General Chat

Cynthia and RR -- I like jazz because I've heard it. If I'd never heard it, I could hardly like it!

How could one be a Christian if one had never heard or read the Christian texts?? Like I said: makes no sense.

One might find that one likes Christian doctrines once one hears them, just as I liked jazz once I heard it. But that doesn't mean that it *comes from* inside. It comes from outside, and resonates with something inside, perhaps.

Christianity, like any other religion, is taught/learned. The belief in what is taught is a choice. For whatever reason. But if one had been reared in darkest Podunk with no access to Christian teaching -- or been born in the year 100 BC -- one could not be a Christian. It's simply impossible to believe / believe in something one has never heard of.

What I feel for No.1, which I wouldn't call love (something else I don't especially believe in anyway), is an emotion, engendered by experience and my personality. I didn't invent No.1, I met him, got to know him, and liked him. Just as you did with Christianity, Cynthia.

No.1 may occasionally make me feel pleasant, by something he says or does, or just by his existence. But he does exist. It's his existence that has that effect. I don't infer his existence from the effect!

Christianity exists, but a religion exists a little differently from the way a tall skinny middle-aged but very youthful male person exists. It exists in people's minds; it is an idea. No.1 exists in the physical world; he is a thing.

The question, though, is whether a god exists. And I haven't noticed one of them lounging on the chesterfield lately. ;)

None of you guys can have the least clue whether you would believe in a god if you hadn't been taught to. No.1 wasn't taught to, and he never has. The idea is as weird and incomprehensible to him as it became to me once I got over the teaching.

Some people like the idea when they're taught it. Most of us also liked the idea of Santa Claus!


The census I'm worried about is the 2011 Canadian. The vile disgusting Conservative filth running the show here have eviscerated it, and the statisticians now tell us that even if the public outcry caused them to reverse themselves, it is too late for a proper detailed census to be prepared. Stephen Harper, you know ...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/stephen-harper-condemns-koran-burning-my-christ-is-a-tolerant-god/article1700607/

“I don't speak very often about my own religion, but let me be very clear: My God and my Christ is a tolerant God, and that's what we want to see in this world,” he said.

Stephen Harper's god invented the world in seven days -- Harper became a fundamentalist Pentecostal when it seemed politically useful. Just the sort of person I want running my country.

Not.

The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. The bible says that we must accept by faith that God exists. "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards them who earnestly seek him". (Hebrews 11:6). If God so desired, he could simply appear and prove to the world that he exists. But if he did that, there would be no need for faith. "Then Jesus told him, because you have seen me you have believed. Blessed are those that have not seen me and yet have believed". (John 20:29). That doesn't mean however, that there is no evidence of Gods existence. The bible states " the heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. day after day they put forth speech. Night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world". (Psalm 19:1-4). Looking at the stars, understanding the vastness of the universe, observing the wonders of nature, seeing the beauty of a sunset. All of these things point to a creator God. There is also evidence of God in our hearts. (Ecclesiastes 3:11) tells us "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men". Deep within us is the recognition that there is something beyond this life, and someone beyond this world. We can deny this knowledge intellectually, but Gods presence in us and all around us is still obvious. The bible also says that some will still deny Gods existence " the fool says in his heart "there is no God" (Psalm 14:1) Seeing as most of the earth believe in the existence of a God there must be someone or something causing this belief
There are also logical arguments as well as the biblical ones. there is the ontological one which uses the concept of God to proves Gods existence This concept is "a being than which no greater can be conceived" It is then argued that to exist is greater than not to exist, and therefore the greatest conceivable being must exist. If God did not exist, then God would not be the greatest conceivable being, and that would contradict the very definition of God.
Another argument is the teleological argument. Which states that since the universe has such an amazing design. there must have been a divine designer, eg, if the earth was significantly closer or farther away, from the sun. it would not be capable of supporting much of the life it currently does. If the elements in our atmosphere were even a few percentage points different, nearly every living thing on earth would die. the odds of a single protein molecule forming by chance is 1 in 10 (followed by 243 0s or zeros) Can't do the power of on the keyboard sorry! A single cell is comprised of millions of protein molecules.
Another logical argument is the cosmological argument. Every effect must have a cause. This universe and everything in it is an effect There must be something that caused everything to come into existence. Ultimately, there must be something "un-caused" in order to cause everything else to come into existence. That "un-caused" cause is God.
There is also the moral argument where everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We feel we are accountable to one another. Where did this come from if not from a Holy God?
People claim to reject Gods existence because it is "not scientific" or "because there is no proof". Is not the true reason because if they admit there is a God they will be accountable to him. But, by believing he doesn't exist the feel they can do whatever they want without being judged which is where the theory of naturalistic evolution comes in as an alternative belief.
How do christians know that God exists? We speak to him everyday and he guides us and leads us through his word and his presence within us. We know his love and we feel his grace. Things have happened in our lives that can have no possible explanation other than God. God has so miraculously saved us and changed our lives that we cannot help but acknowledge and praise his existence' None of these arguments can persuade anyone who refuses to acknowledge what is already obvious. In the end , Gods existence must be accepted by faith.
Faith in God is not a blind leap into the dark. It is a safe step into a well lit room where the vast majority of people are already standing.

