How Much Do You Know About Christianity?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
961

[quote]Oleena wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
forlife wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Even so, even if John resolutely turns his back on the good and God in this life, John’s choices may well bring him into a deeper relation to God that it would appear.

You’re forgetting the omniscience of god. Omniscience means perfect, absolute, complete knowledge of the choices John and Mary will make, and of the end result of those choices. It doesn’t imply god made these choices for John and Mary, only that god knows IN ADVANCE what those choices are, and what will result from them.

So back to the question:

If god KNOWS IN ADVANCE that John will make poor choices that will result in endless suffering…why wouldn’t god choose NOT to create John, and thus spare John from this horrible fate?

So, you’re asking about a special case - the person who is certainly going to end up in hell with no reprieve? You’re asking, “why would he create, say, Hitler?” Is that it?
Would it be a special case for god to NOT know that Hitler was going to end up in hell?

[/quote]

I’m not assuming that.

Btw, ForeLife/Oleena, there are theologians who argue that while God is in eternity, he observes as our time unfolds. He knows everything that’s happened in the past; and everything that’s happening at this very moment. But not more. It may be helpful to think of it this way. And no, it does not detract from God’s knowingness - if it hasn’t happened yet, he cannot know it. et cetera… I’m just saying that we needn’t set up the argument with your terms.

962

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Fine, just for you. When God breathed into Adam the breathe of life - all subsequent human beings take part in that same eternal existence. Thus even those who suffer in hell are still recipients of the breathe of life (immortality of the soul)[/quote]

So you believe all humans have the breath of life, and thus will live forever, but that no other living thing on the planet has the breath of life (animals, birds, plants, germs, etc.)?

963

I was refering to the actions around and before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire and it spread throughout Europe. Plenty of blood from other branches of christianity and pagan religions was shed to instill religious order.

[quote]pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Oleena wrote:

inquisition, which everyone loves to forget and make escuses for.

Are you out of your dolphin-wannabe head? WHO in the name of chickens and bonobos everywhere is making excuses for the Inquisition? The perpetrators of the Inquisition are locked in chains awaiting Judgment Day as we speak and they aint got themselves a good enough lawyer to get ‘em off. Holy Headstocks, Batmanoleeme, I can’t believe you lobbed this hand grenade. Those men weren’t Christians. They were evil, despicable, black-hearted fiends. You have got to snap out of it. You’re trippin’, sweetheart.

Most women of the Middle Ages were totally dominated by men. Any man in the family could order a woman to do as he wished. If a woman refused, she was beat into submission, as disobedience was considered a crime against God.

If a man did that he was following his sinful heart not Christianity. Quit attaching the sinful practices of man to what Christ set out for his followers.

Which inquisition are you referring too?

There were several. I would imagine the Spanish Inquisition is the most famous.

The Spanish Inquisition was carried out by King Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain. Pope Sixtus spoke out against it but was powerless to stop it, especially in that he needed military assistance on the eastern front of the war. That inquisition was not carried out by the church, that is a myth.
It was really an excuse to break the Moors who didn’t want to high tale it out of Iberia.

I guess it would have been better for you to ask Oleeme. She was the one who first mentioned it.[/quote]

964

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
So, you’re asking about a special case - the person who is certainly going to end up in hell with no reprieve? You’re asking, “why would he create, say, Hitler?” Is that it?
[/quote]

Yes.

965

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Btw, ForeLife/Oleena, there are theologians who argue that while God is in eternity, he observes as our time unfolds. He knows everything that’s happened in the past; and everything that’s happening at this very moment. But not more. [/quote]

That would be an acceptable resolution to the question I’ve been posing.

However, the notion contradicts what most Christians claim about their god.

By that definition, god would not be omniscient.

Also, it contradicts scriptures supporting the omniscience of god, like Jeremiah 1:5 which I quoted earlier.

967

[quote]Oleena wrote:
I was refering to the actions around and before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire and it spread throughout Europe. Plenty of blood from other branches of christianity and pagan religions was shed to instill religious order.

pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Oleena wrote:

inquisition, which everyone loves to forget and make escuses for.

