Theology III

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

See, here's where our religions differ, I think. I don't think that it's necessary for my 'studies' to convince me whether my religion is correct or not. What convinces me is whether or not it feels right. Whether it touches something inside me so that I know it is right beyond any shadow of any doubt. And that's something I can't really explain to you more thoroughly.

I don't think you have to. I've heard of that before, Mormons describing it as the basis for their beliefs, and my older sister, and some Protestant friends whose beliefs differ from mine very strongly . . . The reason I can't accept this as a valid basis for belief is that people's hearts lead them to completely contradictory conclusions. Even when they say they know it's right.

I'll respond to the rest of your post tomorrow.

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by Nautipus

[Nautipus]

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

()

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

Stealing is probably a bad example because it overlaps with my political/socio-economic beliefs on property-rights. So let me try to just make this a bit more general.

The basis for my beliefs on morality is quite simple, really. If it hurts people, it's bad. Murder and rape are obvious examples of this, but other 'immoralities' would certainly fit as well. I don't think that a moral compass needs to be based on either religion or human intellect - I don't base mine on either one. It comes down to, for the most part - if it causes pain to others, don't do it. And I don't just mean physical pain - I mean emotional pain, psychic pain, mental pain, whatever. Causing gratuitious pain to another is wrong, and 'immoral.' It has nothing to do with me going to Hell if I act a certain way - it actually has nothing to do with me at all. It has to do with the world being a much better place if we do all we can not to hurt each other.

I think that the best reason for refraining from doing evil is that you don't do it because it's wrong, and you don't want to hurt people but to help them. Refraining from doing evil because of fear of punishment, or doing good in hope of reward, is much more self-oriented and so isn't as good a thing. Those reasons might make a good "last line of defense," if you know what I mean, doing good for reward is better than not doing good at all, and refraining from evil out of fear of punishment is better than having no fear of punishment and doing evil, but they aren't ideal reasons.

My view of sin is similar to your idea of what's wrong. Except that mine isn't based on the human intellect (IMO), and it seems that yours is. I know you said it wasn't, but it looks to me like it is, because it's from your intellect that you determine what causes pain to others and therefore is wrong and should be condemned. For instance, you don't seem to think that a false religion is hurtful to others and therefore should be condemned. Same with some forms of sexual immorality and abortion. In fact, your judgment of what's hurtful or not looks to me very much the same as the views of the rest of the culture of our time. Because it's your judgment that selects what's hurtful and what isn't, and therefore what's wrong and what's right, it all comes down to your human intellect vs. many others. Millions of people, going off their own intellects, come to different conclusions about what's hurtful and what's not, what's right and what's wrong. And that's not even getting into how the cultures of history differed, and how the cultures of the future will differ. So that basis of reasoning is like a house built on sand, if you'll forgive the metaphor.

Originally Posted by Curufin

For me, an 'abuse of sexuality' is impossible between consenting adults. If consenting adults want to do something with other consenting adults, then hey, whatever freaks their peaches.

Sexual immorality has a lot of painful consequences. Here are a few:

1) The immense emotional pain that often exists for one or both partners when they break up. This can be much worse than being punched randomly in the face, though the latter behavior is illegal. Those that sleep together before marriage are three times as likely to break-up as those who save sex for marriage (J.D. Teachman, J. Thomas, and K. Paasch, "Legal Status and the Stability of Coresidential Unions," Demography, November 1991, 571-83. As quoted in Good News About Sex and Marriage, p. 71).

2) Sex outside of wedlock can also create a reduced sense of self-worth in many women, because them at their most intimate is treated casually when they have sex with men who then leave them.

3) It can cause men involved in this behavior to increasingly look at the women around them as objects rather than in terms of their identities as people, human beings. This is dehumanization of women.

4) STDs caused by this kind of behavior have killed millions of people, including people who had nothing to do with the relationship (spouses, people hit through blood transfusions).

[Curufin]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

For instance, you don't seem to think that a false religion is hurtful to others and therefore should be condemned.

I don't. I don't think there's one true religion, so I don't really think there's such thing as a 'false' religion. In fact, I find myself rather offended by those who think there is.

