Christian Anarchy is the only sensible answer...

[thersites]

God then is also the creator of evil, don't you see-has to be. If you accept the notion of a monotheistic creator being, like the Judeao-Christian God (or even a amalgamation such as the trinity), that being must also be a duality-good and evil. Therefore, the idea of universal salvation is totally rational, and indeed is in keeping with the old testament version of a non-life afterlife, Sheol, though there there is no salvation, simply non-ness. Hell, I actually accept that concept, and I'm agnostic.

It's when you start trying to add subjective moral judgments onto what should be an internal attempt to understand life, that religion gets all nasty. You have control of you, try to do what you think is right...it's all you can do. Why bother about the eternal soul of somebody else...there are plenty of mortal folks who could use that same concern.

I do not believe that Evil is a thing in itself; it is not a created "thing", but merely the state of being opposed to God.  Evil actions are the result of evil motives.  So say I.

For fuck's sake...motives created by who? Who planted that seed in humanity? C'mon, you can do it. Go watch "Searching for Bobby Fischer", where the teacher tosses all the pieces off the board...do that-look at life without the bullshit, all human bullshit.

And accept, like Gene does, that the Bible was written, and perverted, by people..not God. If God is anywhere, it's within you. Otherwise you serve man's interests, not God's.

I say this not believing in God, or man, but rather just as a thinker. Do your work Cavalier, but think as you do it!

[cavalier973]

For fuck's sake...motives created by who? Who planted that seed in humanity? C'mon, you can do it. Go watch "Searching for Bobby Fischer", where the teacher tosses all the pieces off the board...do that-look at life without the bullshit, all human bullshit.

And accept, like Gene does, that the Bible was written, and perverted, by people..not God. If God is anywhere, it's within you. Otherwise you serve man's interests, not God's.

I say this not believing in God, or man, but rather just as a thinker. Do your work Cavalier, but think as you do it!

God created man with free will.  That means that man can oppose God's will.  I do not believe that God implanted into the heart of man the will to rebel, though.

For all of Gene's excellent qualities, it seems to me that if I merely follow his lead, then I am clearly not thinking for myself.  Of course the Scriptures were written by humans, but the writers did so at God's direction.  I accept the Scriptures not because I have any scientific data that shows they were written by God, but because I have the presupposition that God exists; that He desires to communicate with us, and that He uses humans to do so.  Since I believe that He can speak reality into existence, then I certainly can believe He can keep His scriptures free from false data inserted by fallible humans (that is, the Scriptures are inerrant in their original autographs; any errors found in today's texts would be due to things like copying errors).  I understand that the Bible is a book of faith; that it was written for the purpose of eliciting belief in the reader.  But at the same time, it looks to me as if the writers did their best to relate what really happened, rather than put a bunch of nice fairy stories together. The Gospel accounts each seem to differ in details about what was going on.  One says that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it immediately withered, another account says that it didn't wither until the next day.  One account has several women visiting the tomb on Sunday morning, another has only one woman, or different women, and differing amounts of angels appearing to the women.  One account has Jesus accosted by a blind man as he is entering Jericho, another has it as He left Jericho.  All these are not obstacles for me to believe.  The point for me is that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered; that the first people to visit the tomb were women, who experienced a supernatural visitation; that he healed a blind man around Jericho.  For me, this only makes the Gospels more believable; as if each writer was trying to get down what he remembered (traditionally, Matthew and John were apostles who wrote the gospels bearing their names; Mark was written by John Mark, but was either dictated by the apostle Peter, or was John Mark's recollection of some of Peter's sermons; Luke was a doctor who went around interviewing people to find out what happened and provide a chronology of the history of the Christian church's emergence to someone named "Theophilus"; he wrote the companion volume, "The Acts of the Apostles" detailing the church's history after Christ's ascension).  There is a phrase, "The Harmony of the Gospels"; I find it apt.  "Harmony" involves people singing different notes that blend into music.  If they all sang the same notes, then it would be "melody" not "harmony".  Besides, if each Gospel said exactly the same thing, it would be a barrier to faith, on the presumption that the writers colluded to "get the story straight."

