Does the "Why" of believing matter?

Originally posted by rwingett
I, personally, would have a lot more respect for many Christians if they admitted to having some doubts. You'd be able to tell that they were thinking at least a little. But it seems to me that many Christians think of it like a house of cards - if they admit to any doubt whatsoever then the whole edifice will come crumbling down around them. Or perhaps the or living with a certain amount of doubt, is abhorrent to them. I find it difficult to fathom.

It's an interesting observation and I do recognise it too, not ust in christians, christian sects, or not just in religious people for that matter but in human nature. I used to call it the 'eggshell factor', i.g. one crack and it's strength is gone. It is a vunerable mind-set stemming from intelectual pride rather than faith in the power of God.

Speaking personally and from the christian perspective, I relaxed about stuff when I realised it's not about ME it's about GOD, it's not about my knowledge or understanding, it's about his ability to keep me and to keep his word.

It's important fro a christian to understand why they believe and to be able to give account and even some doctrine is important. But Christian's could stop thinking they are responsible for others peoples salvation, they are not, they didn't die for them! God is responsible and he is able to meet his responisibilities, his way.

Imo and generalising, the attitude you refer to is a human trait not a religous one, albeit many religious people can exhibit it.

Originally posted by josephw
[b]"Are not some theists really claiming that what I should believe is—them? What they say the scriptures say? What they claim “God” is?"

Well, since I can't get a reponse to my reply to the questions raised in the body of your original post, I'll just answer this question.



"NO" Why would a "theist" expect you or anyone else to believe t ck of Biblical truth can have on a civilisation.

Where the Bible is there is light![/b]

This is my fault for opening with too many questions, which I noted were really just intended to be one question--asked from a number of angles--about whether why one believes is important in a religion that claims that God requires belief. And I don't expect everyone to try to answer each and all of the questions that I posed. I was just after a general discussion.

I am not responding to every post on each line of questioning that I put down. Some of the answers I may just think are fine. I really wanted to see what a range of answers might be; and respond to some of them.

But I will go back and try to address questions you raised in your replies.

Originally posted by black beetle
By a QBLH view, the "Child" is the symbol of the sixth sephira;
when you see the tree the "Child" stands between hesed and gevourah, whilst with your back towards it, it balances between qeter and yesoud; in addition the "Child" is the synthesis of hod and netzah

we should not assume that the "Child" itself is solely a unique agent, but rather a po ...[text shortened]... en thanks to their ever "questioning this and that" nature
😵

Yes, but I suspect that only you and I know what you're talking about here... 😉

Originally posted by Badwater
Then articulate yourself better. Your ineffectual use of the English language ain't on me.

And....I'm way to old to be 'Kiddo' to you. 😠

Just watch it. I'm through being verbally abused. Now that I know what recourse I have, I'll not have to put up with it any longer. So, "say the wrong thing, Bad; just say the wrong thing."

Originally posted by vistesd
This is my fault for opening with too many questions, which I noted were really just intended to be one question--asked from a number of angles--about whether why one believes is important in a religion that claims that God requires belief.

I am not responding to every post on each line of questioning that I put down. Some of the answers I may j ...[text shortened]... o some of them.

But I will go back and try to address questions you raised in your replies.

Josephw: Aren't we all programmed and conditioned to one degree or another?

Well, I was; and I suspect that you are right—from multiple sources. There is a political assertion: “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. I take that to apply to freedom from conditioning as well. You keep trying to see it where you can, and challenge it when you see it.

I believe that is true, but what if one trains up their child in error?

I think that, along the long development process, one might teach their children, as best they can, to question, challenge and reason. They might conclude that you taught them “error”. But, do you really expect that your children should/will just accept—for their whole adult lives—what you “trained them up in” without question?

If error is the issue (God will not tolerate error?), then you get into what I call “thought righteousness”: “think right and be saved”, etc.

A [true] story: At the church I attended—oh, 15 years ago or so—they would hold a communal Passover seder every year, and invite the local (Reform) rabbi over to talk about Passover and the seder meal from a Jewish perspective. One year, he couldn’t make it, and sent over a couple of teenagers from his congregation. During Q & A, as they offered varying interpretations of some Biblical texts, one of the adults asked: “Where do you guys learn all this? How do you come up with these multiple interpretations?” And one of the teenagers just said: “Oh, we’re taught to question everything. That’s part of studying Torah.”

Is there really any such thing as "bad" reasoning? It seems to me that bad reasoning leads to wrong conclusions. On the human level we are flawed. As a result we reason poorly. That is why we need to acknowledge the truth.

Let’s see if I can simplify— Your claims could be seen as reducing to:

(1) I cannot learn the truth for myself.

