If god were real....

Originally posted by checkbaiter
I believe God hated slavery...and the nation paid dearly for it.
Jefferson, was not a true Christian. He believed in God (I think), but had a different view of the scriptures. I think he even wrote his own version, excluding miracles, etc. Deism is definately not a positive part of our heritage, I agree.
But to call American religious heritage a mixed ...[text shortened]... of all of Christianity...well..... the results will be known in time....maybe soon, I'm afraid.

Bizarre, then, that God so hated slavery he failed to condemn it in the Old Testament. I wonder what Jefferson would think of your contention that he was not a "true christian"? He would probably respond that his commitment to the moral teachings of Christ sufficed for his qualifying as a christian, and ask in virtue of what you are qualified to make determinations concerning who is a "true christian" and who is not. I fail to see why Deism isn't a positive part of our heritage. Thomas Paine was a deist in good standing, as were Jefferson, Franklin and other founding fathers. I meant, by calling our heritage a "mixed bag", that it had both religious and secular elements, not that the religious elements were all and always bad. I do think that theism is a blight in our culture, and that it amounts to little more than an ignorant anthropomorphizing of the divine. That God "raised up" leaders in times of trouble seems like mere flight of fancy on your part. Where were God's chosen leaders during the genocide of the Native Americans, or during slavery (for the hundred years prior to the Civil War), or during the internment of Japanese American citizens, or during our nation's military and financial support of brutal regimes in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East? Yes, the morality of America is now much different than in it's early years. Now we don't enslave people, engage in genocidal campaigns, lynch black folk for looking at white women, etc. Now we extend at least a modicum of respect to the well being of animals. Now we believe that all children ought have access to education. Now we allow women to vote. That is what we here in Seattle like to call "moral progress".

Originally posted by bbarr
Bizarre, then, that God so hated slavery he failed to condemn it in the Old Testament. I wonder what Jefferson would think of your contention that he was not a "true christian"? He would probably respond that his commitment to the moral teachings of Christ sufficed for his qualifying as a christian, and ask in virtue of what you are qualified to make deter ...[text shortened]... . Now we allow women to vote. That is what we here in Seattle like to call "moral progress".

anthropomorphizing of the divine.

A point that gets overlooked and overlooked and overlooked….

Originally posted by bbarr
Bizarre, then, that God so hated slavery he failed to condemn it in the Old Testament. I wonder what Jefferson would think of your contention that he was not a "true christian"? He would probably respond that his commitment to the moral teachings of Christ sufficed for his qualifying as a christian, and ask in virtue of what you are qualified to make deter ...[text shortened]... . Now we allow women to vote. That is what we here in Seattle like to call "moral progress".

Bizarre, then, that God so hated slavery he failed to condemn it in the Old Testament.

God did not approve of many things, including slavery. But He does not void free will.

Lev 25:39
39 'And if one of your brethren who dwells by you becomes poor, and sells himself to you, you shall not compel him to serve as a slave.
(NKJ)

Deut 23:15-16
15 "You shall not give back to his master the slave who has escaped from his master to you.
16 "He may dwell with you in your midst, in the place which he chooses within one of your gates, where it seems best to him; you shall not oppress him.
(NKJ)

I wonder what Jefferson would think of your contention that he was not a "true christian"? He would probably respond that his commitment to the moral teachings of Christ sufficed for his qualifying as a christian, and ask in virtue of what you are qualified to make determinations concerning who is a "true christian" and who is not.

Jefferson rewrote his own version of the bible, omitting anything supernatural. Therefore he changed the word of God, stripping it of the miracles and anything he disagreed with. If I am to be a student of the bible, I have to compare scripture with actions.

Deut 4:2
2 "You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take anything from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
(NKJ)

I do think that theism is a blight in our culture, and that it amounts to little more than an ignorant anthropomorphizing of the divine. That God "raised up" leaders in times of trouble seems like mere flight of fancy on your part.

I am troubled by your comments. " Ignorant anthropomorphizing of the divine?" I am to study God's commands, ie. love one another, don't lie but speak the truth, do not murder,etc. I am also commanded to apply them in my life. As in "do these things". How is this ignorant.?Is this what you mean? God did raise up many great leaders...I would recommend "The Light and the Glory" by David Manuel and Peter Marshall....