Same with some forms of sexual immorality and abortion. In fact, your judgment of what's hurtful or not looks to me very much the same as the views of the rest of the culture of our time. Because it's your judgment that selects what's hurtful and what isn't, and therefore what's wrong and what's right, it all comes down to your human intellect vs. many others. Millions of people, going off their own intellects, come to different conclusions about what's hurtful and what's not, what's right and what's wrong. And that's not even getting into how the cultures of history differed, and how the cultures of the future will differ. So that basis of reasoning is like a house built on sand, if you'll forgive the metaphor.

No, it really isn't. Morality, like religion, is a very personal thing. I think what we're getting into here is the difference between 'high church' and 'low church' theology. I don't think that I need to be 'told' what to believe - by priests or by the bible, for that matter. What is important to me is my personal relationship between myself and my Gods - this comes as much from my Quakerism as from my paganism. Quakers believe that God speaks to individuals directly - they're actually about as opposite from Catholics in this sense as it's possible to be. Quakers don't even have preachers, believing that God speaks directly to each of us, and that each one of us is equally qualified to spread and understand God's message.

It's the same with morality.

My morality comes not from me looking at each situation and figuring out what would harm the fewest people (although this JS Mills-ian perspective certainly has its good points) but from my spiritual and religious beliefs which have formed my moral code. This is the same as yours, just based in different spiritual and religious beliefs.

Sexual immorality has a lot of painful consequences. Here are a few:

1) The immense emotional pain that often exists for one or both partners when they break up. This can be much worse than being punched randomly in the face, though the latter behavior is illegal. Those that sleep together before marriage are three times as likely to break-up as those who save sex for marriage (J.D. Teachman, J. Thomas, and K. Paasch, "Legal Status and the Stability of Coresidential Unions," Demography, November 1991, 571-83. As quoted in Good News About Sex and Marriage, p. 71).

I'm not sure that this pain would be any worse for couples that slept together as those who didn't. Break-ups hurt, whether you sleep with your partner or not. As for the other, all of my cousins lived together before they were married. One has been married fourteen years, one has been married four years, and the other was married just this past weekend.

2) Sex outside of wedlock can also create a reduced sense of self-worth in many women, because them at their most intimate is treated casually when they have sex with men who then leave them.

I would argue that it can also create an increased sense of self-worth, as women find pleasure, joy, and confidence in their bodies. You make it sound as if every man who sleeps with a woman is going to leave them and break their heart. This simply isn't true. It's rather harsh on your gender to look at them this way. My brother has lived with his girlfriend for four years, and I'm quite sure that he would be hurt more if they broke up, and he certainly doesn't treat her casually.

3) It can cause men involved in this behavior to increasingly look at the women around them as objects rather than in terms of their identities as people, human beings. This is dehumanization of women.

I diagree. How on earth does this happen?

4) STDs caused by this kind of behavior have killed millions of people, including people who had nothing to do with the relationship (spouses, people hit through blood transfusions).

Did I ever say I approved of adultury and affairs?

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Continued from the TEACUP XXIX:

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Granted, but . . . what do you envision resulting? Why not two different communions, one liberal and accepting and the other conservative and traditional? Do you envision it disintegrating into more parts than two?

Oh, good Lord, yes. It's already disintegrated into many more parts than two. The continuing Anglicans most certainly have their own problems, with a tendency to sometimes be political and petty. The conservatives in the Anglican Communion also have problems, with such silliness as California parishes being under African dioceses.

But anyway, I don't think the conservatives who are still in the AC will split off. Sure, some will filter out, but I doubt there'll be anything big. They've clung to the AC through horrendous liturgical changes, women priests, women bishops (much, much more problematic for conservatives), the Gene Robinson affair, and Schori being elected Presiding Bishop of TEC. Everything seems like it's the last straw, but somehow it isn't, and they continue to hold on.
The AC is more than the 39 Articles, it's an ethos, it's a cultural thing, and I don't think a great many people are going to give that up, at least in the West. I could envisage some of the African bishops splitting from TEC, but even then, they'd probably remain in communion with the more moderate bodies in the communion. It's not going to die, it's just going to drastically change.
Heck, look at GAFCON with their Jerusalem declaration. Everyone knew Lambeth was going to be an absolute joke, so the conservative bishops held a rival conference in Jerusalem, and released a statement more or less denying the jurisdiction of TEC and other liberal communities. Even this does not constitute a split, it's merely an affirmation of the shenanigans you've had where parishes jump jurisdictions, which obviously doesn't endear the conservative bishops to the liberals. It looks like it's just going to continue to be infighting, getting more and more savage, and more and more bitter, and less and less canonical, until finally one element has altogether triumphed. That element will, probably, be the liberal element.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Continued from the TEACUP XXIX:



Oh, good Lord, yes. It's already disintegrated into many more parts than two. The continuing Anglicans most certainly have their own problems, with a tendency to sometimes be political and petty.