(2) Therefore I must be told the truth by some authority.


(3) Since I cannot learn the truth for myself, I cannot by myself learn whether or not any putative authority is telling the truth. [By (1)]

(4) Therefore I must be told by some authority whether or not any putative authority is telling the truth. [By (1) and (3)]


(5) Since…

…and round and round and round, ad infinitum.

Now, one can close the loop by simply fiat: one simply decides—on their own recognizance!—that this authority will be accepted as final. If one does that, however, one admits that one cannot know if the authority they’ve chosen to follow is itself telling the truth.

If one assumes A as a premise, then one can perhaps proceed to construct valid and consistent arguments based on “If A, then T”, etc. But none of that can prove A as a fact. In terms of a metaphor I often use, the map cannot prove itself.

.
And we could, with only minor alteration, insert words like “certainty” and “exclusivity” into the inference that I started with, and round and round it goes again… As I have shown, it can also be done whether one asserts that it is the Holy Spirit that confirms scripture, or scripture that confirms their experience of the Holy Spirit… [“How do you know it was the Holy Spirit?” “well, because…”]

If you know the truth about something, do you challenge that truth? On the other hand, if you are not sure about something, then by all means keep questioning it until you know the truth.

I challenge things that I think I know the truth about. I don’t keep challenging everything, but most things are open for re-think from time to time.

Originally posted by knightmeister
If someone makes a claim about God (or Jesus, or the Bible) that seems to some of us unreasonable, does God not want such claims to be challenged? --------visted--------

Of course , the Bible is full of questions and railing against God. The Jewish people were always either angry at him or pleading with him or asking pertinent questions. Real Christianity is actually a dynamic hotbed of doubts and questions not some compliant nonsense.

Good response.

Originally posted by rwingett
One of the more interesting theodicies I've heard is that god is not all-loving, or is not wholly good. It's obviously clear that the tribal Jewish god was a capricious and wrathful fellow who falls far short of moral perfection. The early christians set themselves an impossible task by appropriating the Jewish texts and trying to reconcile them with a conc ...[text shortened]... de=love. The question that I have is how they managed to bamboozle so many people for so long.

One of the more interesting theodicies I've heard is that god is not all-loving, or is not wholly good.

I heard a story—and stories should be taken an examined as stories!—that I can only recall as best I can from memory. A Hasidic Rebbe (the Rebbe of Berditchev, I think) asked a simple cobbler what he had done on Yom Kippur that year.

The cobbler said: “I said to God, Ribbono shel Olam (“master of the universe” ), I know that I have done some things that I shouldn’t have, that I have dome some wrong things. But you! You have permitted genocide in your name, you have drowned young children, you have been responsible for horrible things. So, I think you should just forgive and forget my sins, and we’ll call it quits.”

The Rebbe bowed his head in contemplation for a moment, and then replied: “Why did you let God off so easy? With an argument like that, you could have redeemed the whole world.”

___________________________________________________

It's obviously clear that the tribal Jewish god was a capricious and wrathful fellow who falls far short of moral perfection.

When people began personalizing the forces of nature into gods, the pantheons captured all of “capricious” nature—and assigned humanesque motivations, emotions, etc. During the henotheistic period, the tribe saw their tribal deity as both the baddest and the best.

At some point, some folks decided that there really was just “one of It”, and came to either monotheism or non-dualism (monism) of varying types. “I form light and create darkness, I make well-being [shalom] and create woe [ra: the bad]; I YHVH do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7) And it should be noted that nondualists have often kept the aesthetic richness of relational pictures of the human-divine, without reading them otherwise than as rich aesthetic expressions)


The stories of the Torah are—stories; what David S. Ariel calls “the sacred myths of Israel”. All the stories are included: the good, the bad and the ugly. But, by the time you have such high literature as the Yahwist strand of the Torah, or Qohelet (“Ecclesiastes”; perhaps one of the earliest inquiries into existential philosophy), you are dealing with bright minds who raised the same questions that we do—albeit often in the form of myth, epic saga, symbol and allegory—and story.

Now, although I have several hermeneutical principles that I apply (at least loosely) in reading these stories, I mainly take a literary-critical approach, coupled with a “post-modern”, existentialist approach to traditional midrash (following rabbi and scholar Marc-Alain Ouakinin). I also look for what I call “hermeneutical gems” that are embedded, sometimes almost hidden—and often overlooked—in the broader narrative fabric.

__________________________________________


Think of the story of the slaughter of the Amalekites. Imagine it as a story, of the kind that was once told around campfires. Think of the storyteller saying, near the end of the tale: “Then YHVH said to Moses, "Write this as a reminder in a book and recite it in the hearing of Joshua: I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven." (Exodus 17:14)

The some brash teenager says: “Wait a minute! Then why do we keep re-telling this story?!”

