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TradIsGood
Chalkless climber
the Gunks end of the country
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Jan 14, 2009 - 07:10pm PT
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You get enough of that Leroy Jenkins holy water,
and you can put out fires with it.
You tell me if that is a miracle.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2009 - 01:41pm PT
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Christianity fails. Why? Because it is a patriarchal dogma that links Judaic rigidity and introspective guilt with Hellenistic irrationality into a concoction of prejudice and fear. It assumes the failure of human reason as well as the failure of an intrinsic human morality. It requires us to believe in a personal god that finds so much joy in our redemption he commits us all to sin at our births. One could argue, as Gibbon did, that the Roman Empire was destroyed and the “dark ages” ushered in by the advent of Christianity.
The idea that a Pentecostal believer is speaking in translatable ancient tongues and not psychotic gibberish is just plain ludicrous. Christianity and its political vehicles have created havoc in Western culture for centuries. And, as Hume said so insightfully centuries ago, there is no such thing as a miracle, because miracles by their very nature are impossible.
The word, as articulated in the New Testament, is God, but the word is an invention of humanity. The closest thing to a personal god in this universe is humanity. It’s a shame we can’t act more like gods. Kindness and good will inhere naturally in the human heart; they don’t need 2000-year-old sheepherder or camel driver mythologies to make them real or active.
Consider the hundreds of world mythologies; doubtless, they can't all be true or real. Certainly, the doctrines of Islam can’t be true if the doctrines of Christianity are. It is a given that some mythologies are false and yet each is served by faith. Faith can hardly be the measure of truth because it so often serves what is false. Without faith all mythological systems fail, and if one mythology is false then it’s possible that all mythologies are false.
To hold up faith and miracles as an understanding of reality is only a weak attempt to be reconciled to the inevitable.
LW
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 15, 2009 - 02:09pm PT
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" It requires us to believe in a personal god that finds so much joy in our redemption he commits us all to sin at our births.'
How do Christians address this?
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rockermike
Mountain climber
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 15, 2009 - 04:33pm PT
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Damn, I laid this egg and now its turned into an ever-morphing monster. People really do have rather strong opinions on this one...
OK, for you devotees of scientism and reasonism (fundamentalists in your own right); why does reality exist? What is the source for the first sub-atomic particle? What is consciousness? Why shouldn't we kill our neighbor? (or maybe we should??)
Reason can tell us somethings about "how" things work. It can't touch the "whys". Only consciousness can do that and "reason" hasn't really gotten its head around what consciousness is yet.
So you too run into this wall of unknowing, beyond which there are no simple canned answers and no experimental proofs. But the scientific crowd - the materialistic ones who only believe in the reality of what can be touched or put under a microscope or measured, you have no answers for the why questions, and more often then not deal with this lack by simply forbidding the question. Since we can't "scientifically" answer "why" questions (according to the logic of reason) we will therefore not allow them to come to the surface.
Religious people on the other hand try to handle these questions (whether gently or roughly; open-endedly or dogmatically) but they depend on differing sources of knowledge. Faith, introspection, revelation, mysticism, the wisdom of the ancients (or some combination of the above) - call it what you will.
Who says religious people have all the answers? It sounds like the only Christians some of you know are the ones on Television. They're just straw men, easy enough to shoot down but you've accomplished little by doing so.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 15, 2009 - 04:57pm PT
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Skip, that was awesome. Maybe I'll read Job again tonight, it's been a long time.
Oh yeah, speaking of Bible talk. I get these 2 Jehovah's Witness people that always stop at my house evey other week or so. It used to be be an old lady who was the sweetest thing you ever met. I used to tell her I'm going camping in the mountains and climbing and she was kinda fascinated. Anyway, now they have the JW climber guy that comes around, he's pretty hard-core too, does a lot of High Sierra stuff that we chat about.
I have explained to them that I understand they want converts and they ain't getting one, I'm a proud Catholic (or general Christian). Anyway I did explain that if they want to come by and talk for a few minutes I'd open the door and have a chat. We even disagree on some stuff slightly, but I enjoy talking to them about the Bible.