Hmm. I don't know much about this- I'll need to look at the article you linked soon.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

The conservatives in the Anglican Communion also have problems, with such silliness as California parishes being under African dioceses.

That's not really their fault, though, because the broader Episcopal Church of the US doesn't have a place for them. What diocese are they to turn to? There is no Anglican diocese of California for them to turn to that holds to the same conservative values they do. They aren't breaking the Communion, either. They're switching to falling under the hierarchy of another part of the Anglican Communion, not forming their own new little new denomination.

I'll get to the rest of your post soon.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

I know, in the context of the Anglican Communion, it's the best option for conservative parishes. Or, maybe one might here say something about submission to the bishop, but putting aside such principles, it is the best option. But just because it's the best option doesn't mean it's a good one, it doesn't mean it doesn't suck, it doesn't mean it doesn't bring a whole slew of problems of its own, like accusations (and fairly valid ones) of poaching. Not, of course, that conservative bishops should be blamed for poaching, but neither is it a shock that this doesn't exactly endear them to liberal bishops/bishopesses. Really, with the huge liberal/conservative divide, the only possibilities are A) submissive passivity, B) completely severing ties, which every is loath to do (and rightly so), or C) exactly what's happened.

[Coffeehouse]

Concerning the Christian God, the first problem I had with the entire idea of the almighty, omnipresent being he is supposed be, is a fairly simple one.
Which is, why is God so ineffective?

According to the Christian faith this is the creator of the heavens and of the earth and of human beings. Yes, the faith upholds that God blesses us with a free will (with a subsequent punishment for eating an apple and talking to a snake [alarm bells ringing yet?]), and yet... somehow God can not perform the simple feat of instilling the divine truth of his existence into our minds and souls.
And it gets better. On top of having to send down a creature to Earth, long after letting us roam around, letting us believe in all sorts of other gods and faiths, he decides as fate for the rest of the world to let a few hapless missionaries roam around and deliver his word! And not through gently bedtime story-telling, but often like in the case of the Portuguese and the Spanish and their conquests in the Americas and by the African coast, and in the Indian Ocean. By sword, by pain, by mutilation and by cruelty. All in the name of their Christian God! Missions blessed by Pope after Pope in the Vatican. And it gets even better! Because as King Henry of Portugal sent out his missions for the Christian faith he and his emissaries believed that the Hindus in India in fact were Christian, just because they were not Muslim and because they used altars, confused with Christian worship. So not only is God the father of inefficiency, but also a very poor guide.

It's indeed Monty Pythonish. You can almost hear John Cleese standing there, explaining to God, "Really, it's quite simple. Just announce a date, open the heavenly skies and come out!

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Curufin

I don't. I don't think there's one true religion, so I don't really think there's such thing as a 'false' religion. In fact, I find myself rather offended by those who think there is.

I see.

Originally Posted by Curufin

No, it really isn't. Morality, like religion, is a very personal thing. I think what we're getting into here is the difference between 'high church' and 'low church' theology. I don't think that I need to be 'told' what to believe - by priests or by the bible, for that matter. What is important to me is my personal relationship between myself and my Gods - this comes as much from my Quakerism as from my paganism. Quakers believe that God speaks to individuals directly - they're actually about as opposite from Catholics in this sense as it's possible to be. Quakers don't even have preachers, believing that God speaks directly to each of us, and that each one of us is equally qualified to spread and understand God's message.

It's the same with morality.

Erm, I think you're misunderstanding Catholicism here. It definitely agrees that God speaks directly to each of us and that each of us is qualified to spread and understand his message. However, if there aren't certain clear truths that are to be believed by all the faithful regardless of what their personal experience is, countless contradictory messages will emerge and be followed and many people will be led into error. You can see this in Protestantism. For one and a half thousand years, Christians had religious experiences, heard God and followed, but what they heard happened to agree with the Catholic Church. When that central authority and centrally revealed truth was removed, Protestantism split because they thought God was leading them in different ways. Tens of denominations became hundreds, became thousands, all contradicting each other on more and more points. God isn't a God of contradiction and division, but of truth and unity. You can't have two people flat out contradicting each other on what the Holy Spirit wants and both of them be right. Not if you want to believe reason is worth anything. So personal listening must be subservient to another order on Earth, to protect it from the imagination leading to false answers or evil spirits leading to the same.