Are you out of your dolphin-wannabe head? WHO in the name of chickens and bonobos everywhere is making excuses for the Inquisition? The perpetrators of the Inquisition are locked in chains awaiting Judgment Day as we speak and they aint got themselves a good enough lawyer to get ‘em off. Holy Headstocks, Batmanoleeme, I can’t believe you lobbed this hand grenade. Those men weren’t Christians. They were evil, despicable, black-hearted fiends. You have got to snap out of it. You’re trippin’, sweetheart.

Most women of the Middle Ages were totally dominated by men. Any man in the family could order a woman to do as he wished. If a woman refused, she was beat into submission, as disobedience was considered a crime against God.

If a man did that he was following his sinful heart not Christianity. Quit attaching the sinful practices of man to what Christ set out for his followers.

Which inquisition are you referring too?

There were several. I would imagine the Spanish Inquisition is the most famous.

The Spanish Inquisition was carried out by King Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain. Pope Sixtus spoke out against it but was powerless to stop it, especially in that he needed military assistance on the eastern front of the war. That inquisition was not carried out by the church, that is a myth.
It was really an excuse to break the Moors who didn’t want to high tale it out of Iberia.

I guess it would have been better for you to ask Oleeme. She was the one who first mentioned it.

[/quote]

Other than the persistent execution of Christians during this period, I am not sure of which blood you speak. Constantine made religious tolerance the order of the empire and stopped the persecution of Christians. But there was no overt campaign to convert by force. At least I am not aware of it.

968

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Oleena wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
forlife wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Even so, even if John resolutely turns his back on the good and God in this life, John’s choices may well bring him into a deeper relation to God that it would appear.

You’re forgetting the omniscience of god. Omniscience means perfect, absolute, complete knowledge of the choices John and Mary will make, and of the end result of those choices. It doesn’t imply god made these choices for John and Mary, only that god knows IN ADVANCE what those choices are, and what will result from them.

So back to the question:

If god KNOWS IN ADVANCE that John will make poor choices that will result in endless suffering…why wouldn’t god choose NOT to create John, and thus spare John from this horrible fate?

So, you’re asking about a special case - the person who is certainly going to end up in hell with no reprieve? You’re asking, “why would he create, say, Hitler?” Is that it?
Would it be a special case for god to NOT know that Hitler was going to end up in hell?

I’m not assuming that.

Btw, ForeLife/Oleena, there are theologians who argue that while God is in eternity, he observes as our time unfolds. He knows everything that’s happened in the past; and everything that’s happening at this very moment. But not more. It may be helpful to think of it this way. And no, it does not detract from God’s knowingness - if it hasn’t happened yet, he cannot know it. et cetera… I’m just saying that we needn’t set up the argument with your terms.
[/quote] First of all, this stands in direct contradiction to the meaning of the word “omniscient”. Secondly, the old testiment constantly points out that god knew that jesus was going to come, meaning that he can know something even if it hasn’t happened yet. All of Revelations is god saying what is going to happen in the future. There are countless other examples of god knowing things that haven’t happened yet in the bible. I’m really suprised you brought this up with all of your intensive knowledge of what the good book says.

969

[quote]forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
Try again - been through every one of those textual criticisms - you’d need better ammo than that . . . if you don’t have a new argument - there’s nothing to change

I said it was only an example. I’m trying to figure out how deeply committed you are to your god, based on the five reasons you cited.

If even one of those reasons was shown not to incontrovertible, would you still remain as deeply committed?

Would all five have to be shown not to be incontrovertible to make any difference?

What is the burden of proof for your belief?[/quote]

How many times do I have to say the same things over and over? Yes, I was an am willing to alter my beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence. wait - let me say it again . . . and again . … . and again . . .

I am very committed to my beliefs because of the price I paid to possess them. Those five things are general areas possessing a myriad of examinations and conclusions, but should one area be proven incontrovertibly wrong - I would back my belief system back to that point and start again - BUT it will take extraordinary proof to cause me to invest that kind of time and effort - do you all seriously comprehend how much time it takes to do what I have described - you make it sound like something that could be done over a weekend - it took me years!

Why does it matter to you what my burden of proof is? the only thing that should matter to you is what your burden of proof is. What your question shows is the intent to try to find some way of convincing me that I made a mistake along the way - not trying to find truth for yourself.

