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WampaLord posted:Not necessarily evil per se, but growing up Jewish I definitely had a picture of God as being wrathful and punishing if you openly defied him. I can definitely see how that could seem to be the case, after all, there are many instances of that type of action in the scripture. Hypothetically speaking if i were raising a Jewish family I would want to counter that notion with how much He loves His chosen people and has separated them from every other ethnicity on the planet. Kind of like an arranged marriage that you are obligated to fulfill certain requirements. (You may have been taught many things and I would love to hear some stuff from a Jewish perspective)
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Jun 30, 2016 22:18
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Yehoshua Eben posted:I can definitely see how that could seem to be the case, after all, there are many instances of that type of action in the scripture. Hypothetically speaking if i were raising a Jewish family I would want to counter that notion with how much He loves His chosen people and has separated them from every other ethnicity on the planet. Kind of like an arranged marriage that you are obligated to fulfill certain requirements. (You may have been taught many things and I would love to hear some stuff from a Jewish perspective) A lot of it got fixed with Noah's Covenant, as far as I recall. That point was God saying "Okay, some messed up poo poo just happened, but I promise never again." And you're right, it is countered with "But the Jews are the chosen people, so you don't have to worry." I don't really have a lot of insight to offer, other than I never read the New Testament (obviously) and that I was always confused at the harsh fracture and division between Protestants and Catholics. It's so weird, because Jews are Jews, we just have different levels of orthodoxy.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:26
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WampaLord posted:I don't really have a lot of insight to offer, other than I never read the New Testament (obviously) and that I was always confused at the harsh fracture and division between Protestants and Catholics. It's so weird, because Jews are Jews, we just have different levels of orthodoxy. I think this has a lot to do with the enormous political power and influence of the Catholic Church across Europe for centuries. The Protestant Reformation had a lot do with politics in addition to theology.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:32
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Pellisworth posted:I think this has a lot to do with the enormous political power and influence of the Catholic Church across Europe for centuries. The Protestant Reformation had a lot do with politics in addition to theology. My initial statement was simplified. I totally understand why there was a schism and why they are separate churches. I just don't understand how each side considers the other "not really Christian." You both worship Jesus, you're both Christian.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:35
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WampaLord posted:My initial statement was simplified. I totally understand why there was a schism and why they are separate churches. I just don't understand how each side considers the other "not really Christian." You both worship Jesus, you're both Christian. For what it's worth I was raised Catholic and never heard anyone say that Protestants weren't Christians.
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Jun 30, 2016 22:45
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I was raised Protestant and never heard anyone say that Catholics weren't Christians. They were obviously Christians, just wrong or misguided. Mormons you might get more pushback on, but it wouldn't be an automatic unified no either.
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Jul 1, 2016 00:29
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i like nice words
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I won't say I never ran into the NO ONE BUT US HAS GOT CHRISTIANITY RIGHT attitudes growing up, but it certainly wasn't common, and mostly met with derision when it was brought up. I also, interestingly, never once growing up ran into the weird anti-Semitism you get within some Protestant groups, to the point where the very idea of it mystified me (still does, but for different reasons) when I first learned it was a thing.
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Jul 1, 2016 00:58
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Yehoshua Eben posted:I respect your opinion on this, and that your faith is not diminished by the conclusion you have come to. So, I would talk about how we come to the conclusion of Acts being ahistorical. Lets take for example the abrupt ending of the book, it is a big cliffhanger! Acts Paul is a Judaizer. Considering the theological stance of the historical Paul that wrote the epistles, that's pretty weird. And Acts Saul/Paul is a Sadducee working with the Pharisees to persecute Christians and also somehow he's a Roman citizen. Which makes no sense whatsoever considering the history of first-century Palestine in the Roman Empire. A Sadducee wouldn't be working with the Pharisees, and neither group would have been the least bit interested in Roman citizenship. The author of Acts might as well have thrown "and also he's a ninja" in there. Acts has some historical parts to it (for example, the martyrdom of Stephen is, I think, something that happened although I doubt Paul had anything to do with it) but it's more useful as a teaching tool rather than a historical account to me. Anne Whateley posted:I was raised Protestant and never heard anyone say that Catholics weren't Christians. They were obviously Christians, just wrong or misguided. Mormons you might get more pushback on, but it wouldn't be an automatic unified no either. I heard many sermons growing up in rural Indiana about how Catholics will be surprised at the day of judgment when Satan laughs, skewers them with his pitchfork and casts them into the pit of hellfire.
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Jul 1, 2016 01:10
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While I can't remember meeting a "Catholics aren't even Christian" or "Protestants aren't even Christian" person in person off the top of my head, I have definitely met people on both sides who have said that the other's sacraments don't count or so on. From the Catholic side of the pew, generally baptism and marriage as sacraments are understood to be performable by anyone, so they recognize the Protestant baptisms as formally correct but because many Protestants are non-creedal, this presents issues. Generally Catholics are willing to recognize the other sacraments performed by early protestants and obviously those performed by the Orthodoxy faiths. In fact, your fun Catholic trivia of the day is that it is possible to be a married Catholic priest, if you are first married and then ordained as an Eastern Orthodox priest, and then you convert to Roman Catholicism. I have heard some seriously nasty accusations from "modern" Protestants towards Catholics, which tends to be based on the same slew of criticisms and how willing the person is to go into crazytown ("the RC Church is literally the whore of Babylon and is trying to destroy Jesus' church blah blah").
