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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Kyrie eleison posted: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. So your conjecture is essentially that no one sincerely holds a wrong belief, but that they know deep down in their hearts they're wrong and are simply denying the truth? Out of the two billion or so Christians in the world, disagreements only arise because people know they're wrong but try to pretend they aren't? No one is as sure as you are of their interpretations who disagrees with you on anything?
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Nov 23, 2014 14:53
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Stottie Kyek posted:I was raised Christian too, in a very liberal Church of Scotland parish, then converted to Buddhism when I was about 22. When I prayed to God, I often felt like I was getting some kind of divine insight into whatever I was praying about, and that's why I was a Christian long after I struggled to believe in the theology and history behind it. But I still get those same feelings and insights when I do secular meditation or Buddhist prayer, and I find it's more focused the more I practise it and learn how to do it. I think just the act of taking some time out of your day to think about issues outside of yourself and to contemplate the world is healthy, rather than just blindly going about your daily business without ever thinking about how your behaviour affects other people. Very often I already know the answer on some level but I don't want to accept it because the right thing to do in some situations is difficult or takes effort, and sitting in silence without my mind conjuring up any excuses reveals that to me. Maybe someone is listening, I'm agnostic or weak atheist on that one, but I almost think it doesn't matter as long as the end result leads me to help other people instead of harm them. I guess if there is no "right answer", but rather just different guidances for different people, then that answers my question. It doesn't work for Christian theology as I understand it, but it answers my question.
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Nov 23, 2014 20:15
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RuanGacho posted:If you worship the Truth, which is the providence of God, then it stands to reason there is such things as objective Truth. If there is objective Truth but you're not a pragmatist where people being wrong is ok then very few people are right and most are doomed to hellfire. Dancing around what? Libertarianism? I'm not libertarian in the slightest so I don't know where you're getting that from. I'm someone who would be more than happy to be one of the faithful, but there are too many problems getting in the way of that. Or do you mean dancing around the idea that most if not all people are doomed to hell? Yes, actually, that's part of why this is such a huge problem. I don't feel I've been dancing around that, I feel like I brought it up right away. We need to be able to find out what's right to save us from damnation, but there's no good way to do that from what I see.
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Nov 25, 2014 01:07
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but instead we have the church version of the, libertarian thread... I guess?
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Notahippie posted:Hey GAINING WEIGHT..., one source that I've only just started reading that you might find interesting is Mystery and Promise: A Theology of Revelation by the Catholic theologian John Haught. This is a very long read and I obviously haven't gotten through all of it yet. I have, however, read the final chapter wherein he discusses some criticisms of "revelation" as well as rebuttal to those criticisms. First, his understanding of (what he also calls) "the problem of revelation" is that skeptics have a need of outside verification. While this is true, it is more that it needs verification because it has been demonstrated (I think sufficiently, but argue this point if you want) to be so unreliable. It's not simply that one claims God exists and I say, "nuh-uh! Prove it!" It's that one claims God wants and thinks X, Y, and Z, while many others claim many other conflicting things. It's not that the claims might be wrong, it's that many if not all certainly are, and I have no method of discerning accurate from mistaken. Further, his conclusion that faith in revelation is actually compatible with scientific verification relies on the tired, worn-out argument that non-theists have just as much faith in science as believers have in their religion. I don't "believe in science" the way one believes in God. I trust that its conclusions are likely correct, though possibly faulty, and I'm open to a changing understanding based on the findings of others. Yes, people can manipulate data and lie about conclusions, but scientific processes are repeatable and verifiable. If someone is wrong about a conclusion in science, whether deliberately or not, further experiments will show this. With revelation, there is no method of finding the real truth when two sides disagree. There is such a method in science; in fact, that is essentially what science is. I'm sorry, I just don't buy this explanation. It approached it well, but it misunderstands the problem and the positions held by those on the other side.
