On religion (in particular Christianity), rationality, and this forum - are we allowed to discuss it?

[Ixthos]

My main argument is this: Christianity has evidence. It might not be enough to convince you, but then perhaps it might. Each piece might or might not be enough in and of itself to prove the claim, but together they make a strong case. I am not trying to lay out the full and ultimate proof that Jesus is God and the only means of salvation, only to make you think, and to question, and to look. I am trying to show that you can be Christian and rational at the same time, and while there are many who started as Christians and became atheists, there are just as many who started as atheists and on the basis of rationality became Christian.

As far as I can tell, the speculative problem with Christianity isn't unavoidable damnation. It's more a lack of motivational accountability.

And really, any argumentation by atheists I'm aware of has never been to challenge the social doctrines adhering to God but just the metaphysical validity of a creator of the physical universe, which is utterly inconsequential to consideration of a practicing religion.

For some religions that is true, especially anamistic ones, though my personal experiences with atheists usually involve them starting their rejection of religion relates either to the idea that there isn't any proof for God or any given religion (though often with some form of appreciation expressed for Buddhism, sometimes for the general perception of it or seeing it as an atheistic religion or philosophy even when disagreeing with it), or that even if the religion is true it is immoral, both views (lack of evidence and immorality) I disagree with, even when I can understand and appreciate the motivation behind each view. I certainly can appreciate those who look at the behaviours of many who call themselves Christians, whether or not they are, and use them as an indictment on the whole faith, up to and including concluding faith is dangerous (indeed, something that makes me deeply angry - more so than atheists calling the religious fools - is when Christians and those claiming to be Christians give the faith a bad name), and likewise those who apply it to all religions. It is an issue for me, however, when they then use faulty logic or cherry pick that data to draw conclusions about religion or Christianity on the whole.

On the issue of whether or not the universe needs a creator, that is an entirely new issue that could take up a whole other conversation, but in general I find that type of argument or discussion to be self refuting, kind of like the idea of p-zombies (a thought experiment about people who act like people in every way but internally lack consciousness), being something that any framework which assumes it to be the case contains a contradiction. In this case, the presence of order and the presence of a finitely locatable beginning.

(Also, heads up to everyone, I'm hoping to get the data points post up by Friday, though it might go up earlier or by Saturday. Until then, and to everyone who has participated in this thread, thank you, and I hope your week is a great one!)

This all being said, I'm still particularly uncertain why you are debating the historical accuracy of instances such as the flood involving Noah's Arc or the materialistic reimagining of Yeshua. I don't find it very hard to find their social significance, most defensible as fables/metaphors for rather humanely extraordinary yet tangibly ordinary social phenomena.

Atheists arguing about "proof of God" namely represents what I had just asked about: metaphysical underpinnings that derail what we know about the physical universe. God also happens to have an exclusively social facet as well, much more only brushing with supernaturality instead of depending on it. Atheists kind of argue against this, but it's kind of just part and parcel with the objective reality argument, and becomes an issue due to personal experiences being the common account of evidence for the existence of God. Social relevance isn't really the point of dispute here, just that it does depend on a physically invalid being. Any matters of coincidence end up being just that, and completely ignore the overall social significance.

Perversion of social order beyond that isn't really an argument in objective validity, but more a social observation. You're completely right in that it's largely anecdotal, and a red herring as far as an overall indictment of religion iirc. But, emphasizing again here, speculation about supernatural events ties much more with the former concern than latter.

Those are very good points, though I disagree on the idea that proof of God requires dismantling our understanding of the universe, especially due to many early scientists coming from a religious background and arguing that because God is logical the universe must be logical. My own concern isn't mainly on Noah's Flood, etc., those I am addressing because others mentioned them earlier, and those aren't actually data points I expect to include in the post later this week.

The social aspects I do understand, and I agree it can be a major element in these sorts of discussions, but when it comes to objective beliefs rather than social conventions, it becomes one of the most important elements one could ever know. Take, for example, the idea that someone is in a building that is on fire at the bottom levels, and slowly creeping up. While whether or not the fire is present - and discussions about how one should act in the presence of fire in the building is certainly important, the fact that there is or isn't a fire is far more important - and if there is a fire then any social elements evaporate in the reality that if they don't act to get away from the flames they will all die or be badly wounded. If someone is in a sinking ship, if the ship is sinking then it is important to evacuate. If a fireman has placed a ladder, or someone is manning the lifeboats, those trump all social and academic discussions about the nature of fire or water. The more permanent and the more pervasive an issue, the more weight it should be given. Is there any issue more impactful on humanity than the question of whether or not we have a Creator, and whether or not we will survive not a single human lifespan but eternity? The social elements certainly are important, but the more long term components must be the most important.

This all being said, I'm still particularly uncertain why you are debating the historical accuracy of instances such as the flood involving Noah's Arc or the materialistic reimagining of Yeshua. I don't find it very hard to find their social significance, most defensible as fables/metaphors for rather humanely extraordinary yet tangibly ordinary social phenomena.