As an aside, some of the problems that occur with understanding Scriptures are due not to how they were written, but how they were translated into other languages.
This is an interesting discussion of the problem of Luke's dating Jesus' advent and birth using the census that occured under Quirinius (the historian Josephus places Quirinius' census at a time when Jesus would have been around 10 years old, if one used Matthew's dating): http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/11/01/Once-More-Quiriniuss-Census.aspx

If you do not believe in God, then I am not inclined to accept your assertions of where God is and what His interests are.

[mikehz]

If you do not believe in God, then I am not inclined to accept your assertions of where God is and what His interests are.

Yes. It's like arguing what breed of rabbit the Easter bunny is.

[Rillion]

If you do not believe in God, then I am not inclined to accept your assertions of where God is and what His interests are.

Yes. It's like arguing what breed of rabbit the Easter bunny is.

That's theology in a nutshell....regardless of who is doing it. 

[ChristianAnarchist]

For all of Gene's excellent qualities, it seems to me that if I merely follow his lead, then I am clearly not thinking for myself.  Of course the Scriptures were written by humans, but the writers did so at God's direction.  I accept the Scriptures not because I have any scientific data that shows they were written by God, but because I have the presupposition that God exists; that He desires to communicate with us, and that He uses humans to do so.  Since I believe that He can speak reality into existence, then I certainly can believe He can keep His scriptures free from false data inserted by fallible humans (that is, the Scriptures are inerrant in their original autographs; any errors found in today's texts would be due to things like copying errors).  I understand that the Bible is a book of faith; that it was written for the purpose of eliciting belief in the reader.  But at the same time, it looks to me as if the writers did their best to relate what really happened, rather than put a bunch of nice fairy stories together. The Gospel accounts each seem to differ in details about what was going on.  One says that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it immediately withered, another account says that it didn't wither until the next day.  One account has several women visiting the tomb on Sunday morning, another has only one woman, or different women, and differing amounts of angels appearing to the women.  One account has Jesus accosted by a blind man as he is entering Jericho, another has it as He left Jericho.  All these are not obstacles for me to believe.  The point for me is that Jesus cursed a fig tree and it withered; that the first people to visit the tomb were women, who experienced a supernatural visitation; that he healed a blind man around Jericho.  For me, this only makes the Gospels more believable; as if each writer was trying to get down what he remembered (traditionally, Matthew and John were apostles who wrote the gospels bearing their names; Mark was written by John Mark, but was either dictated by the apostle Peter, or was John Mark's recollection of some of Peter's sermons; Luke was a doctor who went around interviewing people to find out what happened and provide a chronology of the history of the Christian church's emergence to someone named "Theophilus"; he wrote the companion volume, "The Acts of the Apostles" detailing the church's history after Christ's ascension).  There is a phrase, "The Harmony of the Gospels"; I find it apt.  "Harmony" involves people singing different notes that blend into music.  If they all sang the same notes, then it would be "melody" not "harmony".  Besides, if each Gospel said exactly the same thing, it would be a barrier to faith, on the presumption that the writers colluded to "get the story straight."

Amen

[ChristianAnarchist]

I disagree that we have not been "confronted with the truth about whether God exists and what He's like."  If one is willing to humor me and take the Scriptural narrative to be true, the whole history of the Old Testament details a people (Israel) who are continually confronted with the reality of God, and still continually reject Him. The Ten Commandments were spoken aloud by God to the people; they became frightened, and asked God to only speak to them through Moses afterward.  Moses went up onto the mountain to get further instruction.  Now, remember, the people of Israel saw the 10 plagues of Egypt (and experienced some of them), whereby God "defeated" 10 major Egyptian deities.  They saw the parting of the Red Sea, and through their journies up to that point, God displayed a physical manifestation (pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night) that demonstrated his presence among them.  Yet, when they got bored during Moses' absence, they started a big, religious sex orgy--while God was sitting over there as a pillar of cloud/fire.  The Religious Leaders didn't start plotting Jesus' murder until after He raised Lazarus from the dead--arguably an air-tight argument that Jesus' ministry came from God Himself, as no one else had power to raise the dead.  Unassailable proof of God's existence is insufficient for faith in Him.

