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So I'm aware religion threads are rarely productive. Still, I've been sincerely and obsessively exploring my faith recently, and this is a question I've been turning over in my mind that I can't find a way past, and one I haven't seen much discussion on anywhere either. I know there are religious people on this site, and they are who I am interested in hearing from. First, a quick background on me so that you know exactly where both I and this problem (as I see it) are coming from. I was born and raised in the American south, in the Episcopalian church. For those who don't know, Episcopalian is very close to Catholicism, but it still falls within the realm of Protestantism. It's a relatively liberal church (the first openly gay bishop was Episcopalian), but very much within the "tradition" as it were - that is, choir and organ rather than praise band, real wine at communion rather than grape juice, etc. I was totally a believer in God throughout my childhood, but toward the time I went off to college, I realized I had many doubts, and in early college I swung the pendulum in the opposite direction and became a full-fledged douchebag teenage atheist. Since that time, I've swung back toward the middle, and though "agnostic" might describe me pretty well, I prefer to say I an "unaffiliated". Though I trust scientific accuracy in essentially every case, there are still things I see about the world - strange coincidences, things that could potentially be "signs" from a deity - that make me think, maybe, there is SOMETHING else out there. Still, there are too many problems with the Bible for me to take it seriously as an inerrant missive from God, and furthermore, I can't see why one religion is any more or less viable than any other - we dismiss Greek gods as myth, but treat Islam and Judaism as (if you are of the respective faith) absolute reality, yet from my perspective, they are equally mythological. My problem, then, is couched in a Christian perspective, but (as I see it) can apply to all faiths if you simply swap out the specifically Christian components with Muslim ones, or whatever. In Christianity, as it has been explained to me, when you accept Jesus as your personal savior, the Holy Spirit enters you and from then on guides your conscience in everything you do. When you have a question or a problem, you can look inward, and ask the Holy Spirit for help, and it will reveal to you the answer. This is especially useful when attempting to interpret scripture: when a meaning is unclear, you turn to the Holy Spirit, and it illuminates the meaning of the text. So given that, here is my question, in a nutshell: assuming two equally devout Christians who both read the Bible prayerfully and considerately, then turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance, how can the two Christians then disagree? And to be clear, I'm not talking about "can I eat this cookie before dinner?" or any similarly trite question, but a question on something universal and concrete, like how the church ought to be run or whether something is a sin. Important items that would have a single, all-encompassing answer from the Lord. For example, many Christians believe women are not fit to teach in church. This is based on multiple passages from the New Testament, such as Paul's (second?) letter to the Corinthians, and Paul's first letter to Timothy. The passages seem very clear that women are not permitted to teach in the church, ever, at all - period. Yet there are other Christians - and one of them has been someone I've asked this of in person - who, by way of Holy Spirit-guided revelation have come to understand that those verses applied only to that time and place, first century middle-east, and not in today's world. So there are two camps, equally devout, both scripture-based, both asking the Holy Spirit for guidance, both equally certain of their conclusions, but in direct opposition. How does this happen? Is the Holy Spirit giving different advice, or are people simply making mistakes in interpreting it? Second, how does one figure out who is actually correct in their revelations? And lastly, if what I'm referring to as "personal revelation" is such a poor and inaccurate method of obtaining information, why does anyone rely on it? So I hope it's clear what my question is. I've heard of the "Wrong hell problem" (info here), which essentially asks how can one pick a religion, but that's not quite what I'm talking about, and furthermore, I can imagine the Christian response to that problem: those other religions don't have the Holy Spirit working in them, they sin, and so they get stuff wrong. Simple. My question is more within just one religion: how can there be disagreement if the information is coming from the same divine source? Don't you have to kind of believe that you, alone, are infallible in interpreting the Holy Spirit to really believe you are right about your entire belief structure? I mean, if someone has to have made a mistake, couldn't it have been you? If you could be wrong, why aren't you in this case? Please, I'm not looking for an echo chamber of responses along the lines of "because religious people are dumb!!!" That's not helpful. I'm looking for any insight into why people trust this gut-feeling-esque method of understanding God if it is so clearly unreliable. Am I wrong in any of my assumptions? Are there no true disagreements among Christians? Are there ways of verifying revelation that I'm not seeing? Would God have different rules for different people, and if so, why write the Bible and fill it with so many seemingly universal laws? Thanks, and I look forward to some illumination on this topic.
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Nov 21, 2014 21:45
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One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. So, you don't have women as priests because you don't want them to pass down the office to their children, making religious office a heriditary position with corresponsing title and grants of privliges. So if you want to divorce your church structure from human inclination, your best method in historical times would be to ban women from holding priestly office. How this shapes the revelations of the christian church, well, there's something to be said about the cult of mary and its historical context by someone more informed on early christian history. There's disagreement because religion is ultimately a means by which to codify and justify the status quo inequality and power structures. When you examine the development of religious practices as the development of a class intent on maintaining its privileges and status within various historical societies, the route of development and the 'why' of how things developed becomes a bit more clear. We trust that 'gut feeling' because humans are not born with an innate understanding that correlation does not equal causation, and therefore attempt to explain the world within an iterative process through the frameworks provided to us. That, and by going with those 'gut feelings,' one is often rewarded by the community in which they reside and given an escape from moral culpability for their actions. My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 21:50
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:How does this happen? Is the Holy Spirit giving different advice, Pretty sure this is viable under the "God's Mysterious Plan" clause. quote:I'm looking for any insight into why people trust this gut-feeling-esque method of understanding God if it is so clearly unreliable. There is no greater affirmation that your own personal opinions are correct than if you asked the Creator of All Things His advice and He gave you a thumbs up. boner confessor fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 21:55
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Please, I'm not looking for an echo chamber of responses along the lines of "because religious people are dumb!!!" That's not helpful. I'm looking for any insight into why people trust this gut-feeling-esque method of understanding God if it is so clearly unreliable. Am I wrong in any of my assumptions? Are there no true disagreements among Christians? Are there ways of verifying revelation that I'm not seeing? Would God have different rules for different people, and if so, why write the Bible and fill it with so many seemingly universal laws? I do not think religious people are dumb (or at least, I don't think they're significantly dumber, on average, than secular people) but has it occured to you that the reason people rely on gut feelings is that without them there'd be no real reason to stay religious? Basically, the answer to your question seems to be that Christianity is not the product of divine revelation, hence its followers don't have any special insight, hence its easy for them to disagree because all they are really defending are their personal opinions. My Imaginary GF posted:One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. So, you don't have women as priests because you don't want them to pass down the office to their children, making religious office a heriditary position with corresponsing title and grants of privliges. This is a remarkable amount of mental contortion for somebody to go through just to deny clear cut misogyny. I guess as long as we ignore actual history and don't think about passages like Corinthians 14:34-35 your argument is almost convincing!