Do you believe in evil spirits, by the way?

Originally Posted by Curufin

My morality comes not from me looking at each situation and figuring out what would harm the fewest people (although this JS Mills-ian perspective certainly has its good points) but from my spiritual and religious beliefs which have formed my moral code. This is the same as yours, just based in different spiritual and religious beliefs.

Yet your spiritual and religious beliefs all come from your personal hearing the Goddess and your studying, correct? Studying involves coming to your own human conclusions based on fallible data. And hearing could be tampered with by the imagination or by demons. That's why there has to be one Church that maintains the truth revealed by Jesus himself throughout time, clearly expressing it and carefully preserving it from the time of the disciples (who passed on the original teachings, which were from Jesus, to their successors), and so on. This is a logical process and reveals truth in a way that everyone can see, understand and accept, without being confused by personal religious experiences leading them in contradictory directions.

Don't get me wrong- I think that the personal religious experience should be central to one's relationship with God. However, I know from experience how these can lead into error if they aren't rooted on a single, revealed truth that doesn't change based on my will- that doesn't change at all, in fact, from the days of Jesus to today. The doctrines haven't changed, though they have been understood with increasing depth as time goes on. Based on these unchanging doctrines, the Church has also come to conclusions on modern technologies and developments in politics and economics. This is from the perspective of the original teaching, not a change in it. All one has to do is look at the writings of the Early Church Fathers to see that their teaching has been sustained in the Catholic Church throughout time, up to now.

There are stories in the Church of saints experiencing God, and the personal experience of God is strongly encouraged. It can be a bedrock for faith. Sometimes demons of the imagination deceive, though, and at this point, the Church's teaching can hold the soul steady. Where there isn't that submission, contradiction, countless divisions and a breakdown of understanding what God wants have been the result.

Originally Posted by Curufin

I'm not sure that this pain would be any worse for couples that slept together as those who didn't.

A woman I knew who'd slept with others outside of wedlock (and had had a nonsexual relationship with a fiancé for years before, in college) say that the breakup after sex is much more painful. She never had sex with her fiancé before they broke up because they were both Christian, reserving it for marriage, and that relationship was extremely close. Yet when she lost her faith and had sex with someone else, that relationship which only lasted a brief amount of time skyrocketed to an extremely important place in her life, and the break-up was much more painful than hers had been with the fiancé.

This simply happens because sex adds a lot of new intimacy to the relationship, and greater intimacy means greater pain on separation.

Originally Posted by Curufin

As for the other, all of my cousins lived together before they were married. One has been married fourteen years, one has been married four years, and the other was married just this past weekend.

God bless the marriages .

Originally Posted by Curufin

I would argue that it can also create an increased sense of self-worth, as women find pleasure, joy, and confidence in their bodies. You make it sound as if every man who sleeps with a woman is going to leave them and break their heart. This simply isn't true. It's rather harsh on your gender to look at them this way.

Well, face it, it's really true . If they aren't looking for marriage and they want sex, and there aren't any vows of commitment, they aren't likely to stick around. It's not like they're looking to break hearts. But they have an itch and they follow it.

There are countless articles available online about how women tend to be more emotionally centered and guys more physical, women looking for relationship and guys often looking for sex. I bet I can find you some from psychologists, if you like.

If the relationship endures, the woman is likely to gain benefits from it such as you mention. If it breaks up, she's likely to feel cheap and may blame herself.

Originally Posted by Curufin

My brother has lived with his girlfriend for four years, and I'm quite sure that he would be hurt more if they broke up, and he certainly doesn't treat her casually.

That's true for some cases, I agree. What's generally true isn't true of every instance.

Originally Posted by Curufin

I diagree. How on earth does this happen?