I'm tired and I'm prolly gonna muddle this, I need to throw this out.

Depends on what is meant by that, the role of the symbolic and how "reality" meshes up with symbolism. That the symbolism can be more real than the materialistic perspective we're used to seeing things through. It's not an easy nor small thing to go into.

It took me awhile to grasp and largely revolves around the fact that the world is too complex for each one of us to individually navigate through taking the whole in. Things need to be simplified, but those simplifications are not falsities, they are distilling down the essence of what really matters that is "more real than real".

An example of that is that I could ask you to show me the nation you live in. I'm assuming it's America where you're at. You could go and point to a random location and I could say that's just the sky, or a mountain or some natural feature. You take me to city hall or the police station and point to it and I could say those are just buildings. You could point to your flag and I could say it's just a bit of cloth with some coloured lines and 50 stars on it.

You can't show me America, and yet America is everywhere around you. Inhabiting it, it surrounds you and it actually lives within through how much of the culture you have absorbed. There is a spirit there in the same sense that sports teams have spirit.

It's in this context that we can say "Japan bombed America on Dec. 7th 1941 at Pearl Harbour and America crossed the Pacific waging war until Japan was defeated." America and Japan didn't do these things; millions of people, machines and munitions did, but we don't say it's silly to say such a thing (Though I have seen people make such ultra0literalist quips) because we understand what is being said in such encapsulating language.

So did Noah's Flood happen? Yes and no. Not from a materialist and literalist Ken Ham perspective, but within that story contains what matters in what is trying to be conveyed, and that isn't simply touching on something like the rising sea levels of the pre-historical world, which is again another materialist and literalist perspective, though that isn't entirely wrong. The fact is that may be one of many things contained in that story, as is the metaphorical matter of allowing chaos to build eventually brings a flood of disaster upon you (and more, above all tying into the rest of the Bible and how self-referential it is).

There is also the simple, evolutionary function of what has survived and how much is packed into the Bible. It's why I like Genesis so much. You can feel tens of thousands of years of human existence fly by on a few pages, billions go by on the first page in a way that expresses itself most importantly to human understanding. That is comparable to asking in 10,000 years which is more important to knowing about WWII? The sum total information we have about the war, or a story which distills the gist of what is really important about the war into something that will actually last that long, because nothing voluminous will survive that long.

Does that mean such a story would be false? I'd only say so with a modern mindset towards things being deliberate products of minds with an angle set. That is not what the Bible is to me. No matter the intent of the authors, it all comes together to produce something of coherence from the incoherence of many hands. For me, that is the hand of God moving over the waters.

And if someone is going to say that X contradicts Y so how can I say it's coherent, then I'm sorry, you're looking at it too much from a modernist perspective, which I why the Bible is so misunderstood. Look on it as a dream. You can say this part of a dream didn't mesh with this other part and it doesn't make sense, but the important thing is what you took away from the depth and impression of the dream. I've had some very potent dreams whose "sense" I don't care about. They've been about figures marching up to me and lecturing me on the part I'm playing in impairing my mental health, which is then counter-argued by others making contrary points which I take as an internal dialogue I'm having with myself.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at this, I fear I'll just get lost in rambling.

Pageau can be annoying to grasp and it's been awhile since I watched these:

The first one stands out for me given an experience I had months back. I found a frog in town around midnight walking home, hopping through the neighbourhood. I heard the nearby pond kilometers off with all the other frogs ribbiting he was going towards to mate with. I thought it would probably take him days to get there, if he ever did. He'd have roads with cars trying to squish him, yards with fences, cats trying to kill him and the highway to finally cross. I decided it would take me half an hour to take him close enough to the pond to know he was safe because we need all the frogs we can in this world given their declining populations and I'd lose about a mere hour of my night if I did so. So I did.

While I was doing so, I realized the roads were littered with earthworms. Every couple feet was a worm. I'm the kind of person that picked them up when I go past and toss them into bushes or onto grass so they won't dry out and die or get picked off when daylight comes. Going along, I realized I could spend all night and the following day picking up worms and how that wasn't what I should do. I couldn't save them all and that would distract me from my intention of bringing that frog to his friends. I ignored the worms and kept going, dropped the frog off and went back home.

Now why is this important? I'm studying to be a counselor. I have to know my boundaries and that I can't actually help anyone who doesn't want help themselves. That night, I could look on through strict materialist eyes and say it was coincidence and there's no meaning to it all, but what will make a bigger impact (and a more positive one, too) is me recognizing that symbolic lesson that night and keeping it in mind. Rationality has it's place, but it can't exclude the rest, especially since not all of irrationality is evil and silly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Ibs67ke6c&list

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w7TQ1K ... 5f&index=3

I don't have time at the moment to fully go into this, and I'd like to go through it again in more detail, but that is a very interesting take, though bare in mind that not every element is an abstract or a fable. Some parts are intended to be taken as metaphors, such as the parables of Jesus, and the visions of Daniel - which explain the metaphor next to the vision - but others are intended to be literal, such as the Gospel accounts of Jesus life. Otherwise that is a very interesting take.