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Jul 1, 2016 01:13
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There is a strong presence of baptist, especially the younger generation, that are not hardcore fundamentalist. We hold a high view of scripture and the fact that it was inspired by God and its message has been maintained by God, but we also understand there is something intuitively wrong with proclaiming anathema onto everyone who disagrees with secondary issues like mode of baptism, level of inerrancy, Catholic vs Protestant, etc. Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 01:16
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Yehoshua Eben posted:I do need to look further into things like the Catechism for better understanding of these matters. I do maintain that if something in said Catechism contradicts an explicit teaching of the scriptures then that would nullify the validity of the secondary work, but a better understanding of their viewpoints is needed. This is fair. The Catholic response to the issue of traditions and scripture being held equally is that, from the Catholic perspective, the scripture is merely an extension of that same tradition. That is, Jerome formalized the Canon as part of and from within the Roman Catholic Tradition, which from the Roman Catholic perspective predates the formalized Scripture. So Catholics generally find the idea that the scripture that arose from out of and as a result of their traditions should somehow be superior to the traditions that birthed them is a bit strange. It's not so much like the Constitution shaping our country, it's more like looking at the Uniform Commercial Code as it has resulted from a vast legal tradition and going "yes, that supercedes all other jurisprudence forever." From the Catholic perspective, because Catholics trace their apostolic line to Peter and Jesus directly, the Church itself predates all of the Gospels because the formation of the Church is written about in the Gospels. The Acts, all of the Letters, and so on, are just early recordings of things the Catholic Church did, from the Catholic perspective. How can the tradition be subordinate to the scripture when a lot of the scripture is just a recording of the tradition as it was? Acts, if taken as historical, is the history of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, so how can the literary accounts of the Church subordinate the traditions of the Church that those acts represent? You can take that or leave it as it is, but that is the Catholic perspective on why Scripture is simply an aspect of the greater Church tradition. Jerome, a Catholic, canonized the Scripture based on the Catholic Church tradition of which he was a part - the result can't subordinate the cause, so to speak.
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Jul 1, 2016 01:24
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Paramemetic posted:In fact, your fun Catholic trivia of the day is that it is possible to be a married Catholic priest, if you are first married and then ordained as an Eastern Orthodox priest, and then you convert to Roman Catholicism. You can do this as an ordained Anglican too if your congregation wants to cross the Tiber! Yehoshua Eben posted:but we also understand there is something intuitively wrong with proclaiming anathema onto everyone who disagrees with secondary issues like mode of baptism, level of inerrancy, Catholic vs Protestant, etc. Considering all the SBC pastors who lost their jobs over the inspired/inerrant/infallible debate I don't really think Protestants are immune to this sort of infighting.
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Jul 1, 2016 01:30
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Paramemetic posted:
I would argue that what is presented in the scriptures are the accounts of prophets and apostles. Yet traditions are inherently from men. Traditions arise from men's reasons while the scripture recorded the direct dealings of God with man. Through the church's early history the church weeded out the forgeries and other inauthentic unbiblical writings but they did not create the contents of the New Testament, they merely organized and preserved them I know to some it seems rather petty to make such a big deal out of doctrinal issues, but the repercussions in how the church functions on a primary level are enormous Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 01:34
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The Phlegmatist posted:Acts Paul is a Judaizer. Considering the theological stance of the historical Paul that wrote the epistles, that's pretty weird. Where do you find it written that Paul was a Sadducee in the book of Acts? , I would be interested in what scripture your referring to. I find that Acts doesnt present Paul as a Judiazer really, though there were certain situations where it was expedient to perform certian Jewish rights and rituals, similar to when Jesus sent the apostle to get the coin from the fishes mouth to pay the tax that he was not obliged to give them in the first place. (Matthew 17:27 ) But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." Here in Acts 15 they talk about the events leading up to the council of Jerusalem and he seems strongly against justification through Torah Acts 15: Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 02:04
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Yehoshua Eben posted:I would argue that what is presented in the scriptures are the accounts of prophets and apostles. Yet traditions are inherently from men. Traditions arise from men's reasons while the scripture recorded the direct dealings of God with man. Through the church's early history the church weeded out the forgeries and other inauthentic unbiblical writings but they did not create the contents of the New Testament, they merely organized and preserved them Of course, but the apostles, for Catholics, are the early Church fathers. The apostolic succession is important in Catholicism because it shows how the Church today is the Church of the Bible - there is a traceable line of ordinations from Frankie to Pete. The Church weeded out those forgeries and other inauthentic unbiblical writings based on and as part of the Church Tradition. And again, Luke-Acts for example was written, according to Catholics, about the first Catholics. So it's not that Scripture is wrong or bad, the Scripture is certainly important and good, but Tradition isn't subordinate to Scripture exactly because Scripture is what it is based on the Tradition. I think earlier you also made a point that if the Catechism was inconsistent with Scripture, Scripture would prevail, and that's true. That's of course, however, where the interpretation of Scripture matters. The Catechism is consistent with Scripture, unless you harbor heretical understandings of Scripture.
