Does the "Why" of believing matter?

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]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 tha ...[text shortened]... lie. That was reality and truth right there! You'll never convince me that was just a play!”[/b]

Conversely, there are those who watched the moon landing and insist that it never really happened. 😉

Originally posted by whodey
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.

There is a huge leap from “child torture” to just “tasteful sins”. I suspect that your reaction to considering child torture is about the same as mine: a feeling of disgust. Disgust is one of the basic emotions “hard-wired” into humanity. Are you at all suggesting that God, humanity, the world would somehow be “worse” if everyone was hard-wired for a strong disgust reaction to child torture? Worse in any way at all?

I don’t think so.

Stick with #1. It’s a valid choice; but not if you try to turn it into “in order for there to be real love there has to be the possibility of child torture too”. With or without a God, love may be the highest thing that human beings are capable of: but that does not entail that humans cannot love without recognizing the need for child torture.

And, in the face of all the talk about sin and human sinfulness and sin-nature and such, it needs to be recognized that human beings also love, are characterized by a human lovingness and love-nature—and not just (or even predominantly?) Christians, or other theists. The notion of a one-sided human nature seems ludicrous. One’s particular experiences in life may color one’s view, but that does not mean that the view is less biased, on one side or the other.

Originally posted by whodey
Conversely, there are those who watched the moon landing and insist that it never really happened. 😉

Well, my point is just that both kinds of literalism--the dismissive and the accepting--miss the point.

Originally posted by whodey
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 act, if sin is the reason for our suffering then it would behoove a God of love to destroy it.

"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.... 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."

This is interesting. Maybe you can help explain something to me. Many Christians seem to believe that they can continue to commit sin and have "eternal life" / "heaven" / "salvation". According to the above, those who do continue to commit sin, do not follow the commandments of God, do not love God and in fact reject God. How can they have "eternal life" / "heaven" / "salvation" when they have rejected God? Do they really love or believe in a God that they continue to reject no matter how much they profess love and belief for God?

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]There is a huge leap from “child torture” to just “tasteful sins”. I suspect that your reaction to considering child torture is about the same as mine: a feeling of disgust. Disgust is one of the basic emotions “hard-wired” into humanity. Are you at all suggesting that God, humanity, the world would somehow be “worse” if everyone was hard-wired for a strong disgust reaction to child torture? Worse in any way at all?

I don’t think so.

I would say that we all have an innate sense of right and wrong that is hard wired into us. However, this sometimes goes awry. For example, the Bible gives us examples of people who commit "sins" over and over again even though their conscience tells them that what they are doing is "bad". However, over time, this inner voice grows more and more silent until it disappears altogether. Until this inner voice is silenced, mankind has a wealth of coping mechanisms for dealing with it. For example, murder produces a feeling of disgust for most everyone that I know....unless you are a murderer. Then the sin diminishes in terms of disgust as you become familiar with it. In fact, what I often see occur is a technique called rationalization. For example, the Holocaust comes to mind. The Holocaust produces a feeling of disgust in everyone that I know just like torturing children yet it happened. Why? It is because the power of rationalization was evoked. To achieve the goal, the first order of business is to dehumanize them. In fact, simply compare those you wish to abuse/torture/kill to vermon or worse. Then you are free to silence this inner voice via your own logic. What prompts all this though is an agenda of some kind that trumps your conscience. Maybe you gain pleasure from it? Maybe you gain wealth from it? Maybe you gain power from it etc.? In effect, you need a catalyst of some kind to get you from disgust to the desired goal that produces that feeling of disgust. I see this catalyst often as the self centered agenda that sometimes trumps the law of love that we all are born with and struggle with to varying degrees.

Originally posted by vistesd

And, in the face of all the talk about sin and human sinfulness and sin-nature and such, it needs to be recognized that human beings also love, are characterized by a human lovingness and love-nature—and not just (or even predominantly?) Christians, or other theists. The notion of a one-sided human nature seems ludicrous. One’s particular experiences in lif ...[text shortened]... color one’s view, but that does not mean that the view is less biased, on one side or the other.[/b]

I would agree. In fact, I would argue that we "love" because we were made in the image of a God of love. It comes naturally to us. In fact, Christ even said as much when he said that those who practice wickedness often give good gifts to their own children so how much more would a God of love treat his own? So the question begs as to why we sin against this law of love and I think I helped answer this in my above post.

As for what separates the Christian in terms of love from the nonbeliever, I would say that loving ones enemies comes to mind. After all, who would chose to show love to someone that produces a feeling of disgust in them? It is in itself, unnatural in this respect. In fact, we are not hard wired to do so? Why would we be because we were not hard wired to deal with sin. For me, this type of love is a supernatural kind of love that Christ speaks of and through him we can obtain.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne

This is interesting. Maybe you can help explain something to me. Many Christians seem to believe that they can continue to commit sin and have "eternal life" / "heaven" / "salvation". According to the above, those who do continue to commit sin, do not follow the commandments of God, do not love God and in fact reject God. How can they have "eternal life" / hat they continue to reject no matter how much they profess love and belief for God?[/b]

I can sympathize with the anger that is often felt when confronted by apparent hypocrisy....if this is what you are feeling. In fact, Christ was the hardest on those who claimed to represent the interests of God but, in fact, only represented their own interests. Having said that, I would say that there is a huge difference between those who strive to represent God's interests and those who love themselves more and therefore, place their own agendas before God's agenda. In other words, I feel that sin enslaves us as Christ pointed out. As a follower of Christ we are to look upon them with compassion, however, if they revel in this enslavement as opposed to abhorring it, it is quite another thing altogether. I think Christ gave an illustration of this when those who come to him cry, Lord, Lord, but he will say to them, "I never knew you, you WORKERS of iniquity." We even see examples of this with the disciple Peter. When he was asked if he knew Christ when Christ was being taken on the cross he became fearful and lied about the situation. He, in fact, denied his Master and then cursed at them in order to save his own skin. However, when confronted with what he had done it destroyed him because he loved the Master more than himself. In fact, this is apparent as he later was killed for his faith in Christ. So to answer your question, if you had run up against someone like Peter who sinned before you, there are two scenarios that could play out. Peter did not have to repent from his wrong doing yet even though he committed a sin did not mean that he was not a true follower of Christ.