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Nov 21, 2014 22:13
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My Imaginary GF posted:One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. So, you don't have women as priests because you don't want them to pass down the office to their children, making religious office a heriditary position with corresponsing title and grants of privliges. Fair enough, though I would obviously need evidence to support that assertion. Paul (as per 1 Timothy 2:12-15 or thereabouts) seems to think women can't teach because Eve was created from Adam, to be his helper, so neither she nor any woman should ever hold authority over a man. Furthermore, Paul states that it's because a woman was deceived (by the serpent in Eden), so she can't be trusted to lead a church if she's so susceptible to the devil's deception. Also, men have had no trouble passing on things like kingships, which were often thought to be divine anyway, to their sons, so I don't understand how a male priest would have it any harder. Helsing posted:Basically, the answer to your question seems to be that Christianity is not the product of divine revelation, hence its followers don't have any special insight, hence its easy for them to disagree because all they are really defending are their personal opinions. Well, look, I'm obviously in agreement with you, but simply for the sake of argument I'm starting from the assumption that Christianity (or whichever religion you'd like to examine) is correct and true. Even GIVEN that the God of the Bible is real, how are we to know anything at all about what it wants if our only method of discerning information is so clearly faulty? If listening to the Holy Spirit is no good, what then? GAINING WEIGHT... fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Nov 21, 2014 |
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Nov 21, 2014 22:32
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My Imaginary GF posted:One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. So, you don't have women as priests because you don't want them to pass down the office to their children, making religious office a heriditary position with corresponsing title and grants of privliges.  Did you literally make everything you just said up? Because, you did.Also, still laughing at your previous attempts to rectify sociology as divinely inspired.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:35
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Well, look, I'm obviously in agreement with you, but simply for the sake of argument I'm starting from the assumption that Christianity (or whichever religion you'd like to examine) is correct and true. Even GIVEN that the God of the Bible is real, how are we to know anything at all about what it wants if our only method of discerning information is so clearly faulty? If listening to the Holy Spirit is no good, what then? In that case the only consistent answer I could give that would be consistent with the idea that the Bible is accurate would be that there are no real Christians in the world today. After all Mark 16:18 tells us that Christians will be able to do the following: quote:They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. And Luke 10:19 says: quote:Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you. So maybe the reason "Christians" disagree over how to interpret the bible is the same reason that they cannot drink poison or shrug off deadly snake bites: they aren't the real deal. Maybe the Christian God really does exist and Jesus was divine but no existing Christian sect is actually adhering to the true faith, thus its easy for people to disagree over scripture because none of them are actually being spoken to by the Holy Spirit.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:43
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Helsing posted:So maybe the reason "Christians" disagree over how to interpret the bible is the same reason that they cannot drink poison or shrug off deadly snake bites: they aren't the real deal. Maybe the Christian God really does exist and Jesus was divine but no existing Christian sect is actually adhering to the true faith, thus its easy for people to disagree over scripture because none of them are actually being spoken to by the Holy Spirit. Fascinating theory, though I feel certain there is somewhere in the Bible that says all you have to do to be a Christian is believe in Jesus. I know that's what many Christians today believe. I guess I just need a believer's point of view on this.
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Nov 21, 2014 22:48
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Catholic interpretation of this, as I understand the theology, is that humans are innately fallible. While our decisions can be guided by revelation, preferably coupled with reading theology and the teaching of the church, it's part of our fallible nature as humans that we can get the final decision wrong. I was taught that the Catholic church believes in the primacy of conscience - that ultimately we need to make moral and religious decisions according to our own understanding of what's right and wrong if that understanding is rooted in a true and honest searching of our conscience and Catholic doctrine. The decision may still be objectively wrong according to God's will, because we as humans are fallible, but the process is the important part. That's how you get the College of Cardinals voting for a pope and dealing with political factions instead of just assuming that God will make everyone agree on the right candidate - part of the deal with humanity is that humanity has free will, which includes the ability to make well-intentioned but incorrect decisions about what the church should do.
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Nov 21, 2014 23:46
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Helsing posted:I do not think religious people are dumb (or at least, I don't think they're significantly dumber, on average, than secular people) but has it occured to you that the reason people rely on gut feelings is that without them there'd be no real reason to stay religious? I'll go a step further: the OP's contradictions don't come up because, deep down, everyone realizes that 'revelations' are just normal gut-feelings dressed up with spooky language. The trick is that it's rude to point this out. So people reflexively avoid anything that would pit their faith claims against reality. It's done so consistently that people don't even notice the evasions. This gets really obvious if you cast the claims as being about something other than religion. Borrowing from your examples, we can imagine someone saying: quote:There are aliens among us! People with Everyone could start coming up with cool tests and applications. Two people disagree about who has the most Alien DNA? Just break out the snake venom. See who reacts the least. Want to prove that your artifacts are real? Get 2 shoe-boxes. Have a scientist hide an artifact in one box. Prove that you can easily tell which is which. There'd be all kinds of ways to play with revelation claims, if people too them seriously. I find the fact that we don't see this sort of experimentation to be really telling.
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Nov 22, 2014 00:18
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Notahippie posted:Catholic interpretation of this, as I understand the theology, is that humans are innately fallible. While our decisions can be guided by revelation, preferably coupled with reading theology and the teaching of the church, it's part of our fallible nature as humans that we can get the final decision wrong. I was taught that the Catholic church believes in the primacy of conscience - that ultimately we need to make moral and religious decisions according to our own understanding of what's right and wrong if that understanding is rooted in a true and honest searching of our conscience and Catholic doctrine. The decision may still be objectively wrong according to God's will, because we as humans are fallible, but the process is the important part. That's how you get the College of Cardinals voting for a pope and dealing with political factions instead of just assuming that God will make everyone agree on the right candidate - part of the deal with humanity is that humanity has free will, which includes the ability to make well-intentioned but incorrect decisions about what the church should do. So this seems to go along with my "are there no true disagreements?" and "does God hold different people to different rules?" questions in the OP. But there is plenty in theology about there being "right" acts and ways to live. Like, certain things are sinful. It doesn't matter my intentions if I, oh I dunno, rape someone or steal a bunch of money or something, because those are sins and without repentance I am destined for hell. Or am I? Is the bar really as low as: believe that Jesus is Lord, and try to live within whatever you guess his will to be, and at the end of your life, you will be saved? In that case, the guidelines for being a Christian become "whatever [person] says they are", which seems absurd. I feel like there is a reduction to be made here, that God has put forth these rules to live by, but it doesn't matter at all if you actually follow them. Why then all the rules and strictures in the first place? I mean, I guess if there really are no universal rules, then that's a solid refutation of my argument, but it presents many more problems that I can see, and furthermore, it honestly does not seem to fit into majority Christian doctrine.