The storyteller smiles, and says: “Good! Let me ask you: What do you think the point is of including that line in the story—and repeating it down the generations?”

Another voice: “Maybe that we should be careful about what we think—or even what our ancestors thought or claimed—are commands of God? Like, if the folks in the story thought that’s what God wanted—well, then why contradict it by setting down that part of the story…”

Somebody else says: “Or maybe we’re not supposed to blindly obey even when God commands, if we think it is wrong. Like Abraham arguing with God over Sodom…”

And somebody else: “Or like Abraham failing to stand up to God instead of agreeing to kill Isaac…”

And a debate ensues… People start quoting from the Talmuds and the Midrashim… Some begin to spin new midrash… The storyteller has done his job.

________________________________________________________


From the point of view of reading that story as a story, that line about blotting out the remembrance of Amalek just leaps out. That is what I call a hermeneutical gem. One could say it is almost an example of deconstruction embedded in the seemingly simple structure of the story. And the rabbinical approach to reading Torah is often akin to post-modernist approaches. The reader is an active and creative force in the ongoing evolution of the story (“One must bring one’s own torah to the [written] Torah, and out of that engagement, new, real Torah is engendered.” ) There is really no such thing as the "one right interpreation".

If one reads this stuff as literal history, on the other hand…

I simply don’t, anymore than I would read the Gita as literal history.

Originally posted by vistesd

This makes no sense. For one thing, if his “plan” had been perfect, it would’ve worked—unless his perfect plan includes such things as rejection, error, failure and sin. To say that he has a plan for reparation built in is no argument: we repair what has failed, so the need for repair means that God’s “perfect” plan failed.

Also, the choice-set of sin t ...[text shortened]... they are, then choice is, in fact, eliminated—since it is clear that our choices are not unlimited.

Perhaps I can explain it better?

When I talk of freedom of choice I am only talking of the ability to reject a God of love. Such rejection comes by way of sin such as murder, theft, lying etc. It is the relationship between God and the created that I am speaking of and not other choice-sets that have nothing to do with this relationship such as walking across the ocean or flying like a bird by flapping your arms etc. Specifically, Christ mentions that the law of love rules all other commandments and if we honor this one commandment, we will in no way sin. Interestingly, when Christ was asked how one should love God his reply was to keep his commandments. In other words, practice the commandments that are rooted in love such as, do not kill, do not steal etc. God was once described as love in John, therefore, this is his focus, this is his purpose, this is his plan. Paul even eludes to this fact in 1 Corinthians 13 when he defines what love means and that it alone will survive into eternity as all other things pass away. Therefore, this is the one choice-set that we MUST be allowed to break otherwise, we would do God's bidding, which is to walk in love no matter our other life choices such as what to wear, what to eat etc. If we were not given the choice of breaking the law of love we would continue his perfect plan as if programmed to do so.

So the question begs, if his plan was perfect, why did it fail? After all, he is all powerful and all knowing. My answer would be that this is ONLY because God CHOSE to give us the power to reject his plan. Otherwise, such sins would be attributed to God. Now you could say that because God allowed us to choose sin it is his fault, however, I would disagree. I would say that the law of love demands that we are able to reject love otherwise love is not possible. After all, can you give me a scenario in which mutual love is possible where both parties do not have a choice to love one back? Of course, one may love while the other does not. In fact, the Bible paints God as the loving party where other may not be, however, to have a mutual loving relationship this cannot be so and if it is not a mutual loving relationship then one party has rejected the law of love somewhere down the pike which will involve negative consequences for both parties.

Having said that, God's plan is not complete. In fact, it is a work in progress. Biblically, after the fall of man God began by working through one or two men. Then he expanded by working through a people. Then he expanded by working through a nation. Then he expanded by reaching out to the world via the Messiah. It is a slow and painful process of reparation but it is in action as we speak and it seems that it will eventually end in a world of perfection without sin according to Revelation. In fact, if sin is the reason for our suffering then it would behoove a God of love to destroy it.

Originally posted by vistesd

The only way out here is to limit God:

(1) God could not prevent evil and suffering;

(2) God did not know that evil and suffering would result from how he set it up;

(3) God intended evil and suffering.[/b]

I would say the #1 is the closest to the truth. It goes something like this.

1. God is love, therefore God seeks out mutually loving relationships.
2. Loving mutual relationships demand the choice of noncompliance. Otherwise, it is no choice, rather, it is only a reflex.
3. Since God is a God of love he felt compelled to allow for noncompliance according to ones own free will, hence, creation fell into sin.