When I say 'general Christian' I mean that I still consider myself an Old Testament fire/brimestone Catholic but I don't dismiss most Christians, just the opposite. After all a Catholic is a Christian, no? I just have problems with the ones who say if you don't accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're condemned. They include Catholics in this group and I find that weird because Catholics do accept Jesus as the son of God, as the manifestation of God on Earth. How could he not be Lord Savior?
Maybe someone can answer this. And what about Jews? Are they condemned too? I just don't by it.
Maybe next time Jehovah Climber shows up I'll throw this at him.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 15, 2009 - 05:12pm PT
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Hey Skip, I will have to read over what you wrote a bit closer, But if you look at my question, hopefully you will see that it isn't asking why God allows sin, it is asking why God ( according to the Christians ) condemns all men because of original sin. Many people get ticked off at Christianity because it claims that one man and woman sinned and therefore all were doomed to suffer. They do not see this as fair and I agree with them.
My own understanding is that the story of Genesis as about what we all have done, which is turn away from the teacher, in Genesis defined as God, either in fear of retribution or in shame because of pride. We therefore chose separation. Because God gave us dominion in this plane of existence, then God honored our choice and is allowing us to experience what separation is like, which is basically suffering.
Jesus talks about "I and my father are one" and he talks about a house being divided against itself can not stand. These are teachings on the need to become one with God to overcome suffering, including the suffering of death, which is what Jesus' life is about.
The problem with how Christians view original sin is that it makes everyone suffer for what someone else did. This to me sounds like a capricious and not so nice God.
I personally believe that the story in Genesis is a general story telling the tale of what each of us has chosen. The understanding that has been lost in Christianity which would help them understand this is the realization of reincarnation.
Reincarnation was an accepted teaching in Christianity in the early years and was taken out somewhere in the ( can't remember exactly ) 3rd or 4th century.
I highly recommend two books.
"I Am a thinking Christian" and "I Love Jesus, I Hate Christianity" by Kim Michaels. It would be wise to realize that Kim does not truly hate Christianity, he doesn't hate. He just titled it provocatively to get people to read it. It is very logical in its teachings. I hope that you will consider it. I too was very angry with God for a long time, because of my own health problems. These books are helping me overcome that anger.
As for sin, I do not believe that God created sin. He gave us free will, which is what Genesis calls dominion. In order to truly experience free will, we have to have the opportunity to chose to go against the laws of the universe, ie sin. Yet one of those laws is that we will reap what we sow. Science would say that everything has an equal and opposite reaction. Meaning that everything comes back on us. So the warnings about sin just mean that if you go against the laws of the universe, then it will eventually bite you in the rear. A human example of this is gravity. If you do not respect gravity, then it can and will bite you in the rear.
Peace
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2009 - 05:50pm PT
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Christianity holds that not only man is cursed by original sin but also nature itself. That nature is cursed by the actions of man seems unreasonable at best. The real horror of nature is its dictate that life must feed upon life in order to continue, that this is a result of human disobedience seems ludicrous as well.
The above interpretation of Job is pure sophistry. Job suffered because of a bet between God and Satan as to the efficacy of Job's love for God. When Job has the gall to ask why such disaster was visited upon him the Lord's response is simply who are you to ask? The nature of God's reaction is then shrouded in a "justifiable" mystery. This is simply a kind of etiological myth designed to explain why bad things happen to good people. Sin is simply a natural realization of empathy we feel toward those we have somehow offended. Our sense of sin is based on a natural inclination to pity and our sense of unity with other human sufferers.
In Christian doctrine the world is condemned in every aspect due to the sin of Adam. To believe that the fundamental laws of nature were changed to accommodate the Lord's judgement of humanity begs credulity. This is a myth that is at least 2500 years old. Good grief, isn't it time to move on.
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shutupandclimb
climber
So. Cal..............d00d
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Jan 15, 2009 - 06:40pm PT
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Why does God heal everything but broken bones? It seems to me that
the healing that does take place are always those that can't be seen or evidenced instantly. What about mass scarring, broken legs, cleft palates, or even better yet, why doesn't God grow back limbs that have been traumatically amputated?
