How Much Do You Know About Christianity?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
541

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ephrem wrote:

…yes, if you have a reason, something that superseeds the previous belief, then a belief can change, or you can stop believing. But if you have free will, you can also stop believing without a rationale, because that is what i get from christians that speak of free will: that free will is somehow independent from causality. Please understand, i’m not saying that you believe this way, it’s the impression i get from discussions on this subject…

…because in my view, nothing we do is independent from causality, e.i. every choice we make is based upon a previous experience, belief, unconscious preference and so on. Seen in that light, free will extends perhaps to the ability to make a choice, but not to the independence in making a choice free from previous influences. Am i making sense here?

Ahhh . . .I see what you are trying to say. Free Will is the ability to choose/not choose among any number of possible choices. Free will is not the act, but the ability to choose/not choose to do a particular. It is a moral freedom.

physical influence is not moral causality. let me try to explain that better. Let’s say you are facing a moral decision to rape a girl or not. You’ve had sex before, so you know it is enjoyable, you are really horny and need some relief, you have the opportunity, no one will ever know - those are all influences but they are NOT causes. Those influences do not FORCE or CAUSE you to make the wrong moral decision. You still have to make the free volitional choice to go ahead and commit the rape. That is free will exercised in making a volitional, morally culpable decision.

Now also keep in mind that from the moment you commit your first volitional sin (doing it your way instead of God’s way) - your soul is corrupted by that sin, you have now fallen into righteous condemnation and now your natural proclivity will be to continue to sin just as before your first sin, your natural proclivity was to not sin.

Does that makes sense to you?
[/quote]

Hmm…well actually…

How does one person KNOW that rape is wrong? I mean if someone went through life and was shut off from the world so he didn’t have religion or the general exposure to other ideas of people telling him that forcing a woman to have sex with him is wrong. If he became sexually frustrated enough, would it be a natural outcome that he would rape a woman?

One could argue that you choose NOT to rape a woman, because you’ve been conditioned by outside influences to see that it’s wrong, also because you know the legal ramifications of raping a woman.

Not debating whether rape is right or wrong, or morality in general, just saying. It’s pretty hard to prove free will.

542

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Oleena wrote:

For the last fifteen pages or so I have been debating this from a Christian perspective, using only thought patterns that they could come to naturally, accepting everything that they see written in the Bible. I have not stated why I care to debate this with people. What I’m debating and the reason I’m debating it are pretty seperate.

When I first started question christianity I remained empathetic to my christian friends and family. I figured their religion was a good thing for them, and this was my issue. I didn’t want to take christianity away from them.

However, as I researched christianity (and this applies to all god-fearing religions) I came to understand that there are many social structures and beliefs that it came into existance to support which are hurting a lot of people.

My biggest problem with it is that it leaves a person with an inability to complete their thought process. An analogy describing what I mean would be a child believing in Santa Clause. He does not TRY to understand where else the presents might be coming from because he KNOWS that they come from Santa Clause. In this same way god-fearing religions have opposed scientific progress and quite a few other societal improvements, such as the acceptance of gays (we need them to be accepted just from a purely economical standpoint because they are aweseome citizens. If you ever have one as a neighbor you’ll know what I mean. Very clean yards.) and the end of slavery.

TOTAL 100% BS!! You’ve only been debating YOUR perceptions of Christianity based on YOUR interpretations of the bible. The rest of this post of yours is also BS, because some of the greatest scientists have been Christians - and if you add in other religions the lists goes from 1,000’s to 10’s of 1,000’s of great scientific mind.

The logic in your comments is so tortured, you may have violated the Geneva conventions . . . [/quote]

Well, you’re right that there have been some great scientists who were Christians (and other religions), but come on, you’ve got to admit that (in the past anyhow) there were definitely cases where the church vehemently opposed new scientific ideas/data and did their best to oppress these new ideas which threatened their authority.

For example Galileo was tried by the Roman Inquisition for heresy (a crime punishable by torturous death) for suggesting that the world was round and not the center of the universe. Luckily for him, he repented his ideas and got to live the rest of his life under house arrest (escaping torture). You’ve definitely gotta admit that there was some hardcore repressing of new scientific data going on there.

Like a lot of atrocities that have been committed throughout history it comes down to power and control. Church leaders are not immune to corruption and several times since Jesus’s death the leaders of the church have transformed it into one of the (if not THE) most evil institutions on the planet (the inquisition(s), the crusades, the witch hunts/trials in the states) in the name of power and control.

Now, whether you blame Christianity for this somewhat depends on your definition of Christianity, which is where things get a little tricky. Is Christianity the church (building) itself? No, I don’t think many would say that it is. Is it the people that make up the church? If so, then yes Christianity is to blame. Is it the bible itself? If yes, then which version of the bible (there are numerous sects and inconsistencies between them, which one is “right”), if no then why do people take the actual words written in it so seriously (there is a lot of wisdom, but like has been pointed out, a lot of what is written is culturally based or metaphorical IMO)?

