Theology III

[Tessar]

It makes sense though considering that the main debaters of the thread who are arguing from a religious standpoint are Christian. In this case it's more because of who's doing the arguing than any sweeping generalization about Christianity .

[Azrael]

I just find it interesting that most of the 41 pages of this thread concern Christianity, as if it is the only religion on the planet. [/QUOTE]

technicality Im not talking about a religion when i say Christian im talking about a real relationship with my Dad you loves me more then I can understand...He loves you two bro!... cool part is if you accept it or not He loves you all the same...maybe thats why all you see is christains in here Dads trying to tell you something lol.

[Curufin]

technicality Im not talking about a religion when i say Christian im talking about a real relationship with my Dad you loves me more then I can understand...

Well, technically, you are talking about a religion. Here's a definition of religion:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.

Seems to fit Christianity pretty well. Maybe from within this set of beliefs it seems like a 'relationship' to you, but from outside, it's very much the same as pretty much any other religion when it coems to that definition.

He loves you two bro!... cool part is if you accept it or not He loves you all the same...maybe thats why all you see is christains in here Dads trying to tell you something lol.

First - I'm a girl.

Second - The Christian God is not my 'dad'. My dad is the one who raised me from birth and has been there for me through thick and thin. I do not see a Christian God in this manner at all. I do not even see 'God' as being male, but if God exists at all I see it rather as being androgynous.

Third - If the Christian God is trying to tell me something, perhaps s/he should have told me sometime during the fifteen years I was searching for my place, praying every night for guidance and getting nothing in return. And as for loving me all the same, s/he sure has a very strange way of showing it.

Fourth - I think the reasons I see only Christians here is more along the lines of what Tessar said...

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

I just find it interesting that most of the 41 pages of this thread concern Christianity, as if it is the only religion on the planet.

I think that's a reflection of the beliefs in Entmoot's population. We also have a lot of agnostics and atheists posting on the religion forums. Those are the interested people who are here, so that's where the conversation is. If we had a lot of Buddhists or Muslims here, we'd probably be discussing those religions a lot more on these threads.

[Azrael]

opps my bad..sorry for thinking you were a guy.

but if you want to get real deep no God is not a guy, nor a woman, the Bible refers to God as He, but to this I have no answer (new at theology).

"Third - If the Christian God is trying to tell me something, perhaps s/he should have told me sometime during the fifteen years I was searching for my place, praying every night for guidance and getting nothing in return. And as for loving me all the same, s/he sure has a very strange way of showing it."


I don;t agree with you on God having a weird way of showing love to us. We were meant to die, but Jesus left His thrown to die in our place, to become poor when he was rich. You prayed for 15 years and got nothing. This my come out wrong so sorry in advance lol. When you prayed were you believing God would help you or did you believe nothing would happen. I for sure 100% that if you pray and believe with all of your heart God answers, but if you don't believe he will help, you'll just get what you believe you will get. not sure if that makes sense.

ok example:

i was running my 3 miles one day and was bout 2 miles from my house, it started to rain...hard. I was all "this sucks" so I kinda made this prayer saying "God stop the rain"...nothing happen. So i was 1 mile and a half from my house and then I was like"o i know what Hes doing" so i said "God, please stop the rain" it got softer and stopped..sun came out.

ok this may sound retard but i had a reason for saying it. A week before I asked God if he had a sense of humor and that was his little joke on me. I thought it was funny.

besides that I don't know what to say.

[Curufin]

This my come out wrong so sorry in advance lol. When you prayed were you believing God would help you or did you believe nothing would happen. I for sure 100% that if you pray and believe with all of your heart God answers, but if you don't believe he will help, you'll just get what you believe you will get. not sure if that makes sense.

Hmm. This to me sounds then that you are superimposing 'God's will' on something that you have done yourself. If I have a good attitude and confidence that I will achieve something, then of course I have a better chance of it happening. Even in the days when I was Christian, I always thought that God had better things to do than help me pass my chemistry test. As for the rain - ever heard of coincidence? I really doubt that the rain cloud dissapeared because of a prayer - if you look at the radar map from the time I'm 99% sure the storm just moved on at its normal pace and normal size.

As for Jesus...I respect Jesus as a historical person and a social reformer, but I don't buy the 'died for our sins' stuff, sorry.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Azrael

ok example:

i was running my 3 miles one day and was bout 2 miles from my house, it started to rain...hard. I was all "this sucks" so I kinda made this prayer saying "God stop the rain"...nothing happen. So i was 1 mile and a half from my house and then I was like"o i know what Hes doing" so i said "God, please stop the rain" it got softer and stopped..sun came out.

ok this may sound retard but i had a reason for saying it. A week before I asked God if he had a sense of humor and that was his little joke on me. I thought it was funny.

besides that I don't know what to say.

Heh . That is a good story.

You know, unfortunately that kind of story isn't going to fly very far with the Non-Christians here because they'll say it's coincidence. One of the things that makes it easier for Christians to believe it is that we have that kind of thing happen so very often in answer to our prayers. Prayers fly and answers return. In just that way. Also the experience with God is so intimate, powerful and personal. Non-Christians haven't experienced that, most of the time, and instead the religion has always felt like a hollow set of beliefs and formulas, without any spiritual reality.

[Curufin]

Also the experience with God is so intimate, powerful and personal. Non-Christians haven't experienced that, most of the time, and instead the religion has always felt like a hollow set of beliefs and formulas, without any spiritual reality.

I would say, in my experience, that this is untrue. I am non-Christian - not Atheist. I have had many, many very spiritual experiences that are very personal - just not in a Christian sense.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Hmm. This to me sounds then that you are superimposing 'God's will' on something that you have done yourself. If I have a good attitude and confidence that I will achieve something, then of course I have a better chance of it happening.