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Jul 1, 2016 02:14
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Where do you find it written that Paul was a Sadducee in the book of Acts? , I would be interested in what scripture your referring to. Oh, whoops, other way around. Paul was a Pharisee working with the (Sadducee) Sanhedrin. He says as much in his epistles. Although there's a branch of Judaism that thinks Paul and Gamaliel were Pharisees in name only and held to Sadduceean theology. That's probably where I unconsciously picked it up from.
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Jul 1, 2016 02:18
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The Phlegmatist posted:Oh, whoops, other way around. Paul was a Pharisee working with the (Sadducee) Sanhedrin. He says as much in his epistles. Granted the Sauducees and Pharisees were in opposition on the doctrine of the prophets, resurrection, and other things, but I don't think there is enough evidence to say that they would not work together in some situations. According to Britannica there is some dispute in the secular academic circles regarding the composition of the Sanhedrin: The composition of the Sanhedrin is also in much dispute, the controversy involving the participation of the two major parties of the day, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Some say the Sanhedrin was made up of Sadducees; some, of Pharisees; others, of an alternation or mixture of the two groups Also there were many benefits to having Roman Citizenship, including the right to decide what kind of trial you wanted to have, and to avoid public humiliation, among other things. From what I understand Paul's parents were tent makers like him and were at one point slaves but purchased their freedom and became citizens and passed it down to Paul.
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Jul 1, 2016 14:45
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Hypothetically speaking if i were raising a Jewish family I would want to counter that notion with how much He loves His chosen people and has separated them from every other ethnicity on the planet. What the gently caress? At no point in our history have we actually been "separated from every other ethnicity on the planet", we have always lived among others and - until very very recently, within societies that are run by others. Yes, very strict religious Jews follow rules about how they interact with non-Jews, many Jews feel they cannot intermarry, etc. and etc. but this really does not amount to any practical form of "separation" , and to pretend that it is so is effectively ignoring the entire history and current life of Jewish people. Even very strict Haredi are not truly "seperated" from other ethnicities in any practical sense and are often involved in intimate business dealings with people from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. Also, I have no idea why you think being separated from other ethnicities is a good thing or anything like an expression of God's love. Personally I'm in a serious, loving, longterm relationship with someone who isn't remotely Jewish, and over the years have become very close to her family to the point where I feel they are part of mine. A God who would consider this "wrong" or in any sense deserving of "punishment" is not a God I would characterize as "loving". To go back to my original comment.. I wasn't saying that God is "evil". I was making a half-joking remark about the history of the Jewish people in the time since the scriptures were written, not just the portrayal of God in the scriptures themselves. That said I think a lot of Jews - even some religious ones - would characterize our God as a very harsh and vindictive person, not a kind or loving person. The form of love expressed by God both within and without the scriptures reminds me of a textbook abusive spouse or parent. There may really be love expressed, it may even be meant at times, but its highly conditional and wrapped up in hosed up control issues. Also as to your last comment in that earlier post, there is happily a long and enthusiastic tradition of disobedience among us. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 15:02
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Earwicker posted:What the gently caress? At no point in our history have we actually been "separated from every other ethnicity on the planet", we have always lived among others and - until very very recently, within societies that are run by others. Yes, very strict religious Jews follow do rules about how they interact with non-Jews, many Jews feel they cannot intermarry, etc. and etc. but this really does not amount to any practical form of "separation" , and to pretend that it is so is effectively ignoring the entire history and current life of Jewish people. Even very strict Haredi are not truly "seperated" from other ethnicities in any practical sense and are often involved in intimate business dealings with people from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds. The Torah repeatedly speaks about the Hebrews as God's chosen people, and He did not choose any other people than them. I did not mean it in the sense of living in isolation from other ethnicicties, rather that the Law, which was strict, was given to God's chosen people, the Jews, because of their "specialness" as God's chosen people, after all He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Your notion that being the chosen people is not a good thing is subjective, some obviously will think it is a good thing ( I would embrace it) contrary to your stance on the issue. I did not intend to address the type of person who was merely born Jewish, if your not a practicing Jew than obviously it isnt going to be a good thing to you ( I don't know if you are or not of course)
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Jul 1, 2016 15:12
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Yehoshua Eben posted:The Torah repeatedly speaks about the Hebrews as God's chosen people, and He did not choose any other people than them. I did not mean it in the sense of living in isolation from other ethnicicties, rather that the Law, which was strict, was given to God's chosen people, the Jews, because of their "specialness" as God's chosen people, after all He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Fair enough, though I would say it's not as black and white as you are making it out to be, there's a whole huge world of culture in between being "merely born" and being fully religious and obedient. But yeah, the idea of a God singling out a particular ethnicity as special or "chosen" is not something I consider good, nor do I remotely choose to embrace it, and I don't think the idea singling out one ethnic group as "special" really fits the notion of a loving or kind God at all.
