What do you guys believe?

[Foundstone]

Gotcha, no just be completely honest, it's your discussion to lead, I'm sorry if my observation offended you.

No, no offence taken. I'm finding there's a very fine line (that I may have crossed) between pointing out where my opinions differ from yours and flatly arguing against yours. I am simply looking for information, and not an arguement. Perhaps a debate at the very most.

That is not true, you don't have to reject any knowledge. Your problem at present is being unable to accept the knowledge God has put for you in His word.

Well, sounds like you guys are much more flexible in your beliefs than many christians are. A lot of christians I've talked to tell me you have reject things like evolution, and you have to think that the universe is only a few thousand years old. Okay, meybe I've been talking to the wrong christians.

Easy question: do you believe Jesus should have been crucified or exalted as a great priest? (Might pay to read the story from God's POV as written in the Gospels).

That's not an easy question, that's a false dichotomy. I'd really prefer that nobody werre cricified. That sounds like a horrible thing to do to anyone. Exalted as a great priest? I have no opposition to anyone who wants to do that. I'll just respect him for his philosophies personally.

This might be your misunderstanding, Jesus didn't commit a sin and therefore was not guilty as charged.

Okay, duly noted. What have I misunderstood though? Sorry, I can't see what this sentance has to do with the quote above it.

About testimonies, I can say that Jesus' spirit has physically appeared and spoken to me through spiritual possession of his disciples several times when it was necessary, they don't remember but we do. Jesus lives!

Again, here I see your story in the context of heterophenomenology. I don't doubt your experience, but I also don't think I would necessarily explain the experience in the same way. I think people trust their senses too much when it comes to things like this. Everyone has direct access to their own concious experience, and so has been effectively studying conciousness for their entire life. Because of this people tend to think they're experts on conciousness, but that's not necessarily true. There are lots of ways in which your brain can fool you. Very convincing hallucinations are well attested to in the feild of clinical psychology. You can even do repeatable experiments where you can trick someone into experiencing something that didn't happen. Do you ever wonder if this was just a trick of the brain, and not an experience that is genuinely what it appears to be?

This is a paradox, as it means you will never hold anything to be truly true. Something I refer to as ultimate truth, or ultimate reality, ie, there is only one true version of something. Something cannot be black and white at the same time, it can either be black or white. I can be a mixture of black and white but this is something different, it is grey which is neither black nor white. So there is only one truth to our existence. Saying you are resistant to the potential for your views to change, means you are resistant to knowing what is ultimately true, because there is a stage where you know something to be true. Is there a Christian 'truth' that you do not believe you could hold as a personal truth? Any one come to mind?

You may want to reread what I wrote. We are in perfect agreement. I'm not resistent to the potential for my views to change. Quite the opposite. I value it greatly. As for the second part, I'm worried that we're going to end up buried in nit-picky semantics here, ("what do you mean by 'can', etc.") but here goes. We all have similar enough brains that in principal I could believe anything anyone else does. But there might be things in christian thought that are incompatible with my current world view though, and there are definitely christian tenets that I think have an extremely low probability of ever being able to unseat those current views. How's that sound?

I will ask you if there is any scientific claim you feel you would need to reject?

Sorry, I admit I may have been wrong about this. SOME christians certainly seem to think this. I've been given the impression by some that christians necessarily believe in a talking snake, a young earth, god's creation of all the animals in their current form, reject evolution etc. But you guys accept all that. What about walking on water, or turning water into wine, which seem to be violations of the laws of physics and chemistry? I assume your explanation is that god (or Jesus) intervened and modified the laws of physics to make that happen? Same goes for the resurrection, come to think of it.

If god can do this kind of thing, it's a shame that he doesn't give us a sign of his existence every once in a while, just so we don't have to rely on ancient writings. And not something like a Jesus-like shape on a piece of toast. Something totally undeniable, and visible directly to everyone. Like turning the moon from a sphere into a cube for a few years and writing "Yaweh did this" on it. It seems like he enjoys testing the limits of our credulity.

I know this is a long post, but I thought that you should know what one Christian believes, and why he believes it. Even though you may disagree with my belief, at least now you know what it is you're disagreeing with and where it originated.