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Nov 25, 2014 03:26
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Notahippie posted:I read that chapter as having two basic claims: Yes, they do, but two ways that are still unsatisfactory. I guess as per your second point, it kind of reduces the problem rather than fixing it. So now instead of "millions of Christians therefore millions of views" we have "thousands of denominations therefore thousands of views". It makes my problem a little smaller, yes, but I'm still having to pick between seemingly equal and interchangeable interpretations. As for going to a community of the faithful and presenting your views - I mean, Martin Luther presented some radical reforms, but they weren't so obviously correct as to eliminate the entire Catholic tradition. In fact, Catholics still outnumber protestants. And are you (/is he) really trying to argue that whatever idea is the most popular is the most correct? A majority of people have sex before marriage, but for many Christians this is still hugely forbidden. As for turning inward, that's the exact method I'm criticizing in the first place. I'm sort of starting with the base assumption that those receiving revelation are doing so "correctly": they've simply read scripture and prayed on it, and come to some conclusion about it. Maybe we could argue that those getting it wrong aren't humbling themselves enough, but that's still an impossible metric to quantify and thus is useless to help in sorting the true from the false, and it's also essentially a No True Scotsman argument. But as per your point #1, if revelation doesn't "follow the rules" of ordinary logic or something, then I don't really know what to say. I still have a big problem, because I've never had a revelation myself, and it's impossible to sift through the revelations of others to find the truth. I've heard the knowledge of God compared to the knowledge of being in love: you just know. In this view, I'm someone who simply hasn't "fallen in love" yet, and it's useless to ask others who I should be in love with. If that's the case, then I have to wonder why God is withholding Himself from me. And how will I know when he does for sure? And if my revelation says that X rule is to be followed, but other Christians say it's not, how do I figure out who's wrong? Why not me?
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Nov 25, 2014 21:11
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Helsing posted:What exactly are you expecting to get out of this thread? The simplest explanation for your question is that Christianity is not the product of divinely inspired knowledge and therefore 'revelation' is, at best, a misunderstanding of some other process occurring at the brain, or at worst a form of self interested deception used to justify some goal. Because for plenty of educated, logical people there is an answer that satisfies them and allows them to believe. Because if this poo poo is true, I want to know about it. Because if there's a way around the "problems" that I think I see, I'd like to find them. I would really, really like to believe. The benefits package is enormous! You get to not fear death, you get to know your life has purpose, you get to know where you and everything in the universe came from, you get guidance, you get a constant divine friend to help you in times of trouble, you get a community...the list goes on and on! But there are too many barriers in my way to really take the plunge. If some of those barriers can be knocked down, though...if there is a good reason to think of Christianity as true, as well as all other faiths as false, then I want to know about it. If my "problems" are simple misunderstanding, or failure to see something a certain way, I want to know about it. I'd love to believe in Santa Claus, too. I don't mean that to be flippant. I'd sincerely love to know for sure that despite everything, if I'm good, I'll get exactly what I want for Christmas. But I just can't...too much about the mythology seems implausible. Two billion people are not bothered by this problem. Possibly they have either not thought about it or thought about it but don't have a very good grasp on logic and thus have come to a poor conclusion. But, some people are very educated, very logical, very rational, and have come up with an explanation that satisfies them. And if it stands up to scrutiny, I'd like to know about it.
