God botherers, I want your opinions.

[djet]

Sure by what the Bible says there are universal morals. The difference is that everyone doesn't FOLLOW these morals.

[apowerr]

On laws, sort of on morals. In tribal societies, the purpose of laws is to minimize the damage done by a crime. Modern laws state, 'you should not kill' etc. These laws are bound to fail because people are going to kill, people are going to steal and people are going to do drugs for example. Any law that follows the form of 'Thou shalt not:' is broken from conception because no matter what you say, people are going to do what people are going to do.

[djet]

And that's what hell's for!

[Maxintosh]

Hell is only a man made concept.

 

Regarding to post 189; Dan please see the insert below referenced from The Gospels of Mary: The Secret Tradition of Mary Magdalene, the Companion of Jesus by By Marvin Meyer, Esther A. De Boer PH.D.

 

 

 

I'm guessing you don't have that book in your library so you can also find it referenced on the CNN site in their transcripts here. It is from their encore presentation: CNN Presents - The Two Marys.

 

And then, she disappears from the scene, only to reappear centuries later as a prostitute, the woman with the alabaster jar filled with precious ointment for washing Jesus' feet.

 

How did this happen?

 

MEYER: There is a story about a woman who is a member of the oldest profession in the Gospel of Luke, just before the first account of Mary of Magdala.

 

And Gregory the Great, at the end of the sixth century, read that story, and read about Mary, and conflated the two and drew the conclusion that Mary herself was a prostitute.

 

WEAVER: Gregory the Great just happened to be pope. And when he preached this revised version of Mary Magdalene in the year 591, his sermon turned her into a fallen woman for the next 1,400 years.

 

Hope that helps

[djet]

Did I miss something? Hell = Mary Magdalene?

[Maxintosh]

LOL Reminds me of the old song "Devil with a red dress on" by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

 

I was responding to two posts, which is why it says "Regarding to post..." in the second line

[QuietOC]

It is time to stop fighting it. Whether we LIKE to believe it or not, moral relativism rules the day, we just take our own morals in everyday life and SAY that they are universal, but in reality, they are not.We can have morals that are accepted by the vast majority of human beings, but one will never find universal morals. As soon as we say something is universal, there is one example to throw a wrench into the entire argument.We can kill people who don't agree with us, but the reality is that no matter how much better we will feel, this still does not make our brand of morals universal.

So, if there are no universal morals it must be morally okay for someone to kill all others who don't agree him/her, and if he/she does so then there will be universal morals! I think you are making too much of relativism. Some moral constructs are culturally relative, but something about morals is not a relative construct. Minimally we could could call this the problem of the good--as in there is universal awareness of goodness, and you cannot derive goodness from any logical argument. Good just is.

I thought it was Sept. 17th, but no matter, the point is that the catholic church always moves the goal posts around to whatever suits them best.

No doubt, the Roman "catholic" "church" did this a lot--which is why many critical thinking Christians left it (Luther) and/or at least tried to reform it (Erasmus). Most Christians do not equate human organizations with God's Church. Augustine's City of God being an early and extensive discussion of this.

[killbot1000]

So, if there are no universal morals it must be morally okay for someone to kill all others who don't agree him/her, and if he/she does so then there will be universal morals! I think you are making too much of relativism. Some moral constructs are culturally relative, but something about morals is not a relative construct. Minimally we could could call this the problem of the good--as in there is universal awareness of goodness, and you cannot derive goodness from any logical argument. Good just is.

 

This is where I disagree. I think one can logically derive the meaning of "good", however the same logic might lead to two or more different conclusions of what "good" is depending on which culture one happens to be studying. I would define good (for humans) as anything that enriches the entire society as a whole. What enriches a society though is different across societies, and this is why morals are not universal, but morals seek to unify and pull people together. We also owe some gratitude to people who do kill, rape, steal, etc. because they are a fringe group in society, and they inadvertently unify the rest of the people with their unacceptable behavior. It creates an "us" and a "them". Without this "us, Them" dynamic, human beings would have no morals, we would simply do whatever we wanted all the time, and there would be no society.

 

A little bit of deviant behavior is a very good thing for society, the important part however is that MOST people fall in line with some kind of standard, when this happens society can move forward, without it society crumbles.

 

There is universal AWARENESS of goodness, however this is also relative. For example, in the US we often consider somebody who has made a lot of money to be a good person, when in reality, all they did was make money. In many other countries, this would not make them good, it would only make them rich...