I heard from a woman first how before she had sex, her mind wasn't full of sexual thoughts, but after she'd had it, her mind was just packed with them. I know that in my own case, I tend to deal with a lot of sexual thoughts, but I haven't had sex. When I evade sexually explicit movies, those thoughts diminish. When I watch Rated R films, they tend to increase. So I avoid completely certain movies, now, as a self-defense mechanism for my spiritual life. I know for myself that just looking tends to increase this. Thinking about women as objects increases for me after increased exposure to arousing material. Actually experiencing sex itself could only increase one's focus on that all the more. And if that experience isn't concentrated on one person with whom you know you'll be unified for the rest of your life, it's logical that your gaze would be more likely to roam elsewhere. Which helps explain the 3x greater rate of breakup among the sexually involved unmarried as compared to the married. It's partly a result from looking at women the wrong way.

I have posted articles on Entmoot before about how pornography increases the objectification of women. Having sex with them, without any requirement of constancy, can only increase that for many people.

Originally Posted by Curufin

Did I ever say I approved of adultury and affairs?

No. My point was that STDs kill millions through this kind of behavior. It's a very, very big death-producer. Even condoms and protection methods like that aren't foolproof. "Safe sex" is merely "safer sex," and people still die from it. These are good reasons for seeing premarital sex as abuses of sex, as destructive and harmful.

Premarital sex causes men to look at women more as objects, causes women often to lose self-esteem and a sense of self-worth, creates immense, destructive emotional pain at the eventual break-up that follows three times as often as it does for marriages, and causes millions and millions of deaths through STDs. That's a good list of reasons not to support it, but to rather see it as harmful. Abstinence and marriage minimize these risks.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

But anyway, I don't think the conservatives who are still in the AC will split off. Sure, some will filter out, but I doubt there'll be anything big. They've clung to the AC through horrendous liturgical changes, women priests, women bishops (much, much more problematic for conservatives), the Gene Robinson affair, and Schori being elected Presiding Bishop of TEC. Everything seems like it's the last straw, but somehow it isn't, and they continue to hold on.
The AC is more than the 39 Articles, it's an ethos, it's a cultural thing, and I don't think a great many people are going to give that up, at least in the West. I could envisage some of the African bishops splitting from TEC, but even then, they'd probably remain in communion with the more moderate bodies in the communion. It's not going to die, it's just going to drastically change.
Heck, look at GAFCON with their Jerusalem declaration. Everyone knew Lambeth was going to be an absolute joke, so the conservative bishops held a rival conference in Jerusalem, and released a statement more or less denying the jurisdiction of TEC and other liberal communities. Even this does not constitute a split, it's merely an affirmation of the shenanigans you've had where parishes jump jurisdictions, which obviously doesn't endear the conservative bishops to the liberals. It looks like it's just going to continue to be infighting, getting more and more savage, and more and more bitter, and less and less canonical, until finally one element has altogether triumphed. That element will, probably, be the liberal element.

An interesting perspective. I agree that if the two end up just fighting it to the death, the liberals will probably win. Liberalism is the wave of the future . . . it has been for centuries, has been resisted in each century, and has come out victorious. It's hard to see them losing .

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

I know, in the context of the Anglican Communion, it's the best option for conservative parishes. Or, maybe one might here say something about submission to the bishop, but putting aside such principles, it is the best option. But just because it's the best option doesn't mean it's a good one, it doesn't mean it doesn't suck, it doesn't mean it doesn't bring a whole slew of problems of its own, like accusations (and fairly valid ones) of poaching. Not, of course, that conservative bishops should be blamed for poaching, but neither is it a shock that this doesn't exactly endear them to liberal bishops/bishopesses. Really, with the huge liberal/conservative divide, the only possibilities are A) submissive passivity, B) completely severing ties, which every is loath to do (and rightly so), or C) exactly what's happened.

Hmm. Interesting points. I don't know enough about it enough to have an opinion myself, but I enjoy hearing yours .

What do you mean by "poaching"?

[Lief Erikson]

Coffeehouse, are you ever going to read this article?
*Posts it for the third time.*
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/vmary.htm

You're consistently refusing to pay attention, or often even respond to, the evidence I provided. All the available evidence indicates that the Virgin Mary did just what you're asking about- parted heaven and came down for all to see. And at least a million people saw her- that's the conservative estimate. I've seen other sites claim millions plural.

There have been many other cases, beyond Zeitoun, where similar miracles have happened too, witnessed by hundreds of thousands and occurring at various parts of the world.