Great post Harry. That explains a lot. Your concluding paragraph, which I quoted, is spot on. Thanks for understanding perfectly what I'm trying to do here. I've spoken to lots of christians who, as soon as I show an interest in their beliefs, start trying to convert me. I just figure that the bible has had such a profound impact on human history that it's worth studying as literature even by people who don't believe it's true. I think it's important to know what 2.2 billion people believe, even if I don't. And you'd probably be surprised how much I agree with. I'd just rather say 'I don't know' on some topics, where you have an explanation that you like.

If you're not willing to take sides, then why did even be interested? Just wanting to gain knowledge and do nothing with it?

Yes, just wanting to gain knowledge. I certainly haven't decided to do nothing with it though. Knowledge is always worth having regardless of if you have an immediate use for it or not. I think we are just the product of all the ideas and memes we've recieved bouncing around inside our brains. The more you know the better. And like I said, if 2.2 billion people base their world view on these things, it's pretty important to understand what they think, even if you don't believe it. I want, at very least, to gain a deep empathy for christians, and people of other religions too of course. As a side benefit, much of it is fascinating too. Buddhists, for example, have some incredibly cool philosophies, especially Zen Buddhism. Just fascinating stuff. I'd encourage anyone to learn what they can. I want to at least catch a glimpe of what it's like to be a christian, and you have all helped me to do that. Don't you ever wonder what it feels like to be an atheist?

Not logical at all. In fact your argument in the quote above is a
non-sequiter.

Sorry, you're right here. I should have said "my conclusion" instead of "the logical conclusion".

And that punishment is shame and separation from God that is proportional to your sins. Unbelief is only one of the thousands of sins non-Christians are punished for in hell. And God won't be impressed that you were unwilling to weigh the evidence just because you're not an expert, when it was in your means to do so.

But I have weighed the evidence, I just don't want to decide. Why does god force you to draw a conclusion? I don't understand why he wants people to decide so badly. I mean, if I live a good life, and I give to the poor and help the sick and love my neighbors and don't hurt people and don't do all the things about sex that he forbids, that's not enough? He's going to punish me forever just because I didn't want to make an absolute decision about his existance? That sounds very unfair. I thought he loved me? This seems like a terrible way to show his love.

I appreciate your sincerity. We've had a rash of trolls lately, wanting nothing but to stir up trouble. You actually want to know, so here's just a light smattering: light exists in both a place and a way. With what we know today, we know that is true, although it's a rather strange way of describing a travelling wave of small particles that have a physical existence. To the person it was spoken to, they couldn't possibly have any clue what it really meant, but could only marvel inside the verbiage they could fathom.

And thanks for your wisdom as well. As I said above, too many people I talk to are only interested in converting me. It's actually a terrible strategy even for them, because it immediately turns me off wanting to talk to them.

I'm sure you can guess what I'll say about the wave/particle duality thing though. It's not exactly made very explicit, and so I think it could be your interpretation that makes it seem like it's referring to wave/particle duality. If Jesus guides people's interpretations, then is there a record anywhere of Jesus having explicitly suggest this as the correct interpretation prior to the discovery of this phenomenon by physics? And again, the number ten cropping up in physics and christianity doesn't seem that improbable. In fact, I bet you could easily find more numbers that agree. Three gifts of the magi, three quark charges! Coincidence? I think so.

 

[Sir Wilshire]

Yes, just wanting to gain knowledge. I certainly haven't decided to do nothing with it though. Knowledge is always worth having regardless of if you have an immediate use for it or not. I think we are just the product of all the ideas and memes we've recieved bouncing around inside our brains. The more you know the better. And like I said, if 2.2 billion people base their world view on these things, it's pretty important to understand what they think, even if you don't believe it. I want, at very least, to gain a deep empathy for christians, and people of other religions too of course. As a side benefit, much of it is fascinating too. Buddhists, for example, have some incredibly cool philosophies, especially Zen Buddhism. Just fascinating stuff. I'd encourage anyone to learn what they can. I want to at least catch a glimpe of what it's like to be a christian, and you have all helped me to do that.

Sounds fair and good. Your attitude in this thread is a breath of fresh air compared to others in this subforum.

Don't you ever wonder what it feels like to be an atheist?

Don't have to. When we Christians fall short in morality and good works, it's as if we're living as practical atheists. And I know life would be easier if I weren't a Christian.

What about walking on water, or turning water into wine, which seem to be violations of the laws of physics and chemistry? I assume your explanation is that god (or Jesus) intervened and modified the laws of physics to make that happen? Same goes for the resurrection, come to think of it.