The rest of your accusations are not God's doing. Nor was it the intent of the Church. You unfairly fail to give credit where credit is due. Since you probably don't believe the bible, you have to understand that there is an ongoing spiritual battle. Has been since the beginning. All or most of the negatives throughout history are blamed on God. But I won't discuss this now. It has been discussed already on other threads.

Suffice it to say, our discussion is going nowhere. I won't change your views and visa/versa, And I am not trying to. But I am learning a great deal by the views of others...for that, thank you.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]anthropomorphizing of the divine.

A point that gets overlooked and overlooked and overlooked….[/b]

How so? I have to admit I had to look up the word.

1) anthropomorphize. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
...Inflected forms: an·thro·po·mor·phized, an·thro·po·mor·phiz·ing, an·thro·po·mor·phiz·es To ascribe human characteristics to. To ascribe human characteristics to things..
I know God is not human, but given He made us in His image...

Originally posted by checkbaiter
I believe God hated slavery...and the nation paid dearly for it.
Jefferson, was not a true Christian. He believed in God (I think), but had a different view of the scriptures. I think he even wrote his own version, excluding miracles, etc. Deism is definately not a positive part of our heritage, I agree.
But to call American religious heritage a mixed ...[text shortened]... of all of Christianity...well..... the results will be known in time....maybe soon, I'm afraid.

What does it mean to be "God-fearing"? (I guess I've asked this before.)

What kind of church do you go to? It wouldn't surprise me if your brand of theology began in the 20th century.

Originally posted by telerion
What does it mean to be "God-fearing"? (I guess I've asked this before.)

What kind of church do you go to? It wouldn't surprise me if your brand of theology began in the 20th century.

What does it mean to be "God-fearing"? (I guess I've asked this before.)

A reverance for God.

What kind of church do you go to? It wouldn't surprise me if your brand of theology began in the 20th century.

Non denominational....I would hope, the 1st century.

God did not approve of many things, including slavery. But He does not void free will.

So if God blesses us while we enslave millions of his creation, but when the educated begin to doubt him, he pulls the plug? Can you see why I might think that you do not have your priorities straight?

Jefferson rewrote his own version of the bible, omitting anything supernatural. Therefore he changed the word of God, stripping it of the miracles and anything he disagreed with. If I am to be a student of the bible, I have to compare scripture with actions.

Where is Nemesio when you need him anymore? If he were to teach you about how the Bible you read came to be as it is, you might be very disappointed. Of course, your version is God-inspired, so all the manipulation, arbitrary standards, politics and forgery were God-directed.

I am troubled by your comments. " Ignorant anthropomorphizing of the divine?" I am to study God's commands, ie. love one another, don't lie but speak the truth, do not murder,etc. I am also commanded to apply them in my life. As in "do these things". How is this ignorant.?Is this what you mean? God did raise up many great leaders...I would recommend "The Light and the Glory" by David Manuel and Peter Marshall....

These social maxims are found in almost every culture in history. The fact that they are found in the Bible is nothing special. I'd also point out that you are selectively reading the Bible. For the one command "Thou shalt not kill" there are many more direct commands by God to murder people.

The rest of your accusations are not God's doing. Nor was it the intent of the Church. You unfairly fail to give credit where credit is due. Since you probably don't believe the bible, you have to understand that there is an ongoing spiritual battle. Has been since the beginning. All or most of the negatives throughout history are blamed on God. But I won't discuss this now. It has been discussed already on other threads.

So it's not the omnimax creators fault that his creation is messed up? It's not the xian white men that owned slaves you are responsible for slavery? It's them demons! I always found Frank E. Perreti silly.

Suffice it to say, our discussion is going nowhere. I won't change your views and visa/versa, And I am not trying to. But I am learning a great deal by the views of others...for that, thank you.

I think you learn what you wish. You came looking for us to disagree because your hypothesis is that we are blind to the truth. We disagree, and you feel justified.

Here is a great place for Schopenhaur.