As I've said before, the resurrection of Christ is among the strongest evidences supporting Christianity. We know that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven because his disciples, claiming to have witnessed it all firsthand, died for their firsthand testimonies. You might die for something you incorrectly believe to be true, but you don't die for testimony you know is a lie.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that Jesus fulfilled incredible numbers of Old Testament prophecies. At the time of his coming, there were 40 prophecies of the Messiah that were universally accepted among the Jews, and Jesus fulfilled them all, against all mathematical odds. He fulfilled over 150 others that hadn't been recognized as prophecies until he'd fulfilled them. The disciples preached these messages of fulfilled prophecies to the same people who had observed them -- the Gospel accounts were all accepted in the Early Church because they were the story the disciples had been telling -- and these messages were spoken to eyewitnesses of the events described. The people knew whether what the disciples were telling was true or false on many occasions because many of them had been there. Many of Jesus' mighty deeds or teachings, or the events of his life, were seen by crowds of thousands. So the disciples had immense motive to be accurate.

The Gospels are dated to within the first century AD, within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses who could contradict what was said. So again, motive for accuracy. Many details of the books also show the immense effort to be accurate that was put into them. For instance, the lofty role of women in the Book of Luke and other parts of the Gospels contradicted the cultural norms of the time, and the disciples, the leaders of the Church, were portrayed often as idiots and cowards. You don't portray your leaders that way if you want to attract followers, unless you're devoted to the truth. The same with women- you don't say that the first person to see Jesus raised from the dead was a woman, or that the first people to receive word of Jesus' birth from angels were shepherds. You don't teach that one of your precious Gospels was written by Matthew, a tax collector, one of those who would be judged severely by the surrounding Jewish community. There are other details too, that you might prefer to omit, such as Jesus' cry from the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" which has been taken by some as a sign of weakness. You might also be tempted to slip into the Gospels, if you were willing to play with the truth, some mention of Jesus' opinion of circumcision. At the time the Gospels were written, that was an enormous debate in the Church, and some word from Jesus on the matter would have cleared it up for all. They didn't include one because there wasn't one, and they were trying to be accurate.

There are loads of details like this that indicate the effort of the Gospel writers to tell the truth. They also are more reliable as testimony than any other manuscript from ancient history. The most supported ancient text aside from the New Testament is Homer's Iliad, for which 643 texts survive, a 95% accuracy to the original manuscripts is calculated, and the earliest manuscripts are dated to 500 years after the originals. With the New Testament, a 99.5% accuracy to the originals is calculated, the earliest documents are dated to within one century of the originals, and there are 5,600 copies from that early period. It is the best supported ancient history text without any comparison.
http://www.carm.org/evidence/textualevidence.htm

The odds of Jesus fulfilling all the prophecies he fulfilled by coincidence are mathematically impossible.

The probability that the disciples would purposefully lie that they'd seen Jesus rise from the dead and ascend into heaven, and then would all (note ALL, not one or two) rather be tortured to death than confess otherwise, is absurdly small. It takes much fewer than eleven living eyewitnesses to prove a murder case. Eleven witnesses willing to prove their testimony by dying tortured deaths for it is INFINITELY stronger than that.

So from a mathematical or legal perspective, the testimony supporting Christ's deity is irrefutable.

That isn't even getting into the millions of miraculous experiences that fill Church history to the present (as the incident I linked in Zeitoun shows), or the most important evidence of all: That anyone who seeks God can come to know him personally. When this happens, from personal experience, the testimony supporting Christ's deity becomes incredibly powerful. There are hundreds of millions of Christians worldwide who can give you testimonies of this.

Sometimes, God does open heaven and come down. It has happened before and it still happens from time to time, as the Virgin Mary incident I linked shows. Here's a site that documents other Virgin Mary apparitions: http://www.marypages.com/

The evidences are too numerous to count. Ultimately, believing these proofs takes an act of faith (even if only a small one, for someone who's extremely rational). Believing any proof requires faith, and this is both logical and necessary.

Back in the time of the Garden of Eden, God was visible to humanity and could be heard. They saw him as you and other humans could see each other. They chose not to believe him, though, and to sin by disobeying when they partook of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That original gap, unbelief, can only be closed by belief. Unbelief is like people running away from God. In fact, Adam and Eve literally did this in the Garden of Eden, running away and hiding themselves so God wouldn't see them. That's what we all do when we choose not to believe him. It's the common sin of humanity- we've all done it through our unbelief.