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Jul 1, 2016 15:43
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Earwicker posted:Fair enough, though I would say it's not as black and white as you are making it out to be, there's a whole huge world of culture in between being "merely born" and being fully religious and obedient. This is the essence of my earlier comments about God lacking compassion. It's easy to be compassionate towards your own family, or towards your friends or favorite people or pets. It's not particularly impressive, either. A god who has great compassion for his favorites while acting with great cruelty towards others is not the kind of god I'd have interest in following. Gods like that are a dime a dozen.
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Jul 1, 2016 19:34
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let's play calvinism Because honestly the history of the Catholic church won't pop up in your future congregation. Covenant Theology might, but considering where the SBC is headed, discussions about Calvinist soteriology are gonna be real. Eph. 1: 3-5 NRSV posted:Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. uh oh, choosing us before creation? Well I'm pretty sure that never pops up in the Bible ever again. John 10:14 posted:I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. Oh. So Christ called his sheep whom He knows by name, and He died for His sheep. Well I'm sure Paul will walk Ephesians back and refute this Romans 9:11-15 posted:Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue, not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.” oh.
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Jul 1, 2016 20:51
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The Phlegmatist posted:let's play calvinism I don't want to misrepresent myself as an advanced theologian,and I haven't really made my mind up on Calvinism. But I want to look at the topic now that you have brought it up! Total depravity - Romans 3:10-11 is the old stand by As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” unconditional election On one hand we have John 10:27-30 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” but on the other...Hebrews 6:4-6 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. Sure you can argue that the person who falls away was never really one of the elect in the first place, but if they shared in the Holy Spirit at one point, wouldn't they had to have had salvation to have that privilege? Regardless, the NT makes it clear that particular sinners are chosen for salvation and eternal life Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Ephesians 1:4-5 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[a] predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will Heres what J.I. Packer has to say on the topic of predestination To the question, "On what basis did God choose individuals for salvation? it is sometimes replied: on the basis of his foreknowledge that when faced with the gospel they would choose Christ as their Savior. In that reply, foreknowledge means passive foresight on God's part of what individuals are going to do, without predetermination of their action. But a. foreknew in Romans 8:29, 11:2 where the NIV renders the Greek foreknown as "chosen" means "fore-love" and "fore-appoint" it does not express the idea of a spectators anticipation of what will spontaneously happen. b. since all are naturally dead in sin (i.e. cut off from the life of God and unresponsive to him) no one who hears the gospel will ever come to repentance and faith without an inner quickening that only God can impart. Jesus said "no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him" Sinners choose Christ only because God chose them for this choice and moved them to it by renewing their hearts. Though all human acts are free in the sense of being self determined, none are free from God's control according to his eternal purpose and fore-ordination. Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 22:17
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Paramemetic posted:This is the essence of my earlier comments about God lacking compassion. It's easy to be compassionate towards your own family, or towards your friends or favorite people or pets. It's not particularly impressive, either. A god who has great compassion for his favorites while acting with great cruelty towards others is not the kind of god I'd have interest in following. Gods like that are a dime a dozen. Well, granted their was a time period that the chosen people were limited to Israel, but upon the inauguration of the New Covenant, that same promise is granted to the people of the rest of the world, with no more playing favorites other than in predestination. As far as acting cruelly towards some and loving towards others, well, there isnt much evidence in this life of that happening, after all, we learn from the book of Job that suffering isnt always related to sin, and in fact many sinners prosper their entire lives. After their death Hebrews 9: 27 says 'Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment' so they then have to face judgment and there justice will be served Also, if one believes that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob created the world, then He would hardly be a dime a dozen, there would be no other god conceivably in the same ball park as far as sovereignty, though if you don't believe the universe was a created thing, than you have to decide if you believe anything in the bible even in terms of His dispensation towards mankind Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 1, 2016 |
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Jul 1, 2016 22:26
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Well, granted their was a time period that the chosen people were limited to Israel, but upon the inauguration of the New Covenant, that same promise is granted to the people of the rest of the world, with no more playing favorites other than in predestination. I mean, to be fair, predestining some to have eternal salvation and happiness and predestining everyone else to literally eternal torment is a pretty big thing to just gloss over, yeah? Especially when one is the creator of the universe, supposedly, and so has set this up knowingly and intentionally in such a way as that some people are certainly destined to eternal torment. I understand the arguments for free agency and so on, that doesn't make God any less of a dick for going the whole "judgment day and eternal torment" route based on people's obedience to his whimsy. quote:As far as acting cruelly towards some and loving towards others, well, there isnt much evidence in this life of that happening, after all, we learn from the book of Job that suffering isnt always related to sin, and in fact many sinners prosper their entire lives. After their death Hebrews 9: 27 says 'Just as man is appointed to die once, and after that to face judgment' so they then have to face judgment and