During those times in history Christianity basically meant torturing people to death for following different belief systems. Their bible likely was written in such a way that supported these acts (or at least they placed a lot of emphasis on some of the more barbaric verses in the old testament) and it was considered being a good Christian to engage in such acts (it was mandatory to attend burnings at the stake and decapitations at points in Christian history).

These days I can’t think of a single Christian denomination that would support nor reproduce these horrible acts (though, the people who bomb abortion clinics because they’re against murder are pretty freakin stupid if you ask me).

But that’s kind of the point. Anyone who tells you that the bible (and Christianity) hasn’t been rewritten and revised to reflect the changing culture and beliefs of the time is just plain lying to you/themselves. So why people get so hung up on the exact wordings and phrases I just don’t understand.

The bible may have been inspired by God, but it’s been written through the filter of human hands, which have already proven to be capable of error (like saying that the world is flat) thus bringing the possibility of human fallibility to the rest of the words written therein as well.

543

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
spyoptic wrote:
religions so popular because any book that offers you all the answers to those that are scared shitless of life and especially death is going to be a hit. They’ll agree to drink your blood every sunday and argue to the point of mild retardation that a giant invisible guy can see everything you do.

and yet, they think people that believe in Santa Claus are nuts.

Wow - if that is your religion - i wouldn’t want anything to do with that either . . .

Glad I’m not one of those people . . . [/quote]

my higher power is alcoholics anonymous.

544

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…it does, thank you. Is there, within you, sometimes conflict between what your conscience says, and what God wants you to do? Because honestly, i find it much easier to follow my conscience onto the narrow path than to adhere to religion. A lot less guilt too…
[/quote]

Interesting questions - conflict between my conscience (now inhabited by the Spirit of God) versus what RELIGIONS tell me to do - absolutely!! Conflict between my conscience and God? nope - not a one . . .

546

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…hmm, proving such negatives is easy because you can provide proof of the opposite, the notion can be falsified. As far as i’m concerned, anecdotal evidence is meager evidence. Again you are trying to use science in a way to prove something without going about it properly…

…suppose we don’t settle for the simple idea of souls, and keep on looking into the instances of extended consciousness. We may find that our brains act as receivers for consciousness, and our minds simply make sense of the enormous amount of data input. In special circumstances, the brain picks up wider or different frequency bands than it’s own and the mind experiences something that’s outside of the body…

…interestingly enough, DARPA is looking into something similar: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/pentagon-preps-soldier-telepathy-push/
[/quote]

Well, there reason that I used those exampled was because the assumption given from the other side was it had been proven that the BRAIN was all there was to awareness/consciousness - since that can’t be proven, I wanted to demonstrate that construct was inaccurate.

Sorry - was not offering the out-of-body experience as a proof -but asking for an explanation from the BRAIN ONLY crowd -didn’t meant to cause a conflagration of the continuum of conundrums . . .

What a sneaky way of asking me to abandon my beliefs for yours - tell you what, we agree to disagree, but acknowledge that we are each trying to understand the same phenomenon? Sound reasonable?

Yeah, I know - I got all excited about the “telepathic” warrior thing, but then got discouraged when i realized they were only sensationalizing the terminology . . . turns out, they are recording bio-electrical signals and then playing them back via electronic interfaces and mechanical components. Turns out they’re not live, just memorex . . . really disappointing -I mean it will be useful for paralyzed people or amputees, I didn’t mean to downplay the significance - just illustrating that they had sensationalized the actual science . . .

547

[quote]That One Guy wrote:

Hmm…well actually…

How does one person KNOW that rape is wrong? I mean if someone went through life and was shut off from the world so he didn’t have religion or the general exposure to other ideas of people telling him that forcing a woman to have sex with him is wrong. If he became sexually frustrated enough, would it be a natural outcome that he would rape a woman?

One could argue that you choose NOT to rape a woman, because you’ve been conditioned by outside influences to see that it’s wrong, also because you know the legal ramifications of raping a woman.

Not debating whether rape is right or wrong, or morality in general, just saying. It’s pretty hard to prove free will.[/quote]

On its face, an apparently reasonable question - but if you are going to accept my beliefs, you have to accept the moral standards implicit within them as well. :slight_smile:

For the long answer to your morality in the desert hermit question, just go back to my wordy explanation a few pages back.

Your arguing against free will by introducing a different concept into the picture - what you called conditioning does not force a decision by the soul - that is what free will is.