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Nov 26, 2014 20:39
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neonchameleon posted:OK. You're making a whole lot of mistakes here. No, Christians I've talked to are making a whole lot of mistakes. According to them, the laws prescribed even in the epistles of Paul are the Word of God, meant to be taken as universal rules as if from God Himself. At least, until you get to the untenable stuff about women in church. Then it only applied to the church in Corinth. And Ephesus. And only in the first century AD. The Holy Spirit told them so. See, this is one of the most exhausting problems of Christianity as a whole. Everyone plays by a different set of rules. When I talk to Biblical literalists, I find one set of problems. Then I bring up that problem to other Christians, who tell me, "no no, the Bible is not the literal Word of God, it's just a guidebook". I'll ask about one passage, and one group will say "of course we follow that!" but another will say, "no, you see, you have to read it from this perspective, which makes it actually say this. It should not require bending over backwards and baseless speculation to explain away problems so you can continue in your faith. The one true religion would not have this many inconsistencies or mistakes. The real God would not be this incomprehensible if it were required that we must follow his every command. I am all but ready to declare once and for all that Christianity is impossible to be true. The only other options I see are that God purposefully muddies the waters to guarantee that there will be a group of nonbelievers/wrongbelievers he can punish, or that free will makes the problem too far out of his control, and whatever tiny group has actually stumbled upon the correct interpretation is indistinguishable from all the rest. I bet it's Mormons. Wouldn't it just figure?
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Dec 1, 2014 18:02
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Black Bones posted:Seriously dude, it's totally ok to not be Christian. Unless doing so damns me to hell, which was my whole reason for sincerely exploring this in the first place. I feel I should state my position clearly, just for the sake of it: I do not believe this, haven't for years, but I consider myself solidly neutral, truly agnostic, so I will happily consider any position if it makes sense. For the most part, I can simply look up the subject of the argument, say "The Problem of Evil", and read tired, age-old responses to those things and be able to decide which side makes more sense for myself. This particular problem I hadn't seen much discussion on, and I guess that's because the view is apparently held by such a narrow band of Christians, mostly in the American South. Flip Yr Wig posted:It seems like you have a hard time breaking out of the literalist evangelical mindset of Christianity Here's another question; if you're not a literalist, why be a Christian? I mean, if you see the Bible as not divinely inspired, but rather a collection of possibly historical accounts and musings on God, why follow the big conclusions it presents any more than the religious text of any other book? Like, it doesn't seem to make sense to say, "well this book was written by regular people and it isn't necessarily true, but I believe wholeheartedly the part about Jesus being divine." Why? And why is that same conclusion not applicable to the Koran, the Vedas, the Book of Mormon, etc? I'm looking for a non-literealist Christian response to this, by the way. What convinced you? Revelation? How do you know it was revelation, and not your community, or the fact that you'd been a Christian since childhood, or something else?
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Dec 1, 2014 21:00
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Some guys met and followed Jesus and believed Him to be the Messiah. They spread the word about this to other people who thought them credible enough to believe and so on and so forth down the generations to the current day. That's nothing to do with being a literalist or not a literalist, but everything to do in believing people who were there and close to the action. Mr. Wiggles posted:
No, I feel this is sort of a crucial argument. I guess one of the reasons I'm arguing from a Biblical literalist perspective is that I'm kind of in agreement with them in that if you don't view the Bible as a direct revelation from God (via inspired prophets or what have you), there's really not much reason left to believe the stories it presents. There are accounts of witnesses attesting to the validity of Joseph Smith's revelation, but you (I assume) don't really take the Book of Mormon seriously. Why not? Looking at whether the book is 100% perfect and consistent is not necessary, because apparently divinity or inerrancy is not a requirement for its message to be true. If your threshold for religious truth is "some people are recorded to have witnessed these divine events" then you pretty much have to believe every religion ever. Greek myth is presented as real history, yet you reject it. The prophet Mohammad - in addition to merely existing, which is not the point being argued, and you know it - is reported to have been visited by an angel and instructed to write the Koran, yet you dismiss the religion as being untrue. What is the difference? If the Bible is essentially no different from any other religious text - it is the suppositions and speculations of many people on the subject of God, but not divine, and not inerrant - then why do you believe even in just its central story, and not any other's?