While that could explain some answered prayers, there are an awful lot that it couldn't. Especially when we get into the blatantly miraculous.

Originally Posted by Curufin

Even in the days when I was Christian, I always thought that God had better things to do than help me pass my chemistry test.

You were saying earlier that you'd never experienced him as a Dad. But wouldn't you mention your chemistry test to your human Dad? If someone doesn't interact with God as a Dad, it's less likely they'll experience him as a Dad.

Originally Posted by Curufin

As for the rain - ever heard of coincidence? I really doubt that the rain cloud dissapeared because of a prayer - if you look at the radar map from the time I'm 99% sure the storm just moved on at its normal pace and normal size.

Well sure, but God, foreknowing the prayer from eternity, could easily calculate that it coincide with a shift in the weather. God uses the natural as well as the supernatural. And both still could have shifted when they did because of prayer. Friendly coincidences, in my experience, happen a LOT more often when devout Christians pray .

Originally Posted by Curufin

As for Jesus...I respect Jesus as a historical person and a social reformer, but I don't buy the 'died for our sins' stuff, sorry.

Those were his claims about what he was doing, according to the Gospel accounts. Which are reliable because . . . . Maybe I'll save that one for tomorrow .

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

I would say, in my experience, that this is untrue. I am non-Christian - not Atheist. I have had many, many very spiritual experiences that are very personal - just not in a Christian sense.

I certainly wasn't denying the existence of spiritual experiences outside of Christianity. *Looks back.* I can see how what I wrote could be interpreted that way, of course.

I was saying that people who leave Christianity or are not part of it often have felt that Christianity "always felt like a hollow set of beliefs and formulas, without any spiritual reality."

[Azrael]

well heres my sort of proof. Romans were experts at killing people. They could kill 6000 people in one day by execution. So they would have made sure He was dead or they would lose their own life. Next when Jesus returned to life over 500 people saw Him.a lot of these people were killed for saying jesus died and rose again. I don't think someone would die for what they know to be a lie, so they had to be right, or crazy (if the second one then lots of crazy people lol) and in court for example, it only takes three witnesses to prove a man guilty or not. so 500!

[Lief Erikson]

Azrael, do you own The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel, by any chance?

[Curufin]

Those were his claims about what he was doing, according to the Gospel accounts. Which are reliable because . . . . Maybe I'll save that one for tomorrow

This entirely depends on which Gospel accounts you accept. Some of the ones that I find the most convincing and most accurate are ones that the Catholic Church considers heretical - e.g.., the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gos...spel of Thomas and the other Gnostic Gospels. And in many of these, Jesus never claims to be the Son of God at all, and he never mentions that he's 'dying for our sins'.

Well sure, but God, foreknowing the prayer from eternity, could easily calculate that it coincide with a shift in the weather. God uses the natural as well as the supernatural. And both still could have shifted when they did because of prayer. Friendly coincidences, in my experience, happen a LOT more often when devout Christians pray .

Can you see how, from a non-Christian viewpoint, this can seem a rather big cop-out? Of course, it gives me absoutely no way to disprove it, so I won't try.

While that could explain some answered prayers, there are an awful lot that it couldn't. Especially when we get into the blatantly miraculous.

Hence the reason I am not atheist.

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by Curufin

As for Jesus...I respect Jesus as a historical person and a social reformer, but I don't buy the 'died for our sins' stuff, sorry.

Historical? Person? That's more than I'd attribute to a figure I see as mythical, and a composite of 'myths' prevalent for the time.

[Curufin]

Azrael - I wasn't really talking about the physical reality (or unreality) of the resurrection - my comment was more that I don't believe that's what Jesus was all about.

I don't believe in the resurrection, but that's not what I was speaking of.

[Curufin]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Historical? Person? That's more than I'd attribute to a figure I see as mythical, and a composite of 'myths' prevalent for the time.

My dad's in the process of writing a book on the Historical Jesus - while a lot of the preconceptions are wrong, I don't think he was just a myth - I think he did exist, just not in the ways that most people think of him today.

[BeardofPants]

Fair enough. Personally, I find it troubling that there's no direct evidence (archaeological, etc) that he ever existed, and yet, so many people think he's some god figure. It's not a coincidence that there're so many other creation myths rather similar to the jesus-rising-from-the-dead one, and well... there's not much in a way of direct evidence that he ever actually existed.

[Curufin]

You'd have to talk to my dad about that one - it's certainly not my area of expertise. But I agree with you on most of that, although I do think he existed - just as a normal human being who happened to have some good ideas.

[Mari]

Hehe, I like reading this discussion.
Azrael, I don't know what your denomination is, but this website is an English Baptist one. They offer an explanation of a section of the Bible everyday with a contemplative session to accompany it.
http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/23835.id?redirect=true
This is today's session:
http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id

Should you decide to read it, read it while thinking. They have some rather good or interesting points and I learned a lot, but you don't have to agree with everything.
I think they use the King James translation of the Bible.
Have fun!

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

If we had a lot of Buddhists or Muslims here, we'd probably be discussing those religions a lot more on these threads.

I can't help but wonder that, regardless of whether we'd have more mooters from other religions, it's the Christian ones that just never seem to tire of religious debate.

Which reminds me, since there's a thing I've been wondering about, and you lot will no doubt know better. I always thought the view 'God helps those who help themselves' as prevalent in Christian belief. But lately I've seen many accounts of people who prefer to pray to their god for healing instead of (doing the obvious thing and) visit a doctor or continue their medication.

So I'm wondering, is the view 'God helps those who help themselves' perhaps more limited to one of the broken-off christian beliefs? If so, which one?