Lemme splain again . . . a person may have been taught his whole life that rape was wrong - however, free moral agency states that he still retains the capacity to choose to rape or not to rape. Again, you are elevating influence to the rank of CAUSE. that is not free will, it is pre-determinism. There are plenty of examples throughout human history where people have freely chosen to do the exact opposite of what they have been traditionally taught, feel, think, etc - that is all that is needed (IMO) to understand the difference between influence and causality.

This also introduces the concept of the conscience present in all men where God’s immutable law has been written. We instinctively know right from wrong, but can dull that voice of conscience by continually ignoring it . . .

I don’t have to prove free will to you. I will never be able to prove to you something that you have chosen in your own free will to deny the existence of . . . .wait a minute, maybe I just did . . . I am only explaining what I believe.

I believe in the immortal soul, free will, God-given conscience, consequence of choices, etc. I rationally understand these things, see real evidence of their existence within my own life and trust the revealed truth of God in faith.

548

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:

Well, you’re right that there have been some great scientists who were Christians (and other religions), but come on, you’ve got to admit that (in the past anyhow) there were definitely cases where the church vehemently opposed new scientific ideas/data and did their best to oppress these new ideas which threatened their authority.

For example Galileo was tried by the Roman Inquisition for heresy (a crime punishable by torturous death) for suggesting that the world was round and not the center of the universe. Luckily for him, he repented his ideas and got to live the rest of his life under house arrest (escaping torture). You’ve definitely gotta admit that there was some hardcore repressing of new scientific data going on there.

Like a lot of atrocities that have been committed throughout history it comes down to power and control. Church leaders are not immune to corruption and several times since Jesus’s death the leaders of the church have transformed it into one of the (if not THE) most evil institutions on the planet (the inquisition(s), the crusades, the witch hunts/trials in the states) in the name of power and control.

Now, whether you blame Christianity for this somewhat depends on your definition of Christianity, which is where things get a little tricky. Is Christianity the church (building) itself? No, I don’t think many would say that it is. Is it the people that make up the church? If so, then yes Christianity is to blame. Is it the bible itself? If yes, then which version of the bible (there are numerous sects and inconsistencies between them, which one is “right”), if no then why do people take the actual words written in it so seriously (there is a lot of wisdom, but like has been pointed out, a lot of what is written is culturally based or metaphorical IMO)?

During those times in history Christianity basically meant torturing people to death for following different belief systems. Their bible likely was written in such a way that supported these acts (or at least they placed a lot of emphasis on some of the more barbaric verses in the old testament) and it was considered being a good Christian to engage in such acts (it was mandatory to attend burnings at the stake and decapitations at points in Christian history).

These days I can’t think of a single Christian denomination that would support nor reproduce these horrible acts (though, the people who bomb abortion clinics because they’re against murder are pretty freakin stupid if you ask me).

But that’s kind of the point. Anyone who tells you that the bible (and Christianity) hasn’t been rewritten and revised to reflect the changing culture and beliefs of the time is just plain lying to you/themselves. So why people get so hung up on the exact wordings and phrases I just don’t understand.

The bible may have been inspired by God, but it’s been written through the filter of human hands, which have already proven to be capable of error (like saying that the world is flat) thus bringing the possibility of human fallibility to the rest of the words written therein as well.[/quote]

wow - talk about your brain dumps . . .there are only a few hundred issues brought up in your post - lol, care to set some of the major ones in some type of order in which you would like them responded to?

BTW, thanks for joining the conversation - i’ve really enjoyed some of the perspectives you added to other threads.

549

[quote]spyoptic wrote:

my higher power is alcoholics anonymous.
[/quote]

LOl - I’m not an alcoholic, I’m a drunk - I don’t go to meetings! Why are you allowing other people to dictate your beliefs about alcohol?

550

[quote]pushharder wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pushharder wrote:
mbm693 wrote:
pushharder wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

The big bad man is making fun of me. What should I do. Will you go away if I give you my lunch money big bad man?

I was thinking of taking it from you either way.

I will see you at the flag pole at 3pm.

Whether or not you show up, you’ll surely be hungry.

That’s not very Christian of you…

Nor is it very humanistic of you…surely wouldn’t “hold me to a different standard,” would you?[/quote]

This is your second try for a comeback at this one too. Dude, sequels are always worse than the original… and your original sucked.

551

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
mbm693 - Tell you what, little one, let’s start from your side of this issue . . . when you can explain what constitutes human consciousness in the brain and how/when it actually first occurs in the brain of an infant, then we can have this discussion on the soul and free will.

You deny the soul, but cannot explain your own mind. Even the best scientist of this day and age cannot explain consciousness, yet you in your infinite understanding arrogantly conclude that the brain is all there is of your consciousness . . .lmao . . . You cannot even explain your own conscious awareness of and interaction with the world and yet demand that I prove the soul to you . . .

the basis for my belief in the soul comes from reason and from scripture (that’s why it is a belief) . . . .you on the other hand believe there is no soul, but cannot offer an explanation then for your own consciousness except a feeble cry of "da brain . . .da brain . . . " while scientists know that the mind is more than the electrical impulses of the brain.