there justice will be served I mean, I think the fact that your suffering or not suffering is arbitrary is in fact much worse than the alternative. I mean, I believe that bad things happen to people as a result of causes and conditions that they themselves create in this or past lives, and that good things happen based on the same, and that so by adopting virtuous behaviors I can generally create a less miserable life for myself. It's entirely up to me - my fate is in my hands. That is free agency, yeah? But here we have "well, some poo poo's gonna happen to you, for whatever reason, and if you don't react to that poo poo according to the way it says you should in the Bible, even more poo poo is going to happen to you, except instead of being for no reason, now it will be because God is disappointed in you and/or because you weren't chosen when Jesus was picking his kickball team." It seems cruel, regardless, to know that God knows the minds of all beings, and yet still decides some get to go to hell. Contrast to my own very first prayer I say every morning, "may all mother sentient beings, especially those enemies who hate me, obstructors who harm me, and those who create obstacles on my path to liberation and omniscience, experience happiness, be separated from suffering, and swiftly attain the state of unsurpassed, perfect, complete and precious Buddhahood." If God cannot even muster that kind of a motivation himself, then where is the compassion? quote:Also, if one believes that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob created the world, then He would hardly be a dime a dozen, there would be no other god conceivably in the same ball park as far as sovereignty, though if you don't believe the universe was a created thing, than you have to decide if you believe anything in the bible even in terms of His dispensation towards mankind Yes, if one presupposes that this is the case, they would instead have to wrestle with the problem of why God created the world, initially favored one particular group (and ordered them on many occasions to commit genocides, rapes, murders, animal sacrifices, and so on), then later changed his mind, seemingly arbitrarily, to allow everyone to experience his love, but only if they follow certain rules, also arbitrary, prior to a last judgment that we cannot even presume to know the criteria of, because claiming to know that is a high blasphemy. It all goes back to that Marcus Aurelius meditation - if there are gods, and they are just, then they should be pleased by my virtuous behavior regardless of if I worship them, and if there are gods, and they are unjust, then I should not want to worship them. Mostly, the God of the Bible seems largely miserable and afflicted by suffering himself. I mostly am happy he seems to find his peace in the New Testament, until that whole Revelations thing kicks in that everyone takes as literal instead of allegory and suddenly he's not actually turned a new leaf, he's just decided to save the judgment until later.
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Jul 2, 2016 02:41
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Ok, so, you have a problem with how God manifests love. Here is my answer to why I don't think suffering for a non personal causal reason is worse but actually more appealing that purely causal suffering Lets take an atheistic person who is an existentialist. This person doesn't believe in God, angels, demons, or any of that mess, yet they find meaning that comes post existence, they make the meaning themselves and they find happiness in that thing. They could conceivably live their whole life with this outlook with no metaphysical contact and are very happy their whole lives even though they have a hard times just like the next guy. This person would not have deduced that life here on earth is horrible. Can you imagine this hypothetical person? I sure can, I even have many relatives in this boat as do most people. Yet if we take a nihilist that believes the same things about God, but looks at it like Johnny Raincloud IV and just brings people down and needs prozac or something, he will deduce that life is horrible. In both of these people's lives bad things could certainly happen to them, while the first may react optimistically while the nihilist might start acting really nasty. Their sufferings could have quite possibly had nothing to do with their faith, rather it was the result of dynamic free systems, and the New Testament backs up the reasoning for suffering that is not related to sin/desire/etc. It comes down to free dynamic systems, a world without dynamic free systems would be like a video game and a whole lot less satisfying in my opinion. It goes back to the fact that if God did have a good reason for allowing bad things to happen, would we know it? I cannot say we would. But what we get from this is that many people may be satisfied with the way the world works while some think quite oppositely. Being a faithful servant of the creator God who is in charge of those rules leads many Christians including myself to be more optimistic, while someone in the Buddhist boat may be inclined to see it the other way. You mention several things that you think God did but you didnt really go through them carefully. For instance, where in the Bible did God ever tell anyone to rape anybody? Thats a pretty serious accusation. Also, like I said before, the conquest of Canaan was in an isolated period at a very specific time in a small geographical area. Its purpose was to rid the land of pagans that would have and in fact did corrupt the Israelites horribly. This is vastly different than global jihad like we see today. When God was ready to reveal His plan of salvation to the rest of the world, He showed that love and mercy and grace were to be the foundation stones of His kingdom through Christ. This was not a mere whim of a persian king or something, but the divine plan to restore what had been corrupted, the "Grand Inclusio" of scripture. Also, how do you justify combing elements of a lesser god with the actions of Yahweh? For instance you say that "i'm glad that he found his peace in the new testament but becomes vindictive again in revelation" that does not describe the attributes of Yahweh in any sense of a biblical perspective. You can either believe He exists or He doesnt, but to start marginalizing his attributes is just hodgepodgery and leads nowhere fruitful Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 21:06