...

And at Ixthos: I deliberately am not answering you, because from everything you write I just get one message. You are not here to discuss, get a different perspective, challenge your own believes and have an open mind about the views of others. You are here to spread your believes, your view, to convert and to condescend to those who see things differently. Your mind is closed and was made up far up in advance of appearing here and I've learned one lesson from loooking at the lines in my life recently: I don't have enough time to allow others to deliberately waste it. I'm putting up with that, where I must. But here? I don't have to, gladly. And if you want to change my perception of your lines, then you should start by not automatically assuming that you are in the right, while everyone speaking against you, is wrong by definition.

That is your prerogative, to be sure. However, I can't help but think this is a rote answer, something you have said to others when you want to claim moral superiority in an argument regardless of whether or not it applies. And perhaps you have it, I am I think too close to the source to be objective in this. Still, it seems to be that most of your objections apply equally well to you - you have avoided responding to my direct responses to you from the first reply, and have continued to insist that there is no intended meaning behind anything written in scripture, talking about how others are only seeing what they want to see - is that claim not condescending itself? When you make a point and it is reseponded to, you prefer to avoid responding to that and instead later jump onto another point. That is your right, you are free to do so, but do you not think that that appears to an outsider like someone who is being belligerent and avoiding facing arguments or questions to your own views? If I am wrong then I apologise, and it isn't my intention to annoy you or insult you - and I mean no insult in what I am saying. If you really think that I am closed minded and insisting I am right and everyone else is wrong, then I will address this to everyone who has responded to this thread:

Am I being closed minded? Do you feel I have not listened to you and weighed your words, regardless of whether or not I agreed? Have I been acting here in bad faith?

If others think this as you do Madner, then I humbly and sincerely apologise to everyone. I do not think I have all the answers, or know every aspect of the truth. My intention is to address the idea that Christianity has no evidence and the idea that Christianity isn't rational. If that claim is arrogance, then I can do nothing to prevent that. But I ask you, have I indeed been arrogant, or are you perhaps seeing what you want to see?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The more permanent and the more pervasive an issue, the more weight it should be given. Is there any issue more impactful on humanity than the question of whether or not we have a Creator, and whether or not we will survive not a single human lifespan but eternity? The social elements certainly are important, but the more long term components must be the most important.

It's a question that is brought up externally that more distracts from how things work rather than finding itself as contingent for true understanding of all pertinent matters. It's a select few people that gave unempirical answers which eventually grow to undoubtedly in deliberate fashion be averse to objective understanding. In fact I'm pretty sure they sustained aversion to objective understanding just to keep social order despite the interpretation being completely different at the start of the Abrahamic lessons. Then they packaged it, and now they're selling it. They're selling it.

What Baestro responded to me with was consistent with what you brought up before to me. That you can simply look at trees and not see a forest. The problem is that in the hypothetical, nobody can even enter the forest, and the rules of discourse typically involve the presumption that you can only get ever closer to the forest without being able to go inside.

Our objective understanding has a pretty clear expectation of what you can find in a forest. It's not beyond our empirical understanding to have a better answer of all the social phenomena that people exhibit in a vacuum of shared experiences.

Those are very good points, though I disagree on the idea that proof of God requires dismantling our understanding of the universe, especially due to many early scientists coming from a religious background and arguing that because God is logical the universe must be logical.

It's worth noting that complexity in the universe is not a logical implication of predesign.

[clearspira]

I'll give you my view on God. I'm an atheist, which means I do not believe that He, She, or They exist. I believe in science first. Problem is, man has been searching for God for at least 5,000 years and in all that time, we have produced exactly nothing that can be put through the scientific method. And what amuses me is that if this was ANY OTHER SUBJECT, a sample size of 0% would be enough to convince 99% of people that what we're talking about is a bunch of baloney.

However.

I also believe that if He, She, or They do exist then they either A) Only give the faintest shit about us because in all likelihood we are just one of a billion inhabited planets in the universe or B) Are a bunch of assholes who I would refuse to bow to just as readily as I would refuse to bow to Hitler. Only whereas Hitler had the SS, God has Hell. Same difference. Follow me or suffer.

TL;DR - I'm this guy. Or at least, I dearly wish I was:

It might surprise you to learn that I believe in science also, and I see no issues with believing in God and believing in the principles and discoveries of science. And the God I believe in is the only God which backs up His claims with evidence of various forms - in short, I believe in a God who provides evidence - so much so that an atheist cold case detective became a Christian when he investigated it; if you are interested, look up J Waller Wallice. So in short I would like a chance to present some of that evidence to you, as I disput your claim that there is no evidence. Otherwise, I agree, a small sample size should in general allow someone to dismiss something as nonesence, baring in mind there are many things that are true that sound like nonesense but aren't (various properties of the laws of physics such as speeds not actually being addititive due to the constant nature of the speed of light, "now" depending on how fast you are going, entangled particles instantly affecting one another despite no information being passed faster than light, particles being both particles and waves, etc., and various mathematical paradoxes related to infinities of different sizes)

(Also, on the topic of evidence, if you will permit me a few days and I will try to post a list of data points for Christianity as evidence; it won't be an exaustive list, but I hope it can be a place to start and for you to examine and / or question. It probably will be in a week or so though.)