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Dec 3, 2014 21:53
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Mr. Wiggles posted:The Bible is very different from other religious texts, though, which is why I maintain you can't look at it from a literalist perspective. That's what I keep trying to get across to you - it's an entire library of books, each needing to be taken on its own merits. This is different from the Book of Mormon or the Koran by the self-definitions of those books on the very face of it. Seriously, stop thinking of the Bible as a unitary work for just a moment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vedas nucleicmaxid posted:So are you just going to not address the obvious major fallacy that doing something because you're scared of Hell is pretty much as far from the Faith requested in the book as it can be? Or are you just going to continue to ignore that your whole argument is flawed at its core, and thus is pretty much useless? Uh...no, I guess? First, it's not really the point of the thread; second, I'm not necessarily in agreement with you that it's a fallacy; third, I think you are way over-generalizing how Christians feel - I think plenty of people are in the faith they're in, at least in part, because of the fear of ending up in hell if they're not. I mean, look at Pascal's wager. 'Nuff said.
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Dec 4, 2014 00:05
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Mr. Wiggles posted:The Book of Mormon is self-referential, claiming itself as a complete work full of the complete truth, based on revelation. Like I've mentioned, the Bible is not like this. There is nothing in the Bible that says, for instance, "This is the Bible, it is %100 literal truth, given by God to man, etc. and so forth". What is is instead is a bunch of different books that happen to be bound together for ease of perusal. ....???? Are you just trying to be on purpose dense or what? The Vedas are a collection of texts just like the Bible. Not a "unitary work" but a collection, developed over centuries. This disputes what you said, where the Bible quote:is very different from other religious texts quote:it's an entire library of books, each needing to be taken on its own merits
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Dec 4, 2014 00:15
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Mr. Wiggles posted:I don't believe I said the Bible was different from all other texts, but it is different from a great many others. If you want to discuss the vedas, fine, but that's a different conversation from discussing the Bible as a non-literal unitive text, which is incidentally what you seem to be hung up on. Yeah, I wasn't paraphrasing you or anything, I was quoting you directly. You said: quote:The Bible is very different from other religious texts from other religious texts. Without a qualifier, this seems to mean all other religious texts. But regardless, we have actually moved on from Biblical literalism, so I'm not sure why you think I'm hung up on it. I understand that both viewpoints exist, and while I did initially make this thread from the literalist side, I am now also investigating the non-literalist side. That's how the above quote came into the conversation. I was asking how you, a non-literalist, still take some of the Bible at its word (specifically the story of Jesus), and your response was that you believe the eye-witnesses' account, so you believe in the divinity of Christ. I then asked why that same standard isn't applied to other religious texts (why you don't believe accounts of Brahma or Mohammad or Joseph Smith), and your response was that the Bible is so very different from all other holy texts, so we can safely believe one and not the other. When I (and others) provide a counterexample, you seems to think we're being off topic???? Okay, okay, the Bible isn't literal 100% Word-O-God, fine. I get that. Or, at least, I get that you are asserting that. But if other religions have texts, which are also not the literal word of God, and that make similar claims of the divinity of other beings, and some of them are even formulated similarly to the Bible, why is the Bible trustworthy and others not? nucleicmaxid posted:Hey guys. This (older) text on a polytheistic religion the mostly describes meditations by men who don't think they're truly divinely inspired but rather are doing the best they can and is mostly focused on various rituals and classes for a society I've never been a part of and likely have never really explored is totally the same as the Bible, a monotheistic text that claims to be 100% divinely inspired and infallible. Hmm, yes, comparing one attribute of two things is the same as equating them as a whole. Hoo baby.
