religion and faith (also long)

[The_Architect]

Madnak,

I plan to architect on to you a world of pain.

[Davidius]

HAHAHA!! Will Ferrell played an excellent Achitect, did he not?

[pilliwinks]

I agree that God must know that many are skeptical by nature and nurture. My impression is that he is not bothered by this, but is sad, because although the maturity of thought is welcome, for many of these folk the loss of innocence has made them cynical as well as skeptical, and that is a poor kind of life.

The bible indicates that God has no problems with skepticism, on the contrary we are exhorted to test everything (1Thess 5:21). I guess the problem comes if you are unable/unwilling to accept results that are challenging.

From what you've said it seems that biblical stories are unlikely to count for much for you, nor emotional outpourings from charismatic televangelists. But I recommend reserving judgement until you try out your skepticism on people working for the Salvation Army. I know they're far from being the only selfless volunteers, but the combination of enthusiastic faith and practical hard work achieves concrete things that challenge the view that these are just made up stories.

[pilliwinks]

In 'most people' I include those that are not particularly skeptical. Whis is most people, in my experience.

Plenty of skeptics seem to be unable to believe anything (including that they are unable to believe anything [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

I would be interested to know what things you know are true but are unable to believe.

If I had reasons to believe that 2+2=5, I would definitely consider what might have led to the contradiction rather than dismissing it out of hand.

I understand that you feel that there are contradictions in the descriptions that Christianity gives for God. Fine. All that means is that either you haven't understood what the conflicting statements were intended to convey, or one or more of them was mistaken. God does not vanish just because we attribute foolish attitudes or qualities to him.

In science we are accustomed to our descriptions of objects changing as we get to understand them better. The objects do not change, we do. Consequently I have no problem with the old testament describing a jealous God of wrath, while the new testament focusses on the God of love. All the bleeding hearts should note that we are also told that the new covenant supercedes the old.

I am not saying that there is no such thing as punishment for evil, but I am saying that it comes from a loving father, who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. You say it is contradictory for God to love someone and to punish them, but I say we simply do not know the constraints. If it were possible for God to give people the freedom to reject him, and yet still somehow live eternally in harmony with him, I guess he would have done that. Since that's not how the bible tells it, I'm guessing that there are constraints that eternity, holiness and truth put on what can happen.

This is not 2+2=5. It is more like saying black holes can't exist because of what happens on the inside. We have such poor data (and even theory), that such an attitude is more rash than skeptical.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that God must know that many are skeptical by nature and nurture. My impression is that he is not bothered by this, but is sad, because although the maturity of thought is welcome, for many of these folk the loss of innocence has made them cynical as well as skeptical, and that is a poor kind of life.

The bible indicates that God has no problems with skepticism, on the contrary we are exhorted to test everything (1Thess 5:21). I guess the problem comes if you are unable/unwilling to accept results that are challenging.

From what you've said it seems that biblical stories are unlikely to count for much for you, nor emotional outpourings from charismatic televangelists. But I recommend reserving judgement until you try out your skepticism on people working for the Salvation Army. I know they're far from being the only selfless volunteers, but the combination of enthusiastic faith and practical hard work achieves concrete things that challenge the view that these are just made up stories.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not particularly cynical about religous people, one of the finest most decent human beings I know is a vicar.

and I've talked with many including salvation army and similar hard-working people whose hard work, entusiasm and dedication is very impressive. Nothing suggests that they have any special access to the truth, they're just decent people with a strong faith. I've also met similarly impressive people with no faith.

I have noticed a strong correlation between decent religous people, and a willingness to concede that their religous beliefs are a matter of faith (some claim private experiences as well). This may be some sort of bias on my part.

As many of these decent enthusiastic hard working people have different (or no) religon, then there's no way a benevolent god could only reward the ones who happen to have the right beliefs - to argue otherwise would be truly cynical.

chez

[madnak]

I can't reconcile hell with a loving father. Hell evokes horror and fear and a deep sense of wrongness in me. That's not quite the same as 2+2=4, I'll grant, it's very emotional. But it's also very fundamental. I can't see it in a positive light, the entire concept is too awful.

It's possible there's a benevolent God working within restrictions He can't control, and that hell is a necessary consequence of these restrictions. However, by my definition, such a being wouldn't be God. The source of those restrictions, or perhaps even the restrictions themselves, would be God. Here God isn't the architect, He's just doing the best He can within a pre-existing architecture.

But if God is in fact the Creator, the one who sets the rules, then He's the one who defines the nature of eternity, holiness and truth! None of them existed before God, . Thus hell can never be an unfortunate necessity - God, being God, could create a universe with all the value and meaning of this one, but without hell. He's God, that goes without saying! If He can't do that, then there are rules He must follow and therefore there exists something greater than God. Whatever that thing is, if hell exists it's not benevolent.

[revots33]

[ QUOTE ]
But you're leaving out the other side: the God who is love. Not occasionally has a burst of love in between angry spells. Is love.


[/ QUOTE ]

Here is my problem with this argument (and keep in mind I am a lifelong Catholic who has only recently started to experience doubts in my faith):

Just one of many examples: On Dec 26, 2004 over 200,000 people were killed by the earthquake/tsunami in the Indian Ocean. Many of these were innocent children, including infants, who were swept away and drowned.

Now this had nothing to do with free will, or man's tendency to turn his back on God. If God is love, and he is all-powerful, why would he allow this to happen? I think we can all agree that drowning to death in a tidal wave sounds like a horrible way for an innocent child to die. Even if it was in God's plan for those children to die at that time, what explination could there be for the horrible terror and suffering they must have suffered as they died? For an all-powerful God who is love, I find it hard to understand.

The idea that God is both all-powerful and all-loving is one I'm having difficulty with lately. If he was all-powerful he would prevent those innocents from drowning to death. If he was all-loving he would not want them to suffer.

So it seems to me that if God exists, he must be 1 or the other, but not both.

Or perhaps he is just apathetic towards us, and we overestimate how high a priority our human sufferings are to him.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
i also think it's possible that what we call "damnation" is the state of separation from god that god allows us to "opt into." and maybe if god said "screw it, i love everyone so nobody is going to be able to choose not to be with me, since i'm ulitmately what's good for them" then there would be no point to the universe.

[/ QUOTE ]

And THAT is the issue I have with religion,. It makes it seems that there is a point and that that point is damning some! Definitely not what you'd call being inclusive. Religion at its core is negative! It is just well hidden.