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Ok, so, you have a problem with how God manifests love. If you'll indulge me, I want to talk a little about suffering because it occurs to me I might be using it in a sort of technical sense. In both these cases, we see that suffering itself is not caused by things themselves but by our imputations of them. We suffer when we, deluded by ignorance, fall victim to attachment and aversion. In Buddhism, we recognize three kinds of sufferings. The first is the suffering of suffering - this is obvious suffering, suffering at its face. Being in pain, hungry, thirsty, or so on. But there are other kinds of suffering. Specifically, these are the suffering of change, and the all-pervasive suffering. The suffering of change comes from impermanence, the basic state of all composite things. Because of the impermanence, we can see that no matter how happy we are now, this happiness is temporary. When we buy a new car, this makes us really happy! But then that car will become old, and then we have to pay for repairs, and so on, and then it's not long before this car is causing us real headaches. Finally, the all-pervasive suffering comes because our present experiences, psychological and sensory, are also the cause of future psychological and sensory experiences. So we are constantly creating the seeds of our own suffering by continually engaging with these aggregates of sensation and perception and so on. From this perspective, it's possible that the atheistic existentialist will be very happy for his entire life, and will create seeds for future happiness, but because we understand impermanence, we know that this will not be permanent. Similarly, we believe that gods, though very long lived and having great amounts of pleasure and power and so on, eventually must die, and this causes them great suffering. Worse still, because they are very happy for most of their lives, they don't investigate the causes of suffering, and they don't practice Dharma to escape from their inevitable rebirth, so they exhaust the merit that supports their godhood in the first place and fall into these lower realms. quote:It comes down to free dynamic systems, a world without dynamic free systems would be like a video game and a whole lot less satisfying in my opinion. It goes back to the fact that if God did have a good reason for allowing bad things to happen, would we know it? I cannot say we would. But what we get from this is that many people may be satisfied with the way the world works while some think quite oppositely. Being a faithful servant of the creator God who is in charge of those rules leads many Christians including myself to be more optimistic, while someone in the Buddhist boat may be inclined to see it the other way. There's certainly no objection from Buddhism with free dynamic systems, to be clear I was making those arguments from within the framework of Christianity as I understand its logical conclusions. From within Buddhism, I would say there are only dynamic systems - the entire universe is supported as it is on interdependent origination. Nothing exists of its own essence, but everything only exists in relativity to other things. It's all sort of provisional, and certainly not reliable. This is detailed more in teachings on what we call "emptiness," this idea that all phenomena are devoid of essence. quote:You mention several things that you think God did but you didnt really go through them carefully. For instance, where in the Bible did God ever tell anyone to rape anybody? Thats a pretty serious accusation. Also, like I said before, the conquest of Canaan was in an isolated period at a very specific time in a small geographical area. Its purpose was to rid the land of pagans that would have and in fact did corrupt the Israelites horribly. This is vastly different than global jihad like we see today. When God was ready to reveal His plan of salvation to the rest of the world, He showed that love and mercy and grace were to be the foundation stones of His kingdom through Christ. This was not a mere whim of a persian king or something, but the divine plan to restore what had been corrupted, the "Grand Inclusio" of scripture. My recollection of the rape bits is foggy at best and I cannot cite a specific passage, I believe the order was to put all men to the sword as well as all married women, but to take the children and unmarried women for yourselves. This could easily be about slavery more than rape, so I apologize for making strong accusations. I'm not sure that genocide and slavery is much better as an order, though. I'm also not sure that ridding the land of pagans that would have and in fact did corrupt the Israelites is a noble goal because this "corruption" is provisional and relative to the perspective of the god in question. From the pagan perspective, they would not have been corrupting the Israelites but instead engaging in cultural exchange, sharing, generally neighborly stuff. If I have a really good method for tilling the soil, and I show you, that's not me corrupting your farming practice, that's me sharing my methodology. If, however, you have a dogmatic agricultural professor to whom you are enslaved who believes that only one method of tilling the ground is okay, and he tells you to never talk to me again, or to burn my crops and kill my family, this is maybe not so good. He sees my tilling as a corruption, but I surely don't. Similarly, the Jewish God may have seen the practice of other deities or rituals as a corruption, but that "corruption" is only a corruption from the perspective of the Jewish God and the Jewish orthodoxy of the time. From the perspective of the Canaanites, they were just sharing their own faith. In that regard, I don't think that because a religious genocide is geographically limited that it is any different from a Jihad. "It's okay when my people kill others to protect them from the harmful influences of foreign cultures. It's not okay with Islamic extremists kill others to protect themselves from the harmful influences of foreign cultures." That's a really dicey position to hold that in fact only works if you assume these presuppositionalist concepts that your God is correct and all other gods are are "corruption." Amusingly, that is in fact exactly the perspective of Islamic terrorists. quote:Also, how do you justify combing elements of a lesser god with the actions of Yahweh? For instance you say that "i'm glad that he found his peace in the new testament but becomes vindictive again in revelation" that does not describe the attributes of Yahweh in any sense of a biblical perspective. You can either believe He exists or He doesnt, but to start marginalizing his attributes is just hodgepodgery and leads nowhere fruitful I don't personally have any reason to believe that Yahweh is different in any way from any other god. The Bible presents Yahweh as a personality that defines itself as jealous, and which numerous times kills sentient beings or orders them killed for arbitrary reasons based on ignorance, attachment, and aversion. God has strongly held ideas in the Old Testament that he demands must be followed, and he becomes angry or disappointed and vengeful when he is not followed. He has strongly held aversions which he punishes people for bringing around him. There is nothing distinguishing between the personal god of the Old Testament and any of the other gods that people followed at that time. Jesus Christ doesn't display the same characteristics, Christ has generally found his peace and