As to your second point, I have to disput that also, and ask why you make those claims. God does not have a mind like ours, and is presented in scripture as being aware of the universe at both its highest and lowest levels, and the past and present and future - if God cares about the movement of the most distant galaxies, and the entangled states of the smallest subatomic particles, caring about people should certainly not be a stretch. As for Hell, I wonder, what does the Bible say about it, and who goes to it? It certainly is a stretch to call God as Hitler, when God requires kindness to others, giving of yourself for others, loving others and sacrificing yourself for others - all things God did and does, including delying justice to try and save as many as can be saved. When God is the source of morality, which if He exists then He is, why do you have moral objections to God - if you are accepting the idea of hell in a certain context - and one I disput - why are you ignoring the rest of what scripture says about God? That is like being told by a friend that he saw a man walking with his kids when someone else came out and started attacking the mans kids with a knife, so that man pushed the attacker away, only for you to say that clearly the man with children should be thrown in jail because he clearly assaulted the man with the knife - why are you looking at the one set of actions and not the context - for example that it is actually those with the mark of the beast who have the attitude of follow me or suffer?

(Also, complete side note, but have you ever heard of Neal Asher? His writing is very interesting and action packed (though rather bloody) sci fi about an AI run society called the Polity. My problem with his books is that they tend to keep derailing the narrative to remind everyone that religion is evil, but if you can get past that you might enjoy his writing.)

Let me ask you a genuine question: Why is God not meeting me halfway?

I mean it when I say that all I want is proof. So, omnipotent being - created the universe - can do anything. OK, lets take this as established fact. Then what him stopping him from just snapping his fingers and letting me know that he is real? He could, but he won't.

Also, I can't help but think that he should have done a better job with the Commandments. How about ''Thou Shalt Not Rape.'' Or ''Thou Shalt Not Enslave.'' There is certainly a moral argument to be had about murder, rape and slavery being on the same level imo.
I'll tell you why i think those Commandments do not exist, its because the Bible was written by men at a time when raping women and enslaving foreigners was as commonplace as a nice morning coffee is to us. It wasn't in their interests to stop rape and slavery because they liked doing it so much and thus God had no interest in telling you not to.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Also, when 2 teams are playing against each other and they both pray to God to win, how is it only one team wins? Is it supposed to be that one team prayed more? like lol.

[Ixthos]

The more permanent and the more pervasive an issue, the more weight it should be given. Is there any issue more impactful on humanity than the question of whether or not we have a Creator, and whether or not we will survive not a single human lifespan but eternity? The social elements certainly are important, but the more long term components must be the most important.

It's a question that is brought up externally that more distracts from how things work rather than finding itself as contingent for true understanding of all pertinent matters. It's a select few people that gave unempirical answers which eventually grow to undoubtedly in deliberate fashion be averse to objective understanding. In fact I'm pretty sure they sustained aversion to objective understanding just to keep social order despite the interpretation being completely different at the start of the Abrahamic lessons. Then they packaged it, and now they're selling it. They're selling it.

What Baestro responded to me with was consistent with what you brought up before to me. That you can simply look at trees and not see a forest. The problem is that in the hypothetical, nobody can even enter the forest, and the rules of discourse typically involve the presumption that you can only get ever closer to the forest without being able to go inside.

Our objective understanding has a pretty clear expectation of what you can find in a forest. It's not beyond our empirical understanding to have a better answer of all the social phenomena that people exhibit in a vacuum of shared experiences.

Those are very good points, though I disagree on the idea that proof of God requires dismantling our understanding of the universe, especially due to many early scientists coming from a religious background and arguing that because God is logical the universe must be logical.

It's worth noting that complexity in the universe is not a logical implication of predesign.

(Quick heads up Bridge: both the top and bottom of this post are addressed to your posts, the bottom being to the "which team" question.)

Both those points are very big topics that I would like to address after the data points post (including the question on whether or not the presence of complexity and the presence of a creator coincide) - this is getting really into the weeds and I would like to provide some proof and examples before delving more deeply into that. Also, your posts often take me a little time to fully digest and understand, and I want to fully cover what you are saying, so if you will bare with me I can hopefully address that more fully in a few days time.

...

Let me ask you a genuine question: Why is God not meeting me halfway?

I mean it when I say that all I want is proof. So, omnipotent being - created the universe - can do anything. OK, lets take this as established fact. Then what him stopping him from just snapping his fingers and letting me know that he is real? He could, but he won't.