God has given humanity countless proofs, but ultimately, we must believe them. We must believe Him. That is how the original sin of Adam and Eve is undone: the sin of unbelief is undone by believing. That is the natural and necessary cure. Through unbelief we flee God and close our eyes to the vision of his wonders. We can't see God as we would wish to because through our sin we shut our eyes. Trustlessness can only be cured by trust. And evidence definitely helps.

So pray that God will show you the evidence in a way that you can accept it. Close the door as you have been doing (by digging for reasons NOT to believe and then clinging to them no matter what) and of course God will be locked on the other side, hammering and shouting in vain. Of course you won't see him if you shut him out! Seek him and he'll be glad to show himself to you. The distance made by faithlessness can only be closed by faith- and it takes a little faith just to seek him. That's all that's needed.

And it's the most rational activity of humanity.

[Coffeehouse]

How can I worship a God that is so inefficient? Whether he exists or not is in fact trivial because this God has no influence whatsoever.

Speaking of miracles, do you really think the fact that miracles happened, out in the open, for all to see, would not spark the greatest happening in history?
All over the news! In all channels and languages and stations and nations. But.. it hasn't happened. It's striking isn't it? How these millions of miracles you speak of never reach the eyes and ears of all of humanity. You know why? Because miracles, by default, happen when there's next to no one around. Miracles are figments of the imagionation. Make believe. Wishful thinking.

There was a study on this, an experiment. It was observed that a group of patients that were emphatically and lovingly prayed for did not get better faster than other patients. In fact many of those patients got worse..
Miracles happen, but I call them extraordinary coincidences or circumstances.
The miracles of religion that you speak of, they are never proved. The source you list, concerning the Virgin Mary, it's a few obscure photos. It could be anything! That's not good evidence, it's very dubious evidence.

And in the end I find it very surprising that several contemporary historians of Jesus' time failed to mention him... his miracles... his followers... his death. Not a word! Contemporary writers in Jerusalem. Not mentioning Jesus!

It's not be believed. The Christian Church has for too long entertained itself with the fact that almost no followers appreciate just how dubious their history telling is from that period.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Hmm. Interesting points. I don't know enough about it enough to have an opinion myself, but I enjoy hearing yours .

My best friend is an Anglican, who keeps quite up-to-date on what's going on. We talk about that a lot, and how it'll all end up. He thinks there will be a split, eventually, but as I said before, I kind of doubt it. He also thinks that the split solution is problematic.

What do you mean by "poaching"?

Going after another shepherd's sheep. The charge that Moscow loves to level against Rome, of proselytizing the Orthodox faithful. When conservative parishes leave liberal dioceses for Uganda, the Southern Cone, etc., much the same thing is going on. Not that I fault the conservative parish, or the conservative bishop, but it's also very reasonable and to be expected that the practice will hardly endear the conservatives to the like of Schori.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary...27-2008-2.html

Coffeehouse, I thought you'd like this. It's in regarding "Padre Pio".

[Coffeehouse]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary...27-2008-2.html

Coffeehouse, I thought you'd like this. It's in regarding "Padre Pio".

"Oh, okay. Apparently the automatic non-corruptible status that saints are supposed to achieve needs a few tune-ups – as happened with Saint Bernadette. Her face – post mortem – was covered with wax, and when an over-eager camera crew left their lights on her face a tad too long, they noticed that her eyebrows were sliding down her face – but that’s another adventure. One saint at a time."

[Lief Erikson]

Coffeehouse, you failed to respond to most of my post, so I'll continue waiting for your response to the evidence I presented about the eyewitnesses of the resurrection, the mathematical odds against Jesus fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies and the reliability of the scripture.

Thanks for responding to as much as you did, though .

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

Speaking of miracles, do you really think the fact that miracles happened, out in the open, for all to see, would not spark the greatest happening in history?
All over the news! In all channels and languages and stations and nations. But.. it hasn't happened. It's striking isn't it? How these millions of miracles you speak of never reach the eyes and ears of all of humanity. You know why? Because miracles, by default, happen when there's next to no one around. Miracles are figments of the imagionation. Make believe. Wishful thinking.

Well, see what I said below about the Zeitoun apparition.