I have a lot of respect for Christ as portrayed in the Bible, I believe him to be a bodhisattva of sorts. If Christ and Yahweh are the same, then this demonstrates a change, a finding of one's peace. Then in Revelation we find that Christ is actually all about burning up dudes who don't supplicate him enough, but I don't actually believe Revelations is meant to be an endtime prophecy so this really doesn't bother me so much - I don't let my view of Jesus be tainted by Revelations. These days we ascribe a lot of characteristics to Yahweh, without scriptural basis, based on the shift from henotheism to monotheism. We describe god with attributes that are inconsistent with his presentation in the early scripture, such as claiming god is immutable, or beginningless. The Bible itself shows a changing perspective on god, reflecting that same change from henotheism ("Yahweh is the God of Abraham, and he is better and stronger than the other gods") to the view of monotheism ("actually God is the creator of everything turns out, there are no other gods, and he's omnipotent, omniscient, immutable, eternal, and so on"). When I was a Catholic I was willing to accept those assumptions and, having accepted them, I too might have said things like "well you know, demanding animals be murdered for propitiation seems evil but we just can't know the mind of god v  v ," but having wrestled with it for a long time, I ultimately concluded that there was little reason to make those assumptions. There are billions of people on this planet many of whom believe in different gods and to whom the specialness of the Christian god is not readily self-evident. When we look at the idea of pop culture savages throwing a virgin into an inferno to propitiate their gods and absolve themselves of sin, we think "that is savagery, that is completely terrible" and yet Yahweh required we do that to animals - sentient beings capable of suffering - straight up.Without the presuppositions of the conventional knowledge being true, there is very little that distinguishes the Christian God from other gods - everyone talks a big game about their gods, and if all we're going off of is what this god told us, hell, he might just be a braggart and a boaster on top, we don't know. So that is how I justify comparing the characteristics of the Christian god and other gods, and applying them one to another. The Morrigan caused the Fomorians to break ranks in terror during a great battle, Jahweh in Chronicles pitches some battles as well. I think Brahma is delusional when he says he created the world - he simply finds himself here, arisen by causes and conditions, and being first, decides he's god. Why shouldn't I think Yahweh delusional when he says he's actually the creator? Or any of the other claimed demiurges out there? No, it's much more reasonable, I think, much more consistent, to believe that they are just themselves limited beings, perhaps much more powerful and much happier than us, I cannot deny that Yahweh possesses more power than I do, but he's ultimately just another suffering sentient being, no different than myself, and the proof is in the behavior. A jealous god cannot be an enlightened god because jealousy is a very samsaric emotion.
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Jul 2, 2016 22:01
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There are several occurrences of women as spoils of war (rape and kidnapping), but I assumed you were talking about Lot's daughters.
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Jul 2, 2016 22:07
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Anne Whateley posted:There are several occurrences of women as spoils of war (rape and kidnapping), but I assumed you were talking about Lot's daughters. Well in the case of Lot's daughters, God didn't tell Lot to give those women up,, nor do I think it was Lot's desire for that to happen. Rather their were angels with him and instead of offending God he would sacrifice his family and most likely himself (hopefully) before he would let them rape the angels. That was not what God told him to do though and in fact the angels just handled it themselves anyways. The spoils of war were arranged/forced marriages, which isnt the same thing as rape albeit its a lot less desirable than freedom and unacceptable in most cultures today for important reasons, but the men were bound to be committed to the women as a husband . Deut 21:12 and see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her and would take her as a wife for yourself, 12then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her head and trim her nails. 13"She shall also remove the clothes of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and mother a full month; and after that you may go in to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife I don't think it would be fair at all to compare this practice to the atrocities the Islamic State is committing by marrying and divorcing the women multiple times a night, because that is a rogue organization that does not reflect the majority of Muslims and they are just plain nasty malicious evil people Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 22:52
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Paramemetic posted:
Well there are some ontological presuppositions that we have to address when considering what we mean by the word "God". I would argue that He is the greatest possible entity, that if he were not so then by definition he would not be God. I think I have inferred that you don't care for the ontological argument from an earlier post (at least involving the "reality" of the greatest possible being instead of it being "abstract thought" or so I think? due to the presupposition of that being the definition of God?) , regardless we have to have a working definition of what god means to you? Also, what do you believe about the creation of the universe? Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 22:59
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Well in the case of Lot's daughters, God didn't tell Lot to give those women up,, nor do I think it was Lot's desire for that to happen. Rather their were angels with him and instead of offending God he would sacrifice his family and most likely himself (hopefully) before he would let them rape the angels. That was not what God told him to do though and in fact the angels just handled it themselves anyways. quote:The spoils of war were arranged/forced marriages, which isnt the same thing as rape albeit its a lot less desirable than freedom and unacceptable in most cultures today for important reasons, but the men were bound to be committed to the women as a husband . Deut 21:12 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+21%3A10-24 https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%2013:16 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Zechariah+14%3A2&version=NIV Also in Deuteronomy, God's instruction to punish rape victims by death or forced marriage and more rape, etc.
