christian is an experience. But reducing it to simply a subjective experience makes no sense. It's also a dogmatical experience, making many claims about reality, and even setting up a particularly Christian cosmology, even if you don't take the time to notice that.

[Fred]

Two things.. atheism is not a belief system, but the rejection/absence of theism (a - the - ism), and so, many belief systems could be "atheist" (not just one). Second.. I'm not an atheist, I am simply agnostic (for now). I don't reject theism or Christianity, but I don't affirm it, either. Being agnostic means not making a judgement, not claiming to know the answer, unlike an atheist (who claims to know that God does not exist) or a theist (who claims to know that he does). The agnostic makes no claim at all..Why do you take the other side at face value, if you are unwilling to take Christianity at face value? Measured up on the scales of Justice or Anubis, the great void has nothingness and you self-deprive. Maybe when you are starving for higher truth, you will realise the kinds of logical fallacies on your mind right now, as not nearly true as others have misinformed you.


Because it expressed what I had said myself. That there is a certain problem with Christianity which doesn't make sense.

It doesn't logically lead to the conclusion that Christianity must then be affirmed to be false. It probably significantly weakens the case for affirming it's truth, though, and instead suspending judgement (for an agnostic).

Yes, and I certainly don't state that God does not exist. I don't know if the Christian description of God is accurate. But that doesn't mean I deny the existence of any God(s).Affirmation of God is a part and parcel, if not core kernel, of what "perservationism" is about. What one calls God may differ. Without hope or prayer, why bother? It implies apathy. You could at least be mysticist and hold onto the Holy Spirit.


Another thought I had was this.

If it's true that "only a few" make it to "life" and the majority will suffer for eternity, like Jesus' words imply:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Then maybe I'd rather burn for eternity with all of my ancestors and family and everyone I know, rather than be with the "few" who made it, who I have no identity to, and the God who condemned the majority to burning in hell for eternity.You could always help other people you care about onto the right path, rather than jump ship with the suicidists. Are you afraid of God and now believe temper tantrums will help lift you up from your sins? Only God can do this for real.

[Lutiferre]

My problem is that the bastard has not taken my advice. Quite frankly, I have little respect for Lutiferre right now, because I know he hasn't been to see a priest.
I wouldn't go to a priest with a list of problematic questions about Christianity that I know he can't answer. I've seen them asked to priests many times before, I've never seen a real answer.


His problem is that he focuses to much on cold logic, and has damned his soul for it.
There were no cold logical syllogisms in my reasons, but simply doubts based on reality, based on my own experience and knowledge of it.

[Fred]

I don't deny that it has merits or what merits it may have.

And yes, being a Christian is an experience. But reducing it to simply a subjective experience makes no sense. It's also a dogmatical experience, making many claims about reality, and even setting up a particularly Christian cosmology, even if you don't take the time to notice that.The subjective experience is a microcosm of a greater objective truth. To run away is to fear knowledge, not embrace it. To believe one's own subjectivity is the only basis of comprehension, is to blind oneself. Agnosticism leaves you on the fence and not learning, but atheism would be actively fighting truth in favour of animalistic nihilism. Do you really wish to be sitting on a fence...seriously?


Once again, I don't deny it, or dismiss it; right now, I just suspend judgement.

And anyway, I am sure other religions have similar claims. That never hindered Christian apologists from arguing against them from the outside.

Edit: nor, for that matter, from defending Christianity dialectically and refuting arguments against it, or problems with Christian dogma.You have used somebody else's negative judgment to induce you to give up. That is like anti-Europeanists bashing Europe, so you don't feel one way or the other, but conflicted and prone to nodding approval to their abuses, rather than wholeheartly support what you did before somebody made you feel dumb.


I wouldn't go to a priest with a list of problematic questions about Christianity that I know he can't answer. I've seen them asked to priests many times before, I've never seen a real answer.

There were no cold logical syllogisms in my reasons, but simply doubts based on reality, based on my own experience and knowledge of it.Yes, you are correct that not all clergy are well informed. Many just go through the motions of ritual and emotional feeling, but that doesn't discount the higher truth that they themselves aren't learning.

No, you are not being literalist. You are dancing around definitions of what constitutes truth, to destroy your soul rather than affirm it. You would like to join others jump ship and bite the hand that feeds you.

[Murphy]

I would offer to pray for you Lutiferre.. but to be perfectly honest, I am too apathetic to do much my self.

I wish you luck my friend, but I am quite sure you'll understand why we must part ways now. I can only hope you can find your way across the Tiber, but I don't think I'll be able to help you in that crossing.

Take care mate.

Regards,
The Papist.

[Lutiferre]

The subjective experience is a microcosm of a greater objective truth. To run away is to fear knowledge, not embrace it. To believe one's own subjectivity is the only basis of comprehension, is to blind oneself. Agnosticism leaves you on the fence and not learning, but atheism would be actively fighting truth in favour of animalistic nihilism. Do you really wish to be sitting on a fence...seriously?
I never said it wasn't. But you denying that Christianity makes dogmatical claims, is nonsense, and the Vatican wouldn't accept it.


You have used somebody else's negative judgment to induce you to give up. That is like anti-Europeanists bashing Europe, so you don't feel one way or the other, but conflicted and prone to nodding approval to their abuses, rather than wholeheartly support what you did before somebody made you feel dumb.
You are making presumptions. This is simply not true.

Why do you take the other side at face value, if you are unwilling to take Christianity at face value? Measured up on the scales of Justice or Anubis, the great void has nothingness and you self-deprive. Maybe when you are starving for higher truth, you will realise the kinds of logical fallacies on your mind right now, as not nearly true as others have misinformed you.
I dont take any side at all at face value. And point out what logical fallacy there is in my position, please..


Affirmation of God is a part and parcel, if not core kernel, of what "perservationism" is about. What one calls God may differ. Without hope or prayer, why bother? It implies apathy. You could at least be mysticist and hold onto the Holy Spirit.
I never denied God or the affirmation of God; I only withheld affirmation of the Christian conception of it.

[Trog]

I don't deny that it has merits or what merits it may have.

And yes, being a Christian is an experience. But reducing it to simply a subjective experience makes no sense. It's also a dogmatical experience, making many claims about reality, and even setting up a particularly Christian cosmology, even if you don't take the time to notice that.


It seems to be that you don't know why you wanted to be Christian/Catholic. For some reason the idea of being one has appealled to you, but for it to measure up, you expect to see the end of war, rape, violence and death. When such things are only promised in the next world, not in this one - this is the reward. The Christian realises that sad and unfortunate things will occur in this life; it is getting to the next stage that is important. Yet it seems your ultimatum to God, in order for him to win you over, is for him to grant heaven on earth.

The aim of any Christian, that is their reason for being one, is to make them a better, more humble person, not to become a haughty one who issues ransoms when they feel like it.

[Fred]

I would offer to pray for you Lutiferre.. but to be perfectly honest, I am too apathetic to do much my self.

I wish you luck my friend, but I am quite sure you'll understand why we must part ways now. I can only hope you can find your way across the Tiber, but I don't think I'll be able to help you in that crossing.

Take care mate.

Regards,
The Papist.Perhaps he will cross Styx instead.


I never said it wasn't. But you denying that Christianity makes dogmatical claims, is nonsense, and the Vatican wouldn't accept it.

You are making presumptions. This is simply not true.

I dont take any side at all at face value. And point out what logical fallacy there is in my position, please..

I never denied God or the affirmation of God; I only withheld affirmation of the Christian conception of it.The Vatican makes dogma that is augmented by further contemplation. It does not cast out its own dogma to make adjustments. More truth does not mean less. His Holiness covers all of his bases and leaves no loophole. Loopholes would be occasioned by too much subjectivism. Lack of unrevealed knowledge does not mean previous understandings were flawed, only less perfected by updates keeping the spirit of the quest for truth alive. While you state that you are against subjectivism, placing truth alone in your hands is not in step with that sentiment. The only meaningful way to withdraw an appreciation for the Christian conception, is to dismiss the Bible in general. It means though, that you will be with less truth, not more. The Bible is not the only source of truth, only the best.

[Lutiferre]

It seems to be that you don't know why you wanted to be Christian/Catholic.
Sorry, but I've already answered why I want to believe in Christianity.

I still have reasons to want to believe. I still want to believe.

One reason was the deep intuition of a higher existence; indeed, an otherworldly hope. Another was the longing of my whole being after the meaning and meaningfulness in Christ and Christianity.



For some reason the idea has appealled to you, but for it to measure up, you expect to see the end of war, rape, violence and death.
No, no.. I never said that.

You don't seem to understand my objection, and that's alright. It is not that man freely chooses to commit evils..

It is that those "evils" existed before humanity even existed or could have chosen evil. They are a part of the natural world. They are a part of the very way in which humanity was created.. All I say is that an all-loving God would not have created such a world.


When that only promised in the next world, not in this one. The Christian realises that sad and unfortunate things will occur in this life; it is getting to the next stage that is important. Yet it seems your ultimatum to God, in order for him to win you over, is for him to grant heaven on earth.
No. It would be fine if this world was almost hell, but it was because of mans own free choice. However, the evils of this world existed even before man did, in the natural world, and in the very process which created all animals including humanity, which means God is responsible for that evil. Which makes Christianity unfeasible.