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Dec 4, 2014 03:21
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QuoProQuid posted:I'm not sure I would use the word "untrustworthy" to describe how many religions view other religious texts. From the Catholic perspective, all religions are humans grasping toward the same unknown. It views the similarities that exists between faiths in their beliefs and practices to be a sign of this fact. Humanity is one community with a common destiny in God. Nostra Aetate states outright that, That's all just softening the blow. The Catholic church still thinks it's right and others are wrong. Maybe not 100%, but still, at the core, incorrect. And vice versa - despite both being monotheistic (the thing in common), most Muslims will view Christians as misled at best and heretical at worst for what they perceive to be worship of something other than God. I mean, every religion thinks it's the greater understanding of divine reality. Every religion thinks that "the nature of things naturally lead more toward itself than other faiths." I am not meaning to imply a perception of malevolence in other books, I am meaning to imply a perception of incorrectness. I did not mean "trustworthy" to denote whether the Bible has good or evil motivations, only that the information presented therein could be counted on as being true. Which brings us back to the question at hand: if all books are seen as the musings of mortal beings on the nature of God and/or a supposedly historical account of Godly things that happened, rather than a perfect, divine account dictated by God Himself - why is the Bible's account of a divine being named Jesus true, but an account of Joseph Smith finding brass tablets (and all other non-Christian religious accounts) is made up?
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Dec 4, 2014 20:57
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QuoProQuid posted:What you are asking this entire thread is for some sort of impersonal simple formula to tell you want to do. Everyone in this threads both atheist and theist, has been trying to tell you that this entire conception is wrong. Religion is predicated on choice and one's personal experiences. You want to remove belief from religion, which completely violates a core tenet of religion. I guess I'm wondering why anyone arrives at that belief in the first place if it's so nonsensical to do so. OR, why it isn't nonsensical. I know the atheists will say that the reason is "because they're dumb/grew up with it/have never though about it, but I want the perspective of someone who does believe.
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Dec 5, 2014 00:57
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Let's not let this devolve into a petty slapfight, please. Christians who don't see the Bible as inerrant (or even infallible), yet believe its story about Jesus: why aren't you a Muslim? Have you studied the Koran? Have you sincerely considered that the conclusions of your spiritual guidance may contain at least one error?
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Dec 5, 2014 21:17
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Black Bones posted:Like I said, people should go with whatever faith works best from their point-of-view. Hmm. So are you of the opinion that worshiping the wrong God, following the wrong faith, even believing (as part of said wrong faith) that Christianity is heretical - none of that is a problem for God? Doesn't matter, we're all saved regardless?
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Dec 5, 2014 22:18
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QuoProQuid posted:There is no such thing as "the wrong God." ...??? Thou shalt have no other gods before me? What???
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Dec 5, 2014 22:41
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fade5 posted:Welcome to the wonderful, wonderful world of universalism, aka universal reconciliation. It's a somewhat less mainstream belief, and some of the various Christian sects consider it heretical. (Ooh, these guys think these other guys' beliefs are heretical, that's never happened among the various Christan sects before. To be fair, it's absolutely a brand of Christianity I can get on board with. Not in that I'm convinced of Christ's divinity, but in that I can jive with it existing. It's kind of "everyone's searching, no one really knows, we'll all end up saved in the end, be cool, peace"
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Dec 6, 2014 03:45
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SedanChair posted:Yes, that would make you a Universalist. Whoops, you sneezed and became an atheist again. I'm not sure I take your point. Hey, have any a y'all motha fuckas ever seen Jesus Camp?
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Dec 7, 2014 00:36
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Black Bones posted:
I did read carefully, you're ignoring my point. This is nonsensical. God Himself prescribes that we must not worship anything but Him. I feel like this wouldn't be such a strongly emphasized rule if it weren't possible. Are you suggesting that even when people worship Brahma, call him a different name, assign him different attributes, and think of him completely differently and mistakenly, that they are still actually worshiping the real God, even if they don't realize it? Even if, in addition to worshiping their God, they think of the Christian version of God as false?
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Dec 10, 2014 19:08
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ya don't want to end up looking like CommieGIR. Reading carefully is key to understanding.