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Jul 2, 2016 23:20
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Anne Whateley posted:For such a literalist, you're making up a lot of stuff on your own. Genesis 19 he two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2“My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.” But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.” 6Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing. 8Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.” 9“Get out of our way,” they replied. “This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We’ll treat you worse than them.” They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door. 10But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door. Yehoshua Eben fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Jul 2, 2016 |
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Jul 2, 2016 23:37
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Yehoshua Eben posted:Well there are some ontological presuppositions that we have to address when considering what we mean by the word "God". I would argue that He is the greatest possible entity, that if he were not so then by definition he would not be God. I think I have inferred that you don't care for the ontological argument from an earlier post (at least involving the "reality" of the greatest possible being instead of it being "abstract thought" or so I think? due to the presupposition of that being the definition of God?) , regardless we have to have a working definition of what god means to you? Also, what do you believe about the creation of the universe? I don't find the ontological argument that you proposed particularly compelling because it literally begs the question - you have no support for the premise "whatever created the universe is God." Particularly, the issue is that in many cases these kinds of arguments take what would be reasonable premises and then conclude them with "the God that exists is the God of the Bible" which I don't believe is supported by the Bible. For example, looking at Aquinas' argument from degree, which I find particularly compelling, we see that in the set of all things, for any two things, there is one thing that is more good and one thing that is less good. God is that for which there is no thing that exists which is more good." That is a great logical format, good argument, very sound. But it doesn't arrive at "and that thing is also the God in the Bible." It does make the common sake argument that there is something that is the Most Good, but that Most Good thing is not necessarily the God of the Bible. It could be any other number of gods. If you want me to define god arbitrarily based on some kind of theological argument to reason towards the Philosopher's God, then I would likely use some definitions like that, but such an argument has problems for Biblical Literalism because the scriptural God of the Bible doesn't demonstrate the same characteristics that I would expect from something that we could make good arguments for. The most good thing for example depends on the definition of good. Are we talking about Socratic good? Then God is only that which is most excellent, perhaps most excellent at existing? But then what does it even mean to be most excellent at existing? Things only exist provisionally inasmuch as they can be conceptualized or related to something else. Perhaps we mean some kind of moral good? But then, how do we determine moral good? If God himself gets to define a moral good, then be the most excellent at following that, I would only need point to the few times God changed the rules on things to be able to show that God surely isn't the most excellent at that - after all, anyone who creates no rules would be more excellent at following those rules than God, who created some rules then changed those rules later. I am musing about those things as a point of polite theological discussion because I think that's what we're here for. As for my own beliefs regarding the properties of the Christian God, I would think he is most consistent, perhaps even textbook example consistent, with the type of god known as a Mahabrahma, which is defined in Buddhist scripture as a deity who, like Brahma, is deluded such that they believe they are omniscient, omnipotent, and the creator of the universe. I don't believe the universe as we perceive it phenomenally is created but rather it is interdependently arisen based on causes and conditions and exists only provisionally in a state of suchness. The longterm discussion of the qualities of Buddha nature, Dharmakaya, Dharmadhatu, and so on are complicated and I do not have a mastery of them. They also wouldn't be appropriate here, really. But I will say that the universe as we perceive it originates interdependently based on causes and conditions, and so does not have a single creator. Also, the expanse of emptiness-itself in which the phenomenal universe arises is uncreated, immutable, and without cessation. Though the phenomenal universe itself changes, the emptiness in which it arises is like space - no matter what the configuration of the objects you place within space, the space itself doesn't change. If you have a room and it is empty, we can see the space, but then you put boxes in there - the space is still there, it's just occupied, but the space itself hasn't changed. Similarly, if you make the room bigger or smaller, the space itself doesn't change, it still remains space. But a lot of that discussion would be very dependent on a lot of technical language to make sense, and needs to be built on a framework of other understandings that would take a very long time for me to lay out, and there are a lot of different philosophical approaches within Buddhism to arrive at those topics.
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Jul 3, 2016 01:21
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Parametric did you know there's a theologian out there who answers all your questions and his name is Karl Barth but the SBC doesn't really get too much into him as far as I know; he's not really popular in evangelical circles.
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Jul 3, 2016 01:51
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A schizophrenic wrote the bible in the first place. Do you feel special now OP?
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Jul 3, 2016 05:48
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Are your instructors aware of your condition, and if so, have they had a long talk with you about how it might affect your calling, or attitudes of your future parishioners towards you?
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Jul 4, 2016 19:23
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You said your goal is to become a pastor. In practical terms, how does that work? Is it an actual paying career that one keeps full-time, or is it basically a volunteer thing? Are you employed by the SBC or some other organization, or are you independent/self-employed? You mentioned wanting to take over and reinvigorate a struggling church; can you just choose a church and go to town, or will you get an assignment? Are there enough openings in the Southern Baptist clergy for the number of seminary-college hopefuls? Apologies if this is a lot of questions, but it occurred to me while reading this thread that I really knew very little about how religious careers work as careers for anyone other than dedicated residential clergy, and I'm curious how your goals will work on a practical level.
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Jul 5, 2016 23:28
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OP was raptured
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Jul 6, 2016 00:46
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I don't have a good question to ask, just wanted to thank Para for the fully sick debating.
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Jul 6, 2016 01:08
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The Phlegmatist posted:OP was raptured Goddamn, Liturgical Christianity thread still going strong. Revivalist movement was right  Edit: I also looked up Karl Barth and he owns, that is some respectable theology that guy lays out.
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Jul 6, 2016 01:51
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