Please read just a few paragraphs of this if you want to get my point.

The Original Christian Cosmos

A Christian might still balk and ask, "Well, what other universe could God have made?" The answer is easy: the very universe early Christians like Paul actually believed they lived in. In other words, a universe with no evidence of such a vast age or of natural evolution, a universe that contained instead abundant evidence that it was created all at once just thousands of years ago. A universe that wasn't so enormous and that had no other star systems or galaxies, but was instead a single cosmos of seven planetary bodies and a sphere full of star lights that all revolve around an Earth at the center of God's creation--because that Earth is the center of God's love and attention. A complete cosmos whose marvelously intricate motions had no other explanation than God's will, rather than a solar system whose intricate motions are entirely the inevitable outcome of fixed and blind forces. A universe comprised of five basic elements, not over ninety elements, each in turn constructed from a dizzying array of subatomic particles. A universe governed by God's law, not a thoroughly amoral physics. A universe inhabited by animals and spirits whose activity could be confirmed everywhere, and who lived in and descended from outer space--which was not a vacuum, but literally the ethereal heavens, the hospitable home of countless of God's most marvelous creatures (both above and below the Moon)--a place Paul believed human beings could live and had actually visited without harm.

That is, indeed, exactly the universe we would expect if Christianity were true--which is why Christianity was contrived as it was, when it was. The first Christians truly believed the universe was exactly as Christian theism predicted it to be, and took that as confirmation of their theory. Lo and behold, they were wrong--about almost every single detail! Paul truly believed that the perfect order of the heavens, the apparent design of human and animal bodies, and the perfect march of the seasons had no other explanation than intelligent design, and in fact he believed in God largely because of this, and condemned unbelievers precisely because they rejected this evidence.[13] But it turns out none of this evidence really existed. Christians have long abandoned their belief that the perfect order of the heavens can only be explained by God, since they now know it is entirely explained by physics and requires no intelligent meddling or design. And a great many Christians have abandoned their belief that the apparent design of human and animal bodies can only be explained by God, since they now know it is entirely explicable by natural evolution.

All the evidence we now have in hand only compounds Paul's error. For what we know today is exactly the opposite of what Paul would have expected. It is exactly the opposite of what his Christian theory predicted. Paul certainly would have told you that God would never use billions of years of meandering and disastrously catastrophic trial and error to figure out how to make a human. God would just make humans. And Paul certainly believed that is exactly what God did, and surely expected the evidence would prove it. But the evidence has not. It has, in fact, proved exactly the opposite. Likewise, Paul naturally believed God simply spoke a word, and Earth existed. One more word, and the stars existed. That's exactly what the Christian theory predicts. But that isn't what happened.

Again, Christians can fabricate excuses for why God did things differently--but that's all just ad hoc. Like Christianity, none of these excuses have been demonstrated to be true. It is even doubtful such excuses would be compatible with Christianity. As noted earlier, God can do essentially anything, so what he does is pretty much limited only by what he wants to do. Christianity says he wants us to be good and set things right, which entails that God wants us to know what is good and how to set things right. Christianity says God wants to do what is good, and his choices are guided by his love of love and his hatred of hatred--therefore anything he designed would be the good and admirable product of a loving being. There is no way to "define away" these conclusions. If any of these conclusions are false, Christianity is false. But these conclusions entail that certain things would be true about our universe that are in fact not true.

The existence of a divine creator driven by a mission to save humankind, for example, entails that his creation would serve exactly that end, better than any other. And that means he would not design the universe to look exactly like it would have to look if God did not exist. Instead, if I wanted people to know which church was teaching the right way to salvation, I would lead the way for them by protecting all such churches with mysterious energy fields so they would be invulnerable to harm, and its preachers alone would be able to work miracles day after day, such as regenerating lost limbs, raising the dead, or calming storms. The bibles of this church would glow in the dark so they could always be read and would be indestructible--immune to any attempt to mark, burn, or tear them, or change what they said. Indeed, I would regard it as my moral obligation to do things like this, so my children would not be in the dark about who I was and what I was about, so they would be able to find out for sure what was truly good for them.

So, too, the Christian God would design a universe with moral goals built in. For example, if I were to make a universe, and cared how the people in it felt--whether they suffered or were happy--I would make it a law of nature that the more good a person really was, the more invulnerable they would be to harm or illness, and the more evil, the weaker and more ill. Nature would be governed by survival of the kindest, not survival of the fittest. Obviously, such a law would not be possible unless the universe "knew" what good and evil was, and cared about the one flourishing rather than the other. And unlike mere survival, which does its own choosing through the callous mechanism of death, if the very laws of the universe served a highly abstract good instead, that would be inconceivable without a higher mind capable of grasping and caring about all these deep abstract principles--as we know humans do, and the universe does not. So a physical law like this would indeed provide good evidence the universe was created by a loving God.

But, lo and behold, that is not the universe we live in. Even if a God made this universe, it could not be the Christian God because no God who wanted us to know the truth would conceal it by making a universe that looked exactly like a universe with no God in it. The simple fact is that Christianity does not predict our universe, but a completely different one. Atheism, however, predicts exactly the kind of universe we find ourselves in. So the nature of the universe is another failed prediction, confirming our previous conclusion that Christianity is false.

I would offer to pray for you Lutiferre.. but to be perfectly honest, I am too apathetic to do much my self.
How Christian :D


I wish you luck my friend, but I am quite sure you'll understand why we must part ways now. I can only hope you can find your way across the Tiber, but I don't think I'll be able to help you in that crossing.
Alright.. in that case, honestly, it makes no difference to me. Friendship, at least to me, is not about what religion you happen to believe, anyway.

[Fred]

It seems to be that you don't know why you wanted to be Christian/Catholic. For some reason the idea of being one has appealled to you, but for it to measure up, you expect to see the end of war, rape, violence and death. When such things are only promised in the next world, not in this one - this is the reward. The Christian realises that sad and unfortunate things will occur in this life; it is getting to the next stage that is important. Yet it seems your ultimatum to God, in order for him to win you over, is for him to grant heaven on earth.

The aim of any Christian, that is their reason for being one, is to make them a better, more humble person, not to become a haughty one who issues ransoms when they feel like it.Yes and if God does not grant heaven on earth, then they turn to the State for slavish debasements in return for scraps which fall off Caesar's table.


Sorry, but I've already answered why I want to believe in Christianity.



No, no.. I never said that.

You don't seem to understand my objection, and that's alright. It is not that man freely chooses to commit evils..

It is that those "evils" existed before humanity even existed or could have chosen evil. They are a part of the natural world. They are a part of the very way in which humanity was created.. All I say is that an all-loving God would not have created such a world.

No. It would be fine if this world was almost hell, but it was because of mans own free choice. However, the evils of this world existed even before man did, in the natural world, and in the very process which created all animals including humanity, which means God is responsible for that evil. Which makes Christianity unfeasible.

Please read just a few paragraphs of this if you want to get my point.


How Christian :D

Alright.. in that case, honestly, it makes no difference to me. Friendship, at least to me, is not about what religion you happen to believe, anyway.Who cares if God allows us to suffer? It's his prerogative to allow it. Suffering is a fact of life. Get over it instead of try to make God feel bad by not speaking to him. This response from you is like the homofiles who decide to give up Christianity because it doesn't accept homosexuality as normal or natural. They use somebody in their family who is a pervert as an excuse to defy God.

Take a cue from Job, because that kind of serenity and humility is required for life, whether or not you choose to honour God in doing so. Stoicism without God has no rewards!

[Lutiferre]

Who cares if God allows us to suffer? It's his prerogative to allow it. Suffering is a fact of life.
You obviously haven't read what I originally posted, since you haven't understood any of what I am saying.

It is a Christian belief that God did NOT create evil or suffering, that he did NOT create us in this condition, but instead in a condition of grace, and that man fell from that grace, and thereby introduced lust (concupiscence (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm)) suffering and death.

[Trog]

And please, if you're no atheist, then please stop using an atheist argument.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#original

[Lutiferre]

And please, if you're no atheist, then please stop using an atheist argument.
It's not an "atheist argument"; an agnostic or a non-Christian theist can easily make that argument against Christianity in particular.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Perhaps you no longer need to look for God, maybe he will come find you. But beware, the forces of darkness are all around, the internet was perhaps not the place to find God.

God, in the guise of Christianity,Muslim,Buddhism,Heathenism,Zoroastria nism-Confucianism expresses himself in many languages including the internet,I would think.

I can't recall who said it,but"I think,therefore I am" is of utmost importance.