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Nov 22, 2014 00:42
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No, that can't be right. Sin requires actual knowledge that the act is a sin. There is definitely a mens rea requirement.
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Nov 22, 2014 01:00
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Viktor Laszlo posted:No, that can't be right. Sin requires actual knowledge that the act is a sin. There is definitely a mens rea requirement. So wouldn't suppressing the concept of sin be the best way of ensuring salvation? Just get rid of the concept of sin, tell everyone everything is acceptable, and boom, no mens rea, no sin.
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Nov 22, 2014 01:32
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I think sin objectively exists. If you are sleepwalking or whatever and commit some otherwise sinful act over which you have no control, no free will, that's not morally culpable. So, it would be wrong, actually sinful, to "tell everyone everything is acceptable" when you have actual knowledge that it is not the case. Suppressing the concept of sin would not eliminate objective sin. This conversation is actually far out of my league, so I will refrain from commenting further.
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Nov 22, 2014 01:38
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Viktor Laszlo posted:I think sin objectively exists. If you are sleepwalking or whatever and commit some otherwise sinful act over which you have no control, no free will, that's not morally culpable. So, it would be wrong, actually sinful, to "tell everyone everything is acceptable" when you have actual knowledge that it is not the case. Suppressing the concept of sin would not eliminate objective sin. But you said: Viktor Laszlo posted:Sin requires actual knowledge that the act is a sin. So therefore if you don't have knowledge that an act is a sin, you can't sin by committing it. Therefore suppressing the concept of sin would literally eliminate sin, based on your definition. edit: though yeah, it's totally fine to bow out, but that doesn't eliminate the inherent contradiction in your position.
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Nov 22, 2014 02:15
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When a believer receives what he or she believes to be a revelation from God, they should check it against what the Bible says, preferably with a traditional interpretation of the texts. Obviously, this isn't too helpful, as the Bible says many different things concerning the same topics. For example, Paul writes up and down about women not speaking in church, but also praises Priscilla and Phoebe. There's a lot of context to his epistles that we just don't have. The believer should also consult other faithful Christians. As a Christian who does rely on tees gut feelings sometimes, I always remember Christ's teaching that a prophet is known by their fruit. This also leads to some uncomfortable situations. (Ex. Tradition states that homosexual relations are sinful, but boy has that led to some rotten stuff in this world.)
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Nov 22, 2014 02:59
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Helsing posted:In that case the only consistent answer I could give that would be consistent with the idea that the Bible is accurate would be that there are no real Christians in the world today. After all Mark 16:18 tells us that Christians will be able to do the following: Go read the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and ask yourself if you have ever, ever met anybody who actually lived like that. Every Christian I've ever been, known, or met was living a life almost indistinguishable from a nonreligious life except for their church attendance and the influence of their religion on some of their opinions. If it changes peoples' lives, it's almost always in fairly minor ways that don't involve restructuring the fundamental course of their daily life. Actually selling all your things, giving the money to the poor, and spending all your time preaching the good news and saving souls is hard and personally disempowering and doesn't lead to a materially successful or comfortable life; to somebody who truly believed in the Gospels, this would be completely irrelevant. Maybe there really aren't any actual Christians out there.
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Nov 22, 2014 04:19
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:In Christianity, as it has been explained to me, when you accept Jesus as your personal savior, the Holy Spirit enters you and from then on guides your conscience in everything you do. When you have a question or a problem, you can look inward, and ask the Holy Spirit for help, and it will reveal to you the answer. This is especially useful when attempting to interpret scripture: when a meaning is unclear, you turn to the Holy Spirit, and it illuminates the meaning of the text. Odd, it was never explained to me that way. That sound like an Evangelical christian view. I always thought that conservative churches (Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, ...) emphasized the role of experts and tradition in helping you interpret the scripture
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Nov 22, 2014 15:43
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:So I'm aware religion threads are rarely productive. Still, I've been sincerely and obsessively exploring my faith recently, and this is a question I've been turning over in my mind that I can't find a way past, and one I haven't seen much discussion on anywhere either. I know there are religious people on this site, and they are who I am interested in hearing from. Thanks for starting a serious thread about serious matters. Let's hope this won't go down in flames as fast as these tend to. I'm sorry I'm going to slice your post in a few parts. There's quite a few things I want to address and I hope I'll be able to keep my thoughts organized that way. I'd really like to reply to you, in depth, so it's only fair tat I'll give you something to know what perspective I'm writing from. I'm a Finnish Lutheran and I like to think I'm pretty well-versed in the basics of theology. I don't know much about other denominations or their teachings, since we haven't had much religious diversity here until very recently. I also don't really know if American Lutherans differ significantly from us in practice, despite being doctrinally pretty identical. quote:So given that, here is my question, in a nutshell: assuming two equally devout Christians who both read the Bible prayerfully and considerately, then turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance, how can the two Christians then disagree? And to be clear, I'm not talking about "can I eat this cookie before dinner?" or any similarly trite question, but a question on something universal and concrete, like how the church ought to be run or whether something is a sin. Important items that would have a single, all-encompassing answer from the Lord. The way you describe revelation is very foreign to me. I'm sorry if I sound like a lecturer here (you wouldn't be entirely wrong) but, as far as I know, Revelation can traditionally be divided into two categories: general revelation and specific revelation. The term revelation itself is based on the idea that God is entirely unknowable to us and if we know anything about Him, it is because He has revealed himself to us in some way. So, there are some things that reveal something general about God and then there's something that goes into specifics. General revelation consists of stuff like the beauty and complexity of nature, guidance you feel in your personal life, guidance that may be seen in history of the world... You know, stuff that makes you say: "There's gotta be someone or something behind this!" or "That's just to much to be a simple coincidence!" General stuff. Specific revelation then, well, that's Jesus, who taught us what and who God is and who participated in our life so much that he became one of us. You know the story. A bit more widely speaking, specific revelation is what is recorded in the Bible, because the Bible is what tells us of Jesus and his Father and the Holy Spirit. I won't go any deeper here (yet) since much of the previous sentences depend on how you interpret the Bible but the gist of it is that there's no mention of "personal revelation" there. I'm not saying people cannot be revealed things by God. I'm saying that I cannot find biblical or traditional basis for any guaranteed personal revelation. It's actually quite the opposite. Notahippie wrote about it earlier so I'll just quote him a bit: Notahippie posted:Catholic interpretation of this, as I understand the theology, is that humans