Nope. Not violations. Christians believe God sustains the existence of the Universe by his power. So with him being "connected" with it on such a level, it quite possible that he knows how manipulate its processes to make it do what he wants. Of course, we don't know which ones he's using, but that's due to us lacking knowledge. All of this is why it's also true that God "sends the rain" and forms babies in the womb, despite what we now know of meteorology and embryology. We just know more about those processes God uses to accomplish his purposes than we did before. And the supernatural/natural distinction has only been around in human thought since the 17th century. It's a false dichotomy.

If god can do this kind of thing, it's a shame that he doesn't give us a sign of his existence every once in a while, just so we don't have to rely on ancient writings. And not something like a Jesus-like shape on a piece of toast. Something totally undeniable, and visible directly to everyone. Like turning the moon from a sphere into a cube for a few years and writing "Yaweh did this" on it. It seems like he enjoys testing the limits of our credulity.

I completely disagree that something like that would be undeniable. It wouldn't lead to any more conversions necessarily. JP Holding puts it best below.

Richard Carrier tells us that he has reasons not to "buy" the resurrection "story". Let's have a look at these arguments. Some of Part 1, this part, will deal with philosophical arguments, while Parts 1, 2 and 3 will have more to do with historical arguments.

"According to the Christian theory, God is god of All Mankind, and more than that, He is god of All the Universe. This is inconsistent with the proof offered for such a deity, that of the Resurrection of Jesus. This event is said to defy nature and thus prove God's supremacy over death and to assure us that, by believing in this deed, God will perform the same deed for us. An inconsistency exists here in two respects:
(1) A miracle whose purpose is to prove something to all mankind must logically be an event that can be observed by all mankind.
(2) An event which is to demonstrate the power and existence of a "god of the universe" must logically demonstrate divine powers of such a magnitude, and not of a vastly lesser magnitude.
For example, a "god of all mankind" could have carved "Jesus Lives" on the face of the moon, where all mankind could witness the miracle, and observe it for all time without relying on hearsay--at the very least, he could have extended the darkness and earthquake and mass rising of dead people, reported to have occurred at his crucifixion by Matthew (27:45-54), over the whole earth, where it would be recorded by every historian of every civilization, so that all mankind could share in the prodigy--he could have attended the moment with a voice or vision seen and heard by every human being, affirming his divinity and sending the message of Life to all. Why, a "god of the universe" could have even rearranged the stars to spell "Jesus Lives"--the sort of feat that can never be replicated by technology and which would demonstrate a truly universal power over all of nature."

Carving "Jesus Lives" into the moon or arranging the stars, a voice or vision, etc. sounds like an excellent bit of work -- within the retrospect of the 21st century, in a Western nation in which everyone knows the Gospel story, the television generation. But what about, indeed, that person in India or elsewhere?

Carrier's moon and stars idea, to begin, falls to a major problem: While others are on the way to explain the Greek words (it is not as though those natives all had a Strong's concordance with them), who Jesus is (A man? A dog?) and how exactly he "lives" (In a house? As the "life" of the party?), others around the world have time to fill the omen with their own meaning which they may be hard-pressed to give up when missionaries arrive to fill in the details.

As an example, consider what happened with the stories of Quetzalcoatl. People named themselves after Quetzalcoatl, and their adventures were integrated together with that of the "original" Quetzalcoatl. Even if the name "Jesus" on the moon was applied to numerous children, and some of those became heroes as Quetzalcoatl did/was?

Even as in the church today, Carrier forgets that conversion is only the first component of a long process of discipleship and communion within the Body of Christ which moon carvings (and visions as well) would not serve to fulfill. Further, under the "moon carving" scenario and related ones, it is errant to suppose, as is necessarily implied, that arriving missionaries would cause these others to abandon their ideas about the meaning of the carving; it would be no more authoritative an interpretation in the view of the Indian, et al. than it would be merely to come preaching the Gospel at a later time.

Indeed, one could argue that it is better to do without a moon carving or an equivalent, since there is thereby no chance of a false interpretation that would be harder to displace as time passed. Worldwide earthquakes and darkness would be of even less use, not having any associated content.

And there is more. What of blind people? Why should they believe such a message is written on the moon, unless they can, as Carrier himself might say, "...see [it], directly, here and now, with [their] own eyes"? What about blind anddeaf people? They'd be forced to rely on Braille signs in books and magazines telling them that "Jesus Lives" is carved on the moon, and why should they be forced to believe such a thing without direct evidence?