It is difficult for people brought up in a modern and largely secular society to realize how large a part religion has played in all historical societies and the importance it still has in many today.
This becomes easier to understand when we consider that in societies less complex and less differentiated than those of the West, magic and religion include what are for us quite separate realms of thought and activity: philosophy, cos*mology, medicine, natural science, ideas of causation, ethics and the means of controlling the visible and invisible environment. All these form part of what anthropologists call the magi-co religious or ritual life of a people.
It is convenient to distinguish between magic and religion. Both deal with, and try to influence, what are regarded as invisible, but powerful, forces in the universe. But, in general, religion tends to think of such forces as a 'thou'—to be addressed in prayer and perhaps pro*pitiated by offerings. Magic, on the other hand, sees them as an 'it' to be manipu*lated and compelled by rites and spells. In theory, the difference is easy enough to understand; in practice, it can be very difficult to distinguish a spell from a prayer.
Let us take it, however, that religion presupposes one or more forces addressed as 'thou' by a congregation of worshipers, who thus enter into a kind of social relationship with them. The relationship is usually an unequal one: the congre*gation—or the priest or priests acting on their behalf—address the deity humbly, with praise and supplications, and make offerings of whatever that particular divinity is supposed to like best: food, flowers, human hair, or sometimes blood sacrifices. Yet the relationship is not one*sided. In return for offerings, the congre*gation expect the divinity to shower down blessings—or at any rate to withhold curses. And in some sense the divinity is in turn dependent on the worship received: many peoples believe that the existence of the gods is quite literally sustained by offerings. Sociologically, this is true.

Divinities come in various orders of magnitude, from the great universal God of the world religions to the intensely localized deity inhabiting a particular rock or tree, or the dead and deified father of a particular group of brothers. On one level, religion mirrors society; and the size of a divinity is usually in proportion to that of the congregation worshiping it.
The potential congregation may well be larger than the actual one, as in the case of the Supreme Deities of Christi*anity and Islam, each conceived by his worshipers as the God of all mankind. Peoples more hemmed in by geography tend to be less inclined to convert others: their gods are entirely their own and foreigners are naturally expected to have different gods. But whatever the size of the congregation, the divinity worshiped will tend to reflect whatever holds that congregation together: common interests and common ideals.
The small congregation worshiping a small god may simply be one of near neighbors. In such cases the god will probably be thought of as inhabiting some prominent geographical feature, which also functions as his, or her, shrine. Alternatively the congregation may be recruited by descent: people who are all related to each other, either in the male or in the female line. In this case the divinity will be the deified ancestor of the group.
The two-way relationship between divinity and priest or congregation is easiest to understand in the case of an*cestor worship. The most important an*cestor for religious purposes is usually the most recently dead: it is through him that more remote ancestors are approached. The priest is often his eldest surviving son, who is also his heir and successor in authority. Such an ancestor is, in a sense, still very much a part of the family: he can easily be supposed to take an interest in his children's and grand children's welfare, to protect them against harm, to want them to be on friendly terms with each other and to punish them for any breach of custom or morals.

For although religious beliefs and practices inevitably tell us something about people's social structure,it must never be forgotten that religion is more than a mirror of society.

Any Christian with a shakable faith,should rather strengthen his faith in rereading the Wisdom of the Bible than summarily dismiss all he has believed in.
When God rested on the 7th day and is still resting, He basically let Nature and mankind takes its course. He,therefore,refuses to interfere in man's actions,be they good or bad.

To change religion or belief could be fatal.One needs a strong character. The actions to be taken to rid oneself of indoctrination "must" result in the total annihilation of fate and faith and religious expressions.

The acknowledgment of wasted time and spiritual upheaval that goes with it, will result in a period of extreme uncertainty which could lead to suicide.

I pity those who are prepared to risk the change

I speak from my own experience

[Lutiferre]

When God rested on the 7th day and is still resting, He basically let Nature and mankind takes its course. He,therefore,refuses to interfere in man's actions,be they good or bad.
Doesn't really address my question, as it's about the very nature he created.


The acknowledgment of wasted time and spiritual upheaval that goes with it, will result in a period of extreme uncertainty which could lead to suicide.

Well, not for me.. I haven't wasted my time. I have learnt enormously about philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, literature, art, and many life experiences in general, in the period that I have studied Christianity, by the sheer challenge of Christianity, including the challenge to my beliefs about how to live life, what to value, how to behave, things I have really started thinking about, and the challenge of making it intellectually feasible (one that many great Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church have similarly taken up).

[Lutiferre]

And please, if you're no atheist, then please stop using an atheist argument.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#original
And anyway, the only reason I quoted it is because it corresponds to my own thoughts (a point you seem to ignore).

[Fred]

It's not an "atheist argument"; an agnostic or a non-Christian theist can easily make that argument against Christianity in particular.Yes and all of these are anti-Europeanist ideologies anyways, because they see Europeanism as the source of the world's problems. I am as tribalistic about my Christianity as the Jews are of their religious manifestation, although it is true they have the Republic of Israel and we don't have the Kingdom of Jerusalem--but Vatican City is pretty close. I will defend it to my deathbed, even as turncoats get squeamish over things they cannot put their finger on.


And please, if you're no atheist, then please stop using an atheist argument.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#originalIt's true, you are utilising atheism as an antidote for Christianity, so to be indifferent and on the fence.


You obviously haven't read what I originally posted, since you haven't understood any of what I am saying.

It is a Christian belief that God did NOT create evil or suffering, that he did NOT create us in this condition, but instead in a condition of grace, and that man fell from that grace, and thereby introduced lust (concupiscence (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04208a.htm)) suffering and death.God did not create human suffering, but we do by turning away from Him. Whatever is wrong about the universe doesn't matter to me. I care about the relationship of God vs satan with mankind in the balance.

[Trog]

It's not an "atheist argument"; an agnostic or a non-Christian theist can easily make that argument against Christianity in particular.

The guy whose text you're using is Richard Carrier, an explicit athiest. (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#conclusion).

I'm not a theoligan, I don't have the research to reply to your cut-and-paste from this guy.

However, others (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/darek_barefoot/dangerous.html#epiphenomenalism) have addressed him. You have taken one side of the debate, without also including the other.

Also, the comparison you made about there being evil in the world before humans? Animals are not good or evil, they do not have souls, and therefore a conscience.

[Lutiferre]

Yes and all of these are anti-Europeanist ideologies anyways, because they see Europeanism as the source of the world's problems.
They are not ideologies, nor do they have any opinion about Europeanism. Stop making a fool out of yourself.

I am as tribalistic about my Christianity as the Jews are of their religious manifestation,
Well, the founder of Christianity was a Jew.


God did not create human suffering, but we do by turning away from Him. Whatever is wrong about the universe doesn't matter to me. I care about the relationship of God vs satan with mankind in the balance.
Human suffering is no different from the suffering of other animals; it is the same process which explains the same fact (evolution). Most minimally educated Christians accept the truth of evolution, including His Holiness and his predecessor.

[Fred]

And anyway, the only reason I quoted it is because it corresponds to my own thoughts (a point you seem to ignore).Yes, so you finally and unequivocally admit it.


Doesn't really address my question, as it's about the very nature he created.

Well, not for me.. I haven't wasted my time. I have learnt enormously about philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, literature, art, and many life experiences in general, in the period that I have studied Christianity, by the sheer challenge of Christianity, including the challenge to my beliefs about how to live life, what to value, how to behave, things I have really started thinking about, and the challenge of making it intellectually feasible (one that many great Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church have similarly taken up).Are you just getting legalistic hang-ups? Focus on something else to do with Christianity that is not measured by definitive doctrine. I repeat, let the Holy Spirit guide you to more positive revelation and the answers will come to you, rather than confuse you. Putting that atheistic drivel in your mind, will only confuse you. You have now a chance to reveal your cards and hedge your bets. Will you throw God under the bus because of people bashing Christianity, which affirms God as the ultimate arbiter and not some relativistic vagueness in the void?

[Lutiferre]

The guy whose text you're using is Richard Carrier, an explicit athiest. (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#conclusion).
Again..
And anyway, the only reason I quoted it is because it corresponds to my own thoughts (a point you seem to ignore).
Specifically, it corresponds to the meditations of my own that I copy-pasted in the original post in the thread.


However, others (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/darek_barefoot/dangerous.html#epiphenomenalism) have addressed him. You have taken one side of the debate, without also including the other.
That doesn't address what I quoted.


Also, the comparison you made about there being evil in the world before humans? Animals are not good or evil, they do not have souls, and therefore a conscience.
There being the root of what we now call evil. Things such as lust, aggressiveness, murder, stealing, deception, etc, are all behaviours developed from evolutionary mechanisms and responses which can also be seen in other animals.

[Lutiferre]

Yes, so you finally and unequivocally admit it.
Admit what? I admit what I said: that this particular question and criticism corresponds to my own doubts.


Are you just getting legalistic hang-ups? Focus on something else to do with Christianity that is not measured by definitive doctrine.
Can I be a Christian without affirming these definitive doctrines?

[Fred]

The guy whose text you're using is Richard Carrier, an explicit athiest. (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/whynotchristian.html#conclusion).

I'm not a theoligan, I don't have the research to reply to your cut-and-paste from this guy.

However, others (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/darek_barefoot/dangerous.html#epiphenomenalism) have addressed him. You have taken one side of the debate, without also including the other.

Also, the comparison you made about there being evil in the world before humans? Animals are not good or evil, they do not have souls, and therefore a conscience.Lutiferre, you should read these books:

http://www.theotokos.org.uk/pages/breviews/francisp/architec.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=k_3EeVj2_IUC&dq=godless:+the+church+of+liberalism&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=WuKYG5Go-H&sig=eBT7xvSact7D8SX2aNXLSyN3aRw&hl=en&ei=pGX6SrOrO4rZnAeRnqyIDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CCYQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=&f=false


They are not ideologies, nor do they have any opinion about Europeanism. Stop making a fool out of yourself.