Also, I can't help but think that he should have done a better job with the Commandments. How about ''Thou Shalt Not Rape.'' Or ''Thou Shalt Not Enslave.'' There is certainly a moral argument to be had about murder, rape and slavery being on the same level imo.
I'll tell you why i think those Commandments do not exist, its because the Bible was written by men at a time when raping women and enslaving foreigners was as commonplace as a nice morning coffee is to us. It wasn't in their interests to stop rape and slavery because they liked doing it so much and thus God had no interest in telling you not to.

That is an excellent question, and one which has a few parts to address, and a few ways to be addressed. The first is that, for many, what they have seen of the world and what scripture says is enough. Are you familiar with the parable Jesus told about Lazarus and the rich man? At the end, the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers, that they would believe if they saw someone rise from the dead, and Abraham said that they have the Law and the Prophets, seeing a dead man return would not be enough to convince them when those wouldn't. The main thrust of the parable was about the way the rich treat the poor (the rich man kept acting as though Lazarus should still be serving him, when now was the time for Lazarus to enjoy peace for the first time), but the general idea was that there was enough proof for some, so why would more be needed?

With that said, I can understand you not being convinced, though there are many things around us that, when examined, reveal things that are present but otherwise hidden. There are several things God has already done and continued to do which are meant to count as proof, and I'm hoping to post some of those before the end of the week, so if you too will bare with me until then. While we wait for that though, may I ask you a question as well? If I may, the question is, have you ever prayed to God and asked Him to reveal Himself? Scripture says ask, seek, knock, and you will find, you will know, the door will be opened. Asking sincerely and with genuine seeking. Scripture says - and I know if you don't believe in scripture this seems like nonsense, but please bare with me - that God is already reaching out to us, which is impressive in and of itself as Christianity presents God as the one actively trying to reconcile humanity to Him, and a sincere seeking, sincerely reaching up to take the lowered hand will be met with those hands meeting.

Again though, I will hopefully proffer some evidence you most likely haven't seen or heard of before or considered in that light in a few days time. Maybe you have encountered this evidence before, maybe not, but until then I ask you to pray to see if there is indeed response, and after I've posted, whether or not you agree the evidence is strong, I would like to know your thoughts on it.

On the topic of the commandments I would like to address two things. The first is that, as Jesus said (and I recommend reading in context not just individual verses or even chapters, but entire books) when asked what the greatest commandment is, is two: to love the LORD God with all your heart and all your strength and all your mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. On those all the Law and the Prophets hang. Thus raping or enslaving are in violation of that spirit. There actually are commands about them as well - including condemning rape and protecting slaves (remember also that slaves back then were indentured servants, not chattel like in America, and slaves could rule over free men, inherit, and even be adopted as heirs to the estate. Likewise a man who raped a woman would be killed - Deuteronomy 22:25-27 - and women taken in battle would not be allowed to become sex slaves but had to be given the full status of wives, remembering how dangerous it was for a woman to live alone in the Middle East.) The laws were written, especially the Ten Commandments, to be general principles of behaviour, and even they couldn't be fully kept, though they were presented in a watered down version of what God requires.

Also, when 2 teams are playing against each other and they both pray to God to win, how is it only one team wins? Is it supposed to be that one team prayed more? like lol.

There actually is a great passage in scripture that addresses that. Its right in Joshua at the beginning. Joshua has been commanded to continue claiming Canaan, commanded by God, and he goes walking and sees a man. This man is identified as the commander of the LORD's armies - so a supernatural power. Joshua asks the man: "Are you for us for for the enemy?"
And the man responds: "No."

I love that exchange. It underlies the faulty human assumptions. It isn't that in our conflicts that God is favouring our side, but rather we should be on God's side. When Jesus told His disciples how to pray two parts in particular are important: "give us this day our daily bread", and "Your will be done." We should pray for what we need, and we should pray that God's will be done. If a parent has two children and both want the parent's help in a game against the other, should the parent help one or both or neither? The answer is the parent will help their children when they need help, but do you really need help in a game? Better to ask for God's blessing on the while game, and for your whole life.

[Ixthos]

(Quick heads up, the data points post is slightly delayed, but should be up in a few days, and is based around ten points under six headings, though that might change. Sorry for the delay, and until then I hope you all have a good weekend. Take care!)

[Nevix]

Let me ask you a genuine question: Why is God not meeting me halfway?

I mean it when I say that all I want is proof. So, omnipotent being - created the universe - can do anything. OK, lets take this as established fact. Then what him stopping him from just snapping his fingers and letting me know that he is real? He could, but he won't.

Also, I can't help but think that he should have done a better job with the Commandments. How about ''Thou Shalt Not Rape.'' Or ''Thou Shalt Not Enslave.'' There is certainly a moral argument to be had about murder, rape and slavery being on the same level imo.
I'll tell you why i think those Commandments do not exist, its because the Bible was written by men at a time when raping women and enslaving foreigners was as commonplace as a nice morning coffee is to us. It wasn't in their interests to stop rape and slavery because they liked doing it so much and thus God had no interest in telling you not to.

