Hero Professor In Hell Right Now

[NotReady]

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I realized jogger's post didn't directly speak to your post but it does speak to most of the other posts in this thread.


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P.S. - how come only you, me and jogger get this?

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Your points about the futility of a world without God seem reasonable to me


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[Subfallen]

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P.S. - how come only you, me and jogger get this?

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Um, what? According to your bizarrely grandiose notions of "meaning," life IS meaningless w/o God. By definition. There's nothing to get or not to get.

[Taraz]

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i don't think you'll find many mature christians who feel that organized religion (today) doesn't have many, many problems.

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Mature Christians do not worship a book.
Mature Christians do not attempt to twist words and meaning to make a book seem inerrant.
Mature Christians do not put any more importance on words written 2000 years ago than they do on words written today.
Mature Christians find the concept of Hell laughable.
Mature Christians pray (meditate) with no delusion that they will receive an "answer".
Mature Christians look inward for spiritual truth.
Mature Christians catagorically reject fundamentalist Christianity.

Is this the maturity you refer to?

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If most Christians felt this way, I wouldn't consider them to be so dangerous. Instead, the hateful and intolerant fundementalist movement only seems to be getting stronger with each passing year.

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Not to completely derail this thread, but do you (and anyone else who wants to chime in) believe that Christianity and religion inevitably lead to this fundamentalism? I think that is the most important question at hand.

In your eyes does it go Ignorance->Fundamentalism or Religion->Fundamentalism?

[ChrisV]

NotReady, I just don't understand the logic of absolutism. Justice is a slippery idea, certainly; so are many concepts in moral philosophy and indeed in any field that concerns people. This doesn't make it worthless. How, for instance, would you define happiness? Are you now going to suggest that happiness is a meaningless concept?

While justice cannot be defined exactly, there are a couple of fundamental concepts which should be included in anyone's definition of justice. The first is that the person responsible for a crime should be the one to receive the punishment. The second is that the punishment should be proportional to the crime. However, in mainstream interpretations of Christianity, God doesn't seem to agree with either of these precepts. So from my point of view, you're just redefining justice as "whatever God does", and in the process making it meaningless. Trading in a vague, possibly relativistic conception of justice for an absolutism that runs totally counter to my innate sense of justice doesn't seem like that sweet a trade to me.

The strange thing is that there's no way you yourself actually follow this idea of justice in your day to day life. Try this, for instance: a little girl becomes angry at her parents and runs away from home. When she returns a day or two later, as punishment her parents sell her into slavery in Africa. Do you think this is unjust, or do you not have an opinion until God makes a ruling? Given that the Bible is silent on the issue of slavery and very vocal on the issue of honouring one's parents, there should be no way you can currently determine whether this is just or not, is that correct? It's the same as when a theist drags up the old chestnut about atheists not being able to determine right from wrong. Invariably, when you look at how that person lives their life, they hold ideas about right and wrong that the Scriptures are either silent on or opposed to.

[yukoncpa]

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NotReady, I just don't understand the logic of absolutism. Justice is a slippery idea, certainly; so are many concepts in moral philosophy and indeed in any field that concerns people. This doesn't make it worthless. How, for instance, would you define happiness? Are you now going to suggest that happiness is a meaningless concept?

While justice cannot be defined exactly, there are a couple of fundamental concepts which should be included in anyone's definition of justice. The first is that the person responsible for a crime should be the one to receive the punishment. The second is that the punishment should be proportional to the crime. However, in mainstream interpretations of Christianity, God doesn't seem to agree with either of these precepts. So from my point of view, you're just redefining justice as "whatever God does", and in the process making it meaningless. Trading in a vague, possibly relativistic conception of justice for an absolutism that runs totally counter to my innate sense of justice doesn't seem like that sweet a trade to me.

The strange thing is that there's no way you yourself actually follow this idea of justice in your day to day life. Try this, for instance: a little girl becomes angry at her parents and runs away from home. When she returns a day or two later, as punishment her parents sell her into slavery in Africa. Do you think this is unjust, or do you not have an opinion until God makes a ruling? Given that the Bible is silent on the issue of slavery and very vocal on the issue of honouring one's parents, there should be no way you can currently determine whether this is just or not, is that correct? It's the same as when a theist drags up the old chestnut about atheists not being able to determine right from wrong. Invariably, when you look at how that person lives their life, they hold ideas about right and wrong that the Scriptures are either silent on or opposed to.



