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Thanks Sir. But... How many times have you said your goodbyes to me before returning?
I'm not sure I would say "it's easy", although I am more optimistic than you are. Some people however can get things easy so its good to encourage them in the event there is "low hanging fruit". But anyway there is a saying called "The Dark Night of the Soul" which describes what you are talking about. Which is something I also have dealt with in my own life etc.
Dark Night of the Soul - Wikipedia
Thanks Sir. But... How many times have you said your goodbyes to me before returning?
Again, I either believe it, or I don't. I doesn't really matter 'how' I derived at my believing conclusion. Ultimately, God would know whether I do or don't believe. And if I don't, which I cannot really control, seem odd that God might smite me for a cognitive construct, which is out of my control.
Thoughts?
Just for the record, I'M THE ONE WHO provided my friend @Sanoy with the evidence that @cvanwey has been much less than consistent and, perhaps, even lacking in integrity, especially as he's moved in to CF and found what seems to be more or less a permanent ruse......I mean roost.
Just so you know, BigV, I'm also following your patterns as the "guest" that you are, and if you can't more fully engage various evidences or explanations that are given to you, then I guess you'll just find yourself without a discussion partner on these Apologetics forums.
As for myself, I'm placing you and cvanwey on my prayer list and this will be the last you hear from me. I'll probably place @InterestedAtheist stedAtheist on the same list unless he, or you or @cvanwey can comport yourselves more in a way that is at least one like @Moral Orel.
So, I wish you all well in this life and I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for, but one of those things won't be the further use of my time.
Peace.
2PhiloVoid
I suppose you have that in terms of your psychology etc. wanting to make things black or white, but for me I believe in more a continuum. So I'm thinking along the lines of things like
Richard Glasser's Reality therapy.
Reality therapy - Wikipedia
Successive Approximations in learning
Successive Approximations definition | Psychology Glossary | alleydog.com
and so on.
We have the following:
- Belief is not a choice.
- God seems to condemn people whom possess the incorrect belief in Him, which isn't a choice.
- Belief, in and of itself, is an amoral cognitive construct.
- God must then think improper belief of a claim is a 'sin' against Him. Otherwise, He would not state He is going to condemn you for it.
In conclusion, do you AGREE that belief is not a choice, and that sin is irrelevant in the above applications?
In terms of determinacy, no. I see this more as pain management..
I could also say.. Do not think that I've come to abolish the Law. Clearly if the LAW was used for righteousness, and if Paul is blameless as to the Law, then Paul was sinless.
And Christ clearly ignored the Law.
Mark 7: 17 After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. 18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? 19 For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)
Was pork clean under the Mosaic Law? So, you have two contradictory things about Christ. He allegedly didn't come to abolish the Law and yet, he ignore it and ultimately abolished it. I mean, you are not following it now, are you?
You will need to demonstrate why my axioms are not sound. Again:
Oh that is easy. It gets into the whole issue of "the construction of reality". A broad topic.
But the basic idea is we humans do not really see reality purely as it is, but we interpret it and we also construct it (we try to figure it out like amateur scientists). Which kind of is a "no duh statement" for some folks (steeped in epistemology, postmodernism etc.) but not so much for other people. I'm talking about Naive Realists.
(In social psychology, naïve realism is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively, and that people who disagree with us must be uninformed, irrational, or biased.).
Naïve realism (psychology) - Wikipedia
The whole logic thing I'm sure work good for you. There are certain personality types given to that. I am a big fan of the the Myers Briggs Personality Indicator as a general . There are certain personality types very given to making logic thee driver for everything. For simplicity sake we will just say you are an INTP, even though you may be more about "the facts", details etc. (using sensing rather than intuition, being an ISTJ, ISTP etc.)
Introduction | Logician Personality (INTP-A / INTP-T) | 16Personalities
But other folks don't think that way, and to insist that they do, or should start's to get into the territory of naive realism. For example, at least half the world are feelers who base there decisions not on logic but moral values that they believe in some way are intrinsic. Then there are people like me, I'm an INTJ a close relative to the INTP, but I base my reasoning on a kind of internalized Utilitarian philosophy. Rather than thinking in terms of Logic which can be a dead end in many situations one can talk instead on things based on how useful a idea or a model is, does it allow you to account for the data, and serve in other ways.
But its not just about how we are wired in terms of personality, it gets into our whole past, etc. kind of like the famous work "The Politics of Experience" by Scottish psychiatrist, R. D. Laing (1967). Which a Marxist website kindly has been hosting for the last few years for those that would like to read the opening chapter.