are innately fallible. While our decisions can be guided by revelation, preferably coupled with reading theology and the teaching of the church, it's part of our fallible nature as humans that we can get the final decision wrong. I'm afraid that you are (or whoever taught you is) confusing personal revelation with plain old conscience. Ideally, conscience is right. In practice it's very often somewhat or completely wrong because we're all sinners. Being a Christian doesn't make your conscience magically any better at being right or wrong. If anything, it just makes you more aware about how wrong exactly you yourself often are. And that's again an ideal situation. I've been taught a rule of thumb about conscience: you better do what you think is right, because that's all you can do. But do pray and read the Bible and make an effort to find out if you might actually be wrong. Same applies to whatever revelation you might have: if it's in accordance with the Bible, it's not likely wrong and you may not have needed that revelation to begin with. If it contradicts the Bible, there's something wrong somewhere. If there's nothing in the Bible, then weighing the trustworthiness of your revelation is on your conscience anyway. quote:So I hope it's clear what my question is. I've heard of the "Wrong hell problem" (info here), which essentially asks how can one pick a religion, but that's not quite what I'm talking about, and furthermore, I can imagine the Christian response to that problem: those other religions don't have the Holy Spirit working in them, they sin, and so they get stuff wrong. Simple. I have to repeat myself here. Christians get horrible stuff wrong all the time. That's kinda the entire point of being a Christian. We sin heck of a lot despite having Holy Spirit with us. quote:My question is more within just one religion: how can there be disagreement if the information is coming from the same divine source? Don't you have to kind of believe that you, alone, are infallible in interpreting the Holy Spirit to really believe you are right about your entire belief structure? I mean, if someone has to have made a mistake, couldn't it have been you? If you could be wrong, why aren't you in this case? Why people trust gut-feeling-esque method? I'll go and agree with this guy: Popular Thug Drink posted:There is no greater affirmation that your own personal opinions are correct than if you asked the Creator of All Things His advice and He gave you a thumbs up. Should people trust their gut-feeling aka conscience? Yes. What else can they do? Should they call it revelation? That is a mighty dangerous thing to do. I wouldn't dare.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:39
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:So given that, here is my question, in a nutshell: assuming two equally devout Christians who both read the Bible prayerfully and considerately, then turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for guidance, how can the two Christians then disagree? And to be clear, I'm not talking about "can I eat this cookie before dinner?" or any similarly trite question, but a question on something universal and concrete, like how the church ought to be run or whether something is a sin. Important items that would have a single, all-encompassing answer from the Lord. Because the Holy Spirit isn't real. quote:How does this happen? Is the Holy Spirit giving different advice, or are people simply making mistakes in interpreting it? Second, how does one figure out who is actually correct in their revelations? And lastly, if what I'm referring to as "personal revelation" is such a poor and inaccurate method of obtaining information, why does anyone rely on it? Because they're stupid.
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Nov 22, 2014 16:51
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Are you serious about this? In case you are and it's not obvious. All Holy Spirit revelations except one are wrong because [reasons], but you never know which one is the true revelation. You have to make the best decision with the information that you have. God works in "mistiruous" ways, that's just how he rolls.My Imaginary GF posted:One nitpick about women being unable to lead a church: its roots are anti-patrilinialist, not anti-gender equality. Women have children, a fact which cannot be denied. A male priest who has children could always have doubt sown upon his seed before paternity tests came about. What? You are high on incense, aren't you?
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Nov 22, 2014 17:13
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AGirlWonder posted:When a believer receives what he or she believes to be a revelation from God, they should check it against what the Bible says, preferably with a traditional interpretation of the texts. Obviously, this isn't too helpful, as the Bible says many different things concerning the same topics. That's essentially my point. It's not enough to cite a chapter and verse and say "plus the Holy Spirit told me X". Plenty of people do that and yet come up with contradictory conclusions. So relying on, or even using at all, this method of personal revelation seems problematic. It's akin to relying on gut feeling to figure out how far away the sun is from the Earth. Like, it shouldn't be used at all. And once we lose that as a method for finding things out about God, why do we still follow the religion? So many people's faith depends on "I felt God" or "I had an experience when God revealed Himself to me", but if that isn't a good way to know for sure, what else is there? Phyzzle posted:Odd, it was never explained to me that way. That sound like an Evangelical christian view. I always thought that conservative churches (Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, ...) emphasized the role of experts and tradition in helping you interpret the scripture I should have been clearer: my church growing up didn't spell things out for me this way, it was explained this way by one of the people I've been discussing this with in person (who is probably more evangelical-leaning, but strictly speaking is "non-denominational"). waitwhatno posted:Are you serious about this? In case you are and it's not obvious. All Holy Spirit revelations except one are wrong because [reasons], but you never know which one is the true revelation. You have to make the best decision with the information that you have. God works in "mistiruous" ways, that's just how he rolls. That's...exactly what I'm saying? It's impossible to discern "true" revelation from untrue, so we can't use it as a method for knowing anything. We have to look elsewhere for information. And when we try to support a belief in God with real-world evidence, to me at least, there's nothing to really go on. It seems really, really unlikely that it's true. Valiantman posted:The way you describe revelation is very foreign to me. I'm sorry if I sound like a lecturer here (you wouldn't be entirely wrong) but, as far as I know, Revelation can traditionally be divided into two categories: general revelation and specific revelation. The term revelation itself is based on the idea that God is entirely unknowable to us and if we know anything about Him, it is because He has revealed himself to us in some way. So, there are some things that reveal something general about God and then there's something that goes into specifics. Okay, I guess we have a problem of terminology here. I'll try to clarify my position. "Personal revelation" is just the term I've been using, and I'm not aware of it being "officially" used in any other contexts or by any churches. I guess what I'm talking about is similar to your "general revelation" when you mention guidance in your personal life. It's going to God for guidance on some specific issue and feeling Him responding in some way. For this problem as I see it, I am especially talking about reading Bible passages and turning to God for clarification. Things like "God, is it really true that women can't teach in church?" or "God, is there ever an exception to 'be ye not unequally yoked with nonbelievers'?" which, once an answer is arrived at, often disagrees with other Christians' interpretations of the same verse(s). Thus, my point is: turning to God for clarification is simply too unreliable a method to be trusted, since it produces so many conflicting views. Now I'm not sure, but I think you might be saying that turning to God for guidance like that isn't really a doctrinally approved method of discerning information about the divine. I've been told (again, by a slightly evangelical-leaning yet non-denominational person in the American south) that this is exactly the method one is to use when attempting to understand scripture, but I may have been misinformed. I guess if that's the case, my question becomes: how does one settle interpretational