Carrier's thinking underlines and reveals how concerned only with self he is when viewing this matter. We would ask in reply: If he converted upon the fact of this moon carving, how would he convert in turn the man who thinks that "Jesus Lives" because he was raised by space aliens? Theis is not unreasonable to ask, for there are people who do believe such things, or worse.

Also for a note on hearsay, see here.)

It is said, "No amount of argument can convince me to trust a 2000 year-old second-hand report, over what I see, myself, directly, here and now, with my own eyes."

This is a strange statement, since at this stage in human civilization, over 90% of all communication was transmitted orally, so a large amount of the records would be written well after the fact by people who did not experience this event firsthand, and most people would have to trust the literate to interpret the message for them.

It requires more than eyes, and what is it that Carrier sees now with his own eyes that counters what was seen previously and recorded? It is not, as we shall see, tangible evidence against.

But even so, the problem would not be lack of knowledge of Greek (one could argue justly that an omnipotent God could carve the message in different languages, or make it appear in the sky elsewhere than the moon so that every person sees things in their own language), but that it would make no difference -- the objection is misplaced to begin with, under the paradigm that being a member of the body of Christ is not merely a process that starts and stops at conversion but continues throughout life with the process of discipleship and fellowship -- and this does not even address the problem that these suggestions would compel a "forced" choice rather than one made freely, producing not genuine converts who desire a relationship, but coercions whose subjects live in fear and are motivated by a display of power.

The "personal vision" idea comes closest to addressing these problems. Yet even then we do not have any root for discipleship and relationship, unless the line remains open at all times, so to speak -- which amounts yet again to a coercive display of power; and at any rate, are we not told by skeptics that a personal revelation is no guarantee of the truth?

-Source

But I have weighed the evidence, I just don't want to decide. Why does god force you to draw a conclusion? I don't understand why he wants people to decide so badly.

Because it's not about just going to heaven. It's about becoming a disciple of Christ who is being conformed to his image (becoming like him). Pursuing that will forever affect your eternity and others. By not following him, you miss out on the opportunity to positively affect other's eternities (and I'm not talking about just getting into heaven, but helping them become better disciples). He wants the best for you and others. That can't be found outside of the path he's laid out for us. Just as there are degrees of shame for the nonbeliever in hell based on their deeds, there are degrees of rewards and opportunities in heaven based on a Christian's deeds. And I'm talking about deeds done in this life. This world is the testing ground so to speak, or the rehearsal for the new heavens and earth that are coming.

I mean, if I live a good life, and I give to the poor and help the sick and love my neighbors and don't hurt people and don't do all the things about sex that he forbids, that's not enough?

You still sin though, and he has to punish it. Furthermore, everyone hurts others at some point, and everyone lusts after people they shouldn't at some point, so you can't say you're innocent of those sins.

He's going to punish me forever just because I didn't want to make an absolute decision about his existance? That sounds very unfair.

Like I said earlier, he punishes you for all your sins, not just refusal to follow Jesus. And because he has to punish sin, Jesus is the only way out, since he paid for your sins and is your "covering" so to speak so that God passes over you in judgement. And seriously, any other religion requires you to have to do good works and always wonder if you are in good standing with God, but with Christianity, you only have to put your faith in Jesus, and you have good standing based on what Jesus did (although you should naturally want to good works if your faith was genuine). The entrance level is so much lower. And also, with you being one that accepts the scientific method, you make decisions on what you accept about the natural world based on evidence, which only has implications for this life (but not for most things people consider important). But you won't make decisions based on evidence about religion, which would obviously have huge implications on the important things in this life and the next if true.

I thought he loved me? This seems like a terrible way to show his love.

The word translated as love in the Bible means something different than it does today. Or at least it doesn't carry the idea of sentimentality. It's more akin to what we would call tough love. And it's a love centered on the group. So those that don't want anything to do with God will be granted their wish and separated from him and those who do. And because they don't want him, they can't become objectively good, because it's only by the path of discipleship that one can start to become objectively good. That's why God has to send some to hell. His love is centered on the group (all of humanity), so he has to put out the bad ones on their own so they don't ruin it for everyone else.

I have a few question about the salvation thing then. What happened to the people who lived in places that had not yet been reached by christianity?