This is one area that I try to present to people, that the creation itself is the greatest "testimony" for the existence of the Creator.  I marvel at the precision of our own solar system.  The orbit of the moon around our planet (unique beyond belief), the structure of the atoms, the complexity of life...  All of this and more screams "CREATOR" to me daily.  If there were no "bible" there is still the creation, and that's all I need to believe in Him...

[CaL DaVe]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j6ZEOXoNvw

Lyrics:
I hear this old story before
Where the people keep killing for the metaphors
Don't leave much up to the imagination,
So I, wanna give this imagery back
But I know it just ain't so easy like that
So, I turn the page and read the story again
And again and again
It sure seems the same, with a diff. name
We're breaking and rebuilding
And we're growing
Always guessing

Never knowing
Shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments
We're Clever but we're clueless
We're just human
Amusing but confusing
Were trying but where is this all leading
Never Know

It all happened so much faster
Than you could say disaster
Wanna take a time lapse
And look at it backwards
From the last one
And maybe thats just the answer
That we're after
But after all
We're just a bubble in a boiling pot
Just one breath in a chain of thought
The moments just combusting
Feel certain but we'll never never know
Just seems the same
Give it a diff. name
We're beggin and we're needing
And we're trying and we're breathing

Never knowing
Shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments
We're Clever but we're clueless
We're just human
Amusing but confusing
Helping, we're building
And we're growing
Never Know

Knock knock on the door to door
Tell ya that the metaphor is better than yours
And you can either sink or swim
Things are looking pretty grim
If you don't believe in what this one feeding
Its got no feeling
So I read it again
And again and again
Just seems the same
Too many different names
Our hearts are strong our heads are weak
We'll always be competing never knowing

Never knowing
Shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments
We're Clever but we're clueless
We're just human
Amusing but confusing
But the truth is
All we got is questions
We'll Never Know
Never Know
Never Know

[ChristianAnarchist]

Never knowing
Shocking but we're nothing
We're just moments
We're Clever but we're clueless
We're just human
Amusing but confusing
Were trying but where is this all leading
Never Know

I like this song.  I can apply this thinking to the current religion of "science".  These clueless guys who claim that somehow these little tiny microbes on this big planet (humans) could have an influence on the planet.  It would be absolutely hilarious if it weren't for the fact that they are trying to tax us into the ground paying to "clean up" a problem that doesn't even exist...

[John Shaw]

Aw geeze. Sorry Gene, that honestly wasn't meant for this thread. Was for the "Chaos" thread.

[ChristianAnarchist]

Hey, we all make mistakes...

[Rillion]

I like this song.  I can apply this thinking to the current religion of "science". 

[youtube=425,350]V0W7Jbc_Vhw&[/youtube]

[ChristianAnarchist]

Cute on that...

I have to say I disagree with both positions held in this little play.  The "realist" is nothing more than a snob worshiping himself as being soooooooo far above the rest of the rabble who are not able to comprehend the (self-perceived) wisdom that he possesses.  And the poor little waif is driven by her "feelings" to believe every claim made no matter how preposterous as long as it fits her little agenda....

I propose a better way to look at things.  How about we acknowledge that what men tell us is usually slanted by some bias they hold.  The scientist has a bias towards getting that funding grant he needs to keep in business, the floozy has a bias towards getting the pleasure and attention she seeks, the "snob" has a bias toward reading and remembering as much "knowledge" as he can get (usually published with grants) to impress his friends, and so on.  Yes, even I have a "bias" I hold and I look at things that support my bias.  So the "reality" then is somewhere in the middle with BS on both sides. 