disputes? People find conflicting interpretations of scripture all the time, how do you go about figuring out who's right? How do you know it isn't you that has gotten something wrong? quote:I'm afraid that you are (or whoever taught you is) confusing personal revelation with plain old conscience. Ideally, conscience is right. In practice it's very often somewhat or completely wrong because we're all sinners. Being a Christian doesn't make your conscience magically any better at being right or wrong. If anything, it just makes you more aware about how wrong exactly you yourself often are. And that's again an ideal situation. I've been taught a rule of thumb about conscience: you better do what you think is right, because that's all you can do. But do pray and read the Bible and make an effort to find out if you might actually be wrong. Same applies to whatever revelation you might have: if it's in accordance with the Bible, it's not likely wrong and you may not have needed that revelation to begin with. If it contradicts the Bible, there's something wrong somewhere. If there's nothing in the Bible, then weighing the trustworthiness of your revelation is on your conscience anyway. Well, I guess I'm talking about situations where two interpretations of something scriptural both seem equally likely. That is, neither one "contradicts the Bible", they both just see it in a different light. Like the thing about women teaching; on one hand, Paul makes very clear that women are not permitted to teach, but on the other hand, in practice, Paul absolutely permitted women to teach alongside him. So did he mean the "do not let women teach" to only apply to those people he wrote the letter to, or was he the only one allowed to make an exception to an otherwise universal rule? And so both sides of this issue would have some solid scripture to pull as evidence that their position is the right one. From what I've been told, both sides read and pray and come to a conclusion that the Holy Spirit agrees with them. In this case, one side has to be wrong, yes? But how do we figure out who? And furthermore, if this method of figuring out what is "right" is so faulty, why trust it so much? Why use it at all? quote:Should people trust their gut-feeling aka conscience? Yes. What else can they do? Should they call it revelation? That is a mighty dangerous thing to do. I wouldn't dare. What else can they do? I mean, that's my entire point: they can try to find solid evidence to back up their position. Trusting your "gut feeling" is far, far too unreliable a method. You've said it yourself, people get things wrong all the time when going with their gut. I want more proof of what the divine wants than "I just feel like it's X", especially since many people "just feel" so many contradictory things. SedanChair posted:Because the Holy Spirit isn't real. Thank you for exactly what I said not to do. This isn't helpful. GAINING WEIGHT... fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 17:23
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Thank you for exactly what I said not to do. This isn't helpful. Well that's the problem with theology isn't it? You dance around the answer that's staring you in the face.
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Nov 22, 2014 17:35
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Religion is interesting. In general the cognitive biases that religious and political ideology represent frighten me. They're literally the biggest threat to our collective survival. We've thrived as a species because of our ability to understand and solve real world problems - the distorting nature of ideology and religion threaten that directly. Real world problems like global warming aren't ideological, they exist or don't exist independent of our petty human cognitive biases. On the other hand I tend to conclude that religion is a generally positive force and I think its unraveling in recent decades poses a potentially large problem. Religion is ideology but it's ideology that has been honed, massaged and developed over thousands of years. There must be something intrinsically human contained in documents and traditions that have held the attention of so many people across time and space. There is no question too that religion fills a void. The shared texts and communal rituals bind communities together. It provides answers for things that science hasn't and will never replace and occupies our minds and attention in ways that not many other things do. Without religion to fill these voids where do people turn? Often to things that are worse. Fringe political ideology for example fills similar voids. My last surviving grandparent is 87 and it's hard to imagine him being as healthy physically or mentally as he still is without the church and the sense of community, involvement and support it provides. Where are we going to be at that age? There is certainly no god but how much better off are we knowing it?
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Nov 22, 2014 17:38
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If I had to argue this point out with someone I'd probably roll with the "humans are innately fallible" response. Ultimately there is more than one useful way to perceive the world, and even those who share the same perceptions won't necessarily share the same goals. I mean, hell, people disagree with one another over quantifiable, rational matters which we can almost totally scrutinize. The same set of facts can be twisted into any number of permutations by our very personalities. It's no surprise then that if there is something like the holy spirit, or a jungian collective unconsciousness, that its whisperings would be similarly twisted.
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Nov 22, 2014 19:09
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Nathilus posted:If I had to argue this point out with someone I'd probably roll with the "humans are innately fallible" response. Ultimately there is more than one useful way to perceive the world, and even those who share the same perceptions won't necessarily share the same goals. I mean, hell, people disagree with one another over quantifiable, rational matters which we can almost totally scrutinize. The same set of facts can be twisted into any number of permutations by our very personalities. It's no surprise then that if there is something like the holy spirit, or a jungian collective unconsciousness, that its whisperings would be similarly twisted. Well I agree that this phenomenon isn't limited to religious disagreement. But that doesn't really address my concern: I'm less interested in exactly how the disagreements come about, but why you (general you) would trust this spiritual revelation over anything and everything else. Why this method of discovering information trumps science, reason, other religions, etc. I mean, let's take political polls as an example of "quantifiable, rational matters" that "can be twisted into any number of permutations". I see two polls that say the exact opposite thing about how many people approve of president Obama. Now, I know one of them must be wrong, so I know I can't simply take both polls' word for it. However, there is further exploration that can be done: I can find out the sample size of the polls, I can see who exactly they asked, I can see how they worded their questions, etc. And if I find the poll that said 100% of Americans hate Obama was taken in a small town in rural North Carolina and sampled 50 people, whereas the other poll was taken as a much more general sample of the US population, I could use that in deciding which poll to trust. The problem with this thing I'm referring to as "personal revelation" is that there is no further investigation that can be done. Someone tells me what the Holy Spirit told them, and that's the end of it. Sure, them quoting Bible verses might add to their credibility, but I'm kind of assuming anyone making a claim has a Bible verse to back them up. So they still seem equally likely. And without anything else available to explore, I kind of have to dismiss any claims made by revelation out of hand, and furthermore, I feel that those people making the claims have to as well. It's too uncertain. Now look, of course I'm not saying that one faulty political poll would make me dismiss the entire idea of statistics. Likewise the occasional wrong revelation, that was somehow found to be demonstrably wrong, would not undo the entire concept of revelation. But it's not just the occasional wrong revelation, it's most of them. Too many Christians disagree on too many things with no way of sorting out the true revelations from the false. If political polls wildly disagreed on every matter, and there was no recourse for further investigation into the claims those polls made, then yes, I'd dismiss political polling as a system entirely.