Oh poor Janey....

love.....quote (something else I don't especially believe in anyway) unquote.


Now, as you well know, there are several kinds of love.....surely you are touched by one of them?


However, the time has come for me to retire, extremely gracefully I hope, for the night. Good night all.

:) Cx.

Thanks, Katherine. Very enlightening.

Not.

I think I'll go have a chat with the faeries at the bottom of my garden now.

That brings to mind irrelevantly and irreverently Stephen Fry's comment on how to get rid of 'cold callers' and pushy salesmen on the phone..

" Before you begin, can I tell you about my Saviour?"

I really don't believe it matters if Janey ( just as an example) does not believe in the existence of God...
or that I do ( most of the time).

And I accept that might seem woolly-minded to some, and that doesn't worry me either lol... I can't argue the case 'for', I can't be convinced of the case 'against'... it is for me a very personal 'instinct' ..if I'm wrong , and the limitations of my imagination and knowledge mean I probably am, in my vision of God, if not 'his' actual existence, then so be it...

"That "un-caused" cause is God."

Uh huh. And as a couple of us have pretty much asked:

What caused the god?

"Looking at the stars, understanding the vastness of the universe, observing the wonders of nature, seeing the beauty of a sunset. All of these things point to a creator God. There is also evidence of God in our hearts. "

And the successful growth of my veg garden is evidence of the existence of my faeries. The evidence of them is also in my heart. Too bad you can't see that.

"If God did not exist, then God would not be the greatest conceivable being, and that would contradict the very definition of God."

And if there were no dictionaries, there would be no definitions.

I can define "pink elephant". I won't argue that this means there are pink elephants.

The existence of a concept does not prove the existence of the thing conceived of.

"There is also the moral argument where everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We feel we are accountable to one another. Where did this come from if not from a Holy God?"

You've heard of evolution, maybe? The success of our species rather depends on feelings like accountability, and empathy.

And they came originally from the big bang, like everything else, and then by way of the primeval ooze.

"Another argument is the teleological argument. Which states that since the universe has such an amazing design. there must have been a divine designer, eg, if the earth was significantly closer or farther away, from the sun."

That's not an argument; it's an assertion. And it's all called petitio principii. Arguing in a circle. Not an argument.

"People claim to reject Gods existence because it is "not scientific" or "because there is no proof".

Actually, I -- are you talking to/about anyone in particular? -- don't believe in gods because the idea of gods is nonsensical and I don't believe in nonsense. And if there were a god or gods, it or they would be so infinitely beyond my capacity to know/understand that it would be entirely pointless for me to even contemplate the notion.

"Is not the true reason because if they admit there is a God they will be accountable to him."

And they say atheists are rude.

How about you take your nasty presumptuous talk about people who don't share your beliefs -- like me -- to someplace where such things are appreciated?

This isn't one such place.


By the way, does this God of yours approve of plagiarism -- the stealing of someone else's work?