But it's obvious why most miracles aren't reported in the media: God tells a person he's going to heal another if he lays hands on the person and heals him. So he lays hands on him and prays. The person is healed. The healed person has a medical history and can point to it, and to the fact that doctors find his recovery inexplicable. Both the miracle worker and the healed person can describe how the healing occurred the instant the prayer was spoken. Perhaps there were other people present -- plenty of times there are -- but this doesn't change the fact that the media wouldn't want to lose its reputation by reporting the incident. It knows that a lot of secular people would dislike the story, that they'd stop reading the paper if it published it, so the paper doesn't run it. Two eyewitnesses (or maybe even ten or twenty or thirty eyewitnesses) and some very puzzled doctors aren't enough for the media. They don't want secular people all around to stop reading their paper. That's why miracles happen all around, some of them obvious, and yet they don't get reported. Simple finances. Sometimes the stories get reported by local papers, of course, because in the local community they're writing for, it has caused a huge stir. The bigger papers won't touch it, though. They don't want to be called religious nuts and lose their readership.

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

There was a study on this, an experiment. It was observed that a group of patients that were emphatically and lovingly prayed for did not get better faster than other patients. In fact many of those patients got worse..

Oh, come on . God does what he wants when he wants to do it, not when humans making a study want him to do it.

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

The miracles of religion that you speak of, they are never proved. The source you list, concerning the Virgin Mary, it's a few obscure photos. It could be anything! That's not good evidence, it's very dubious evidence.

I don't think you looked at the article very carefully. It says there that a million people saw the apparition. That is a conservative estimate- other sites have claimed millions plural.

I researched the incident more from other sites, and this incident was reported on news stations all over the West, where news technology existed. The Muslim Egyptian police, suspecting that it was an elaborate hoax, did a thorough check of the area within a 5-mile radius of the church to look for technology that could be creating the phenomenon. They came up with nothing.

The Muslim president of Egypt saw it, as did countless international news reporters. They saw a woman shining with brilliant light, hovering in the sky above the church. Sometimes she appeared surrounded by stars forming a circle. She had a halo. Tens of thousands saw angels and doves shining with light in the sky, soaring overhead high above the church, and white smoke smelling of incense rose from the ground. Blind people and physically maimed or deformed were healed on the site.

The attempt to deny this internationally covered incident or to call it a hoax is what is incredibly dubious.

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

And in the end I find it very surprising that several contemporary historians of Jesus' time failed to mention him... his miracles... his followers... his death. Not a word! Contemporary writers in Jerusalem. Not mentioning Jesus!

See post 847. There's a load of evidence supporting the Christian story from corroborating, non-Christian historians.

Originally Posted by Coffeehouse

It's not be believed. The Christian Church has for too long entertained itself with the fact that almost no followers appreciate just how dubious their history telling is from that period.

That fails to respond to most of my post. I already explained a lot of reasons as to why it's not dubious in the least. In fact, unbelief is exceedingly unreasonable.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

http://www.randi.org/joom/commentary...27-2008-2.html

Coffeehouse, I thought you'd like this. It's in regarding "Padre Pio".

Same sort of bullsh!t that Penn and Teller employ: "If I just talk trash about something and say "No it isn't", then I've debunked it." I simply don't understand why people have such contempt for these things, for any sort of piety.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Gwai, I think you're back at the point Coffeehouse raised.

It's what the 'default setting' is. Skeptics say the burden of proof is on the believers. Prove a miracle. Believers say the reality of God is obvious. Prove it doesn't exist.

And I don't think 'piety' is on trial. "Padre Pio" is a hero to a very small portion of the population...most humans have never heard of him. Piety, even religious piety, comes in a great many flavors.

[Coffeehouse]

"Geophysical variables and behavior: LIV. Zeitoun (Egypt) apparitions of the Virgin Mary as tectonic strain-induced luminosities.

[My paper] J S Derr, M A Persinger
Department of Psychology, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.

Temporal analyses were completed between the occurrence of intense displays of exotic luminous phenomena over a church in Zeitoun (Egypt) during the years 1968 through 1969 and regional seismicity. These phenomena, viewed by thousands of onlookers, began one year before an unprecedented increase (factor of 10) in seismic activity about 400 km to the southeast. Monthly analyses also demonstrated a moderate (0.56) correlation between increases in seismicity and the occurrence of luminous phenomena during the same or previous month. These results were interpreted as further support for the hypothesis that most anomalous (terrain-related) luminous phenomena are generated by factors associated with tectonic strain."