Well, the founder of Christianity was a Jew.

Human suffering is no different from the suffering of other animals; it is the same process which explains the same fact (evolution). Most minimally educated Christians accept the truth of evolution, including His Holiness and his predecessor.If you read the books I wrote about and well understand European history as it is known around the world, then you will know why it is imperative to cling to Christianity in a new age of barbarism.

[Fred]

Again..
Specifically, it corresponds to the meditations of my own that I copy-pasted in the original post in the thread.

That doesn't address what I quoted.

There being the root of what we now call evil. Things such as lust, aggressiveness, murder, stealing, deception, etc, are all behaviours developed from evolutionary mechanisms and responses which can also be seen in other animals.Uh huh. So you wish to debase yourself to mere mechanism. How long before you support Transhumanism as the Final Solution to humanity, created in God's image? This is the ultimate "fuck you" to God.


Admit what? I admit what I said: that this particular question and criticism corresponds to my own doubts.

Can I be a Christian without affirming these definitive doctrines?You don't have to embrace all of what is definitive, only avoid being at odds with the rest.

[Lutiferre]

Uh huh. So you wish to debase yourself to mere mechanism. How long before you support Transhumanism as the Final Solution to humanity, created in God's image? This is the ultimate "fuck you" to God.
I didn't say so, but that there is a degree of mechanism is clear, and that some behaviours can be explained by their evolutionary roots is also a verifiable fact.


You don't have to embrace all of what is definitive, only avoid being at odds with the rest.
What does that mean? What can I believe or disbelieve? And who decides it? As far as I know, the Church decides it, and the Church has issued anathema to anyone who denies the doctrines that I am speaking of, rendering anyone who denies them a heretic damned to hell for eternity.

[Fred]

I didn't say so, but that there is a degree of mechanism is clear, and that some behaviours can be explained by their evolutionary roots is also a verifiable fact.

What does that mean? What can I believe or disbelieve? And who decides it? As far as I know, the Church decides it, and the Church has issued anathema to anyone who denies the doctrines that I am speaking of, rendering anyone who denies them a heretic damned to hell for eternity.The mechanism is actually proof that God is a clockmaker and sets things into motion, but this in no way denies Christianity as a primary God-humanity interactivity. God put himself into our lives, rather than be content with living on the edge of dreams, or in the storms. He took the most lovely woman there ever was in the world and brought salvation from the world's suffering. This salvation is future-oriented and thus, we ourselves have to work for it, not abandon the cause. I could think of no greater cause than God's as revealed by His Chosen. The fact that the Jews destroy themselves rather than affirm the Son, is something you are considering. To have it all and then toss it away over insecurity (such as how the Jews were always being scattered and dominated, so they said "fuck it. God, we don't care anymore about Canaan." He responded by sending His Son to revive the Faith.), just shows that you would be fulfilled by going much further back in the direction you were heading, to actually be secure and content. I know this struggle like the back of my hand.

What I stated, is that you need to hold your tongue on controversial matters and just go with what works. Let the rest work out eventually as it always does. Don't force it. This is like getting work done at my employment. I take it one at a time and don't get stirred over things which seem unfathomable to cope with. I take it in stride and see how I can make do with what there is.

[Lutiferre]

The mechanism is actually proof that God is a clockmaker and sets things into motion, but this in no way denies Christianity as a primary God-humanity interactivity.
Still, sounds more deistic than anything.

And since you accept evolution, the problem remains. Though denying evolution would be not much better, it would be shooting yourself in the foot.

[Trog]

Again..
Specifically, it corresponds to the meditations of my own that I copy-pasted in the original post in the thread.

I see that, but this is a confirmed atheist which reflects your own, as though this has answered for you. You still need to take in the other side's view. See William Lane Craig (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/debates.html) debates.



There being the root of what we now call evil. Things such as lust, aggressiveness, murder, stealing, deception, etc, are all behaviours developed from evolutionary mechanisms and responses which can also be seen in other animals.

The naturalistic view! It's opposite is the moralistic one. Hopefully you are weighing up both sides.

[Lutiferre]

I see that, but this is a confirmed atheist which reflects your own, as though this has answered for you. You still need to take in the other side's view. See William Lane Craig (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/debates.html) debates.
I know of Lane Craig.


The naturalistic view! It's opposite is the moralistic one. Hopefully you are weighing up both sides.
Well, what do you think? Do you think evolution is not true?

[Fred]

Still, sounds more deistic than anything.

And since you accept evolution, the problem remains. Though denying evolution would be not much better, it would be shooting yourself in the foot.Deism which affirms God and humanism which affirms mankind, does not have to conflict. The conflict stems from angry small minds who profess omniscience, so they pretend that God ceases to exist when they want, or that they have the power to make Him.


I see that, but this is a confirmed atheist which reflects your own, as though this has answered for you. You still need to take in the other side's view. See William Lane Craig (http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billcraig/menus/debates.html) debates.

The naturalistic view! It's opposite is the moralistic one. Hopefully you are weighing up both sides.Yes, absolute materialism doesn't rule out spiritualism, although many atheists and agnostics fall into it as though it supplanted dogma and discover a new fetishistic fundamentalism about disbelief that is the most zealous and unlearnt.


I know of Lane Craig.

Well, what do you think? Do you think evolution is not true?Evolution cannot possibly be taken without more than a few grains of salt over the way it has been put forth as life's ultimate answers. So now, are we toeing the line to their orthodoxy? I never knew Darwin was even an Aquinas, much less an Apostle. The Benedictine or at least Cistercian approach would insist on higher standards than Darwin. The monks don't matter though, of course, because the temporal powers believed in seizing their assets and destroying their learning centres. To make the masses ignorant to spiritual truth is to hold them obedient to the bottom line of materialism and realpolitik, of Machiavellianism rather than wisdom.

[Lutiferre]

Evolution cannot possibly be taken without more than a few grains of salt over the way it has been put forth as life's ultimate answers.
That was not the question.. my question was if evolution is true.

So now, are we toeing the line to their orthodoxy? I never knew Darwin was even an Aquinas, much less an Apostle.
Not that it has anything to do with this discussion, but Aristotelian (Thomistic) final causes are similar to Darwinian natural selection, so the mechanism is there, just in a different way.

[Trog]

I know of Lane Craig.

Well, what do you think? Do you think evolution is not true?

Yes, and so does the Catholic Church. Even as early as St Augustine had evolution been considered. Even Pope Pius XII welcomed Darwin's theories. Howeverthe naturalistic/moralistic debate is not just about religion, it's a sociological one as well.

In psychiatry, there is a debate about "mad or bad". Is someone insane or evil if they inflict cruelty and harm on humans and animals? I doubt it can be answered here since the debate rages on in academic and political circles.

[Fred]

That was not the question.. my question was if evolution is true.

Not that it has anything to do with this discussion, but Aristotelian (Thomistic) final causes are similar to Darwinian natural selection, so the mechanism is there, just in a different way.Darwin's ideas are connected to the barebones philosophy which attempted to circumvent all religious interpretations, or coalescents with naturalism. It was in aim, to root out religion as a force of evil and superstition, although they truly also throw the baby out with the bath water when doing so, for so too does a man like Hippocrates and Socrates get wiped off the map. The present day's acclaim for nihilism is very anti-socratic and anti-hippocratic.


Yes, and so does the Catholic Church. Even as early as St Augustine had evolution been considered. Even Pope Pius XII welcomed Darwin's theories. Howeverthe naturalistic/moralistic debate is not just about religion, it's a sociological one as well.

In psychiatry, there is a debate about "mad or bad". Is someone insane or evil if they inflict cruelty and harm on humans and animals? I doubt it can be answered here since the debate rages on in academic and political circles.Yes, there is no true victory without honour...:cool:

[Lutiferre]

Yes, and so does the Catholic Church. Even as early as St Augustine had evolution been considered. Even Pope Pius XII welcomed Darwin's theories. Howeverthe naturalistic/moralistic debate is not just about religion, it's a sociological one as well.

In psychiatry, there is a debate about "mad or bad". Is someone insane or evil if they inflict cruelty and harm on humans and animals? I doubt it can be answered here since the debate rages on in academic and political circles.

Yes, though thats another debate. Anyway, the only reason I asked about evolution was for the whole thing I mentioned about behaviours that are considered sin but make sense in the light of evolution.

Anyway, this is just one of the things I mentioned; I mentioned several other things in my original post. Let's not write 20 pages about one small part of it.

[Lutiferre]

I would like to note that I think I've experienced a tremendous hypocrisy from some of you Christians here. It's not a personal attack, nor an attack against Christianity. It just applies to some of you. Now remember, I have not suddenly become an "enemy of Christianity", not yet at least; I simply expressed my honest doubts here.

When I was supporting Christianity, presenting an intellectually feasible case for it, I don't remember getting complaints; I remember even getting applauded and almost a certain pride from the Christians against the anti-Christians in various debates, for my effort.

Now that I start doubting, I am suddenly accused of being merely a legalist making reference to "cold logic" and is informed that I was never taken seriously to begin with, anyway (in this case, by Plotinus).

Well, all I can say is: hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites.