Originally posted by whodey
I can sympathize with the anger that is often felt when confronted by apparent hypocrisy....if this is what you are feeling. In fact, Christ was the hardest on those who claimed to represent the interests of God but, in fact, only represented their own interests. Having said that, I would say that there is a huge difference between those who strive to repre g yet even though he committed a sin did not mean that he was not a true follower of Christ.

You really haven't answered the question here. Earlier you equated sin with the rejection of God. Those who continue to commit sin are therefore rejecting God. While Jesus taught that sin enslaves us, He also taught that by continuing in His word, one will be set free from this enslavement. That one will no longer be rejecting God. If you believe it possible to stop continuing to commit sin, then you believe that those who continue to commit sin are rejecting God and do not truly love / believe Jesus and therefore God. If you believe it impossible to stop continuing to commit sin, then you not only do you not believe Jesus, you do not believe man has "free will" according to your definition. This position does not make sense. Taking "striving" into account does not change this.

How can they have "eternal life" / "heaven" / "salvation" when they have rejected God? Do they really love or believe in a God that they continue to reject no matter how much they profess love and belief for God?

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

This is fine with me; everybody has to work -no work, no food

Nothing Holy
😵

Originally posted by black beetle
This is fine with me; everybody has to work -no work, no food

Nothing Holy
😵

You are right, and I shouldn’t have sounded dismissive. Some of my overlong posts are likely due to leaning so far the other way (all the prefatory/explanatory comments). And I really have very seldom, if ever, proffered a sod reading of any text on here.

Tiferet is called child because of being born from Hochmah and Binah. Tiferet is also Yakov, harmonizing between Avraham (gedulah/chesed) and Yitzak (din/gevurah). Had Avraham had sufficient gevurah—here, power of restraint; and din—here, moral judgment, he would’ve said “No” to the voice of the elohim. But I have difficulty seeing Yitzak as embodying gevurah…

Tiferet may balance between keter and malchut, but only via da’at and yesod.

Without gedulah/chesed, there is no creative activity; without gevurah/din, there is no-thing created to become manifest. Without the harmonizing of tiferet, what might be created has insufficient coherence to take form.

Without netzach, there is no feeling, no liveliness so to speak; without hod there is no rationality to the formation (yetzirah). Tiferet harmonizes these as well.

All takes form in yesod, and is actualized as malchut. A dynamic, continuing process. In the “return trip”, da’at becomes the yesod (“foundation” ) for atzilut.

__________________________________________________

Now, I will have to search out some of the child/son references in Torah, and look at them through the sephirotic lens… [I still have to work harder at this than you do. I am still recovering lost ground from having laid all this away for awhile. ]

Re Genesis: “The secret is…”, as a real QBLHist might say, “…is that there is only one tree. Etz ha-da’at grows from etz chaim; it is not separable.” [But I have more to do there as well…]

Originally posted by vistesd
You are right, and I shouldn’t have sounded dismissive. Some of my overlong posts are likely due to leaning so far the other way (all the prefatory/explanatory comments). And I really have very seldom, if ever, proffered a sod reading of any text on here.

Tiferet is called child because of being born from Hochmah and Binah. Tiferet is also Yak ...[text shortened]... tz ha-da’at grows from etz chaim; it is not separable.” [But I have more to do there as well…]

So
"Now, You
will have to search out some of the child/son references in Torah, and look at them through Your lens…"

Sure thing, the tree is one; it is Yourself that is multiseparated
😵

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
Taking "striving" into account does not change this.

And there's the difference, I believe. Some of us (well, me anyway) do believe that God takes striving "into account."

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
And there's the difference, I believe. Some of us (well, me anyway) [b] do believe that God takes striving "into account."[/b]

I think you need to re-read my post and perhaps whodey's post and put the statement you pulled into context. I was addressing the incoherence of whodey's position. His pointing to "striving" does not make it any less incoherent. You seem to have inferred something that's not there.

Originally posted by ThinkOfOne
I think you need to re-read my post and perhaps whodey's post and put the statement you pulled into context. I was addressing the incoherence of whodey's position. His pointing to "striving" does not make it any less incoherent. You seem to have inferred something that's not there.

I don't find my position the least bit incoherent. I believe that Peter was ALWAYS a follwer of Christ even though he stumbled a few times. Now it would be different had he stumbled and not gotten back up. We are all prone to stumbiing at times but we then have the choice as to whether we desire to get back up and stirve to walk down the straight and narrow. Now if you have achieved perfection I congradulate you. As for Peter as well as other Christians, however, we have been known to have stumbled from time to time.

Originally posted by whodey
I don't find my position the least bit incoherent. I believe that Peter was ALWAYS a follwer of Christ even though he stumbled a few times. Now it would be different had he stumbled and not gotten back up. We are all prone to stumbiing at times but we then have the choice as to whether we desire to get back up and stirve to walk down the straight and narro ...[text shortened]... er as well as other Christians, however, we have been known to have stumbled from time to time.

You might want to read my response to you instead of responding to my response to PF.