I believe in God, but I think God is something different then is described in the bible. the bible, by the way, is a heavily edited political document that was assembled at the council of Nicea in 325 A.D. and many of the most relevant books were omitted and claimed to be heretical by the council. If one digs a little they will find that this is the case.
As a side note, the overseer of the council was emperor Constantine, who was also the
leader of the Roman (Catholic) church. He had heavy political
interest in developing a document to control the masses.
Therefore, many of the most individually empowering passages and books of the early church were excluded and an attempt was even made to remove those documents from the historical record.
Any one that believes in God should be very grateful for the Dead Sea Scrolls and the gnostic gospels. It surprises me that modern Christians will even call those documents heretical. This in spite of the fact that they were written during the time of Jesus by those closest to him, not generations later based on oral tradition.
It is always surprising that nothing in the Archeological record
supports much of the modern bible and the only proof that a Christian can give of the bibles validity is the bible itself.
I.E. "How do I know this is real?" Answer: "because it says in Hebrews blah blah blah that it is"
There is , however, much power in prayer especially en masse in that it is the focused love and energy of many minds and souls directed towards a certain outcome. It is not understood how it works, but studies do indicate that this act affects outcomes.
Anyhow, there is my two cents, I invite debate, especially from modern Christians...........Love and Blessings !
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 15, 2009 - 07:59pm PT
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Nice post, Janet. Not hokey at all. Well, maybe to Wes, but whatever...it takes time for some people.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2009 - 08:39pm PT
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If I come before god after I die, I would hold up the cancerous arm of a child and demand what is the meaning of this? Your god has a lot of explaining to do.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 15, 2009 - 08:51pm PT
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Paul, I wouldn't wait to ask God questions til after you die when you can ask him now. :) Sometimes the dialogue takes awhile, even a long while, but if you continue it and really talk to him and listen, you will get an answer.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jan 15, 2009 - 09:31pm PT
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Weschrist, he's real.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 15, 2009 - 09:46pm PT
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wes -- "I can assure you my experience in religious matters over the last 30 years far exceeds your life-time experience in both diversity and depth of exploration."
So you've been pouring water over the leaves & branches of the tree for 30 years.
Pour water on the leaves of the tree or branches of the tree it is simply waste of time.
If you pour water on the root then the effect of pouring water is distributed.
John Moosie, nice post up thread ....
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2009 - 09:53pm PT
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If you believe in the Christian God then you believe in the necessary righteousness of suffering. Ultimately your God is responsible for all the suffering experienced by humanity. It is his universe, his cosmos and suffering is his invention. I think reasonable folks would choose not to believe in such a creature.
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WBraun
climber
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Jan 15, 2009 - 09:55pm PT
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No
You are the cause of your own suffering along with your actions that can also cause suffering to others.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 15, 2009 - 09:56pm PT
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I think reasonable folks would choose not to believe in such a creature
There's your problem, you don't see the plan and the design, just the selfish desire to remove all pain that is the life struggle that maks you a true man/woman...
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shutupandclimb
climber
So. Cal..............d00d
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Jan 15, 2009 - 10:15pm PT
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Skipt,
Thanks for the thoughtful and informed response. I learned a thing or two.
It sounds as if you worship at an open and progressive church. That would mean a lot to me. My experience is that most Christians are completely closed to any debate on the Bible and you are a refreshing voice.
I think we are on the same page in that there is a God that is centered in love, but maybe we disagree about some details.
But....Who Cares! and thanks.
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shutupandclimb
climber
So. Cal..............d00d
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Jan 15, 2009 - 10:37pm PT
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So, can anyone tell me why the God capable of miraculous healing won't regrow limbs?
I think it's a legit question.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Jan 15, 2009 - 10:41pm PT
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I think you need to go back and read Job. Upthread, skippy made a pretty good case for it.
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paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
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Jan 15, 2009 - 10:48pm PT
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Orthodox Christianity declares that God is all knowing and all powerful, if that's the case then all suffering is his responsibility and not yours. In Christian dogma all experience is the creation of God. The so called gift of free will is predicated on the existence of evil that only God could have created. Christianity gives us solipsism after solipsism each dissolving into incoherence.
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