Some could have been saved, some could have not been. Romans 1 says God gives humans enough revelation of him through nature that we are without excuse. So if they responded positively to that, God would give them more grace so to speak, and even bring them a missionary if possible (this happens in Acts with Cornelius in an analogous way). Of course, the "God-fearers" who didn't get a missionary wouldn't get the benefit of discipleship.

Did native americans before europeans discovered the new world, for example, all go to hell after they died because they hadn't accepted Jesus as their savior?

No. Jesus' sacrifice would pay for the sins of the kind of people I mentioned above though. Also, I should note that native american culture shows that there's a widespread religious notion of the necessity of sacrifice. Those who haven't been exposed to either Judaism or Christianity can still figure that they need to throw themselves on the mercy of whatever deity is at hand (and that's one thing the commitment of faith is doing, throwing yourself on God's mercy).

What about people born before Jesus's time, obviously they couldn't have accepted him as their savior, right?

I think everything I said above answers this one as well.

I should also note a couple things about what others have said. If a Christian claims that Jesus can possess someone, one should be immediately suspect of their story, because there is no theological basis for that. Also, I would say there aren't any prescientific ideas in the Bible (except for maybe the purity laws of Leviticus being very good at preventing disease compared to the purity laws of other cultures at the time, but I haven't researched this in depth, so I can't speak for sure on the matter).

 

[Digit]

You may want to reread what I wrote. We are in perfect agreement. I'm not resistent to the potential for my views to change. Quite the opposite. I value it greatly. As for the second part, I'm worried that we're going to end up buried in nit-picky semantics here, ("what do you mean by 'can', etc.") but here goes. We all have similar enough brains that in principal I could believe anything anyone else does. But there might be things in christian thought that are incompatible with my current world view though, and there are definitely christian tenets that I think have an extremely low probability of ever being able to unseat those current views. How's that sound?

Well it's very unspecific, I am asking for specifics. :>

Sorry, I admit I may have been wrong about this. SOME christians certainly seem to think this. I've been given the impression by some that christians necessarily believe in a talking snake, a young earth, god's creation of all the animals in their current form, reject evolution etc. But you guys accept all that. What about walking on water, or turning water into wine, which seem to be violations of the laws of physics and chemistry? I assume your explanation is that god (or Jesus) intervened and modified the laws of physics to make that happen? Same goes for the resurrection, come to think of it.

Well that just sounds like magic to me, which is to say, "God did it because He's God and He can do anything." which whilst I believe that God is incredibly powerful, I do not believe He can do anything. For example, I don't believe He can make a round square, or create a married bachelor, or as in my earlier example - make a white, black square. I watched an interesting movie a while back about the miracles of Egypt, and how not only can each be explained by science, but each has occurred naturally at least once in the recorded history of the earth. For reference, these are the plagues here.

Now, this is how I think about things - but whether I believe that this is actually how the miracles occurred or not in no way means you have to believe they did. You are at your liberty to believe God magicked them. However, and this is the key part, we are both free to look at each other's arguments and see which explains them best and in this case I think it's very interesting that we have observed such things occurring separately in our natural world. I choose to believe that this film has a good explanation of how they could have happened and from my study of the Bible and belief that it tells how God created time, space and matter and is He Himself uncreated (that is, outside of time - only temporal things can have a moment of creation in time) that He would be able to plan His creation accordingly.

In regards to walking on water, turning water to wine and so forth, I believe that this is what the authors believed happen, however it may not be specifically and precisely what did happen. Just like the plagues, did the water actually turn into blood, or did it exhibit the same color as blood due to currents washing up a thick layer of red colored sediment and so on. I don't know, but I find it likely that this is what could have happened. In much the same way as Jesus driving demons out of a woman and into a heard of pigs that were nearby. Whether or not that is specifically what happened isn't really as important as recognizing that Jesus had this incredible sense of divinity and that people believed He did these things in His name, which was totally different to other sorcerers and miracle workers of the time, who did things in some god's name.

Who am I to say what did or did not happen with certainty. Just recently we discovered that there exists a star far far larger than we ever thought possible. So who knows what other wonders are out there, and who are we to say with definite resolve that no, such things are not possible?

If god can do this kind of thing, it's a shame that he doesn't give us a sign of his existence every once in a while, just so we don't have to rely on ancient writings.

