What's really missing? The evidence or ... something else?

[2PhiloVoid]

While most portrayals of Jesus have him wearing little more than sackcloth he wore a garment "woven without seams", that the Roman soldiers gambled for. There also is a strong suggestion that he owned a house in Caperneum.

I don't know that I'd call it a strong suggestion, but I'll agree with you that Jesus' owning of a house is a reasonable possibility.

 

[PreviouslySeeking...]

I'll swerve away from calling your perspective 'weird' since it resembles my own in some ways. I don't know whether or not you're like me in sharing a realist perspective of life, but if you are, I can definitely say that the first two paragraphs in your response are very relatable to me. Your third paragraph is a different matter, but since I don't want to delve into perception and epistemology, I'll swerve away, too, from grilling you about any of that.

For the most part, I'm impressed that when you were engaging the Christian faith in the past, you apparently did so with less expectation of it than many do these days. But are you implying here that not "getting" a personal relationship with God played into how you now see things, or am I misreading what you're saying?

Sorry I wasn't clear. As I delved further into Christianity, I was confronted with my personal views on God (& etc.) and how they didn't match up with Christianity. I don't have a personal relationship with God because the God I believe in doesn't do that. The heavenly Father version of God has never resonated with me.

The views I had, I've always had. Christianity was the backdrop I grew up with, but I found that Christianity was incompatible with what I believed.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I don't know that I'd call it a strong suggestion, but I'll agree with you that Jesus' owning of a house is a reasonable possibility.

It would seem likely as the family business was construction.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Sorry I wasn't clear. As I delved further into Christianity, I was confronted with my personal views on God (& etc.) and how they didn't match up with Christianity. I don't have a personal relationship with God because the God I believe in doesn't do that. The heavenly Father version of God has never resonated with me.

The views I had, I've always had. Christianity was the backdrop I grew up with, but I found that Christianity was incompatible with what I believed.

I can partially empathize with your position here. When I first engaged Christianity, I was (and still am) influenced by folks like Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke, so I was never able to contend with the story of the Garden of Eden and come to see it as a literal, historical account, unlike many of my fellow Christians whom I socialized with. I've also never really conceptualized my engagement with the Christian faith as a 'personal relationship' as we might think of it in human terms. Since I'm more philosophical about my faith, I see it more as an Existential Journey, perhaps not too unlike you're deistic predilections. As for seeing God as Father, I can do so, but my view is that He is Transcendent and even though He (as I understand) cares for us, this care won't necessarily materialize in ways that we might expect from, say, a best friend or a spouse.

So, I think your position is reasonable to some extent. I can respect it even if we both might think the other of us may be "missing something."

 

[Ophiolite]

Since your personal framework is a little different on this, may I ask an alternative but related question: Is there anything that you've wanted in life that Christianity didn't provide which particularly galls you?

I realise this question was directed to another member, but as your questions in this thread have somewhat bemused me I thought I would respond.

Note that I speak as an agnostic who is atheistic in terms of the Christian God. When I did follow Christianity I did not expect it to provide me with anything other than a road map to guide my behaviour. That was well provided by Scripture. Expecting something more would have been, to my mind, antithetical to the religion. For me Christianity was (and indeed is) about what you can give, not what you can get.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I realise this question was directed to another member, but as your questions in this thread have somewhat bemused me I thought I would respond.

Note that I speak as an agnostic who is atheistic in terms of the Christian God. When I did follow Christianity I did not expect it to provide me with anything other than a road map to guide my behaviour. That was well provided by Scripture. Expecting something more would have been, to my mind, antithetical to the religion. For me Christianity was (and indeed is) about what you can give, not what you can get.

If what you say about yourself is accurate--and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in acknowledging that it is--it sounds like you were (or are) the right kind of person to 'be a Christian.' I've talked to a number of other people through the years and it seems there is an epidemic of what we might call "Aladdin's Lamp Christianity" going around, the outcome of which is probably what you'd expect in such cases.

So, you left Christianity, I suppose, not because it failed to provide you what you wanted in life, but because it didn't ring true? Does that sound about right? Or was it something else?

 

[Ophiolite]

If what you say about yourself is accurate--and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in acknowledging that it is--it sounds like you were (or are) the right kind of person to 'be a Christian.'