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Nov 22, 2014 20:30
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:What else can they do? I mean, that's my entire point: they can try to find solid evidence to back up their position. Trusting your "gut feeling" is far, far too unreliable a method. You've said it yourself, people get things wrong all the time when going with their gut. I want more proof of what the divine wants than "I just feel like it's X", especially since many people "just feel" so many contradictory things. It seems more practical to communicate to God but not expect God to communicate back in a comprehensible way.
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Nov 22, 2014 21:02
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fake edit: Uuf, that was a lot of text. Sorry if I got a bit preachy.GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Okay, I guess we have a problem of terminology here. I'll try to clarify my position. "Personal revelation" is just the term I've been using, and I'm not aware of it being "officially" used in any other contexts or by any churches. I guess what I'm talking about is similar to your "general revelation" when you mention guidance in your personal life. It's going to God for guidance on some specific issue and feeling Him responding in some way. For this problem as I see it, I am especially talking about reading Bible passages and turning to God for clarification. Things like "God, is it really true that women can't teach in church?" or "God, is there ever an exception to 'be ye not unequally yoked with nonbelievers'?" which, once an answer is arrived at, often disagrees with other Christians' interpretations of the same verse(s). Thus, my point is: turning to God for clarification is simply too unreliable a method to be trusted, since it produces so many conflicting views. The difference between general and specific revelation (those are terms I literally translated from Finnish so they might not be exactly correct either) can also be defined quite well by thinking what question is answered. General revelation is overwhelmingly about the existence of a higher power and very little about what he/she/they/it is like: "Is there a god?" Specific revelation is about the specifics. Thus your examples, especially because they're from the Bible, fall firmly into the latter category: "What is God like and what does He want?" The division is a useful tool but somewhat besides the point here, so I'm not dwelling on it much longer. It sounds like personal revelation like you're describing is akin to what the prophets of the Old Testament and some few select people in the New Testament received. The problem I have with it is that traditionally it's been accepted that Jesus was the fulfillment of that kind of revelation and if there was going to be more of it, it wouldn't be new information. And even if it was, it's incredibly rare even in the Bible. It makes little sense that everyone would be a prophet of some kind. There's lot of dispute about gifts like that recorded in the 1st Corinthians. And that's probably again straying from the main topic. This sure is a broad subject.  quote:Now I'm not sure, but I think you might be saying that turning to God for guidance like that isn't really a doctrinally approved method of discerning information about the divine. I've been told (again, by a slightly evangelical-leaning yet non-denominational person in the American south) that this is exactly the method one is to use when attempting to understand scripture, but I may have been misinformed. I guess if that's the case, my question becomes: how does one settle interpretational disputes? People find conflicting interpretations of scripture all the time, how do you go about figuring out who's right? How do you know it isn't you that has gotten something wrong? I have a dull answer and I have to confess that I'm unable to go very deep here but hopefully it's not that huge a problem. You settle interpretational disputes the same way you solve practical problems that don't have apparent objective right or wrong answers: You go with what you find is right. Assuming that there are either conflicting sources in the Bible or that there are several ways to interpret the same source(s), you just have to go with one interpretation. Or not. If it's something that's theoretical to you, it's Luther-Approved(tm) to just skip that part and pray that there's some light on that matter down the line. If you don't have the option of letting the matter rest, so to speak, then at least you could research what the previous 2000-3000 years of scholarship has to say about it. You can also observe yourself since we're given a brain for a reason. And you can pray. Who am I to say that God cannot give you your answer in some way. I give a very personal example that happens to be exactly the same you used: My family I grew up with belongs to a movement that's very Bible-centric. Not literalists by any measure but very Lutheran in the sense of the Bible being the highest authority. The Church we belong to accepts women as priests but the movement we belong to does not. My family has nothing against the priesthood of women, however, so I've been raised that way and, as it is with lot of children, not having to even think about stuff like that until adolescense. I have had the luxury of letting the matter rest for years. I've read, observed and prayed and I'm in a situation where I have studied the scriptural arguments of both sides quite well. Eventually I came into conclusion that, based on the broader biblical guideline of "knowing the tree by it's fruits" and other similiar passages, as well as observing the people around me, that as far as I can see, there really is nothing wrong with women's priesthood. Can I be wrong? Sure. I can't debunk the other side's argumentation but I'm going with what I've gotten. quote:What else can they do? I mean, that's my entire point: they can try to find solid evidence to back up their position. Trusting your "gut feeling" is far, far too unreliable a method. You've said it yourself, people get things wrong all the time when going with their gut. I want more proof of what the divine wants than "I just feel like it's X", especially since many people "just feel" so many contradictory things. There's nothing wrong in being wrong. Okay, there might be severe consequences to your actions and decisions but am I correct if I'm picking up a hint of "God accepts us when we do the right things" vibes? This is a very Protestant thing to say and I doubt you'd get many Catholic or Orthodox people to agree on the finer points but one huge bonus of what Jesus did on the cross is that your deeds no longer carry any weight in whether God accepts you or not. We're free to do good without thinking if we might anger God somehow. Just. Do. Good. You're guaranteed to mess up sometimes. Don't worry, do what you can! If you're burdened by what is right or wrong then by all means don't make decisions arbitrarily but don't let hesitation stop you from doing good. The biggest revelation... (Can I call it that? I'm going to do it!) The biggest revelation I got when researching about the priesthood example was how very little that stuff actually matters. Damnit, people, stop arguing secondary matters and start feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, visiting the imprisoned and spreading the gospel!
