[quote]RyuuKyuzo wrote:
[quote]jakerz96 wrote:
[quote]RyuuKyuzo wrote:
[quote]jakerz96 wrote:
[quote]RyuuKyuzo wrote:
First, the word disciple comes from the Latin discipulus meaning “student”, “one who is ready to learn”. So yes, I am a disciple of psychohistory, in fact, I am a disciple of all science. I fully understood your point and re-asserting it doesn’t make it any more correct nor does it address anything I just wrote.
If redirecting responsibility from your own life onto something else is foreign to Christianity, why are all events considered an act of God? Why is it you must give yourself in totality to God if you are to remain independent at the same time? This is a very hard thing for you to see from the inside, almost impossible, but I assure you that from the outside it is very easy to see how this is a mere parental projection and how it is a matter of surrendering your life and responsibility for it over to “God”.
I call them so-called religions because the root of religiousness is internal search. These colloquial “religions” serve only to corrupt others for personal gain. It is a twisting of language to make otherwise psychotic things seem divine and righteous. How lame would life be if the answers to our deepest selves could be explained in mere words and written down into a book to be generalized over every living person. We’re all individuals. No one book can dictate how everyone should or even CAN be. It’s utterly ridiculous. Persons follow these “holy” books only because REAL internal search requires great courage and effort. Nobody wants to do it. It’s easier to pretend, it’s easier to look to the outside world for a “purpose” and it becomes especially easier when everyone else pretends with you. A truly religious person needs no holy book. His whole existence is his holy book.
If you think that there is ever a time where one MUST be suffering, then this isn’t a matter of me being too young, but of you being too old and accumulating a foolish philosophy to accompany it. [/quote]
I think you have some serious misconceptions about Christianity. Let me attempt, at least, to correct them for you, so you don’t debate with straw men.
First, not all events are considered as acts of God. In fact the view of most Christians myself included is that there are very few occasions that are acts of God with most things occuring within the framework of the universe He created.
Second, giving yourself to God is not giving over control of your life it is merely accepting He is your creator and then trying to follow a moral order. It is not a dictated life and there is no surrender of responsibility to God. Rather there is responsibility, because God. I can see how from the outside you find this to be parental projection, but you should understand from the inside it is the opposite, as in parent child relationships reflect (imperfectly mind you) our relationship with God. I could reiterate your words here and say something like this is difficult to see from the outside, maybe even impossible…
Third, as to [quote] Ryuu: How lame would life be if the answers to our deepest selves could be explained in mere words and written down into a book to be generalized over every living person.[/quote] That would be lame. I’m not sure what you mean by [quote] answers to our deepest selves[/quote], but if you mean it lays out our origins it does that and it lays out morals to live by, but I don’t think it generalizes anything regarding everyones lives beyond that.
Fourth, [quote] Ryuu: We’re all individuals. No one book can dictate how everyone should or even CAN be. It’s utterly ridiculous. Persons follow these “holy” books only because REAL internal search requires great courage and effort. Nobody wants to do it. It’s easier to pretend, it’s easier to look to the outside world for a “purpose” and it becomes especially easier when everyone else pretends with you. A truly religious person needs no holy book. His whole existence is his holy book. [/quote]
Are you familiar at all with any Christian Saints or mystics? If not I suggest you read some of their works. Christianity confirms individuality and does not dictate in anyway how everyone should or can be. As for following holy books instead of internal search, that is not what Christianity is about. Christian mystics were known for large amounts of internal searching, and I agree it takes great courage and effort (I’ll concede that a lot of people don’t do this, Christian and other). You are wrong that no one wants to engage in this internal reflection. I understand when you say it is easier to pretend when others pretend with you. I get that I really do, but it cuts both ways. As for a truly religious person needing no holy book and their whole life being their holy book, well that just means there is a lot of bad literature out there (sorry, I have to make some jokes in otherwise serious discussion).
Lastly, [quote] Ryuu said: If you think that there is ever a time where one MUST be suffering, then this isn’t a matter of me being too young, but of you being too old and accumulating a foolish philosophy to accompany it. [/quote] This was in response to me saying you are very young after you said [quote] Ryuu: It’s all just for fun. [/quote]
There may be some things about which I am foolish, but I guarantee you that if you live by
[quote] It’s all just for fun[/quote] you will end up empty and unfulfilled. There are times when one should (not must because no one is forced to do anything) cast aside their own comfort yes. For instance being a parent you will have to sacrifice, being a friend, I think you get the idea. Living by “It’s all just for fun” would make you the most self absorbed person on the planet (unless of course you temper this with realizing that it isn’t fun when your fun hurts others etc…).
Now, it’s late and it’s bed time…[/quote]
God is omnipotent and all power, yes? Therefore EVERYTHING that is allowed to happen is God’s will. If it is not his will, he wouldn’t allow it to happen. Sure you can say “but we have free will and can choose to do evil in spite of god’s will”, fine, but you’ve opened up yet another contradiction. If God already knows every action we will ever make then how do we have free will? All our actions are already predestined by God’s knowledge. If they aren’t, then God is not omnipotent, if they are, then we have no free will and everything is God’s will.
So, how do you reconcile free will with God’s supposed omnipotent?
Christianity is about individuality and not conformity? Then I suppose the ten commandments really should have been called the “ten suggestions”. =/
Selfishness is not a bad thing. It can be a very beautiful thing if you understand it. Selfishness is simply considering your happiness first, greed is when you wand others to consider you first and there is nothing more greedy than saying to someone “you shouldn’t be so selfish!” because you are essentially saying they should put YOUR wants before their own. You never have to put yourself second and anyone whom says you do is merely expressing their greed. This is an important difference. You must first love yourself before you can love others, this is selfish, but it is also unnecessary. A greedy persons expects to be loved without having to give any. When you consider yourself first, nothing has to be a suffering. Pain will come, sure, pain come with change and is inevitable, but suffering only happens when you resist change. Pain is cause by change, suffering is cause by you.
If you are ever suffering in your life, it’s because you are swimming against its tide.
[/quote]
Sorry, I’ve grown weary of chopping down your straw men, so I am only going to chop one down right now.
Omnipotence does mean all powerful, but it does not mean that power has to be used all the time. Knowing what someone is going to do is not the same as causing it/forcing it. Allowing something to happen against your will has nothing to do with how much power you could wield.
You are absolutely full of misinformation that someone has fed you. I don’t blame you for this, but you really ought to think about some of the things you’ve been taught. I imagine that whole omnipotence, free will, predestination, God’s foreknowledge thing you brought up is a complete rehash of something you heard someone else say or write (quite likely the same guy that made your Jesus timeline video).
You should go lift now Ryuu and try to get rid of some of you anger/angst.[/quote]
You know, you keep saying “straw-man”, but you’ve never once shown exactly how my arguments are straw-men, you just sort of assert it.
I made an error in my last post, however. I meant to write omniscient, not omnipotent. How can God be omniscient if we have free will? [/quote]
Here is how you are constructing your straw-man you make a caricature of God by saying:
You first make a statement that I agree with then you make two more that don’t necessarily follow from the first one. I think I dealt with this just fine when I said:
[quote] jakerz96: Omnipotence does mean all powerful, but it does not mean that power has to be used all the time. Knowing what someone is going to do is not the same as causing it/forcing it. Allowing something to happen against your will has nothing to do with how much power you could wield.
[/quote]
Even if you did mean omniscient I still covered that in the above statement.
I’m going to say it again: You have a great deal of misinformation in your head about this. If you truly want to learn about Christianity I suggest you open your mind and don’t look at sources posted on youtube, by pseudo-intellectuals (I like that prefix “pseudo”).