That's kind of you. In real life I probably lie as much, maybe more, than the average human. Some of the lies I feel perfectly comfortable with for many reasons, other I regret. The odd thing is that in almost fifteen years of posting on various forums (probably more than 50,000 posts) I've never felt any compulsion to lie. There's simply no benefit, that I can see, on an anonymous internet site to do so.

I've talked to a number of other people through the years and it seems there is an epidemic of what we might call "Aladdin's Lamp Christianity" going around, the outcome of which is probably what you'd expect in such cases.

That's a penetrating and perceptive metaphor. I like it.

So, you left Christianity, I suppose, not because it failed to provide you what you wanted in life, but because it didn't ring true? Does that sound about right? Or was it something else?

I think that is spot on. I liked aspects of the philosophy; The Sermon on the Mount, for example, rang true. However, the claims of divinity, afterlife and the rest seemed wholly reliant on faith and I had reached the conclusion that faith was a very poor way of recognising "truth".

 

[2PhiloVoid]

That's kind of you. In real life I probably lie as much, maybe more, than the average human. Some of the lies I feel perfectly comfortable with for many reasons, other I regret. The odd thing is that in almost fifteen years of posting on various forums (probably more than 50,000 posts) I've never felt any compulsion to lie. There's simply no benefit, that I can see, on an anonymous internet site to do so.

In my life, I've found that lying is, more often than not, a rather unnerving set-up which causes further complications for myself down the road. It's best just not to manipulate circumstances in that way. At least, that's how I've come to see it.

That's a penetrating and perceptive metaphor. I like it.

Thanks.

I think that is spot on. I liked aspects of the philosophy; The Sermon on the Mount, for example, rang true. However, the claims of divinity, afterlife and the rest seemed wholly reliant on faith and I had reached the conclusion that faith was a very poor way of recognising "truth".

That's to be expected, I think. I don't know where you live, but in the U.S., I think Christianity is often handled with kid gloves and like a two-dimensional slice of "truth bacon"................................when the REALITY of it is perhaps so much more subtle, yet bigger, than that bacon.

Anyway, thanks for your honesty and briefly sharing your own existential experience with it all.

 

[BioLeap]

We all see Christian faith failing around us in one way or another in our present world, with many people claiming that it's the lack of evidence causing this. But is it, is it fully? Could it be also that it's not so much the evidence for the faith that is missing but something more personal, the failure to obtain or attain something we each hope to have acquired in this spiritually misbegotten world in which we live?

Flyleaf - "Missing" (2009)

Is there anything holding you back from faith other than just feeling that you lack a clarity of vision for evidences which may or may not be within our grasp?

Is our holding back from Christ perhaps really coming from our expectations and a desire for the the things of the world: our desire for the perfect lover, or for the greatest job or occupation, and/or for a position of empowerment? To what extent are we, like Lacey Sturm in the Flyleaf video above, recognizing that we may be being spiritually held back by the world around us as it attempts to play a part in how we define our conceptual views of religion ... ?

***********

Missing (Lyrics)
Flyleaf

I saw your queen
Swam out below her star on sea beneath
Though I lifted up my hands to her
She never lifted me

Oh something's missing in me
I felt it deep within me
As lovers left me to bleed alone
Found something sweet
On the island with the daughters of eve
But through thick and thin they've gone away
And only left their grief

Oh, something's missing in me
I felt it deep within me
As lovers left me to bleed alone

Something's missing in me
I felt it deep within me
As lovers left me to bleed alone

Something's missing in me
Something's missing in me

Down here love wasn't meant to be
It wasn't meant to be for me

All is vanity underneath the sun (It wasn't meant to be)
All is vanity

Something's missing in me
I felt it deep within me
As lovers left me to bleed alone

Something's missing in me
I felt it deep within me
As lovers left me to bleed alone

Something's missing in me
Something's missing in me
Something's missing in me
Something's missing in me

Is Jesus about what's factual or not?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Is Jesus about what's factual or not?

Sure. I Subjectively, personally think Jesus is "about" something factual. The caveat here is that "facts" are trumped by interpretation, so both you and I can never escape our existential dilemma of being stuck in an epistemic position by which we each have to make hermeneutical heads-or-tails out of the possible evidences that lead to our respective decisions whereby we conclude one way ... or another.

 

[Yttrium]

Is there anything holding you back from faith other than just feeling that you lack a clarity of vision for evidences which may or may not be within our grasp?