[Lutiferre]

I would like to note that I think I've experienced a tremendous hypocrisy from some of you Christians here. It's not a personal attack, nor an attack against Christianity. It just applies to some of you. Now remember, I have not suddenly become an "enemy of Christianity", not yet at least; I simply expressed my honest doubts here.

When I was supporting Christianity, presenting an intellectually feasible case for it, I don't remember getting complaints; I remember even getting applauded and almost a certain pride from the Christians against the anti-Christians in various debates, for my effort.

Now that I start doubting, I am suddenly accused of being merely a legalist making reference to "cold logic" and is informed that I was never taken seriously to begin with, anyway (in this case, by Plotinus).

Well, all I can say is: hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites.

If anything, this is the best practical example of ressentiment (http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth/AnthMore.htm) I could give.

[Fred]

Yes, though thats another debate. Anyway, the only reason I asked about evolution was for the whole thing I mentioned about behaviours that are considered sin but make sense in the light of evolution.

Anyway, this is just one of the things I mentioned; I mentioned several other things in my original post. Let's not write 20 pages about one small part of it.If evolution is a fundamental basis for doubt, then it is likely going to be the perfect straw man to doubt sceptical points of view you have yet to bring up, on the tail of strident atheism.


I would like to note that I think I've experienced a tremendous hypocrisy from some of you Christians here. It's not a personal attack, nor an attack against Christianity. It just applies to some of you. Now remember, I have not suddenly become an "enemy of Christianity", not yet at least; I simply expressed my honest doubts here.

When I was supporting Christianity, presenting an intellectually feasible case for it, I don't remember getting complaints; I remember even getting applauded and almost a certain pride from the Christians against the anti-Christians in various debates, for my effort.

Now that I start doubting, I am suddenly accused of being merely a legalist making reference to "cold logic" and is informed that I was never taken seriously to begin with, anyway (in this case, by Plotinus).

Well, all I can say is: hypocrites, hypocrites, hypocrites.So why should Christians support falsities? Their opponents don't cheer on Christianity. You have gotten congratulations from those who've already long decided it would be in their personal interest to "depose God" from their worldview and cast Him aside, especially the Christian kind, the kind of the ancestors, no less than anything like the AEsir or Vanir. You would be suprised, but the Catholic Chuch doesn't frown on pagan symbols and our ancient viking warlords did not find any reason to do the opposite.

See my link here. (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10497) (this is all about precedent; let's not reinvent the wheel, or conceptions of truth, to disown ancestors)

I use organic materialism as a basis for culture as well as the spiritual heritage appropriate for maintenance of a people. They are entirely in sync. Nobody goes to hell and nobody commits treason in that world. Descendents of Odin who worship Christ. You see, your faceless mechanistics would be better if it did in fact have a face, with which to be familiar and understanding. I show you the organic mechanism in the people and the other as befits God. Nobody is left out of this, no matter what arguments have been used to vilify Christianity because of Judaism. Judaism is inferior only in comparison to Christianity, not being inferior regardless.

I have gotten off topic but I wanted to show you how you can appreciate a materialistic understanding (Adam as forefather of Odin, or any other secular ruler), then Christ as the via media between Adam and God. Biblical genealogy is a good way to understand how entwined we are with God, so the Christian perspective does work, by validating at least most of the majorly positive elements of differing sides, to bring them to a higher truth. This does not mean that "In Christ there is neither Jew, nor Greek" as an excuse for global multiculturalism, because Christ is more about the spirit and its levity vis a vis the groundedness of the body (thus, we all over the world can proclaim Christ, while still adhering to Odin or others...remember 1st Commandment is more important than 2nd, as Odin is man and one of the gods but not God). Yes, this groundedness may seem more reliable than the spirit, but it nevertheless requires that spirit to even broach the subject. This is the difference between animal and man.


If anything, this is the best practical example of ressentiment (http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anth/AnthMore.htm) I could give.

http://books.google.com/books?id=IRfC5enFeH8C&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=nietzsche+architects+of+the+culture+of+death&source=bl&ots=cQHk43pSiG&sig=txH7LBtaxltpMF-lyp3Gy1-Rs-U&hl=en&ei=3IT6Sv-rKcrdnAfsmoz7DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nietzsche&f=false

[Lutiferre]

If evolution is a fundamental basis for doubt, then it is likely going to be the perfect straw man to doubt sceptical points of view you have yet to bring up, on the tail of strident atheism.
Well, not per se. But on some conditions.

As to the rest you said, I don't see any relevance.

[Lutiferre]

http://books.google.com/books?id=IRfC5enFeH8C&pg=PA234&lpg=PA234&dq=nietzsche+architects+of+the+culture+of+death&source=bl&ots=cQHk43pSiG&sig=txH7LBtaxltpMF-lyp3Gy1-Rs-U&hl=en&ei=3IT6Sv-rKcrdnAfsmoz7DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=nietzsche&f=false
I just read some of that. All I can say is that it's a joke, a total straw man, a childishly superficial reading of Nietzsche. Anyone who has dug a little deeper down would know this.

[Fred]

Well, not per se. But on some conditions.

As to the rest you said, I don't see any relevance.


I just read some of that. All I can say is that it's a joke, a total straw man, a childishly superficial reading of Nietzsche. Anyone who has dug a little deeper down would know this.

It may be cliche, but I actually did read Nietzsche when I was your age. In fact, I began reading this kind of stuff when I was five years younger than you are now. I also read Herman Hesse, select passages of Mein Kampf and Freud as well as Darwin. I have progressed from there by not biting the bullet and letting it direct my convictions, although it did for the greater part of my adolescence, to my misfortune. I chose Kierkegaard instead. I seriously doubt that you will be able to progress in your personal and spiritual life if you hold on to Nietzsche like some misunderstood prophet whose voice has truly yet to be heard. We did hear it. Nietzsche was most vociferously expressed in das 3rd Reich. This puny humanism which dreams egotistical fantasies about itself, nevertheless falls by its own dagger, just like Caligula.

How is it that you take oppositional and unoriginal "philosophies" like these for granted, that they have no flaws? Is it the flash and dash, the glitz and glam from rebellion? Then Lucifer, the fallen angel...sounds like an inspiration. Don't like the comparison, then why follow?

This beast, this Ubermensch, this Manimal, is just self-deception. Oh yeah, God is dead, man is supreme...:coffee:

[Lutiferre]

It may be cliche, but I actually did read Nietzsche when I was your age. In fact, I began reading this kind of stuff when I was five years younger than you are now.
So did I, and I didn't understand it in depth, which I know today.

I also read Herman Hesse, select passages of Mein Kampf and Freud as well as Darwin.
Hitlers herd-mentality and german nationalism constitutes everything Nietzsche hates. Especially his socialism, as opposed to the radical individualism of Nietzsche, which precludes any political philosophy taking it's basis in him, much like Kierkegaard.

I have progressed from there by not biting the bullet and letting it direct my convictions, although it did for the greater part of my adolescence, to my misfortune. I chose Kierkegaard instead.
Kierkegaard is the only serious alternative to Nietzsche :thumb001:.


How is it that you take oppositional and unoriginal "philosophies" like these for granted, that they have no flaws? Is it the flash and dash, the glitz and glam from rebellion? Then Lucifer, the fallen angel...sounds like an inspiration. Don't like the comparison, then why follow?

This beast, this Ubermensch, this Manimal, is just self-deception. Oh yeah, God is dead, man is supreme...:coffee:
I dont take any philosophies for granted; rather, I am open to different views.

[Fred]

So did I, and I didn't understand it in depth, which I know today.

Hitlers herd-mentality and german nationalism constitutes everything Nietzsche hates. Especially his socialism, as opposed to the radical individualism of Nietzsche, which precludes any political philosophy taking it's basis in him, much like Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard is the only serious alternative to Nietzsche :thumb001:.

I dont take any philosophies for granted; rather, I am open to different views.The problem is, when Nietzsche's radical individualism, much like his student Ayn Rand's Objectivism, is put into a social setting, it is ultimately destructive like a cancerous anarchy and selfishism puts civilisation itself into disorder.

EDIT: It is what we have with anti-preservationism, because selfishism is more important than collective, etc. That's Nietzsche's legacy.

It is one thing to question why; it is quite another to believe that these questions properly constitute a manifesto which we could realistically implement, for they provide nothing, if they approach from empty, barren wasteland and nothing comes from nothing.

Kierkegaard was altruistic and Nietzsche was not. Kierkegaard wanted to believe and Nietzsche did not. Kierkegaard was naturalistic in his devotions and attempted to scour truth from all perspectives for the greater goal, but Nietzsche was all about the ego of Freud and was Hegelian/artificial. Kierkegaard was a Puritanical Protestant, but Nietzsche was "post-Christian". Kierkegaard accepted the fullness of the divine and refuted personal control of all truth, only accepted that each had some truth to offer the pot of truth in general, while Nietzsche believed that the only truth was in the self and that the self is eternal and ultimate--despite man being limited by bodily form.

[Lutiferre]

The problem is, when Nietzsche's radical individualism, much like his student Ayn Rand's Objectivism, is put into a social setting, He, like the ancient Greek ideal, valued friendship very highly, so his strong emphasis on individuality does not preclude the meeting with another individuality. Far from it.