 

We are a lot more like animals than most people would like to admit, we organize in packs (tribes, groups, or pods) and we stay to that group most of the time, very rarely ever leaving it. One is born as a citizen of a country just as an Orca Whale is born into their pod, or family.

 

The only difference between human beings and other animals is that we are smarter, this makes our organization more complex, and with many more variables, but it is still present, to deny it is to lie to one's self.

 

My question is though, why are people so afraid of being animals, why do we have to be special, why does god have to make us in "his image". Who cares?

 

Are morals universal? Who cares? If you have morals, they are just as important whether they happen to be universal or not.

[Maxintosh]

Most Christians do not equate human organizations with God's Church.

Gods church? God doesn't have or need a church. Christians do

 

For example, in the US we often consider somebody who has made a lot of money to be a good person

Must be a regional thing Here we consider someone rich as being fortunate.

 

We are a lot more like animals than most people would like to admit, we organize in packs (tribes, groups, or pods) and we stay to that group most of the time, very rarely ever leaving it.

Yep, most people die 100 miles from where they were born. We are indeed animals. Anyone who thinks not is in denial.

[killbot1000]

Here we consider someone rich as being fortunate.

 

Oh totally, same here. But there are people who believe that if one is rich it makes them a better person, I have met plenty of people where I live who do not feel this way, but the fact remains, that thread is still there.

[QuietOC]

Gods church? God doesn't have or need a church. Christians do

Who said God needed it?

 

God's church is his redeemed people. Church (ekklesia) was just a common Greek word for assembly--really a political term. Membership in the Church is a political allegiance--the Church calls God, Lord.

[Maxintosh]

Who said God needed it?

It's implied in the name of the term.

 

God's church is his redeemed people.

Redeemed as in coupons? So God doesn't care about his UN-redeemed people? Let me ask you something, how many ants crawling outside of your house do you take personal interest in on a daily basis? Now you know why God doesn't need redeemed people, and we haven't even included any other life forms that may be in other Universes. Your rhetoric is a prime example of how mankind is so arrogant as to assume that God would only care about the "human" life forms that belong to religions

 

God doesn't have, nor need 'redeemed people'. We're not a action toy set that he's collecting. God is God. We are people. End of story.

 

Church was just a common Greek word for assembly--really a political term. Membership in the Church is a political allegiance

See above.

[QuietOC]

Let me ask you something, how many ants crawling outside of your house do you take personal interest in on a daily basis? Now you know why God doesn't need redeemed people, and we haven't even included any other life forms that may be in other Universes. Your rhetoric is a prime example of how mankind is so arrogant as to assume that God would only care about the "human" life forms that belong to religions

Are saying God doesn't get to choose who he cares about? That does sound arrogant.

 

Who God cares about is not decided by humans, not you, not me. That is my point. Jesus said he had other sheep not of this fold. C.S. Lewis for example used this in his fiction both in the Narnia series and his space trilology. Christians have abundant biblical reason to believe that God cares about all life.

[Maxintosh]

Are saying God doesn't get to choose who he cares about?

Of course he does, that's my point. GOD decides this, NOT mankind, and certainly not some man made religion that wishes to use God as a crutch, and kill innocent humans in his name. Even the assumption that God "cares about this or cares about that" is arrogant. Leave that to God, I'm sure he can handle it without mankind's help.

Jesus said he had other sheep not of this fold.

There is no evidence of this. At best it's just here-say.

Christians have abundant biblical reason to believe that God cares about all life.

Too bad they didn't think about that during the crusades, or when a pregnant woman is going to die because "they" say it's wrong for her to get an abortion

[djet]

Hmmm I'm wondering if some of you are mistaking the word care.....

 

God KNOWS everything, but does that mean he likes everything? No. You think God likes it when a serial killer murders someone? Does God care for the HIV virus? I don't see anywhere in the Bible where God alludes to anyone being his chosen people other than humans.

[Maxintosh]

God KNOWS everything, but does that mean he likes everything? No.

You are speaking for God, which is arrogant. You don't have a clue as to what God may or may not like, or even if God has human type feelings such as 'liking' something, for that matter. You are just assuming God does. All you know is what you were taught, and that was from another human being who had just as little of a clue as any other person ever had. Humans do not have the capability to read other humans minds, let alone Gods

 

You think God likes it when a serial killer murders someone? Does God care for the HIV virus?