I had a power outage while originally writing this, so I am going to give a briefer version than what I previously wrote.


I also say this more to inform than anything else.



Luke 4:12. "Thou Shalt Not Test The Lord Thy God." (My personal favorite passage in the Bible.)

When The Adversary told Jesus to jump from the roof of a church "knowing" that God would send a legion of angels to catch Jesus, Jesus refuses and says the above quote because God WOULDN'T send his angels if Jesus were being stupid and demanding a performance on command from God.

Jesus' ability to heal and perform miracles came from the fact that Jesus was always listening to God and in harmony with God's purpose for him.

Our ability to gain the benefits from Faith in God (which is for OUR benefit because WE are the ones who must return to God's guidance after Adam's Original Sin put humanity in Sin, and after Jesus cleansed that Sin to allow everyone the opportunity to be redeemed.) is based on our trust in God and our willingness to work to become more Godly people.

We are also the ones responsible for making the world a better place, as God is NOT a puppeteer who controls the world at all times, and He has given us free will to do as we will.

The Bible is full of places and times where people are asked to choose between life and death, or between continuing in sin or repenting of sin, or to follow God in the first place.

There are also people in the world who are just plain evil, and who will never do anything good, only causing suffering for others. ("Born of bad seed.", "Tares among the wheat".)



As for being clear on the commandments, "Thou shalt not kill" is actually a mistranslation of "Thou shalt not murder", of which "murder" in Biblical times translated closer to "killing outside of your own social group" than the modern definition.

The Bible is also written with metaphor followed by further explanation later in the chapter, which are often taken literally, and literal passages are often taken metaphorically.

And that's before outright mistranslations and additions of punctuation that change a passage's meaning.



If you wish to learn more of my perspective on The Bible, and why I read certain passages the way I do, look up the book "Power for abundant living" by Victor Paul Wierwille.

Power For Abundant Living explains how to understand a lot of the complexities of The Bible for yourself, using the Bible's passages/text.

[Beastro]

I'm not quite sure whether you are quoting from the videos you link or whether that is something that you yourself encountered, but: The lesson you took from that happening is subject to the same problems you mentioned earlier, namely our inherent inability to comprehend complex issues in their whole, needing abstraction to achieve any understanding of the matter. In other words: You made up a lesson from random, unconnected happenstances, whose only connection is you. The lesson from that story is in essence the same thing that happens, when you stare at a carpet that has a random structure. After you looked at it for a while, the structures will start to move, to swirl and you'll see things in the randomness, that simply aren't there. Similarly pictures like this:



Some see two faces, some see a vase. But in reality it's neither. It's just a bunch of lines and coloured areas. To transpose it to your story, the faces you see is the lesson you took, that you can't solve everyone's problem. Someone else sees a vase and that same person experiencing that night wouldn't take the lesson, that one has to pick his fights, but instead learn the lesson that he isn't selfless enough, because unlike you, he didn't return home and end the night there. He instead brought the frog to the pond and then returned to the worms, saving as many as he could, before inevitably day breaks, the birds, the cars and the sun come and end the lives of the worms remaining on the roads. Yet others saw the frog and walked by, thinking nothing of it. Saw the worms wiggling, went by and had a good long night's rest, before having to go to yet another day full of work and problems being heaped upon them by others. They saw the lines and coloured areas and took the lesson, that they needed some goddamn sleep already, before falling apart mentally and physically, as they already saw faces and vases where they shouldn't be...

And here I am. I see the lines and coloured areas. I see the faces, I see the vase and the lesson I take from that is, that each is equally valid and each is equally meaningless and that the only thing that gives these lines or colours meaning is, the person who looks at them. And you know what unites them all beyond their meaningless? The complete absence of a higher being giving meaning and signs. People come and go and they interpret things in each their own distinct way, based on their experiences and state of mind. This is how things have always been, this is how things will always be, until we can manage to create direct mental links and erase individuality and in doing so, erase ourselves and loosing all perspectives.

Yes, yes. I know all of this. The main question raised is this: why do we see any meaning at all and have a desire towards it? The answer in pragmatic terms is that it helps us to survive, thrive and perpetuate in the world, which goes back to what is ultimately helpful to people: Nihilism or that the world, and that they themselves, have some intrinsic meaning.

It's a similar issue with determinism and agency; the latter my be an illusion, but people who believe in that illusion tend to be overall more responsible and self-directed than those that believe in the former: if what you regard as an illusion helps me in life, and could arguable help me be better off than you, then can it be called false.