I think you completely underestimate the Bible. It's unparalleled compared to any other historical work. It has more manuscript evidence than any other ancient work. It's sheer words have converted and touched people. It is unparalleled in accuracy and evidential claims compared to any other work. It was written at the PRECISE and most perfect time in all of history, one where only very few people could read and write, one where history was recorded in memory, and was so accurate that cultures based their lineage, laws and events on. It is outside the scope of legendary corruption and it's completely contrary to what any ancient culture would want to believe or adhere to. It shook ancient culture totally. The Jews for example had absolutely no belief in a dying and resurrecting saviour/God. They were fiercely protective of their culture - in hostile lands, with various tribes and social groups conquering and assimilating others into their collective, it was especially important to adhere to your culture and history as that is what defined you as a people, hence why things were passed on by memorization from person to person and kept intact. So when Jesus showed up, claiming to be the savior of the Jewish people and was then put to death and resurrected, the Jews must have all been standing around with very confused looks on their faces. As it was not what was taught to them. For them to change their culture, would have been unheard of if not for an incredible reason. For Christians in ancient times to adhere to their beliefs in the face of torture and death, also they would not have done if Jesus had come along, died and that was it. It would have been precisely what the Roman's wanted, the death of Christianity. Instead, Jesus died and BOOM - Christianity exploded and even overthrew their pagan religion.

You say, "It would be nice if God could leave us some sign." and there it is, right in front of you. This is totally discounting any other signs, like the design of the universe, and so on too.

Something totally undeniable, and visible directly to everyone. Like turning the moon from a sphere into a cube for a few years and writing "Yaweh did this" on it. It seems like he enjoys testing the limits of our credulity.

Apart from probably causing huge tsunamis, that doesn't mean God did it. Why could that not be an alien race toying with us? I mean the problem you face, is that you want undeniable proof of a God that wants you to choose to come into relationship with him. As C.S. Lewis put it, "You cannot choose to lie down, when it's become impossible to stand up."

Meaning, if God ever did make Himself undeniably known, there would no longer be any choice in the matter.

 

[razeontherock]

I'm sure you can guess what I'll say about the wave/particle duality thing though. It's not exactly made very explicit, and so I think it could be your interpretation ... In fact, I bet you could easily find more numbers that agree. Three gifts of the magi, three quark charges! Coincidence? I think so.

The magi have nothing to do with quark charges. Like I said, you need to start with the basics. You can't possibly fathom the totality 10 represents in Scripture when His life hasn't even begun to dwell in you, although the mental exercise of understanding the 10th dimension is a fair primer. As far as "explicit," G-d couldn't very well put on a lab coat and fire up the bunsen burners, nor was it His intent to rob us of the learning process by handing it all to us w/o work.

We can always look back and see what He told us beforehand, but where this is most applicable is in Salvation. He tells us what's ahead even though we have no clue, so that after it happens we can see what He meant. You have no basis for understanding any of that, so to try to form an opinion on what He did or did not mean does not compute - unless you're sticking with the basics That much is understandable enough.

 

[Foundstone]

Sounds fair and good. Your attitude in this thread is a breath of fresh air compared to others in this subforum.

I haven't read any of them, but I don't doubt that. I know there are lots of atheists with superiority complexes, who just want to tell you all how silly your ridiculous belief are. On the contrary, I've found that your world view is consistent and rational, and that generally you have good reasons for believing what you believe.

The funny thing about logic and reason is it only acts like a sort of filter. You can have reasons, systems, heuristics, algorithms etc. for selecting what you believe, but then your choice about which systems, reasons... you use is arbitrary. Even if you have another "second-order" system or process that you use for choosing your "first-order" systems, reasons... your system has to bottom out somewhere. So we use our world views like filters, to help us stabilize our beliefs and reject aor accept ideas based on systems usually involving evidence and falsification and things like that. But at the base, your system of beliefs has necessarily to depend on arbitrary choices and "gut-level" decisions. I guess we can only hope that evolution (or god...or both) has designed our brains to make good "base-level" decisions, the decisions below all our concious, reasoned decisions.

Earlier I mentioned how much I was enjoying the philosophy of Zen Buddhism that my little experiment has exposed me to. I think the picture of the context of rationality that I just painted above is somewhat reminiscent of their philosophy. They seem to have a clear separation between the rational and the intuitive, and it's a very cool way to see the world. They have these "kōans", which arelittle stories, dialogues or questions that seem absurd at first because they can't be understood with rational thought. They're designed to break you of your rationality and force you to experience the world intuitively. Of course they wouldn't suggest you discard your rationality, but being able to see both sides of this duality...it's an amazing way to see the world.