See above.

 

I don't see anywhere in the Bible where God alludes to anyone being his chosen people other than humans.

This is meaningless as the 'bible' has more inherent flaws than we have room to print here, not to mention the fact that God has nothing at all to do with the man-made bible. God never had a say in the matter, he just had people put words in his mouth by certain religious groups.

[QuietOC]

This is meaningless as the 'bible' has more inherent flaws than we have room to print here, not to mention the fact that God has nothing at all to do with the man-made bible. God never had a say in the matter, he just had people put words in his mouth by certain religious groups.

So, your god can't say anything?

 

Please list any flaw(s) in the Bible. You haven't given us any yet.

[Maxintosh]

So, your god can't say anything?

So your God has a mouth? Got a Polaroid?

 

Please list any flaw(s) in the Bible.

Let's finish one conversation at a time, shall we? Then you can tell us what happened to the "original" bible. That ought to be good for a laugh or two

[apowerr]

You are speaking for God, which is arrogant. You don't have a clue as to what God may or may not like, or even if God has human type feelings such as 'liking' something, for that matter. You are just assuming God does. All you know is what you were taught, and that was from another human being who had just as little of a clue as any other person ever had. Humans do not have the capability to read other humans minds, let alone Gods

QFE.

How do you know if God even has the ability to care? It's consciousness (or lack thereof ) is so beyond our comprehension, to assume such things is ridiculous.

This is meaningless as the 'bible' has more inherent flaws than we have room to print here, not to mention the fact that God has nothing at all to do with the man-made bible. God never had a say in the matter, he just had people put words in his mouth by certain religious groups.

QFE.

So, your god can't say anything?

No ones God has ever communicated with man, unless their God is another person or something to that effect.

[3nigma]

Okay, it's been a long time since I've visited the forums. There's like 7 new pages, so here goes...

 

<deep breath>

 

What needs to be considered further is that if God- described as "he," is omniscient, but male, then how can "omniscient' be proved as true when there is no inclusion of female?

Both genders are made in the image of God; God is a spirit without a body; God has no gender. He is most often represented with masculine vocabulary, but there are biblical passages in the Hebrew that use feminine adjectives to discuss qualities of God.

 

Most Religions, including the big C (Christianity) are based almost entirely on astrology. Much of this relates to the Sun, seasons, etc. The themes that are presented in Christianity have been presented thousands of times before. (12 disciples [12 months of the year, zodiac], virgin birth [constellation virgo], jesus fish [age of piscies, an age is 2150 years], 3 kings [3 stars that align with the brightest star in the sky sirrius], december 25th birthday [the date the sun perceivably starts to come back from the death of winter, and the date that the sun aligns with sirius and the 3 kings]) just to name a few astrological connections.

Yes, these are the views espoused in the video Zeitgeist. Please, I am dead serious- anyone with even an elementary knowledge of the subjects covered in these theories can throw them out the window. It's like a politician who picks and mixes the data for his own agenda, it simply doesn't apply.

 

I will not go out there and say "I KNOW FOR SURE GOD DOES NOT EXIST". I would however say "it is unlikely that a god exists, based on the evidence".

It's called agnosticism. Learn what you believe.

 

If somebody died, was resurrected and ascended into heaven for all to see, then one would think a single historian from that time period would have written about him, but this was not the case. No historian wrote of Jesus until many years after his supposed death.

In ancient antiquity, Historians did not exist. I am a history major, this is simple fact. You, like every other psuedo-intellectual, are applying 21st-Century principles to antiquity.

Jesus was the patron deity within the Gnostic sect of Christianity.

You have no idea what you are talking about. If ANY scholars believe this, they are those random fringe people outside of scholarly consensus. Please, educate yourself. Don't be spoonfed the things that you want to hear, to make yourself more comfortable.

 

There is no proof what-so-ever that God has a 'sin' category

God is the one who made the category.

 

Plus since God created 'everything' then that must mean that he created what we call 'evil' as well.

Some theologians aruge that God did create evil. This is the "supralapsarian" stream of Calvinism, as opposed to the "infralapsarian" belief that it was due to man, Satan, and the Fall in Eden.

 

A credible God must be very different and beyond our comprehension

Who defines who and what God is: God, or you? And if you get to create the definition, who is really God? You.