I've simply never been capable of faith.

I was raised into Christianity, but back in my teens I realized that I couldn't be a Christian, because I lacked faith. I always took everything with a big grain of salt. Certainly nothing in the Old Testament was convincing to me. For me, it was indistinguishable from mythology. That's not to say it couldn't be useful allegory, of course, so I never dismissed it.

I have no need to believe something else. My only firm belief is that I exist. I'm flexible on everything else. I have no needs that prevent me from becoming Christian. I'm quite fond of Christianity, actually, and most people I know are Christians.

It was much later, after examining Christianity in much more detail, that I concluded to my personal satisfaction that mainstream Christianity couldn't be true. However, I couldn't make the same conclusion of the gospels, just the mainstream Christian interpretation of them.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I've simply never been capable of faith.

I was raised into Christianity, but back in my teens I realized that I couldn't be a Christian, because I lacked faith. I always took everything with a big grain of salt. Certainly nothing in the Old Testament was convincing to me. For me, it was indistinguishable from mythology. That's not to say it couldn't be useful allegory, of course, so I never dismissed it.

I have no need to believe something else. My only firm belief is that I exist. I'm flexible on everything else. I have no needs that prevent me from becoming Christian. I'm quite fond of Christianity, actually, and most people I know are Christians.

It was much later, after examining Christianity in much more detail, that I concluded to my personal satisfaction that mainstream Christianity couldn't be true. However, I couldn't make the same conclusion of the gospels, just the mainstream Christian interpretation of them.

Alright, so your own encounters with Christianity were similar to some of those expressed above by other folks here; the claims in the Bible just don't seem to be either cogent or credible for you.

If I understand you correctly, you didn't come to a place where you felt like you were subjected to moral decline or to the psychological pressures of mortality or social victimization. You simply didn't, and don't, perceive that Christianity has any real qualities about it to offer to us.

If that's been your experience, then I guess you've done your best to be reasonable and to ponder Christianity the best you can.

With that being the case, what brand of Christianity have the Christians whom you've interacted with over the years held to?

 

[Yttrium]

You simply didn't, and don't, perceive that Christianity has any real qualities about it to offer to us.

On the contrary. The Bible contains quite a lot of valuable philosophical teachings, and they've been very useful for me. One of the guiding moral outlooks in my life has been the Golden Rule. Jesus wasn't the first proponent of the Golden Rule, but he was it's most famous proponent, and he did an excellent job of promoting it in the Gospels in various ways. I do have a problem with a few of the Bible's moral teachings, but as it turns out those are all outside of the Gospels.

With that being the case, what brand of Christianity have the Christians whom you've interacted with over the years held to?

Outside of the internet, mostly either non-denominational or unknown. Strangely enough, the ones who were the most vocal about their religious views were definitely non-denominational.

On the internet, I've spent a lot of time over the years hanging out on theologyweb, where there's a diverse group.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

On the contrary. The Bible contains quite a lot of valuable philosophical teachings, and they've been very useful for me. One of the guiding moral outlooks in my life has been the Golden Rule. Jesus wasn't the first proponent of the Golden Rule, but he was it's most famous proponent, and he did an excellent job of promoting it in the Gospels in various ways. I do have a problem with a few of the Bible's moral teachings, but as it turns out those are all outside of the Gospels.



Outside of the internet, mostly either non-denominational or unknown. Strangely enough, the ones who were the most vocal about their religious views were definitely non-denominational.

On the internet, I've spent a lot of time over the years hanging out on theologyweb, where there's a diverse group.

When you say 'non-denominational,' do you mean Charismatically oriented? I'm just wondering.

 

[Yttrium]

When you say 'non-denominational,' do you mean Charismatically oriented? I'm just wondering.

No, it was just generic Christianity.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No, it was just generic Christianity.

Well, it almost sounds like you're my 'kind' of people. I consider myself a 'generic' Christian...of sorts.

But, in return to your own shared story, I'd say that my adherence to the Christian faith comes by way of more or less existential angst, not unlike that portrayed by Lacey Sturm's character in the OP music video. Of course, I'll admit there has been some Pascalian pondering of sublimity that has played into my affirmation of Christianity over the years as well. All of this and the fact that, as a philosopher, I've traded my teenage Skepticism for an adult Critical Realism.