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Black Bones posted:Read more carefully. No, seriously, I am not misreading anything. I understand exactly what you are saying. You posit that we (meaning any human who looks toward anything supernatural at all) are all worshiping the same thing, even if we call it different things or conceptualize it differently. There is a correct version of God, which we are all perceiving, but just maybe not fully or accurately. Christians, Hindus, Egyptians, and Pastafarians alike are actually talking about the same thing, just in different ways. That's nice that you think so. And I understand that you do. But God Himself, if the Christian Bible is to be believed, says indicates quite clearly that you can worship a false or wrong god, and he is very much against it. When the Jewish people worshiped the golden calf, God was rarin' to smite them (luckily Moses talked him out of it). And furthermore, the full account of what God is and wants varies greatly among religions, and many aspects disagree directly - as per my question earlier about religions whose God or gods deem the Christian God to be false. So even if we were all talking about the same thing ultimately, most people must be wrong about exactly what attributes this Thing has. So my question is, if you recognize that nobody's right and everyone has at least some attributes dead wrong, how do you then pick one version of God and claim it is the most accurate? How do you separate the false claims about what God is from the true? Have you made some mistakes in interpreting what The Thing is and what it wants? If so, how can you be sure that the interpretation, "it's all the same God, and he doesn't care exactly what version you worship" is a correct one? Your own doctrine disagrees with that quite strongly. A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
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Dec 13, 2014 20:12
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Cavaradossi posted:No you don't. Very few of your actions are consciously arrived at by logical thought. Logic is difficult to do, limited in its application, and only under special circumstances is the result of using it an improvement. Saying you don't use logic in your day-to-day because you're not consciously thinking about it is like denying that you breathe unless you're doing it manually. Logic isn't all "if p then q" abstract kind of stuff, logic can be something like: "If I drop this fork in the silverware drawer from several feet, it will make a loud noise when it hits the rest of the silverware and possibly move them around some. I base this on previous experience of doing or seeing done similar things. Since I do not want this result, I will instead gently place the fork in the drawer". Of course you don't consciously consider all of that, it's all streamlined into one action. You may disagree, but I ask: if you instead thought, "If I drop this fork in the silverware drawer from several feet, it will cause a nuclear explosion" wouldn't you call that illogical? I mean in addition to moronic, insane, and troubling.
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Dec 13, 2014 21:25
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Cavaradossi posted:And some (most) never required logical thinking at all. Give me an example
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Dec 13, 2014 21:35
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OwlFancier posted:It's not rocket science but it's basic 'if this, then that' logic. I think this is critical Cavaradossi, you really seem to be mistaking "logical" with "actively and/or consciously logical". Again, the breathing analogy: you are constantly running the process subconsciously, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening
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Dec 14, 2014 01:08
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bobtheconqueror posted:Wait. You seem to be implying that, because we don't do so on a regular basis, there isn't value in critically analyzing things. The hard and boring applications of logic are sometimes the most valuable, and it's frequently worthwhile to question preconceptions. Plus, why would God give us this fantastic tool to perceive and understand the world, then chastise us for using it on Him? Logic, reason, scientific processes - these are all virtues when applied to anything else. Why, when I read the Koran and apply logic and reason to it to find out it isn't true, that's proper and correct, but when I apply it to the Bible to find out it isn't true, I'm misunderstanding/taking things out of context/using reason where faith is better/etc? God would be capable of a Holy Book that stood up to scrutiny.
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Dec 15, 2014 20:52
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Cavaradossi posted:No. I'm saying that applying reason to faith doesn't work. Reason is not the be-all and end-all of how we interact with the world; in fact, it is very limited in its application. Applying reason to faith is simply a mistake, it doesn't make sense, it's not why people have faith. I've been reading some accounts of Christians who converted to Islam, and the thing that convinced many of them was the supposedly ahead-of-its-time science found in the Koran. That, and the Trinity was nonsensical, so the actual-just-one-God of Islam made more sense. So, in that respect, it very much is a product of using reason.
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Dec 15, 2014 23:21
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The whole "it's faith! Logic doesn't apply!" crowd makes me think they all consider logic to be strictly "if p then q" type of stuff. Look, even if it's something I'm just supposed to feel out and believe, I can and do still have a logical problem: your faith doesn't provoke the same emotional response in me, so I have to analyze why, and come to some conclusion based on the fact that none of the faiths make a stronger emotional case for me than any other. So how do I arrive at one? By thinking about it....and using logic.