 

God doesn't know which choices you will make. God does know however, every combination of choices, and the outcome of every single combination of choices possible.

This is an unorthodox belief called "Open Theism." It is widely discounted in mainstream biblical Christianity, and is only held by a fringe that is considered heretical.

Sin, I believe is not believing. Jesus says this:

So, to go to Hell, you do not have to not sin, you have to not believe.

That is called "Prooftexting." One verse does not paint the entire picture of the Bible. This is incorrect.

 

Do you seriously think that God would punish someone like a caveman and send him to "hell" just because the "bible" wasn't invented yet?

Actually, the Bible sheds light on the question of, "what happened to people before the Bible/OldTestament?" Paul writes in the letter to the people in Rome that it is, and always has been, by faith in God that people are saved. Even in the Old Testament and Judaism, it wasn't about keeping the 10 commandments and law, it was always by faith. Even before the 10 commandments were given (and there was therefore no "Bible"), it was always by faith. Creation testifies to God, and anyone who lives according to their conscience in light of this and with faith is held accountable to God for it.

 

Regarding 'hell'; it is widely known among independent religious scholars that 'hell' does not exist.

Oh, good. And here, I thought you didn't have any "credible" sources. Thanks for letting us know about your secret, independent scholars. And how funny that they "know" that hell doesn't exist, when leading atheistic scientits don't even say such a thing, but rather side with agnosticism.

I won't write a thesis on it here but to summarize an outline, it was first brought into the publics consciousness when the book "The Divine Comedy" was written around 1308.

Wrong again. Dante certainly defined and gave imagery to the public Western version of Hell in our subconscious today, but Hell is in the Bible.

 

If god was real why is the war, people killing and raping children.

This is called "Theodicy," or the problem of evil. It was answered in the 1970s by philosopher Alvin Plantinga, to which even his critics agree he dealt with appropriately.

 

How do you explain evolution if we are created in gods image?

Not even science has come to consensus on this, let alone reality. Don't be so foolish to accept evolutionary theory as the only means of man.

 

I believe in microevolution, but macroevolution is a whole different story. Do some homework on it.

 

And the whole problem of first cause (where did the first cell come from? where did matter come from?) is vastly larger with god. not only must he come from somewhere, but he is hugely complex.

God being "complex" is a scientific, philosophical argument that doesn't have root in the Bible, which is the God in question. God isn't complex whatsoever, but science assumes that he must be in order to make a complex earth. God doesn't work on those parameters.

 

The first cell on this planet came from bacteria, which arrived here from asteroids traveling through our solar system. The conditions for this bacteria to survive was not available until it was on our planet which, as you probably know, is unique in its order of the planets giving it the right conditions to then multiply.

That makes no sense. "It couldn't survive unless on earth, so it travelled throughout the stars, surviving the whole time, mind you, in order to get to earth so it could survive."

 

NASA confirmed it several years ago.

Oh, good! I'm glad it's confirmed. It seems like most people hadn't heard that, and if it were concrete it would be a little more widespread, especially considering it has been YEARS since the confirmation, but oh well, I digress. /sarcasm.

 

Here are some other historic quotes from other closed-minded people:

 

"The earth is of a rectangular shaped object." (Ezekial 7:2, Revelation 7.1)

 

"The earth experienced day and night before the sun existed." (Genesis 1:4-5)

 

"Stars can fall to the earth without destoying it." (Revelation 7.1)

 

"There is a mountaintop from which one can view the entire surface of the earth." (Luke: 4:5)

 

"The day can be lengthened by making the sun stand still." (Joshua 10:12-13)

These are all examples of poetic passages, written in Hebrew poetry, that are interpreted as prose. If you read a poem today, you don't read it literally- you understand literary principles such as metaphor and imagery. That is what is used here.

 

I know from personal experience that this universal energy does exist. If I were to list my reasons for believing in that life force they wouldn't have any meaning to you or anyone else, yet they are very important to me. Religion on the other hand serves no purpose other than to sustain religion.

I agree, religion is a creation of man for power.

 

But the God of the Bible isn't interested in religion, he is interested in relationship. This is what Jesus is all about. God is the unseen hand that you have seen moving in your life, but religion has given you a distaste for it. Throw religion out the window, God wants a relationship.

 

God has nothing to do with religion, and God certainly doesn't need religion, unless of course you're suggesting that God is vain

Exactly. But there is also more to God than a Star-Warsey-Force. He has been abused and misused by religion in the past, but that does not make him as revealed in the Bible wrong.

