The fly in the ointment

Originally posted by Nordlys
Why? Does God want to keep people away from it because there's not enough room in Heaven?

To me, it looked nice at first glance, but the more I learned, the less sense it made. I tried hard to ignore reason to be able to keep my faith, but reason won in the end.

I would have to know what it was that made less sense to you answer your question properly , but for now my first response is that it's more a case of 'seeing through' the madness of this world to the sanity of God than actually asking people to believe something that doesn't make sense. For example , large swathes of the western world seem to think that we can bring peace to the world by waging war (ref- Iraq) . This is the opposite of Christ's teaching but its a (so-called) Christian at the head of it all (Bush). I think he's got it completely upside down and on one level it seems to make sense to lots of people , but I am sure to God it's potty , do you get the idea? The Jesus I see in the Gospels (not the creationist fundie god George invents for himself) would be a fly in his ointment.

Originally posted by whodey
Who, what, where, when? Thanks. Yes, I don't recall ever saying anything on the subject. However, I would like to give my 2 cents. It goes back to my totality of reality post. God is the totality of reality and sees all and knows all. We are finite, however, and our vision is therefore impaired to see the totality of reality. It would then stand to rea ...[text shortened]... t and may find you to be out of your mind. After all, who likes the taste of brussel sprouts?

What exactly ARE the reasons for eating your vegetables before desert?

Originally posted by knightmeister
I would have to know what it was that made less sense to you answer your question properly , but for now my first response is that it's more a case of 'seeing through' the madness of this world to the sanity of God than actually asking people to believe something that doesn't make sense. For example , large swathes of the western world seem to think t ...[text shortened]... ot the creationist fundie god George invents for himself) would be a fly in his ointment.

There are a lot of things which don't make sense to me, most of which are discussed somewhere here in the Spirituality Forum.

I don't need to be Christian to "see through" the madness of this world, and to understand that we can't bring peace to the world by waging war, to take your example.

Originally posted by Wheely
What exactly ARE the reasons for eating your vegetables before desert?

What I am trying to convey is the fact that God has a method to the seeming madness. For example, the teaching that to lead, you must first serve. This is counterintuitive to people who are merely interested in leading. Also, the teaching that those that humble themselves will be exalted and those that exalt themselves will be abased. To many, this may seem like madness. However, look at history. Those that have lead and sacrificed the most to serve his fellow man is exalted. An example would be Ghandi or Christ. Those that pursue power for powers sake and do not take the same attitude as some one who serves is abased. An example would be Hitler or Stalin. Getting back to my example of having your children eat their vegetables, you do so with their best interest at heart. It may not be pleasurable and may involve a certain degree of self sacrifice to have to eat and taste them. However, it is what is best for them in the long run. They need to eat food that their body needs to grow and not focus on foods that are merely pleasurable to eat. Pleasure is not forbidden, but also should not be your primary focus.

Originally posted by Nordlys
Why do you expect a living God to make his religion look insane? Usually if you find out the truth about something, things make more sense than before, not less. The fact that something is unlikely or crazy doesn't make it more, but less likely that it is true. I am not saying that the truth can't sometimes be hard to believe and difficult to understand, but ...[text shortened]... will your next thread be called? The cockroach in the soup? The atheist in the chocolate bar?

Assuming Christianity is the religion of God, what in your opinion makes God's religion insane?

Originally posted by Nordlys
There are a lot of things which don't make sense to me, most of which are discussed somewhere here in the Spirituality Forum.

I don't need to be Christian to "see through" the madness of this world, and to understand that we can't bring peace to the world by waging war, to take your example.

True , but Christianity validates your position by describing clearly a different alternative. I assume that you don't think 'might is right' either so how is justice to be established in this world? We need something mightier than all the aircraft carriers but gentle and true with it. Jesus fits the bill , and I can't think of anything else that does.

Darwinian materialism is a bleak prospect. Without Spirituality all you're left with is either naive humanism or survival of the fittest. We've been fighting and scrabbling for power for eons and we are still doing it! We stick our heads in the sand on global warming and then wage war for the last of the oil. It's only when you finally give up on the humanism that Christianity becomes a need.

It's not just 'seeing through' that's required but seeing through to something else on the other side.

Originally posted by whodey
What I am trying to convey is the fact that God has a method to the seeming madness. For example, the teaching that to lead, you must first serve. This is counterintuitive to people who are merely interested in leading. Also, the teaching that those that humble themselves will be exalted and those that exalt themselves will be abased. To many, this may se ...[text shortened]... erely pleasurable to eat. Pleasure is not forbidden, but also should not be your primary focus.

Well I think the point I was trying to make was that as far as I know, there IS no good reason why you should eat your vegetables before desert. I suspect that most people who believe this don't know why they believe it either. It is some great law of nature passed down through the generations which people don't even bother to think about. Vegetables first and then desert, NEVER desert first and then vegetables!!!

I suspect that this unthinking accepting of a "truth" might explain many peoples acceptance of Christianity too.