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Dec 16, 2014 05:22
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Helsing posted:Perhaps the problem is that you are predestined for Hell, and your lack of faith is just a clue that you are not among the elect. No joke that is like the only explanation so far that actually satisfactorily answers my questions. It makes God kind of a dick, yes, but it answers everything. I'm just not in the club, straight up.
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Dec 16, 2014 05:59
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nopantsjack posted:You'd rather ignore evidence that Christianity is man-made in order to believe that you're predestined for hell? No no, sorry, I'm not saying I do believe it, just that it's the only answer that isn't nonsensical or "of course it isn't logical, you're supposed to have FAITH".
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Dec 16, 2014 15:54
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neonchameleon posted:By their fruits shall thee know them. I'd like to bring this back up: it seems like you are contending that the way to sort out genuine revelation from false is to assess the person who gives it. However, I feel that even this would fall quickly into absurdity. First of all, what do you define as a "fruitful" person? Let's say it's something like how much they pray and how charitable they are. Are you arguing that the most pious person is also the most correct? And that if there is a "tie" - that is, if there is a group of extremely pious and charitable people, but no most pious and charitable - are you arguing that they would all agree on everything theological 100%? I mean, maybe that's the case, but it seems like a stretch. If the most fruitful people disagree on something, then what? How do we figure out the truth in that case? Also, if an extremely pious person told you that women are unfit to teach in church or that gay people are unfit for the kingdom of god or something, would you by default adopt their views? What I'm saying is, examining the "fruits" of a person still does not seem like a good enough standard of proof to determine correct revelation. nucleicmaxid posted:Does it count as nonsensical if it's one of the main lessons in the book you're attempting to hamfist logic into? I'm not sure I take your point
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Dec 21, 2014 19:00
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After a great deal of consideration from the discussion in this thread and elsewhere, I think I'd like to approach my question from a different perspective to see if we can get any closer to an answer: Let's say I have been convinced of Christianity in the very basic sense - that is, I think there is a God, and I think Jesus is his son who died on the cross. However, I am still unsure of which denomination to choose (and thus, which specific interpretations of many of the finer theological points to follow). This may seem arbitrary or unimportant: well gee, do you like choirs or rock bands? Pageantry or a casual setting? But there are many things the denominations differ on that seem vitally important to get right (like, I dunno, which of the five solae do I consider?). Let's further assert that I'm not interested in choosing a denomination based on what I like the best, or what feels right, or what is easiest, or what would require the least change in my lifestyle; rather, I am interested in finding out what is correct. I think even those arguing that logic can't be applied to religion would have to agree that there is a right answer (even if that right answer is "God does not care which religion you follow, just be someone of any faith at all") and that it is a reasonable goal to find out what that right answer is before committing yourself to a creed. And let's say that the first issue I want to solve is: do I take the Bible as the literal word of God, or not? So I go to two hypothetical friends of strong faith: a Presbyterian and a Pentecostal. The Pentecostal tells me, "Gaining, it's important you realize that the Bible is the inerrant and literal word of God, and that you must follow all the rules prescribed therein. I've prayed on this many times and have consulted God in every instance when I had a doubt, but He has reassured me every single time that I am meant to follow this book exactly. I am certain of it." I then sit down with my Presbyterian friend, who says, "Gee-dubs, it's important you don't take the Bible as the literal word of God. Doing so could lead to many poisonous views, such as hating gay people or not allowing women to teach in church. Personally, after reading verses like those, I turned to God in prayer, and He assured me that the Bible was written by fallible humans, and should not be taken exactly as is. Rather, I should take just the central message of Jesus's sacrifice for me. I am certain of it." Two people, both claiming to speak on behalf of God, both certain they're right, and yet their views are in direct conflict. I think we can agree they can't both be right; rather, it is simply unavoidable that one of them - at least - has made a mistake in their interpretation. So how do I further investigate to determine who is correct? Just