This has been an exhilerating and exhausting excercise, and so I think I'm going to have to take a break from this soon. I have read everything that every one of you have said, and most of the links to other material you've suggested I read. I've learned most of what I wanted to know; enough to begin upon the path, whatever that path is and wherever that path takes me. If I have any other questions I'll certainly come back here. I'll certainly read any further responses you have, and will maybe make brief comments too. Thanks again for your patience and wisdom.

I do have two more questions for you all that I'd very much like to know:

1. Obviously there's quite a spread of ideas and opinions within the christian community. I'd be very interested to know where you see your own views and beliefs within the spectrum of christianity. Are there any chriatian communities that are radically different from yours? Are there any that you feel deserve special praise or criticism?

2. How do you feel about other faiths? How do you feel about people who have chosen not to follow a faith? Please be as honest as possible; don't hold anything back for fear of offending me or anything. I'm asking for it, and I've given my fair share of criticism too.

Again, thanks very much everyone. It's been a very interesting voyage you've taken me on. I'll try to keep in touch whenever I have an important question! And as always, this is a two way street, so if you ever want to know anything at all about my beliefs and world view, I'm quite happy to explain them.

 

[razeontherock]

2. How do you feel about other faiths? How do you feel about people who have chosen not to follow a faith?

They (you) are fellow man, we are one race.

1. Obviously there's quite a spread of ideas and opinions within the christian community. I'd be very interested to know where you see your own views and beliefs within the spectrum of christianity. Are there any chriatian communities that are radically different from yours? Are there any that you feel deserve special praise or criticism?

My icon is simply a cross because I can't identify with any denomination or anything outside of the Bible itself. That seems to make me rather the odd duck. Those that deserve special praise are those in whose place of worship resides a tangible feeling of Love. Go there mid-week and feel it when you walk in, and you're likely to benefit from regular attendance. At least for a while. Special criticism? I really believe that the 7 year tribulation period in the book of Revelation that you've no doubt heard about is completely done, accomplished by the Roman Catholic church. That's a strong statement so I'll leave it at that.

But at the base, your system of beliefs has necessarily to depend on arbitrary choices and "gut-level" decisions. I guess we can only hope that evolution (or god...or both) has designed our brains to make good "base-level" decisions, the decisions below all our concious, reasoned decisions.

I understand the philosophy here, but being filled with the Holy Ghost changes all that! This directly addresses a previous issue, about how could we connect Jesus' resurrection to the Almighty. Also the whole interpretation issue. I've never heard a conflicting POV from someone I knew to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Again, just like Cain and Abel this stuff is real. If it was just "talking about how many angels fit on the head of a pin" type stuff I would've been long gone. Bet on it. Also, every benefit Buddhism offers was fully functional and on display in Jesus' Passion, of necessity.

 

[Sir Wilshire]

1. Obviously there's quite a spread of ideas and opinions within the christian community. I'd be very interested to know where you see your own views and beliefs within the spectrum of christianity. Are there any chriatian communities that are radically different from yours? Are there any that you feel deserve special praise or criticism?

I would say I'm Evangelical Protestant and Reforming (Five Solas, not Calvinism). I'm more in the minority among evangelicals in that I think Genesis is allows for evolution to be true, and much more in the minority when it comes to end time theology (I think most of the prophecy was fulfilled in the 1st century, and the increasing Christianisation of the world and the resurrection of everyone is all that's left pretty much). As for different communities, I would say ones that are anti-intellectual and don't do serious discipleship for their members. Those are the ones that I have the biggest criticism for. It is especially appalling for American churches. I have praise for the ones who buck the trend.

2. How do you feel about other faiths? How do you feel about people who have chosen not to follow a faith? Please be as honest as possible; don't hold anything back for fear of offending me or anything. I'm asking for it, and I've given my fair share of criticism too.

I feel sad for them.

Again, thanks very much everyone. It's been a very interesting voyage you've taken me on. I'll try to keep in touch whenever I have an important question! And as always, this is a two way street, so if you ever want to know anything at all about my beliefs and world view, I'm quite happy to explain them.

It would be good to hear from you again.