EDIT: It is what we have with anti-preservationism, because selfishism is more important than collective, etc. That's Nietzsche's legacy.
Thats not "Nietzsches legacy". Nietzsche doesnt have a broad-scale legacy, as he never did write for the masses.


Kierkegaard was altruistic and Nietzsche was not. Kierkegaard wanted to believe and Nietzsche did not. Kierkegaard was naturalistic in his devotions and attempted to scour truth from all perspectives for the greater goal, but Nietzsche was all about the ego of Freud and was Hegelian/artificial.
He was certainly not "Hegelian/artificial". Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were extremely unsystematic and had no sympathy for systematic philosophy.

Kierkegaard was a Puritanical Protestant, but Nietzsche was "post-Christian". Kierkegaard accepted the fullness of the divine and refuted personal control of all truth, only accepted that each had some truth to offer the pot of truth in general, while Nietzsche believed that the only truth was in the self and that the self is eternal and ultimate--despite man being limited by bodily form.
Well, he didnt believe the self is infinite in spatial extension.

[Black Turlogh]

Scientology is the only way to salvation.

[Fred]

He, like the ancient Greek ideal, valued friendship very highly, so his strong emphasis on individuality does not preclude the meeting with another individuality. Far from it.

Thats not "Nietzsches legacy". Nietzsche doesnt have a broad-scale legacy, as he never did write for the masses.

He was certainly not "Hegelian/artificial". Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were extremely unsystematic and had no sympathy for systematic philosophy.

Well, he didnt believe the self is infinite in spatial extension.I have read Nietzsche's incessant ramblings about a superiority complex and a self-contained and controlled "presence" to impose onto the world...whether one has allies or enemies in this, it doesn't particularly matter. That's right, Nietzsche wrote for the Aryan, the Ubermensch...which was peddled to the masses. Nietzsche supplanted the old impersonal systematic philosophy for one which was based on the human potential. Nietzsche's ideology is almost exacting to a tee, the artwork and concept of Japanimation, with the wild ninja powers and fight scenes. It was very animalistic. This is why his ideas were sold so well to the German people, the Huns of the Great War.:D

[Lutiferre]

I have read Nietzsche's incessant ramblings about a superiority complex and a self-contained and controlled "presence" to impose onto the world...whether one has allies or enemies in this, it doesn't particularly matter. That's right, Nietzsche wrote for the Aryan, the Ubermensch...
Well, übermensch means something different to Nietzsche than it does to a Nazi, so "to the übermensch" is correct in one sense, but not in the sense of "to anyone who considers himself as such".

[Fred]

Well, übermensch means something different to Nietzsche than it does to a Nazi, so "to the übermensch" is correct in one sense, but not in the sense of "to anyone who considers himself as such".The whole "Indo-Germanic" continuum was supposed to be a beacon of shining light, by the "will to power". This is everybody getting into a Nietzschean mood and making it manifest. It cannot be expected to stay in a vacuum, although in a vacuum is the only safe place for it.:p

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Ødhvidh Fridhason
Don't discourage him even more from his fidelity.

Who Lutiferre? I have no interest in discouraging or encouraging him to do anything.


I really don't take human self-aggrandisement seriously.

How very sad to not want to be more.


So, play "god" all you wish, but when it leads to any number of cruelties or perversions along the lines of Caligula or Robespierre, you only have yourself to blame as well.

People “play God” every day, those that understand that tend to care about what they do and why and to whom, whether that care is tinged with humanity is the difference between a Robespierre and a Darwin, both world changes but both with very different levels of wisdom. Not that I’m saying Robespierre didn’t have humanity to begin with but when he finally grew up and realised people don’t work like clocks he lost his faith in people, lose that and you trully are damned....

[Fred]

Man is beneath God and there is nothing thst can change this. The laws of science forbid it.

[Óttar]

We're not encouraging anyone to go out and pick a fight -- no one ever got harangued into the family of God.
No one except for 80 million Aztecs and other tribes in the Americas, and the population of the whole European continent.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Doesn't really address my question, as it's about the very nature he created.

Well, not for me.. I haven't wasted my time. I have learnt enormously about philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, literature, art, and many life experiences in general, in the period that I have studied Christianity, by the sheer challenge of Christianity, including the challenge to my beliefs about how to live life, what to value, how to behave, things I have really started thinking about, and the challenge of making it intellectually feasible (one that many great Church Fathers and Doctors of the Church have similarly taken up).

Dear Lutiferre I was not answering any of your questions.
I was replying to Trog.
I can not answer your questions as they are intensely personal between you and your God,which can not be transgressed by an outsider.
All you have learned from philosophy, logic, ethics, aesthetics, rhetoric, literature, art, are just your intellectual accomplishments.
Your God was a simple,down to earth carpenter,with enormous wisdom.
That wisdom he obtained by observing humanity and not by "WORD" of Pharisee,Scribes,Rabbis,and the like. He stuck to the Torah not the Talmud
He traveled far and wide in the Roman Empire.

You seem to be doing what the Apostle's were saying about Jesus' life of His last 50 days i.s.o. 33 years. The Apostles did not understand Jesus' soul,like we, the outsiders, can not understand your soul.

Does a Lion ask a Cheetah
"How to live life, what to value, how to behave" ???????
I think not.
Your behaviour should be guided by the community you live in.
When you have unraveled the paradox: Can Jesus the Nazarene really be Jesus the Christ or was it a St. Paul's jitterbug with humanity.

[Psychonaut]

Kierkegaard is the only serious alternative to Nietzsche :thumb001:.

http://www.o--rly.com/owl_orly.png

I think you'd find Martin Heidegger's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) notions of authenticity intriguing and possibly quite utile. ;)

[Lutiferre]

http://www.o--rly.com/owl_orly.png

I think you'd find Martin Heidegger's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Heidegger) notions of authenticity intriguing and possibly quite utile. ;)
Heidegger is quite interesting, though I think he himself was interested in Nietzsche.

[Psychonaut]

Heidegger is quite interesting, though I think he himself was interested in Nietzsche.

Among others yes. In his later period he wrote volumes of commentaries on Nietzsche, Kant, and others. His thought is, IMO, complementary to Nietzsche's but more subtle and mature. Whereas Nietzsche's principle concern at times seems to be initiating a violent break with Christian thought, Heidegger takes this as a given and proceeds onward as if Christianity's absolute truth had already been negated.

[Lutiferre]

For the sake of the dialectic, and the intellectual honesty, I will repudiate my own criticism of Christianity. Just to balance out my internal discussion a little.

These are some of the thoughts I have had in response to myself, from a more or less Christian perspective. Excuse me if it's slightly schizophreniac, but this is how I learn and grow.. (note: this does not mean I am over my agnosticism; just that I am seeing things from several sides)


The very process which we were created by itself involves death and what Christianity certainly considers "evil" (evolution, survival of the fittest). Lust, envy, hate, murder, and so on, are all things that are built into us from the beginning by natural selection.
Well, my response to this is really that I think what makes humans different is not that we don't have the natural passions of all animals, but that we have a specific human constitution and capability of moderating these passions.

Original sin, could then be said to be merely the failure to moderate these passions in an aesthetically (and by extension, ethically) defensible manner. And in another manner of speaking, every person repeats this original sin, and other times transcends it; we have a great deal of freedom in this, to even become bound by one passion, instead of retaining a balance between different ones.

Venomous snakes, blood sucking insects that infect and kill people with malaria, indifferent climates that kill everything living,
All of these things are natural parts of the ecosystem that has evolved, and so, are not bad per se. They are only "bad" from the perspective of whoever is physically harmed by it, and that is a subjective matter, which is not bad for the creature itself. In other words, there is no intrinsic evil in it. The sense of Gods goodness is also a sense that is not merely the goodness of finite things; but rather, it's a goodness which isn't always the same as temporal goodness; it isn't always in the interest of Man, if mans interest is something less than eternity.

Also, we tend to see the process of evolution and animals suffering through the eyes of man, not through the eyes of beasts, as someone told me. Yet another mistake; and certainly, what is good for man, if it isn't always the same as is goodness for God in the higher order, then so much more in the lower order, it isn't the same as what it is for beasts. Indeed, one order of goodness could be lethal for another order; because it isn't the same. But it doesnt thereby eliminate that order or it's perception of goodness; in fact, it could reinforce it. Mans order of goodness, furthermore, I see as a rope tied over an abyss (in a phrase borrowed from Nietzsche), which can transcend itself and that of any other beast, to relegate itself to the goodness of Gods will, even if it is lethal to any previous conception of goodness (a la Kierkegaard's "religious phase" and Abrahams sacrifice).


Christianity seems to predict another universe.. a good little cosy planet, with an unshakable foundation and an instant creation of man and animals in perfect harmony.
On the other hand, this is somewhat incorrect. The diverse antique and medieval views of the universe had some ignorable nuances, and seemed to involve a conception of the universe as a very big and complex place tightly knit together, with heavenly bodies and the motions of planets and stars directly affecting the various humours (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism) in the human body, among other things, like our very fate, like a sort of "holistic" inseparability view, like a crude existential form of the view of the universe which can also be seen in physics, like in quantum mechanics, where everything is inseparable and non-local parameters affect each other independently of time. Much of this viewe really points toward the central view which is still true today, that the whole universe and nothing less, is an interdependent unity which cannot be broken apart, and whose total glory and inter-workings and mechanics are so interconnected and exceedes all imagination.