to head this off in advance: I don't accept that praying on the issue myself is a valid answer. For one, that's just one extra subjective interpretation to add to the mix, and two, I don't think my powers of interpretation are any better than either hypothetical friend - indeed, as someone who has been a nonbeliever so long and who is just coming around to an acceptance of the faith (in this example, not in real life), I would value my interpretations of God less strongly than my friends, who have been in communion with Him for a long time. When it's just two Christians differing on one viewpoint, from my neutral position, they seem to have about a 50/50 shot of being right. But when it's 2 billion Christians, each with varied and nuanced views on hundreds (if not thousands) of viewpoints, just based on pure probability, it is a near certainty that any given Christian is dead wrong about something, if not most things, that they believe. And I think we can agree that, since there are so many conflicting views out there on what God is and what God thinks and what God wants, most people have to be wrong. And it's not a stretch from there to say that they all are, at least in part. How, then, do I trust communication with God, when that method is so demonstrably faulty? How can I simply have faith when it's impossible to decide which thing to even have faith in? If you are a believer, how do you take your own communications with God as more valid than anyone else? Do you think that you are the best at interpreting God, better than everyone else on Earth? Are you really willing to argue that when another believer disagrees with you on something, that they are necessarily wrong? And if not - if you recognize that many people have to be wrong about many things, despite their certainty - why do you trust the conclusions you've drawn over any other?
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Dec 22, 2014 21:11
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nucleicmaxid posted:You can't, because it's all made up. hth. I will be satisfied with this answer when a religious person gives it
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Dec 22, 2014 22:29
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Valiantman posted:Please ask me to elaborate if I'm not actually answering your question here. You're getting very close, but it still seems like you have faith without a good reason to have faith - and not reason as in "logic and reason" but as in "x is the reason I have the faith in the first place". You say you recognize your own limits and your own ability to be mistaken about your internal/subjective views on God, yet you seem to still trust them in the end. You say you go with what is most convincing, but I don't understand why you are so convinced by Christianity and not something else. You say: quote:I do believe there has been one person I can trust being the best at interpreting God, by the virtue actually being His son. But plenty of people have claimed to have profound connections to God that you don't take as seriously as Jesus. I mean, Mohammed claimed to have been dictated to directly by an angel, Joseph Smith claims to have been visited by Jesus and led to the brass tablets, Kirishna is also said to be the son of God, and you don't follow any of the religions propagated by those claimed revelations. What I'm saying is even the belief that Jesus is really the son of God - and that anyone else claiming something similar, or a direct and especially profound connection to the mind of God, is wrong - takes a great deal of the kind of faith that you yourself admit is incredibly faulty. Do you at least understand how, from my perspective, the better explanation for why you believe in Jesus is because you simply were brought up that way, and not necessarily because it's true? quote:If Jesus was who he said and who his followers testified he was, research of the Bible is crucial But if he's not then we can no more trust his ideas on what God wants than anyone else. We can't use his claims of divinity as proof - plenty of people claim divinity, even today - and we can't use accounts presented in the Bible to prove that the Bible is true. It's too circular for me to accept. If Jesus is God, we can trust his opinions of what God wants, yes, but we can't determine that to be true other than by praying and believing we've been told by Jesus that he is in fact God. quote:it's not me and my ability to reason things I'm putting my faith into. It's someone else. You're right, it is, but only after trusting your ability to reason things in finding out which divine claim from among the world's myriad religions is actually valid. If there were something substantial setting Christianity apart from all other faiths, if there were some keystone that indicated that I should take this faith's claims more seriously than any other's, and if it were provable or at least shown to be very very likely that Jesus was in fact who he claimed to be, I'd have something to build the rest of a faith on, but as it stands I still do not. I'm perfectly willing to accept one, though, were it presented to me.
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Dec 23, 2014 04:15
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