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Hey Chris, great post.

You say that you don’t believe in absolutism. Notready’s God, is an example of moral relativism. His God’s values are relative to his beliefs. There is no such thing as absolute moral values, but if there were, they would exist independently of Notready’s God.

[jogger08152]

By all means.

[txag007]

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I seem to recall you mentioning that Paul *had* to go westward to spread his word due to being prevented from travelling east. You then made the point that the United States is to the west. You even used a few of those exclamation points you enjoy using when you think you're making a remarkable point about your saviour. Apparently the fact that Paul travelled towards the United States is meaningful in some way. Or was I reading too much into your exclamation points?


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Paul took the Gospel to Europe. Europe brought it to America. Is that alone enough to understand why I believe that the founding of the United States was ordained by God? No, but you have to want to understand it first.

[RJT]

Chez and vhawk,

Fortunately for me my Religion is able to stand on its own and I don’t have to be its apologist (I most likely would fail miserably). This is a clear case of the often quoted term by Peter666 “baptism of desire”.

And btw chez, I must disagree with you, me “being nice” is indeed an effect of my Christianity.

RJT

[RJT]

Long quote from the Catholic Encylcopedia:

The baptism of desire (baptismus flaminis) is a perfect contrition of heart, and every act of perfect charity or pure love of God which contains, at least implicitly, a desire (votum) of baptism. The Latin word flamen is used because Flamen is a name for the Holy Ghost, Whose special office it is to move the heart to love God and to conceive penitence for sin. The "baptism of the Holy Ghost" is a term employed in the third century by the anonymous author of the book "De Rebaptismate". The efficacy of this baptism of desire to supply the place of the baptism of water, as to its principal effect, is proved from the words of Christ. After He had declared the necessity of baptism (John 3), He promised justifying grace for acts of charity or perfect contrition (John 14): "He that loveth Me, shall be loved of my Father: and I will love him and will manifest myself to him." And again: "If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him." Since these texts declare that justifying grace is bestowed on account of acts of perfect charity or contrition, it is evident that these acts supply the place of baptism as to its principal effect, the remission of sins. This doctrine is set forth clearly by the Council of Trent. In the fourteenth session (cap. iv) the council teaches that contrition is sometimes perfected by charity, and reconciles man to God, before the Sacrament of Penance is received. In the fourth chapter of the sixth session, in speaking of the necessity of baptism, it says that men can not obtain original justice "except by the washing of regeneration or its desire" (voto). The same doctrine is taught by Pope Innocent III (cap. Debitum, iv, De Bapt.), and the contrary propositions are condemned by Popes Pius V and Gregory XII, in proscribing the 31st and 33rd propositions of Baius.

We have already alluded to the funeral oration pronounced by St. Ambrose over the Emperor Valentinian II, a catechumen. The doctrine of the baptism of desire is here clearly set forth. St. Ambrose asks: "Did he not obtain the grace which he desired? Did he not obtain what he asked for? Certainly he obtained it because he asked for it." St. Augustine (IV, De Bapt., xxii) and St. Bernard (Ep. lxxvii, ad H. de S. Victore) likewise discourse in the same sense concerning the baptism of desire. If it be said that this doctrine contradicts the universal law of baptism made by Christ (John 3), the answer is that the lawgiver has made an exception (John 14) in favor of those who have the baptism of desire. Neither would it be a consequence of this doctrine that a person justified by the baptism of desire would thereby be dispensed from seeking after the baptism of water when the latter became a possibility. For, as has already been explained the baptismus flaminis contains the votum of receiving the baptismus aquæ. It is true that some of the Fathers of the Church arraign severely those who content themselves with the desire of receiving the sacrament of regeneration, but they are speaking of catechumens who of their own accord delay the reception of baptism from unpraiseworthy motives. Finally, it is to be noted that only adults are capable of receiving the baptism of desire.

[rpr]

I think it's logical to believe that one will never reach Heaven without being LIKE Jesus. Simply believing Jesus is God keeps you in a perpetual hell.

As the old Jewish saying goes, if I knew God I would be God.

Thus knowledge is the path to enlightenment not faith.