Originally posted by knightmeister
True , but Christianity validates your position by describing clearly a different alternative. I assume that you don't think 'might is right' either so how is justice to be established in this world? We need something mightier than all the aircraft carriers but gentle and true with it. Jesus fits the bill , and I can't think of anything else that does. ...[text shortened]... eing through' that's required but seeing through to something else on the other side.

You are MUCH mightier than an aircraft carrier. All an aircraft carrier can do is kill people and that's easy. You can persuade someone not to build it in the first place. You don't need Jesus for that.

What exactly is "Darwinian materialism". It seems to me that Darwin gets blamed for all sorts of stuff he had noting to do with. He merely suggested a means by which evolution can happen. He didn't turn everybody into materialistic hedonists.

I don't even see how Darwin's theory invalidates your god frankly. After all, you could argue that your god has set the changes in environment than cause "survival of the fittest" to produce the worlds creatures and plants. You could argue the entire theory of evolution IS gods plan. You could all save a lot of aggravation if you went down that path. Just think, what looks like survival of the fittest is actually god's plan in action!

Anyway, Darwin doesn't negate spirituality in my view. He MIGHT negate a fundamentalist Christian belief (though not necessarily) but not spirituality itself.

Anyway I agree about all the nasty things you mention in your last paragraph but don't think Christianity will ever be a need.

It Was

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoc of belief, it was the epoc of incredulity,
it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair,

We had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to heaven,
we were all going direct the other way

in short, the period was so far like the present period...

This was written by Charles Dickens, from the novel,
"A Tale of Two Cities," about the times of the French revolution.

Sounds very much like today doesn't it?

There is nothing new under the sun.

gil

Originally posted by Wheely
[b]You are MUCH mightier than an aircraft carrier. All an aircraft carrier can do is kill people and that's easy. You can persuade someone not to build it in the first place. You don't need Jesus for that.

So how do we go about persuading people to not build aircraft carriers if the belief systems of this world are not challenged in some way? What you are talking about here is radical pacifism which requires role models like Martin Luther King and Ghandi (both of whom followed Christs example). You can't just say "please don't build aircraft carriers it's not very nice"...you have to give people a reason to believe that it's worth risking death or defeat because of a higher purpose. But if there's nothing more to life than just survival of the fittest and three score years and ten, what then?

Originally posted by knightmeister
So how do we go about persuading people to not build aircraft carriers if the belief systems of this world are not challenged in some way? What you are talking about here is radical pacifism which requires role models like Martin Luther King and Ghandi (both of whom followed Christs example). You can't just say "please don't build aircraft carriers it' ...[text shortened]... more to life than just survival of the fittest and three score years and ten, what then?

It's very easy, it just takes time.

Be honest, respectful and as ethical in your decisions as it is possible for you to be. People follow that, even when they don't think they do.

Nils Bohr once said "If you have a decision to make, choose the option that has a heart" or something like that.

Originally posted by Wheely
You are MUCH mightier than an aircraft carrier. All an aircraft carrier can do is kill people and that's easy. You can persuade someone not to build it in the first place. You don't need Jesus for that.

What exactly is "Darwinian materialism". It seems to me that Darwin gets blamed for all sorts of stuff he had noting to do with. He merely suggested a you mention in your last paragraph but don't think Christianity will ever be a need.

I have been trying to follow this thread and keep finding statements which do not seem to be either relevant or cogent.
For example, I thought that the primary purpose of an aircraft carrier was to convey people or materials from one place to another, not to kill them. But either way I fail to see what this has to do with the teaching attributed to Jesus Christ.
Sorry if I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak.

Originally posted by Nargaguna
I have been trying to follow this thread and keep finding statements which do not seem to be either relevant or cogent.
For example, I thought that the primary purpose of an aircraft carrier was to convey people or materials from one place to another, not to kill them. But either way I fail to see what this has to do with the teaching attributed to Jesus Christ.
Sorry if I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, so to speak.

You have to admit that if you only wanted to convey people and/or materials from one place to another, you could do it more efficiently without carrying an airstrip and fleet of attack aircraft around with you.

It doesn't have a lot to do with the teachings of Jesus per se but it sort of sprung out of somebody talking about vegetables and desert in a way which I felt might be relevant to why he believed in Christianity in the first place.

This, of course, sounds almost as bizarre as it actually is.

Originally posted by whodey
Assuming Christianity is the religion of God, what in your opinion makes God's religion insane?

Here are some of the things which don't make sense to me. Of course different Christians have different interpretations, so some of my examples only go for certain interpretations of Christianity.

- The discrepancies between the old and the new testament
- The idea that some people deserve eternal torture, and what's more, that even people who tried to do their best, but didn't believe in God, deserve eternal torture
- The idea that God's son had to die on the cross to save the world
- That God demands to be loved - love should be something which is given freely
- God creating evil to give us a choice, and then not accepting the choice we make, but punishing the wrong choice

Originally posted by Wheely
What exactly ARE the reasons for eating your vegetables before desert?

It's important to eat vegetables because they contain a lot of vitamines. Now if you'd eat the pudding first, and you'd find a fly in the pudding, you might be so disgusted that you wouldn't want to eat the vegetables afterwards. So it's safer to start with the vegetables.

If you are looking for the reason for something, always look for flies.