From what we get into what is better of for you, which is where the Meaning Crisis comes in and Modernist selfishness, where individual well being is placed higher than, not simply the greater whole, but towards those to come. See those who are neither infertile nor incapable of being reproductively successful choosing to opt out of having children. Secularists could say they're doing it because they can't be good parents, or overpopulation, or whatever, but the question then arises why these high minded sacrifices matter in their perceived meaningless world. From the religious I can understand them given the fundamental basis of sacrifice to religion, but from Secular Modernists I only see them running on the fumes of their once religious founded cultural axioms. To be blunt, from their perspective, does it matter if the world is ruined in a 100 years, 1000, or more? Even if we could inhabit other worlds, to what end? Heat death will kill the universe in the end. The only thing I see to look beyond that is belief that it isn't futile, even if it's an illusion.

For me, religious belief, at least of the Abrahamic sort, works also because it keeps us from falling prey to our desires, which are some of the many gods of the world Christianity sees as Powers and Principalities: C. S. Lewis said "Once people stop believing in God, the problem is not that they will believe in nothing; rather, the problem is that they will believe anything.", I'd rather say that they are at the mercy of whatever force in their world comes along and touches them. This isn't limited to just the irreligious, mind you. If you think that silly, then see things like the simple issue of addiction.

Some see two faces, some see a vase. But in reality it's neither. It's just a bunch of lines and coloured areas.

It is both and neither. From a pragmatic, scientific standpoint is it just a bunch of lines, but the human mind works to find meaning to survive, and the same thing which sees faces in that image is what allows us to see any patterns. Without that in us, we'd be dead.

That is a basal form of deriving meaning, though. It discounts the major life altering moments of meaning people encounter which are akin to what I experienced (not saying it was something like that, but meaning like saving the life of someone else and witnessing the impact it has on both you, the saved individual and everyone else)

And here I am. I see the lines and coloured areas. I see the faces, I see the vase and the lesson I take from that is, that each is equally valid and each is equally meaningless and that the only thing that gives these lines or colours meaning is, the person who looks at them. And you know what unites them all beyond their meaningless? The complete absence of a higher being giving meaning and signs. People come and go and they interpret things in each their own distinct way, based on their experiences and state of mind.

I disagree if only because it appears that this aids us on a deep level to live and thrive in the world and has been built in us going back since time immemorial. Comparing that to the mere 400 years or so of the Scientific Revolution, the latter way to prove itself as a replacement for that. I don't see it being that as it is but a tool and a very good tool, but the Materialism that has arisen from it is a dead end and those which adhere to it are only proving that to be true simply through their reproductive choices.

For me, I think the worse issue here is the Modernist viewpoint sees Mankind as transcendent with reality wrapped around it's little finger. If anything causes us trouble it's because we don't control it enough . Knowledge itself being a form of control; if you know how something works you can bend it to your will or work to gain advantages against its weaknesses. The result is a very nasty mentality, and no surprise, we see things like ever increasingly efficient ways of killing people and things like environmental damage happening. What I'm confronted with is the fact that we as the experimenters are inseparately apart of the experiment and we should just go along with it. To put it one way, if you find yourself playing a sports game in a dream, it's ok to question the whys of the dream, but don't let them stop you from living the dream rather than dismissing it as a silly flit of the imagination without merit.

No surprise to me, I see in the beginning of Genesis the understanding of this bent in us that is summed up in the Fall. I find it amusing how a bunch of "Bronze Age sheep herders", as the Hebrews are so often derided by the irreligious, seemed to know human nature on a profound level far deeper than any of us in these latter times to make such an far seeing summation of our foundational faults.

This is how things have always been, this is how things will always be, until we can manage to create direct mental links and erase individuality and in doing so, erase ourselves and loosing all perspectives.

Interesting you mention that, as it highlights the fundamental nihilistic and suicidal nature of transhumanism utopianism; "We'll free ourselves by destroying ourselves, but don't worry something of us will endure! Certainly it's better than living like we are now".

Those are very good points, though I disagree on the idea that proof of God requires dismantling our understanding of the universe, especially due to many early scientists coming from a religious background and arguing that because God is logical the universe must be logical. My own concern isn't mainly on Noah's Flood, etc., those I am addressing because others mentioned them earlier, and those aren't actually data points I expect to include in the post later this week.

The social aspects I do understand, and I agree it can be a major element in these sorts of discussions, but when it comes to objective beliefs rather than social conventions, it becomes one of the most important elements one could ever know. Take, for example, the idea that someone is in a building that is on fire at the bottom levels, and slowly creeping up. While whether or not the fire is present - and discussions about how one should act in the presence of fire in the building is certainly important, the fact that there is or isn't a fire is far more important - and if there is a fire then any social elements evaporate in the reality that if they don't act to get away from the flames they will all die or be badly wounded. If someone is in a sinking ship, if the ship is sinking then it is important to evacuate. If a fireman has placed a ladder, or someone is manning the lifeboats, those trump all social and academic discussions about the nature of fire or water. The more permanent and the more pervasive an issue, the more weight it should be given. Is there any issue more impactful on humanity than the question of whether or not we have a Creator, and whether or not we will survive not a single human lifespan but eternity? The social elements certainly are important, but the more long term components must be the most important.