 

I've heard all of that before, and that and other things are the reasons that I'm not a Christian

Do some homework erei, you are being spoonfed. See my comments above about Zeitgeist. It's psuedo-intellectualism, misrepresentation, and forced data. Michael Crichton is a medical doctor and scientist before/in addition to being a novelist, and he is hugely against this. He is not a Christian. But as a scientist, he points out this kind of misrepresentation of data in the name of "science," and it is pathetic.

 

Take a basic class in these subjects and learn the real data.

 

(Occam's razor tells us something about all of these assumptions )

William of Ockham was a Christian philosopher, that created this, just so you know ;-D.

 

erei, I'm sorry I never posted more of my thoughts on the biblical doctrines of predestination. Let me know if you are still interested.

 

the point is that the catholic church always moves the goal posts around to whatever suits them best.

Nobody here is Catholic. Protestant Christianity was invented because every Protestant Christian believes that the Catholic church is full of {censored}. just like you. Don't use that on Protestants.

 

On laws, sort of on morals. In tribal societies, the purpose of laws is to minimize the damage done by a crime. Modern laws state, 'you should not kill' etc. These laws are bound to fail because people are going to kill, people are going to steal and people are going to do drugs for example. Any law that follows the form of 'Thou shalt not:' is broken from conception because no matter what you say, people are going to do what people are going to do.

This is absolutely correct. What you may be interested in learning is that this is what the New Testament teaches. The Old Testament was a book of "Law," but the New says that the old was deliberately broken in order to be a foreshadowing of Jesus ushering in "Grace." So, exactly what you just said is one of Jesus' main highlights.

 

Nobody can live up to the perfection of "the law." Jesus obeyed the law perfectly, but suffered death that he did not deserve, in our place. It is by having faith in him and that he did this, that we gain access to this grace.

 

And that's what hell's for!

Please don't talk anymore, for Christ's sake. (literally Christ's sake).

 

I think you are making too much of relativism.

Welcome to postmodernism ;-D.

 

No ones God has ever communicated with man, unless their God is another person or something to that effect.

The Christian God has communicated with man, according to Christianity.

 

***************************

 

Now, all of this being said, this thread is way off topic since I was last here. Why don't you guys start some nice new threads, so instead of sifting through 12 pages of stuff, we can have nice, neat, tidy categories?

 

-3nigma

[QuietOC]

So your God has a mouth? Got a Polaroid?

Yes, but Jesus isn't here, right now.

 

No ones God has ever communicated with man, unless their God is another person or something to that effect.

Christians do not disagree:

 

No eye has seen,

no ear has heard,

and no mind has imagined

what God has prepared

for those who love him. -- Isaiah

 

But we know these things because God has revealed them to us by his spirit, and his spirit searches out everything and shows us even God's deep secrets. No one can know what anyone else is really thinking except that person alone, and no one can know God's thoughts except God's own spirit. And God has actually given us his spirit (not the world's spirit) so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us. -- Paul

 

This spirit resides in the church, the fellowship of the spirit. It is not the mystical experience of individuals. The communication of God (revelation) didn't come by human individual's will, but by the spirit residing in the holy community. I already mentioned that Christian faith is based on real subjective experience of participation in the life of God.

[djet]

You are speaking for God, which is arrogant. You don't have a clue as to what God may or may not like, or even if God has human type feelings such as 'liking' something, for that matter. You are just assuming God does. All you know is what you were taught, and that was from another human being who had just as little of a clue as any other person ever had. Humans do not have the capability to read other humans minds, let alone Gods

 

Sure we don't know anything but a smidgen about God, but what we do know we have derived from the Bible.

 

Have you read it and drawn your conclusions from that?

[JonTheSavage]

Sure we don't know anything but a smidgen about God, but what we do know we have derived from the Bible.

 

Have you read it and drawn your conclusions from that?

 

I draw my conclusions from day to day, so as the seasons change.

[djet]

Wow that makes me want to really believe whatever you say.... you can't even stick to anything you say? Is that what you are saying, cause if so then what you say is about to change tomorrow.

[JonTheSavage]

Wow that makes me want to really believe whatever you say.... you can't even stick to anything you say? Is that what you are saying, cause if so then what you say is about to change tomorrow.

 

The truth will set you free my friend.