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Nov 22, 2014 21:16
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I've always found the idea that faith in some cases has been reduced to an inner Dial-A-God advice line, where the divine spirit of all creation, if you ask nicely, will either a) def. make sure your team scores at least a field goal on this drive because that'd put us within one score, b) really, really hope Jimmy checks yes on the "Do you like me, yes/no (check one)" and then they're gonna be in love forever and ever, or c)that that bitch who cut you off drives off the overpass and on and on is ultimately a touch arrogant. The holy spirit in this case is probably just your conscience. You just gave it a name. God's got better things to do than give people advice.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:53
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Valiantman posted:fake edit: Uuf, that was a lot of text. Sorry if I got a bit preachy. I guess you and I are really understanding the issue differently, then. It may simply be a southern-US evangelical view that the Holy Spirit directly communicates with people on a day-to-day basis or that prayer is a two-way street. Again, this is simply how it's been explained to me - your view seems to be more that God revealed Himself to us through Christ/scripture, but on a whole does not speak to us individually. Fair enough. I suppose the reason I'm interested in this question is because there seem to be so many strictures God puts on us that have actual consequences if we get them wrong. Sure, Christians will agree that Christ's sacrifice allows us to get into heaven despite our blunders, but there are still ways one can go to hell, right? Is the only way to go to hell not believing in Jesus, or are there ways for Christians to screw up enough that they get sent there too? We kind of need an understanding of what things are and are not sins in order to avoid hell, and if we get something wrong - like, I dunno, allowing gay people in the church when really God hates them or something - we're destined for hell, good intentions or no. So that's why this is markedly different to me from having to "solve practical problems that don't have apparent objective right or wrong answers" - one, there IS a right and wrong answer, and two, the consequences for choosing poorly are VERY SEVERE. Of course, you may feel that these assumptions are off base - that really, there aren't ways for you to go to hell as long as you 1) believe in Jesus and 2) simply strive to do what is right, even if you gently caress up tremendously. I guess if that is the case, why have any rules at all? Why have a Bible full of verses telling what to do and what not to do? It seems like under this view, you get a free pass to do almost anything if you're a Christian, but you can never be good enough if you're a nonbliever. It's the classic problem of the altruistic atheist and the faithful serial killer. Does the serial killer get into heaven just because he believes in Jesus? Does the atheist who starts charities and does real, tangible work fighting disease, hunger, and poverty get sent to hell? If so, is God really Just? cucka posted:I've always found the idea that faith in some cases has been reduced to an inner Dial-A-God advice line, where the divine spirit of all creation, if you ask nicely, will either a) def. make sure your team scores at least a field goal on this drive because that'd put us within one score, b) really, really hope Jimmy checks yes on the "Do you like me, yes/no (check one)" and then they're gonna be in love forever and ever, or c)that that bitch who cut you off drives off the overpass and on and on is ultimately a touch arrogant. The arrogance angle is something that came up to me only after talking about this a great deal to many people in my own life, but it is another facet that bothers me. Like, really God helped you find your keys this morning, but failed to answer the prayers of two parents asking for their child not to die of leukemia? And not only that, but you're hearing Him correctly and discrepencies arise only because other people are making mistakes? I feel that most Christians would not claim to be infallible, but few would concede that their beliefs are likely to be wrong. So in practice, there is an element of belief in their own infallibility, even if they wouldn't admit to it. This is a broad strokes generalization, though, and is sort of beside the point. GAINING WEIGHT... fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Nov 22, 2014 |
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Nov 22, 2014 22:54
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waitwhatno posted:What? You are high on incense, aren't you? Banning women from priesthood isn't about women being unequal to men; its about accumulating capital and property under a church hierarchy. Greed>hate is usually a good rule when analyzing doctrinal policy development.
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Nov 22, 2014 22:58
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:It seems like under this view, you get a free pass to do almost anything if you're a Christian, but you can never be good enough if you're a nonbliever. It's the classic problem of the altruistic atheist and the faithful serial killer. Does the serial killer get into heaven just because he believes in Jesus? Does the atheist who starts charities and does real, tangible work fighting disease, hunger, and poverty get sent to hell? If so, is God really Just? This is really only a problem for those who believe in exclusive salvation. Origen Adamantius was tossin' his balls at this kind of infantile thinking in the 3rd century.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:00
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Black Bones posted:This is really only a problem for those who believe in exclusive salvation. Origen Adamantius was tossin' his balls at this kind of infantile thinking in the 3rd century. Yea, but when you admit that you can just be a good person and don't actually require all the formal religious structure and dogma enacted out that tends take a lot of the fire and brimstone away from things like hardcore fundamentalist/evangelical proselytizing. I don't think Abrahamic religions would have spread so rapidly and ravenously without a strong "No Gods before me, bitches!" vibe to their various sect's overall jist.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:08
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My Imaginary GF posted:Banning women from priesthood isn't about women being unequal to men; its about accumulating capital and property under a church hierarchy. Greed>hate is usually a good rule when analyzing doctrinal policy development. You're also ignoring a hell of a lot of other context. Firstly, one of the problems the early Jesus Movement, pre-Council of Nicea, had was that it kinda wanted to avoid causing trouble and scandal where it could, and it popped up in places with highly patriarchal cultures, meaning that when Paul was picking where to pick his battles when spreading and formalizing doctrine, he decided that one of the places not to cause trouble was traditionalist ideas of gender roles. There's also the fact that he, himself, was trained as a Pharisee religious scholar, and thus had been brought up in very similar roles, too. It is true that, specifically in the Catholic context the church has struggled with trying to keep the position of priest and especially of bishop from being inheritable, hence the Latrian Council in the 12th century introducing the idea of priestly celibacy and banning married priests, though even that isn't uniform, as Eastern Rite Catholics, who come from a failed reconciliation with the Orthodox church, are still permitted to marry under their modified version of canon law so long as they acknowledge the primacy of Rome. Similarly, converting Anglican ministers who are already married are permitted to stay in that ministry, should they become a catholic priest. The thing is, again, particularly in a Catholic context, these things then become tradition and reams of theology will be written to justify them and codify them as tradition. Banning women, specifically, from the priesthood is not really about position and property; that's what banning married priests is about. Banning women from the priesthood is more a matter of the surrounding gender norms from the cultures that formed Christianity/Catholicism and would go on to continue supporting it transferring over to the religion, particularly when it would eventually go on to be the state religion of first Rome, then much of Europe and the Eastern Roman Empire. Then, after that, theological justifications are authored and tradition sets in and it becomes a very difficult thing to change, with time. You're correctly identifying one of the concerns of the church Hierarchy, it's true, but it doesn't really apply in this case.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:12
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My Imaginary GF posted:Banning women from priesthood isn't about women being unequal to men; its about accumulating capital and property under a church hierarchy. Greed>hate is usually a good rule when analyzing doctrinal policy development. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. "They were denied leadership positions because the church just wanted capital and property under men only"  I'm sorry, how do you even come up with this nonsense? CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 01:18
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I think you need to poo poo or get off the pot. You are not the first person in history trying to reconcile faith with logic. It can't be done. Pick a religion that you like and once you start having faith, all the inconsistencies in church dogma will stop bothering you, trust me. Alternatively decide for yourself that organized religion is not for you. All these mental gymnastics you are doing are going nowhere. It's just nonsense. "You are as lost as you need to be, you are as lost as what you won't admit."