Originally posted by rwingett
Did you ever consider that these tales of curing the blind are not meant to be taken literally? They are metaphors for getting people to see his message properly. Jesus altered their understanding, not their eyeballs. But you have corrupted the tale by literalizing it and turning it into a tawdry 'miracle'. It is you, divegeester, who needs his blindness healed.

Perhaps you should write a "metaphoric" Bible according to rwingett? You know, put footnotes and such mocking the literal reading.

Originally posted by whodey
I would say the #1 is the closest to the truth. It goes something like this.

1. God is love, therefore God seeks out mutually loving relationships.
2. Loving mutual relationships demand the choice of noncompliance. Otherwise, it is no choice, rather, it is only a reflex.
3. Since God is a God of love he felt compelled to allow for noncompliance according to ones own free will, hence, creation fell into sin.

Such rejection comes by way of sin such as murder, theft, lying etc.

If child torture—specifically that sin, say—were left off the list of that “such as”, would that mean that we had no free will, or that we could not freely accept/reject the God of love?

In fact, if sin is the reason for our suffering then it would behoove a God of love to destroy it.

And God cannot freely do that without destroying the sinner? I have to “believe” first, in order to be healed? Did the Samaritan (God/Christ) ask if the man lying unconscious in the ditch “believed” before taking care of him?

What if only loving choices were in our choice-set, but we could choose how/whom to love without harm?

I would say the #1 is the closest to the truth.

As long as you pick one. 😉 Then you can of course offer explanations for your choice. Thdere do seem to be people who think they can avoid making the choice. (BTW, your choice—though I don’t recall that it’s the same explanation of it—is the one made by Harold Kushner in Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.

However, the one thing that I’ll keep hounding you on is that there is no requirement in the “love equation” that the lover must punish, or even stop caring for, the beloved. In a scheme that includes eternity and eternal life, there is no reason that anyone has ever given on here even once that God’s love must stop being efficacious, or that God can no longer heal sin, once the threshold of death has been crossed. The only answer that has ever been given is pretty much, “That’s just the way it is.” Okay—some have opted for some version of C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce, and—taking account of the fact that he was writing essentially a parable that can be read and expanded in a number of ways—that seems to me to be a far more reasonable option.

Originally posted by whodey
Perhaps you should write a "metaphoric" Bible according to rwingett? You know, put footnotes and such mocking the literal reading.

Two Kinds of Literalism


Two people go to the theatre. They watch a certain play along with everyone else. When they exit the theatre, each one is asked by someone: “What do you think of the play?”

The first person replies: “Why, that was just awful. People up on a stage, fake backdrops, special lighting—who could believe anything like that is real? It’s just fake, all fake! There can be no point to it at all”

The second person replies: “Play? What play? That was real. That was really reality. Don’t call it a ‘play’. A play is just a lie. That was reality and truth right there! You'll never convince me that was just a play!”

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Such rejection comes by way of sin such as murder, theft, lying etc.

If child torture—specifically that sin, say—were left off the list of that “such as”, would that mean that we had no free will, or that we could not freely accept/reject the God of love?

So what I think you are suggesting is that God could have only allowed for "tasteful" sins? The sin that Adam and Eve committed in the Garden seems tame to pretty much any sin I can think of yet look where it led. In the eyes of a holy God sin is sin. Of course, this leads to an interesting question which is, where does God draw the line? In such events as Sodom and Ghomorrah and Noah's ark I think we are provided some answers.

Originally posted by vistesd
[

And God cannot freely do that without destroying the sinner? I have to “believe” first, in order to be healed? Did the Samaritan (God/Christ) ask if the man lying unconscious in the ditch “believed” before taking care of him?

What if only loving choices were in our choice-set, but we could choose how/whom to love without harm?

I would say that the example of the Good Samaritan was that God was giving us a choice to chose him. After all, from a Biblical perspective sin enslaves thus without being freed our freedom of choice is nonexistent.

Originally posted by vistesd

However, the one thing that I’ll keep hounding you on is that there is no requirement in the “love equation” that the lover must punish, or even stop caring for, the beloved. In a scheme that includes eternity and eternal life, there is no reason that anyone has ever given on here even once that God’s love must stop being efficacious, or that God can no long ...[text shortened]... an be read and expanded in a number of ways—that seems to me to be a far more reasonable option.[/b]

The lover must see to it that sin is destroyed. Otherwise, he is continuing to allow suffering. Having said that, if there be those who persist in such sin, what is the lover to do? In addition, we are told Biblically that God chastises those whom he loves much like an earthy father. After all, if you had a son who was getting out of hand what would you do if you loved him? Sure, his offenses may seem trivial but if you have insight and wisdom you may see that it will lead to more serious issues if not corrected.