"We then find that such a man is, as a rule, merely concerned to point out carefully that [an unfamiliar creed's] dogmas do not agree with those of his own creed. For he is at great pains to explain that they not only do not say, but also certainly do not mean, the same thing as is expressed in the dogmas of his own creed. Here in all his simplicity he imagines that he has demonstrated the false nature of the alien creed. It never really occurs to him to put to the question which of the two may be right; on the contrary, his own articles of faith are for him sure and certain principles a priori."

A reverance for God.

Come on. This is an insult to our intelligence. You have no right, given your poor defense, to insist that you have reverance for God and TJ did not. I ensure you TJ thought he was reverant. You think your reverant. You don't have anything on TJ.

What kind of church do you go to? It wouldn't surprise me if your brand of theology began in the 20th century.

Non denominational....I would hope, the 1st century.[/b]

I used to identify as "non-denominational." I lay you 100 to 1 that the tenets of the church (or type of church) you frequent had it's beginnings in the American fundamentalism movement of the early 1900's.

Any of this sound familiar?

"Those Christians who clung to the old belief that every word of the Bible was literally true -- called biblical inerrancy -- came together and formulated their beliefs at a series of revival meetings and Bible study conferences that took place across North America from Ontario to Southern California between 1875 and 1915. These groups agreed on five "fundamentals" of Christian belief that were enumerated in a series of 12 paperback volumes containing scholarly essays on the Bible that appeared between 1910 and 1915, entitled The Fundamentals. Those fundamentals included:

Biblical inerrancy
The divinity of Jesus
The Virgin Birth
The belief that Jesus died to redeem humankind
An expectation of the Second Coming, or physical return, of Jesus Christ to initiate his thousand-year rule of the Earth, which came to be known as the Millennium.
By definition, fundamentalists also believe in some form of creationism, the doctrine that the universe was created only a few thousand years ago, rather than the billions claimed by modern science, and that God created man and woman and all the species outright, rather than by a process of evolution. (Creationists differ over how to explain fossil records that "appear" to be millions of years old. Some believe God created them that way on purpose, others, that they were put there by Satan to mislead humanity.) "

http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/myss.htm

Originally posted by vistesd
Thanks, LJ, for the Camus reference. I hadn’t read him in some years, and have just started on The Myth of Sisyphus again. How wonderfully he describes the experience I began to go through when I was about 40 years old, and the structures of the “hopeful” (in Camus’ sense) paradigmatic compound in which I had lived my whole life began to slowly crum ...[text shortened]... own life, and yet I must carry it alone.”

*I do find landmarks, for example, say, in Lao Tzu.

You write in beautiful words that seem very familiar to me. I can relate well to your description of the nomadic experience. For me it started as a slow but sure realization that many of my "beliefs" were never mine to begin with. How could they be, when a mere scratch of the surface was enough to expose the obvious lack of any good reasons for my holding them? They may have been the result of culture, upbringing, and even good intentions; but I cannot say they were the result of any warranted formulation on my part. Casting the dogma aside was the only prudent thing for me to do because, as Camus points out, those principles were relieving me of the burden that in good conscience I know I must bear alone. Once the roof of the "compound" started caving in, I remember doing very little to prevent ultimate collapse because I started to recognize that I had no real grounds for ensuring or even promoting its structural integrity. But then, as you say, its collapse forced me to find new lodgings, or at least a place to rest my head each night. That began the nomadic experience, and it has been a difficult (but rewarding) experience because there is seemingly little time for repose.

The more I read Camus, the more I enjoy his work. He is careful to point out that "the absurd depends as much on man as on the world." The world itself, Camus claims, is "not reasonable, that is all that can be claimed. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart." This tells me that in being objective, man gives clarity not to the world itself, but first and foremost to his recognition of the absurd. Therefore, to deny that absurdity by opting for "acceptance at its extreme" would be to deny the very nature of our rational and often inquisitive selves. For a long time I have viewed the Pascal Wager-like approach to belief building (recall WL Craig's words 'As Pascal said, we have nothing to lose and infinity to gain.'😉 as rigorously distasteful, and I think Camus puts into words exactly why it is so distasteful: "To abolish conscious revolt is to elude the problem....To impoverish that reality whose inhumanity constitute's man's majesty is tantamount to impoverishing him himself." I think Camus would respond to Craig that it simply is not true that we have nothing to lose by opting for extreme acceptance; rather, if one loses himself to gain infinity, where does that leave himself? The answer, I think, would be: still lost. Camus' words are strong, fighting words when he describes the "conscious revolt" that gives life value through the "constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity."