Google finds me 3,010 results for that screed you have pasted here. This might be the original source, but you never know:

http://www.gotquestions.org/Does-God-exist.html

I'm sorry Janey if you thought that was for you personally. I didn't address it to anyone in particular. Just believed I would put it up. People can make up their own minds what they think of it.
Katherine xx

RR -- it doesn't matter to me that you or anyone else believes there is a god, either! (I can't say "believes in", because that implies there's something to believe in. ;) )

It only matters to me when anyone starts trying to run the world as if there were a god or gods, and as if they knew what the god or gods want, and as if what the god or gods wanted was for the people who believe in it or them to run the world in a way I don't agree with.

Anybody can do that, of course -- try to run the world in a way I don't agree with -- without claiming an unseen entity as their authority. But claiming an unseen entity as one's authority for running other people's lives really is just dirty pool.

yep wouldn't argue with that, Janey :)).

Katherine, could you possibly think it isn't "personal" when you (or the person whose work you cribbed) says things like that?

Here's the way it goes in the version I cited (yours is apparently an ungrammatical paraphrase):

'People claim to not believe in God because it is “not scientific” or “because there is no proof.” The true reason is that once people admit that there is a God, they also must realize that they are responsible to God and in need of forgiveness from Him (Romans 3:23; 6:23).'

First, we have an insulting "strawman" argument. That's not why I, or anyone I know, "claims to not believe in God".

(That sentence is a little badly written. Is that supposedly the reason why people don't believe in a god, or is it that people claim not to believe in a god and offer that reason? I don't *claim* not to "believe in God"; I *don't believe* there is a god or gods. Saying that I claim not to believe implies I am lying. Saying that people don't believe and offering those reasons as their reasons is just setting one's self up to win an argument with no one, unless someone actually said that.)

Then we have the grossly more insulting assertion that I -- I am one of the people being talked about, a person who does not believe there is a god -- have reasons for my non-belief that are, flatly, false. It's a lie about me.

The reason I do not believe that there is a god or gods is NOT that if there were a god I would be accountable to it.

That's just nonsense anyway. How would my refusing to believe that something exists eliminate my accountability to it, if such there were??

I'm not an idiot. So ascribing that motivation to me is another big insult.

And then there's the implied insult: that if I don't accept that I am accountable to an unseen entity and need forgiveness from it, I am in all likelihood an unrepentant evildoer.


Atheists generally do believe the world would be a better place if these beliefs were abandoned, or withered and died -- if everyone simply accepted responsibility for themselves, and acknowledged that this life and this world are the only ones we have and thus the only ones that matter, and especially stopped trying to run other people's lives by rules they have chosen to believe come from some supreme authority.

Atheists don't claim any authority, for anything we do or say. That's the big diff.

It's not plagarism janey. You can't plagarise Gods word or what people have said in public. It's not rude to say that if you believe in God you are accountable to him as that is what is written, and if someone who didn't believe in God then changed their minds, they would realise that they are accountable. I don't judge people for what they believe or go out of my way to insult them, and I say again the post wasn't for you in particular.
You believe what you believe for your own reasons and I thought those logical arguments were pertinent to the topic in case anyone wanted a different view other than agnostiscm or atheism as the two are very separate beliefs.
If people just posted things that were appreciated by everyone Janey then there wouldn't be much on here worth reading. I can understand your differing with me on what I posted but. not this complete outrage!

Katherine xx

That screed was not logical, it was someone else's work and you did simply paste it from somewhere else without credit and that is plagiarism, and it was insulting. And pathetic, really.

If you wanted to rebut what I said -- as I rebutted what you copied and pasted -- you're free to do so.

There might be something worth reading on the issue (not that I've ever seen anything). But that wasn't it.

Stop pretending to read my mind, again.

"Complete outrage"?

Pointing out insulting, rude commentary when I see it.

If I got completely outraged at the rude and insulting behaviour of those who seek to propagate their religiosity, I wouldn't have time to eat.

He all

I thought I'd enter the fray.

I'm not at all sure that there is, or is not, a "god" - since I can neither prove nor disprove the existence of one.

I do, however, accept that I, at least, have what I would call a spiritual side. The bit of me that gets moved by certain music, certain places, certain words. Do you think that that has got itself confused with "god" along the way?

What I can't understand is "There is also the moral argument where everyone has a sense of right and wrong. We feel we are accountable to one another. Where did this come from if not from a Holy God?"