Yes, science gets some things right and maybe, just maybe, after having a sufficient amount of evidence showing that the current holy grail is not correct (like "global warming") they might swing their new-found "knowledge" towards a different (although imperfect) conclusion with an equal amount of zeal (remember the coming ice-age of the 60's?) they will still be wrong.  And those who look for a "spiritual" answer to all life's questions will try another "religion" (let's try zen this time) in hopes that all life's answers lie therein.  The real truth (I believe) lies in the middle.  There's much to learn from the spiritual teachings of men past and present, and there's much to learn from the sciences. 

I've never claimed to "hate" science.  I find science very interesting.  I do not, however put my faith blindly in the hands of those men any more than I would blindly put my faith in the words of "W" (or fill in your favorite Nemesis).

[Rillion]

What you do that drives me crazy, Gene, is that you speak of science as some kind of monolithic entity with its own views on things.  You're aware-- or should be aware-- that science is a tool for learning about the universe.  Scientists are people who use science toward that end, and being people they have disagreements.  Not all of them receive public money; not all of them want grants, but even those who do are not necessarily wrong in their conclusions. 

Yes, there are people who will trust anything any scientist says.  Those people are idiots, just like people who will trust anything a preacher says.  That in itself has no bearing on the validity of science or religion, and it does not make science a religion any more than the fact that some people think critically in their theology makes theology a science. 

It's perfectly possible  to be suspicious of theories about global warming-- or any other theory whatsoever-- without speaking as though the problems with those theories have anything to do with the validity of science itself.  Yet you refuse to do so, for some reason. 

There is no "middle" between science and religion.  They're not opposite ends of some spectrum.  Religion encompasses both beliefs about existence and beliefs about how we're supposed to behave in that existence.  In the former sense it competes with science (and loses, in my opinion), but in the latter it does not.  Likewise, not all beliefs about how we're supposed to behave are religious. 

I'm not saying it's bad to be skeptical-- skepticism is great.  But you really tend to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  You don't have to disparage the tool to disagree with a person using it. 

[ChristianAnarchist]

I will guesstimate (prove me wrong here) that 95% plus of all "science" depends on some sort of grant in order to continue.  If this is not the case (and from what I see it is) then all my criticisms of science are unfounded.  If "scientists" are all a bunch of golly-gee-wiz good guys just interested in the truth of their observations and to hell with what the men with the dollars want, then I would have to admit that I'm wrong.  You are going to have a pretty tough time proving it though.  So many instances of perverted "science" is out there proving me right.  I love the "global warming" (oh-excuse me, now it's "global climate change" - snicker) example because it is such a fantastic example of what I'm presenting.  It just so happens that those pushing this so strongly of course have a "solution" in the form of "carbon credits" that they, of course, have complete control of the "trade" in which they will become even more wealthy than they are (at the expense of all us "little people" of course).

And if you happen to be one of the scientists who are in the 5% NOT funded by these grants and you just happen to conclude from your humble research that there IS NO man-induced influence on the planet's climate, well you will be labeled a "crackpot" by the 95% (at the urging of their peers) and your research will never be published in any "reputable" (read controlled) scientific journal. 

Certainly there is a call for wisdom in areas that are not defined by physical science.  There are things that cannot be measured or explained by these disciplines (try to measure "love" with your physical sciences).  It only makes LOGICAL sense that the existence of a Creator would be outside of the "creation" and could not be measured by physical science.  This fact would not make it untrue that there is or is not a "Creator", it only makes it unmeasurable.  In this you are correct that there is no "middle" between science and religion.  One is the study of the creation, and the other is an attempt (although an imperfect one) to understand the "Creator"...

[Rillion]

I will guesstimate (prove me wrong here) that 95% plus of all "science" depends on some sort of grant in order to continue.  If this is not the case (and from what I see it is) then all my criticisms of science are unfounded.

Gene, science began for all intents and purposes with Aristotle, whom I am pretty sure was not attempting to get a grant.  Your criticisms are not of science; they are of scientists.  And while it is important to consider where a scientist's funding comes from when considering his/her conclusions, that does not in itself invalidate any conclusion that a scientist reaches.  You need to acknowledge that.