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Nov 23, 2014 01:43
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:So I'm aware religion threads are rarely productive. Still, I've been sincerely and obsessively exploring my faith recently, and this is a question I've been turning over in my mind that I can't find a way past, and one I haven't seen much discussion on anywhere either. I know there are religious people on this site, and they are who I am interested in hearing from. If Acts is even vaguely historical, Paul approved of women leading churches enough that he stayed with them on his travels. So, we can either say that the author of Luke and Acts disagreed with Paul and censored Paul's actual opinions or say that something else is going on. As it stands, Timothy was not written by Paul in the opinions of most scholars, and Corinthians's misogynistic passages don't actual forbid women from leading the church. As it stands, the main objections by Catholic and Orthodox communities to ordaining women don't rely on the epistles except indirectly. Setting that aside, the Bible was written by a multitude of authors, with a multitude of passages whose meanings are almost totally obscured, and a great many metaphors and figures of speech that are almost completely unfamiliar. Is it at all surprising that people argue about what is actually meant? Consider that Jesus only explains a few of his parables. Are we to interpret the parable of the great banquet as a specific rebuke of his disciples, or of the Pharisees, or as a general thing? If it is general, what is it all about? The Gospel of Thomas tells it as being against worldliness, but it lacks the second half, which is the more obscure.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:57
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waitwhatno posted:I think you need to poo poo or get off the pot. You are not the first person in history trying to reconcile faith with logic. It can't be done. Pick a religion that you like and once you start having faith, all the inconsistencies in church dogma will stop bothering you, trust me. Alternatively decide for yourself that organized religion is not for you. They can't. You can't recover your faith once you've reasoned your way out of it.
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Nov 23, 2014 01:59
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Effectronica posted:Setting that aside, the Bible was written by a multitude of authors, with a multitude of passages whose meanings are almost totally obscured, and a great many metaphors and figures of speech that are almost completely unfamiliar. Is it at all surprising that people argue about what is actually meant? Consider that Jesus only explains a few of his parables. Are we to interpret the parable of the great banquet as a specific rebuke of his disciples, or of the Pharisees, or as a general thing? If it is general, what is it all about? The Gospel of Thomas tells it as being against worldliness, but it lacks the second half, which is the more obscure. This is another excellent point to remember. The bible is the collection of many authors' work over thousands of years, many of whom directly disagreed with one another. In my personal thinking, I've always preferred to think of it as revelation reflected through an imperfect human lens. Even if the revelation is divine, if it's coming through a human, it's going to reflect their biases, their worries, their cultural surroundings, their upbringing, and their anxieties.
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Nov 23, 2014 02:03
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Hello, I'm responding to your request that I post in this thread. Augustine said of the Holy Spirit, "In no other subject is the danger of erring so great, or the progress so difficult, or the fruit of a careful study so appreciable." The Greek word pneuma, which literally means wind or breath, designates the Spirit. He is also called the Holy Ghost, and he is the Third Person of the Trinity, also called the Paraclete. Our triune God is so foundational to Christianity that most of the early conflicts were about his precise nature. The NT holds that the Spirit descends on someone upon baptism; in all four gospels, when Christ is baptized by John, the Spirit descends upon him "like a dove". Because the Spirit is a person, and is God, one should refer to him using the pronoun "he" instead of "it." The Spirit also came to the disciples at Pentecost, giving them tongues of fire so that they might preach God's holy truth. Christ says that blasphemy against the Father or the Son will be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be. The Old Testament refers to the holy Spirit as the voice of the prophets, and indeed, the prophets often spoke as God himself. In the first person, they would lay down His holy judgments to anyone in the Temple grounds who would listen. Therefore, I think it most sensible to see the holy spirit as referring to words spoken as God by holy people, such as Christ or the prophets, but also to the holy feelings and intuition within them that inspired righteous words of divine truth. GAINING WEIGHT... posted:How does this happen? Is the Holy Spirit giving different advice, or are people simply making mistakes in interpreting it? Second, how does one figure out who is actually correct in their revelations? And lastly, if what I'm referring to as "personal revelation" is such a poor and inaccurate method of obtaining information, why does anyone rely on it? The truthful answer, although most won't like to hear it, is that someone may claim that they are speaking from the Spirit, and even believe it on some level, but they are actually being misled by the devil. The Spirit never contradicts himself. If you want to know what the orthodox teaching is on a subject, there are readily available and more informative resources than simply intuition. Proper education is essential to having a coherent theology, as is an earnest willingness to appreciate God's will. In your heart, you probably have an inkling when you are trying to distort the teaching to accommodate some desire. Tell Satan to go away! quote:My question is more within just one religion: how can there be disagreement if the information is coming from the same divine source? Don't you have to kind of believe that you, alone, are infallible in interpreting the Holy Spirit to really believe you are right about your entire belief structure? I mean, if someone has to have made a mistake, couldn't it have been you? If you could be wrong, why aren't you in this case? There is a lot of disagreement because people refuse the truth. Honestly, this is kind of a Protestant conception of the Spirit; a Catholic mindset accepts Church authority, and finds time-tested doctrine challenging but rewarding to learn. This isn't to say one loses all sense of individuality, or that one has no doubts about teachings, but rather that one views their personal intuition as suspect. It is a self-doubt and a self-criticism. It was when I realized how non-traditional and unique and full of logical holes my "personal interpretation" was that I saw it as only a shadow of Christianity, and decided to learn about the real deal, which is surprisingly coherent. quote:Am I wrong in any of my assumptions? Are there no true disagreements among Christians? Are there ways of verifying revelation that I'm not seeing? Would God have different rules for different people, and if so, why write the Bible and fill it with so many seemingly universal laws? We are all unique, so there are innumerable disagreements! But people try to agree on sacredly held doctrines which have been well debated and passed down by believers since the time of Christ. At the very least, they make an effort to understand it and try to accept it. Kyrie eleison fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Nov 23, 2014 |
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Nov 23, 2014 03:57
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