The Politics of Experience
Jesus was getting past the mere temporary laws -- example: to sacrifice an animal to atone with God for wrongdoing -- and fulfilling the true real spirit of the Law: the real meaning. As someone that has read through all of the Old Testament, I can provide plenty of example if you need it, such as the famous Isaiah chapter 1: God didn't want sacrifices offered to Him when people didn't even try to do the true spirit and intent of the Law. etc.
You could imagine yourself smarter than Jesus about the law, but you should not.
You should instead guess that He is smarter about the law, having studied it more natively, and closely, then any of us.
It's easy to miss the meaning when one thinks one knows already.Mere temporary laws? I thought he said not one iota, not even a letter will disappear before everything is accomplished. So why did he ignore the bits about dietary laws? Eating pork is fine? Hey, that's a mighty iota or the smallest letter!
If God didn't want sacrifices he shouldn't have required them in the first place.
Btw, in the millennial kingdom the sacrifices will be back! God must love blood. By his fruit ye shall know him. If he had his Son killed, then he truly must love blood and murder.
Naw... There is absolutely nothing the ancients did better than we do today. Medical field, for example, doesn't spend too much time with archeologiests to try to uncover ancients' medical knowledge secrets.
Trivia question. Did you know Jesus was against washing hands? I mean, in their age of no toilet paper and poor hygiene, he told people washing hands doesn't have any benefit!
I am not the smartest tool in the shed, but I know that washing hands is a mighty good idea!
Mark 7:7 The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus 2 and saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed.
To that Jesus responded by telling them that nothing that goes into stomach can defile a person. Maybe not defile, but what about disease? Has Jesus heard of Ebola?
Jesus could heal, etc.
To get the real meaning you have to trust on some level He's got something to teach you.
To learn, you have to want to learn, as you read His words.
I think you missed some of his points....
Some of the things He 'taught', turned out actually later now known not to be teaching points.
Furthermore, aside from His claim of being the Messiah, name one thing Jesus taught, which could not also have been learned, completely (outside) His lessons? Meaning, did He offer any concepts which were forward thinking, and/or not already discovered/learned/known prior?
And if you happen to find one, or even a few even, then compare that with the teaching points He shared, which were not already written, or spoken about prior to His arrival onto the scene.
And more importantly, the thinks He taught, which may actually be down right questionable?
I surely cannot help you in any way if you can't detect or surmise or wonder if Jesus understands more than you do about anything.
It seems to me you are only repeating talking points.Avoidance. Not surprised.
Some commonplace false talking points of atheists:
1. Christ is only repeating ideas from others.
If an idea is true -- the best possible way to live -- it ought to show throughout history in all regions of the world over and over and over.
Why? Because truth about living depends on what humans are -- how we are -- and that doesn't change over time generally. What is 'true' about us endures over time, persists in cultures also, since people recognize the wisdom in it.
Falsehoods fade out. What is true endures.
So, we should expect that the great truths Christ said would have been said in some form, even if a less good form, a less perfect form.
For instance, the 'golden rule' --
Matthew 7:12 In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets.
But, He didn't stumble and give us a lesser form.
Notice that this isn't just the lesser form from many places in the world --
'Don't to do others what you would not want others to do to you.'
Examples:
- "Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing." – Thales[13] (c. 624 BC – c. 546 BC)
- "What you do not want to happen to you, do not do it yourself either. " – Sextus the Pythagorean.[14] The oldest extant reference to Sextus is by Origen in the third century of the common era.[15]
- "Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you." – Isocrates[16] (436–338 BC)
That's a lesser form, only to refrain from harming others.
Instead, Christ said the perfect form:
Both, refrain from harming others and also proactively do for others as you would have others do for you (in similar circumstances).
And so on. It gets tiresome to refute endless talking points over and over.
It seems to me you are only repeating talking points.
It would not matter if you never learned something in any of these pointless debates you conduct. If you felt so complete in knowledge and so unteachable by any of us.
But it is deadly on the other hand you can't learn from Christ. That's only deadly.
Thoughts?
Schrodinger's Cat... cvaney..... Schdroginger's cat.
There are certainly plenty of good sounding reasons to say "the cat is dead" aka belief is not a choice, sin irrelevant etc.
But on the side of the Cat is alive (belief is a choice etc.) there is plenty of reason for that. For instance, by coming to this conclusion years ago, and arguing for it, rejecting alternatives etc. you basically are making a kind of defacto decision or literal decision, so if you end up doing that then you would actually be choosing to reject Christ. For instance even if you were 95% sure that the Jesus narrative of Christians is a myth, since you are around Christians all the time and this sort of thing is on your mind you could still pray etc. "in the event that you are wrong" the way we try to prevent certain unlikely nut remotely possible events etc. Of course at this point maybe you are at the 100% certainly level, and that would probably explain why you are so adamant that you have no choice etc. You have complete Faith in your lack of Faith!
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