I only wish I had more time to commit to such readings!

Originally posted by LemonJello
You write in beautiful words that seem very familiar to me. I can relate well to your description of the nomadic experience. For me it started as a slow but sure realization that many of my "beliefs" were never mine to begin with. How could they be, when a mere scratch of the surface was enough to expose the obvious lack of any good reasons for my ho ...[text shortened]... between man and his own obscurity."

I only wish I had more time to commit to such readings!

Sounds like I need to bump Camus up on my list of pleasure readings.

Originally posted by LemonJello
You write in beautiful words that seem very familiar to me. I can relate well to your description of the nomadic experience. For me it started as a slow but sure realization that many of my "beliefs" were never mine to begin with. How could they be, when a mere scratch of the surface was enough to expose the obvious lack of any good reasons for my ho ...[text shortened]... between man and his own obscurity."

I only wish I had more time to commit to such readings!

You too write in beautiful words that seem very familar to me. Yes, at one point, I too simply and finally let it all collpase. It seemed that there was nothing else to do that would not be in "bad faith."

I'm just to the place where Camus has started to talk about revolt. I'm highlighting a lot more passages than I did the first time through a few years ago.

Originally posted by telerion
Sounds like I need to bump Camus up on my list of pleasure readings.

I'm enjoying it thoroughly! The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays; The Rebel, which I shall also have to re-read, expands the insights of Sisyphus into the social realm.

Originally posted by checkbaiter
How so? I have to admit I had to look up the word.

1) anthropomorphize. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.
...Inflected forms: an·thro·po·mor·phized, an·thro·po·mor·phiz·ing, an·thro·po·mor·phiz·es To ascribe human characteristics to. To ascribe human characteristics to things..
I know God is not human, but given He made us in His image...

I think people overlook the facts that—

(a) people use the word “God” in diverse ways, and many times it has nothing to do with a being (anthropomorphic, or personal, or not), but Ground-of-Being, Power-of-Being, and Being-Itself (to use Paul Tillich’s terms);

(b) people who do not use the word at all, and so consider themselves to be non-theists, may still have a sense of the “divine,” the ineffable, ground of bring, the Tao, Brahman, etc., and may have experiences of communion with that ground that guide their lives (Taoism, Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism—though many Buddhists believe that words are a trap, or at most, “fingers pointing at the moon,” and so do not speak of it much at all);

(c) people sometimes tend to reserve the word only for their version of the divine, to the exclusion of others.

Overlooking these facts often seems to lead to miscommunication, and narrow discussions reduced to a simplistic choice of “God or no God” by whatever name or understanding. Advaita Vedanta, for example, is non-theistic and monistic, but that does not mean that it is not—oh, I hate to use the word “spiritual,” but for lack of a better one, I will for now. Some folks who refer themselves as atheist fall into one of the above (or similar) categories; others who are atheist reject all of them (which is why I also use the term “non-theist” ).

EDIT: For myself, I seem to be becoming more and more Taoist these days. More and more, I avoid using the word “God” to avoid confusion—since I would not mean any kind of personal God, or the God of “supernatural theism”—but I do not object to using the “G-word.”

Bbarr, I think, makes an excellent point about using such projections of human characteristics in a symbolic or metaphorical sense, without getting caught up in taking them literally. The Tao often seems “personal” to me, and I accept that experience while realizing that it is undoubtedly my own projection onto the “relationship” (another metaphor).

Originally posted by telerion
[b]God did not approve of many things, including slavery. But He does not void free will.

So if God blesses us while we enslave millions of his creation, but when the educated begin to doubt him, he pulls the plug? Can you see why I might think that you do not have your priorities straight?

Jefferson rewrote his own version of the bible, omitt ...[text shortened]... e contrary, his own articles of faith are for him sure and certain principles a priori."

Just got home from work and man o man...you guys have overwhelmed me! You are all correct in your posts on some things and some you are not..but it will take me some time to rethink how to address what you propose here....but I will...