All I can say to that is that this "holy god" must be a bit ambivalent. Since my idea of "right" is most certainly others' of "wrong"

Sue x

I must admit to a shrinking away feeling when I see those dreaded bible references appear :( ( don't smite me just yet I shall explain) They nearly always are used to back up someone's 'interpretation' , added to give gravitas to something not very well argued....
( digging large whole here lol)

but for example the aforementioned 'Romans 3:23,6:23'
which are in 'standard' versions

Romans 3:23 (New International Version)
"for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
and
6:23 " For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

neither of which, to me ( my interpretation lol) , bear any relevance to the paragraph they were attached to nor do they 'bolster' the argument.

Quite often I feel more comfortable with the 'dogma' of the Atheists than I do with the dogma of the 'religious'...

Hey,if I didn't believe in God I think I'd be an atheist instead :))

Hi Rose

Some "dreaded bible references" - to my mind at least - back up my thinking about the spiritual versus the religious. If you accept my thinking that the spiritual is something that moves something deep inside of you - which, by way of shorthand, I'll call my "soul" - here's the bit of the bible that does it for me:


"Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

And that, Janey, if you're still around, is what love means to me!

Sue x

Janey
I meant outrage, by you saying that I can take my comments elsewhere.
Sue, God himself declares he is a holy God and as we are accountable to one another as in every cause has an effect.ie. if someone was slapped by someone they would be hurt and angry or afraid or if someone hugged someone they would feel loved and wanted. it all has to be initiated then received. As God is holy, he initiates his righteousness and we receive it either through acceptance or rejection and receive the consequences either way. If we accept his righteousness then we realise that we are accountable to him. There is a debt to pay as we are separate from him because we can't measure up to his perfection. God remedied this by paying the penalty himself through Christ as he is a loving God and by this we can have his pardon and be able to live as he designed us to live as clearly laid down in the bible. Unfortunately not everyone who says they are a christian behaves as one, as a true christian would not dictate to anyone how to live their lives as they would be too busy having the planks taken out of their own eyes first in order to see the specks in others eyes, to quote Jesus. There will always be people using faith to gain power and control over others but, it doesn't make it acceptable and neither does blaming faith when the faith is in opposition to what is being done in it's name.

Just godless and soulless, moi.

When I'm moved, I call it "emotion".

Should I mention that "emotions" and "move" have the same root word? ;)

Isn't it emotion that one feels when one is moved?

Where/why does this "soul" come into it?


As for that luv business thou quoteth: that wasn't love, that was patriarchy. ;) And I don't buy into that one either!

Wowsers, I don't often encounter this kind of god-bothering ... because I try not to go looking for it.



"There will always be people using faith to gain power and control over others but, it doesn't make it acceptable and neither does blaming faith when the faith is in opposition to what is being done in it's name."

Me, I don't blame "faith" for anything, just in case I was a suspect. "Faith" is what some people claim to have. It seems to be somehow distinct from "belief", but I've never figured out how. Belief based on nothing, I think is how it goes.

I blame people for what they do.

Including when they claim that what they do is right (or what someone else does is wrong ... and must be punished) because some unseen supreme authority sez so.

If I "blame" religious belief for anything it is in the same sense that I "blame" greed or stupidity or altruism or hunger: I point to it as the apparent motivation for someone's actions.

People motivated by the same thing can do very different things. Hungry people can do good and bad things as a result of being hungry. Religious people can do good and bad things as a result of being religious. Ultimately, it's a matter of choice in both cases -- whether to do anything, and whether to do beneficial or harmful things.

It's just that "I stole that diamond because I was hungry" gets a lot less respect in our world than "I voted to violate women's fundamental rights because my god says abortion is evil".

Dirty pool, as I said. And sorry excuses.

How strange that you should post that Suzian :)) well not 'strange' but "Whither thou goest..." was very much in my mind last night...

Janey,
I am not out to convince anyone of my beliefs as I believe only God can do this.
When speaking of love when referring to God, it is Agape love which is unconditional love. In other words God loves us whatever and has nothing to do with Filia love which refers to human emotions. RR hi, I'm confused as to the Romans quotations you have mentioned as the only verses out of the new testament quoted where from Hebrews and john?

Katherine xx