I just remembered reading Origen, that the "Mosaic account of the universe" says that it's "no more than 10,00 years old", unlike "pagan views" which claim it to be "eternal". Well, doesn't it seem that the "pagan" view was closer to the truth, by human standards? The universe's age would seem to be an infinity, and even it's size.
I would say the central tenet of the Mosaic view is that the universe includes time, which led the many early Christian Church Fathers to have what corresponds to the much later 4-D cosmology of Einstein and others; taking time to be itself a part of the universe (which isn't part of God). The exact date is irrelevant; the Mosaic account was much more concerned with phases and ages to begin with, the gradually progressing "days of creation" in which first the lower begin and the higher slowly evolve; a move toward higher and higher complexity in an interconnected evolution through time, in an inherently temporal universe.


What Christianity predicts does not seem to be the sort of "deistic" universe, in which God is just a "distant creator" who merely "starts evolution";
In one perspective, the one of the "sabbath of God", or the ceasing of God to work on the 7th day, it does; but on the other hand, it does not; because it also speaks much of an almost Occasionalistic perception of God as continually creating everything for it merely to exist. Gods ceasing is as I see it, more connected to the human perspective, or the human "end", of bringing about humanity. So there is a duplicity here.

This continual creation or in the Hebrew word, "formation", of everything is something we see is the sort of unfolding continuity of existence of this world; much of the Hebrew scripture alludes to this.

Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name!

Isaiah 45:7 I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.
8 "Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it.

Psalm 102:18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD.

Psalm 104:30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.

Isaiah 48:7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.'

Isaiah 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;

Jer 31:22 How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the LORD has created a new thing on the earth: a woman encircles a man."

Ezek 21:28 Thus says the Lord GOD concerning the Ammonites... 30 Return it to its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.

Mal 2:10 Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our fathers?


Theres also the question of the impossible justice of God.. the God of the Old and New testaments seems to be simply lethal to humanity. God, being utterly transcendent, is impossible to please by anything else than total subjugation; and even one sin, and we are supposedly going to suffer for a half eternity. The Old Testament is filled of commands with people to kill, even a child who curses his parents, or someone who has sex outside of marriage, should be stoned to death. Even a father should stone his own child for cursing.
I think the point is we are already subjugated in existence, which is God in itself; his will or power. The Old Testament, further, had much more to do with Hebrew societal order and cohesion in a chaotic world, for the upholding of harmony, and the consequences of sin; not only the intent. The effect of the "one sin" is further, of the sin itself; not just a sort of external punishment. In this sense, "crime and punishment are one and the same".


And only the killing of Jesus, only the deeds of God himself, is worth anything.. Whatever we do is worthless, so we are just imputed to Jesus and his death. It seems like creation and we, are just pointless then; because we cannot do anything on our own, except rely on God anyway. Creation, indeed, is simply pointless then.
It's not pointless anymore than it's pointless to exist because we cannot do anything apart from eternity; without eternity and infinity, Man would have never existed; only the deed of eternity and infinity is of any consequence, namely the consequence which is us - we are imputed to eternity; we can only rely on it. But we are not pointless for that; because eternity is not pointless, and existing at all is the biggest wonder of existence, since it would have been precluded if it wasn't for the eternity that it demands.


This is not all, but simply a short excerpt of some of my thoughts. I have many others, and even if these thoughts were to change, there would be too much else to write here. One notable thought is this: that Christianity itself posites a truth claim which it cannot live up to.. it posites that the Christian God is the absolute truth in a literal sense, and so, because that is the case, this dogmatism results in being forced to recognize the problem with any real truth which we have knowledge of, which contradicts Christianity; because then we supposedly have the truth which we must respect (from science for instance) because all truth can only be from God; and the truth which we must also respect (the absolute truth of Christian dogma).
This truth claim would be mislead if it was a truth claim in a strictly scholastic sense. However, it isn't a sort of formalistic logical truth claim, which is why it's fundamentally mislead and gives "wrong results" every time to calculate it as such, because the equation would be wrong.


Another thing is that, if the Christian God was truly omnipotent, I cannot bring myself to accept that he doesn't say something to me or do something, to convince me not to doubt.
Anything who knows less than everything, all of the infinite eternity of existence and non-existence, will know little enough to have the stupidity sufficient to rebel against God (given that he exists, it is stupidity); there is a balance somewhere, though, in that knowing fundamentally less, but having the capability to know many things, gives the freedom to learn and know, and to choose without the sheer violence of knowledge, that compels this choice in a direction.

For that reason, this choice and it's freedom itself necessitates a certain "not being God", which is a necessary evil in a way, a privation of the fullness of being that is God. It does this on many orders, down to humanity itself, in it's loneliness and feeling of being abandoned by God, which thus create a necessary longing back towards God; which leads to the choice between choosing God or choosing something less, upon the realization of the need of God.


I really have prayed that God gave me some reason not to doubt.. but all I experience compared to that is total silence; total abandonment of me and the rest of creation. Total absence... at best, I can feel a presence and a spiritual mode of consciousness, but not one that I can definitely say must be "the omnipotent Christian God". It could be a spirit, a lesser god, or a self-delusion; any explanation goes. It is not warranted to say it is an omnipotent deity. My spiritual experience is not enough on itself to say that the Christian God is the case.


This also signifies another problem, which is really the problem that practically no warrant can justify the idea of a revelation from an omnipotent deity; something much lesser than that can explain the same facts; like when an angel reveals itself to Moses, or some natural phenomena occured in the bible stories, it was enough to convince back then, but today even humans could do similar things; and if not humans, then some lesser spirits, lesser gods, or other things. The warrant for explaining it with an omnipotent deity is not there.
It could be, or it could be not; any agent which knows less than what God or an omniscient entity knows, is intrinsically forced to act on its limited scope of view, and within this view, there can be warrant for believing one thing rather than another in that frame of reference, even though it could always be false since the agent is less than infinitely knowing in its epistemic faculties; that however, would be an unwarranted view given that there is any amount of warrant to an affirmative belief which is, to begin with, more adequately explained by another explanation. It doesn't make for an absolute certainty, or an absolute uncertainty, but it makes for a certainty which is more certain than other certainties; or a certainty that trumphs some forms of uncertainty.


If God is omnipotent, the sort of things he could do to convince a waverer are limitless. The argument that God wants us to have a choice about following him, rather than overwhelming us, makes little sense. A person who argues that God would not or cannot intervene supernaturally to provide an unbeliever with evidence is getting perilously close to deism, where God is supposed to have created the universe and then stepped back, no longer intervening in it.
And again, one could ask, why God wants us to go to Church: he could just meet us wherever we are? First of all, he does meet us where we are if he exists, but not in the sense of forcing us to face him; rather passively. The active sense is completely pointless unless one has chosen it - otherwise, such a humanity would have been meaningless. We can choose to go to Church, or we can choose not to.


A Christian might argue that there's a limit to how much evidence God can give before negating our free choice. C.S. Lewis says, for example, that God "cannot ravish, he must woo".
An omniscient agent, indeed, would not have the human freedom of choice in a human sense, to choose or reject God. He would BE God. Not-being-God, and being less than God, is necessary for us to exist and be able to choose evil, which itself can only exist given this "not-being-God". God wills this not-God, creation, and thereby also wills a world which will include evil and the rejection of God. He wills someone who rejects him into existence equally much as someone who doesn't.


I'd reply that, correctly understood, the claims of Jesus on a believer are so huge that they demand miraculous evidence. If you doubt this, consider what it might mean to "Take up your cross and follow me", or how a person who really feared only God and not men might behave. There's also the inconsistency of God's dealings with people, if he truly wants everyone to come to know him. The Bible itself refers to some people, such as St Paul, who have very convincing conversion experiences. Was St Paul's free will unimportant to God? How about the salvation of people who don't have an experience like St Paul's?
In this context, one could exactly say that Pauls freedom was significantly negated, which is not the case for 99% of humanity, but only an Apostle.


If it's not the absolute truth, then I know enough to know that reality is meaningless and indifferent much like we observe evolution, this eternal process of death and "evil", to be, and this cold, infinite universe. There is then no absolute foundation for truth, morality and above all, meaning, which means I will have to find a way to deal with that. Which I am sure is something most people don't want to face, not even atheists, who live on in their God delusion. The sheer dread and angst associated with first coming to realize this nihilism, is enough emotional reason not to face it, not to stare into the abyss, in fear of dying inside from the truth.
Which in the end, is not a viewpoint which needs be an "absolute truth"; nor is it a satisfying viewpoint, because the freedom involved in it seems to be to be almost privated by the sheer lack of any significant framework within which to express it and bring about great things; as if there is the room for something to come out of it, but there is so much room that it overwhelms any result.

[Fred]

Lutiferre, what you have now done, is take the Kierkegaard route. That is wonderful--I won't argue the details. One can always learn best by challenging one's own views and building onto them, with adjustments as necessary.:lightbul::coffee:

[Lutiferre]

As an update on my own process of belief and doubt, I have definitely come to a thoroughly non-Christian standpoint. The intellectual reasons, maybe even more the purely aesthetic reasons, against Christianity, were simply too strong and too big objections against Christianity, to stay christian.