To make it easy on you - I believe the soul is the spiritual operator of the physical body and interacts with the physical world through the switchboard of the brain (thus impairing the brain interferes with our souls ability to interact with the physical world) . . . We know we can keep the body alive with “life” support, but we cannot return consciousness even to a perfectly healthy brain when there is no soul to operate it . . .

the mind is more than what the brain is doing . . . [/quote]

Consciousness and the brain aren’t nearly as mysterious as you seem to think. Neuroscience is a pretty advanced field. That said there are still somethings that have not been explained at this time. That is not a good reason to assume those things are the activity of a soul. I say again, there is NO EVIDENCE (out of body experiences have already been explained) that a soul exists. If you want to claim that souls exist, the burden of proof is on you.

552

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
ephrem wrote:

seems to me that all they have proved is that the brain really is the switchboard for the body - not that there isn’t a soul in there operating it.

…you know you can’t prove a negative. Otoh, no-one has proven a soul does exist either, and inspite of beliefs, if we look at the evidence without prejudice, there’s nothing that suggest souls exist…

LOL - see, I tried to tell my algebra teachers that you couldn’t prove a negative - LMAO.

seriously, it is possible to prove a negative - for example, I can prove that I do not have green scales on my body - that is proving a negative. I can prove that I am not in Singapore right now as well . . .

One small piece of evidence to support the idea of a consciousness greater than the brain (you can call it the soul if you will) - the documented cases of true out-of-the-body experiences. If the consciousness is no more than then mind, then how do these people experience life as it is going while their body is stuck in a hospital somewhere? They hear conversation, see people interacting, etc and yet their physical brain in nowhere near the scenes they witness . . .[/quote]

I say you do have green scales. They exist on the same plane as your soul. I’ve even got a very old book that says so.

553

I enjoyed your responses. Freedom is beautiful. Can you define? Freedom? Religion? Do you even know the words etymology? How is it that a so called ‘free’ republic nation follows an ancient monarchy?

Your responses…LMAO. I am not pulling your halo down but expressing this, you are ‘of’ this world, a result of it, not placed here for anything else but live HERE & NOW. Its too simple for you to understand because thats the way it is. I dont understand it either. I just live it. Why cant you come off it? Let it all go.

:slight_smile: Have fun … thinking linear.

555

[quote]mbm693 wrote:

Consciousness and the brain aren’t nearly as mysterious as you seem to think. Neuroscience is a pretty advanced field. That said there are still somethings that have not been explained at this time. That is not a good reason to assume those things are the activity of a soul. I say again, there is NO EVIDENCE (out of body experiences have already been explained) that a soul exists. If you want to claim that souls exist, the burden of proof is on you. [/quote]

Wow, glad we have a bona-fide expert on consciousness and out-of-the-body experiences here . . . care to enlighten the rest of us with your explanations or are you just going to rely on some vague APPEAL TO AUTHORITY? LMAO - what a child . . .

556

[quote]mbm693 wrote:

I say you do have green scales. They exist on the same plane as your soul. I’ve even got a very old book that says so.
[/quote]

You show me your ancient manuscript identifying my green scales and I will show you your soul . . .

557

Oh wait -you were just being a petulant little brat . . . did you strain your brain with all of that heavy thinking?

558

Remember children to play nice or you can be struck down dead by lightining. LOL

559

[quote]simpletbrain wrote:
Remember children to play nice or you can be struck down dead by lightining. LOL[/quote]

was that a threat - do you really have the power to control lightening? ooohh, you must be quite the amazing being . . . can you control the thunder as well? or are you just a big bright flash and then you disappear . . . do you have a special costume, besides that frilly little number you wore last night . . . .

oh wait - you were being sarcastic about some weird version of a deity - the least you could do is actually use an honest critic, but that would require more brain power than it seems you currently possess . . .

silly superstitious human . . . .

560

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
mbm693 wrote:

Consciousness and the brain aren’t nearly as mysterious as you seem to think. Neuroscience is a pretty advanced field. That said there are still somethings that have not been explained at this time. That is not a good reason to assume those things are the activity of a soul. I say again, there is NO EVIDENCE (out of body experiences have already been explained) that a soul exists. If you want to claim that souls exist, the burden of proof is on you.

Wow, glad we have a bona-fide expert on consciousness and out-of-the-body experiences here . . . care to enlighten the rest of us with your explanations or are you just going to rely on some vague APPEAL TO AUTHORITY? LMAO - what a child . . .
[/quote]

You really don’t understand how that fallacy works do you? Ignoring my point won’t make it go away. The burden of proof is on you. Get some proof or admit you’ve lost.