Saying God is logical is limiting Him. This is the problem with Renaissance Humanism and the Modern Era: You define what God is you restrict Him. This is why the Church was against humanistic depictions of God, like the Sistine Chapel, because it would lead to people humanizing and restricting God in their minds. No surprise, fast forward to our times and militant atheists mock Christians for believing in a sky wizard which has nothing in common with the Christian perception of the Almighty outside of the Modern Era. As the pastor in the video I'll link might touches on, too many Christians today hold the atheists mocking view and look to God as some super-being within Creation restricted by materialist understandings of the world rather than something greater that it; see heaven being up in the sky rather than heaven being a realm symbolically expressed by being above us in the same way the upper class aren't literally above the lower class in social hierarchy.

It's not dismantling our view of the universe. The Modernist one works fine doing what is does, it deals practically with the world around us to help better understand it and survive, but there is more to what people need than just their material considerations. This is the amusing thing in mental health as of late as it's increasingly understood and appreciated the "spiritual" side of humanity that is a detriment to people if ignored.

Here's a video that might help you get a better understanding of what I'm talking about (not the best, it's a incomplete book review): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn00pmo4sSE

The social elements certainly are important, but the more long term components must be the most important.

Modern people don't understand that religion has nothing to do with morality on a foundational basis. If you think it does, then you just outted yourself as someone touched by the spirit of Christianity in the world, just as the secularists using high ideals as reasons to throw their genes into the waste basket of natural selection.

[Beastro]

Let me ask you a genuine question: Why is God not meeting me halfway?

I mean it when I say that all I want is proof. So, omnipotent being - created the universe - can do anything. OK, lets take this as established fact. Then what him stopping him from just snapping his fingers and letting me know that he is real? He could, but he won't.

The question then arises if this would matter at all to you, especially being given a glimpse of an incomprehensible being that would leave you with more questions than answers (This is assuming a strict materialist perspective on "seeing" God of the sky wizard sort).

There's too that story of how God tried meeting people half way. Came in a limited form to interact with people. He showed them a glimpse of Himself and all. People hated Him for it and eventually killed Him because of it.

This then falls into the same pit people always fall into, and the Gospel's touched on that as well. Christ came back to Nazareth and the only thing He got from the townsfolk was angry cries asking Him why He was helping other towns so much and not favouring His own before they tried throwing Him off a cliff.

Going along with your idea, we go down that path and it ultimately winds up with people wanting God to be there when they prefer it and for Him to piss the hell off when they don't. God caters to them and placates their desires.... which is then them playing into the hands of other forces in this world greater than them which gets into God's demand to not worship other deities but Him.

Whatever justifiable demands one may have, like a sense of righteousness and justice about what goes on in the world, God is not beholden to them, they are to Him.

Tied into that is the possible fact (possible for the sake of argument, it's not a mere possibility to me) that He is meeting with you halfway you just don't see it because of your posts prideful outlook on life. It reminds me of an answer a rabbi gave to the question of why we don't see God anymore compared to ages past: "Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough."

[clearspira]

Let me ask you a genuine question: Why is God not meeting me halfway?

I mean it when I say that all I want is proof. So, omnipotent being - created the universe - can do anything. OK, lets take this as established fact. Then what him stopping him from just snapping his fingers and letting me know that he is real? He could, but he won't.

The question then arises if this would matter at all to you, especially being given a glimpse of an incomprehensible being that would leave you with more questions than answers (This is assuming a strict materialist perspective on "seeing" God of the sky wizard sort).

There's too that story of how God tried meeting people half way. Came in a limited form to interact with people. He showed them a glimpse of Himself and all. People hated Him for it and eventually killed Him because of it.

This then falls into the same pit people always fall into, and the Gospel's touched on that as well. Christ came back to Nazareth and the only thing He got from the townsfolk was angry cries asking Him why He was helping other towns so much and not favouring His own before they tried throwing Him off a cliff.

Going along with your idea, we go down that path and it ultimately winds up with people wanting God to be there when they prefer it and for Him to piss the hell off when they don't. God caters to them and placates their desires.... which is then them playing into the hands of other forces in this world greater than them which gets into God's demand to not worship other deities but Him.

Whatever justifiable demands one may have, like a sense of righteousness and justice about what goes on in the world, God is not beholden to them, they are to Him.

Tied into that is the possible fact (possible for the sake of argument, it's not a mere possibility to me) that He is meeting with you halfway you just don't see it because of your posts prideful outlook on life. It reminds me of an answer a rabbi gave to the question of why we don't see God anymore compared to ages past: "Nowadays there is no longer anybody who can bow low enough."

The bowing part is a big problem for me. I genuinely fail to see why I should have to.

Because he's more powerful than me? Because he made me? Because he can torment me if I don't? These sound like descriptors of someone that we in a free society have been raised to rally against tbh.