I don't think I ever believed in Christianitys literal truth, but I don't think I can ever believe in it's literal truth either. Even as a Christian, I was an intellectual aristocrat, who had close to nothing in common with the great masses of mindnumbed Christian slaves.

Rather than being just a slave to it, I used and molded Christianity as my own conceptual playground, and maybe more than anything, as an excuse for fleeing from and condemning the world as such, which served my interests (rather than the other way around).

Thanks to you all for providing a great forum to challenge and be challenged, anyway.

[antonio]

I share you former position. For what it is nowadays cristal clear is that strict dogma and intellectual wiseness are no longer viable at the same person. In fact, I guess best theologicians of modern times are always holders of heretical positions that for much less were people burned in past times.

Probably the religious persons of tomorrow will be, to an uncertain degree, heretic and/or agnostics themselves. Also they're the atheists, the non-religious people which know all the secrets of Universe and Existence better than I know where to find concrete things in the chaos of my closet.

And good luck in your life! Mediocre people of your age use to skip this questions to focus themselves in how to make money. Maybe it's paradoxically wiser

[Nodens]

As an update on my own process of belief and doubt, I have definitely come to a thoroughly non-Christian standpoint. The intellectual reasons, maybe even more the purely aesthetic reasons, against Christianity, were simply too strong and too big objections against Christianity, to stay christian.

I don't think I ever believed in Christianitys literal truth, but I don't think I can ever believe in it's literal truth either. Even as a Christian, I was an intellectual aristocrat, who had close to nothing in common with the great masses of mindnumbed Christian slaves.

Rather than being just a slave to it, I used and molded Christianity as my own conceptual playground, and maybe more than anything, as an excuse for fleeing from and condemning the world as such, which served my interests (rather than the other way around).

Thanks to you all for providing a great forum to challenge and be challenged, anyway.

I can't resist...


You are much too intelligent to believe in God.

-Ayn Rand to William F. Buckley, Jr.

[Lutiferre]

And good luck in your life! Mediocre people of your age use to skip this questions to focus themselves in how to make money. Maybe it's paradoxically wiser
Maybe ignorance or ignoring (of these things) does serve us better, yes.

Or maybe not. I think having gone through and overcome my own Christian sentiments has given me priceless experience and self-knowledge and ultimately led me to a much more valuable orientation towards the world in my breaking out of my former position.

It has also given me the realization of our ultimate freedom as humans, because the world is beyond good and evil. What a liberation!

If I hadn't gone through my Christian phase, I would have never questioned the kind of secularised Christian morality latent in nearly all of western society, individual sentiments, ethics and morals.

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre
Maybe ignorance or ignoring (of these things) does serve us better, yes.

It seems to have been a staple of Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism, that truth was necessarily good….. The truth, if indeed there is a truth and not truths, has no moral contingency. We are not necessarily better for knowing, though we may be wiser, but perhaps not necessarily happy.

Remember the saying ignorance is bliss….there is a whole lot of truth in that. But there is an optimism and peace born from acceptance of things as they are. Some people need certainty, they don’t look into shadows and they are afraid of silence, they need distraction, light can blind as often as it illuminates.

I’m less certain than I was, but I’m wiser, I know less but what I know is worth knowing. I’m not sure if I’m happy, I’m not sure if I need to be, I know I relish the challenge to learn and to wonder, I guess I fear my own intellectual inferiority than anything else. My urge to wonder is probably greater than my ability to understand…….but I believe that puts me one up on most people I know, at least I know what I don’t understand and I have no fear of the unknown.

[Lutiferre]

It seems to have been a staple of Greek philosophy, particularly Platonism, that truth was necessarily good….. The truth, if indeed there is a truth and not truths, has no moral contingency. We are not necessarily better for knowing, though we may be wiser, but perhaps not necessarily happy.
Oh I agree. And I meant it quite seriously that ignorance, in that case, may serve us better.

But what I have gotten out of not ignoring Christianity is not some "higher truth"; I have gotten experience out of it, and another existential attitude; I have learnt to accept existence in all its aspects, even untruth, irrationality and ignorance, all things Christianity cannot accept in its truth worship, an attitude that survives in post-Christian cultures as a Christian legacy, an attitude I surely would have been possessed by if I hadn't identified it by knowing Christianity intimately.

In other words, the more I have learnt about Christianity, the more I have been able to identify it and banish it from myself in it's secular legacies - which has helped a great deal, because it is a moralistic stumbling block and at that, with no warrant, in it's secular forms, where it's entire foundation (belief in God) is taken away.

Remember the saying ignorance is bliss….there is a whole lot of truth in that. But there is an optimism and peace born from acceptance of things as they are. Some people need certainty, they don’t look into shadows and they are afraid of silence, they need distraction, light can blind as often as it illuminates.
We may need certainty, but we cannot have it. I don't think I really need it.


I’m less certain than I was, but I’m wiser, I know less but what I know is worth knowing. I’m not sure if I’m happy, I’m not sure if I need to be, I know I relish the challenge to learn and to wonder, I guess I fear my own intellectual inferiority than anything else. My urge to wonder is probably greater than my ability to understand…….but I believe that puts me one up on most people I know, at least I know what I don’t understand and I have no fear of the unknown.
I am not sure either, that we need to be happy. Maybe in some situations it has higher value to be deeply depressed than happy; in others again, it has more value to be angry and frustrated. We should become cows if we just wanted to be happy in most situations.

[Jamt]

You were a more interesting poster before Luteffere. Now you are an Agnostic wast of time. Pffh.

[Lutiferre]

You were a more interesting poster before Luteffere. Now you are an Agnostic wast of time. Pffh.
Even as a Christian, I agreed with my post above - it's either all or nothing. If I can't be a Christian, I want to abolish every trace of Christian metaphysics from my attitudes and choices.

I don't want to be some impotent hybrid, some latent atheistic secularised Christian, atheological Christian.

I don't want to build my worldview on fragments of a Christian metaphysics whose foundation - God - I do not affirm.

I want to be at least consistent no matter what I am - either consistent with my own Christianity, or with my lack thereof.

I want to take things to their full consequence, and accept the implications my de-Christianisation - for there are implications.

[Nodens]

5 G. Eliot. — They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there.

We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth — it stands and falls with faith in God.

When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem.

-F.W. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

[antonio]

It has also given me the realization of our ultimate freedom as humans, because the world is beyond good and evil. What a liberation!

But this liberation from good-evil chais is like taking drugs. Even concrete individuals like you, elites...could be prepared for liberalizing them, masses are obviously not. So I'll never be to publicly proclaim my inner liberation from such duality the same way I dont usually disclose that I test almost all illegal drugs out in the market.


If I hadn't gone through my Christian phase, I would have never questioned the kind of secularised Christian morality latent in nearly all of western society, individual sentiments, ethics and morals.

In Spain, Politic and Media are severely poisoned with this kind of secularised postchristian (even antichristian) ideology, being activists of Ateism the worst of them. They're a fucking plague. At times I regard with all my respect educated Agnostics like you.

[antonio]

You were a more interesting poster before Luteffere. Now you are an Agnostic wast of time. Pffh.

A great lose for Christianity is what he is, cause problem is not a quantitative but a qualitative one. If Church loss its most valuable individuals, it will become progressively just like a buffon for the most uneducated Atheists laugh on it (Pastafarianism and this kind of T-shirt seller shit) and that is very sad.

[Lutiferre]

But this liberation from good-evil chais is like taking drugs. Even concrete individuals like you, elites...could be prepared for liberalizing them, masses are obviously not. So I'll never be to publicly proclaim my inner liberation from such duality the same way I dont usually disclose that I test almost all illegal drugs out in the market.
I am delighted over my own (inner) liberation, but that doesn't mean I have any ambition to liberate "the masses". Who says the masses are capable of a "liberation" or freedom of the spirit; I think experience and history shows otherwise. And who says anything useful would come out of that freedom. Freedom has no value if it has no creative use.

[Murphy]

Shut up, Lutiferre :P.

[Lutiferre]

Shut up, Lutiferre :P.

I can do many things.

That, I can't. :p

[Murphy]

I can do many things.

That, I can't. :p

You're going to go the same way as our German friend :P.

[The Ripper]

I can relate to much what you say, Luti.

[Lutiferre]

You're going to go the same way as our German friend :P.

At least I will have fun and my insanity will be remembered for it's grandness

[Murphy]

I can relate to much what you say, Luti.

I lost Lutiferre, I will not lose you Riip :P!

[The Ripper]

At least I will have fun and my insanity will be remembered for it's grandness

Yeah, go Van Gogh.

[Lutiferre]

Yeah, go Van Gogh.

I'll pull a Van Gogh, and a Nietzsche, on the same time. I will be the earless Dionysus.

I will transcend the combined insanity of those two contemporaries and take insanity to a whole new level

[The Ripper]

I'll pull a Van Gogh, and a Nietzsche, on the same time. I will be the earless Dionysus.

I will transcend the combined insanity of those two contemporaries and take insanity to a whole new level

Have you read The Outsider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outsider_(Colin_Wilson)) by Colin Wilson? I think it would give you much to contemplate over. :)

[SuuT]

http://www.dialogica.com.ar/digicom/20060912120223-mr-burns.gif