This is a process of self-discovery. When you have done an absolute-zero belief construction - then you can discuss with me my burden of proof in comparison with yours.

970

[quote]forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
Fine, just for you. When God breathed into Adam the breathe of life - all subsequent human beings take part in that same eternal existence. Thus even those who suffer in hell are still recipients of the breathe of life (immortality of the soul)

So you believe all humans have the breath of life, and thus will live forever, but that no other living thing on the planet has the breath of life (animals, birds, plants, germs, etc.)?
[/quote]

yes

971

[quote]Oleena wrote:
EmilyQ wrote:
Indeed. Everyone must decide for themselves. That’s why some Catholics become Buddhists and some Buddhists become Jews and so on. Some people are more inquisitive than others…they may be more likely to decide what to believe only after exhaustive research. Others may be less ambitious and assume without question the faith-tradition of their parents. Why do you have a problem with this? People have faith in all sorts of things. The fidelity of partners, the basic decency of people with whom they trade, the good nature of the large dogs they allow to roam freely around toddlers, and so on.

I don’t think anyone is going to disagree with you on the fact that believe in a religion is based on faith. The only problem I have is when people pretend that faith has nothing to do with it and they believe their religion through pure logic.

forlife wrote:

All of the examples you cite are based on evidence, rather than on a random decision. Nobody in her right mind would blindly choose to have faith in some stranger when choosing a partner, for example.

When it comes to the multitude of gods and religions though, there is no such evidence warranting that kind of faith. Lacking this evidence, wouldn’t the most honest approach be to withhold judgment?
[/quote]

Intelligent people use logic in determining where to exercise faith. So logic is the basis of faith, whether religious or otherwise. Again, this is acknowledging that many people follow unquestioningly the lead of others, but we’re speaking of thinking people here. Or at least, I am. Whether I choose to believe that there is no God through the evidence I gather (the disgusting inequality of circumstance depending upon birthplace) or whether I choose to believe the evidence does support a belief in God (the beautiful and astonishing system by which all things grow), either way my faith is based on a logical process very similar in some regards to the way I make other decisions.

forlife, I’m not sure why you insist that religious belief is random. Or for that matter, why you think the choice of sexual or marital partners is not! Have you read at all in the SAMA forum? I personally would not marry someone much larger and more aggressive than myself and simply have faith that he will not harm or sexually betray me. Instead, I had logical reasons for selecting him (e.g. he’s gentle with women, loyal to friends, honest in business dealings, etc) which support having faith in him. But it IS faith I have. Because how do I know, until one of us dies without his ever having beaten me, that he won’t? When I send my money to amazon.com, how do I know they won’t steal my money? Just because they never have before is no proof that they won’t now. However, I examined what clues I had and made my decisions, and there you go. Oleena, I can tell you that in both circumstances (marriage and shopping) strongly pleasurable feelings have resulted from the process.

Even people who follow the religion of their ancestors without question are employing a form of logical thought. I bake chicken the way my mother taught me because I trust that she knew what she was doing. I follow the dictates of my profession as taught to me by professors and supervisors in whom I had at least some faith. All of them, my mother and my professors, were taught by the people who preceded them. No one wakes up on the first morning of adulthood and freshly rethinks everything.

972

[quote]forlife wrote:
How can you describe your god as benevolent, when despite KNOWING WITHOUT A SINGLE DOUBT THAT JOHN IS GOING TO SUFFER FOREVER, GOD STILL CHOOSES TO CREATE JOHN?[/quote]

So, why did God create, say Hitler? That’s the question right?

Okay, let’s say there’s a person who is irredemiably evil. He is a fount of evil his entire life. He goes straight to hell. God extends his infinite mercy even to his soul in hell - and he still rejects God. God knew that all of this would happen when he created him.

Okay, now who is to say that such a person exists? I wonder sometimes if even Hitler might repent in hell. It may be a fault of our own finiteness that we cannot imagine such mercy; or, such contrition in the likes of a Hitler.

Who is to say that enormous good - potentially spanning generations and generations - did not come out of that suffering? That countless people here on earth moved into a deep relation with God as a result of this evil?

Finally, if we are to take your/Oleena’s concept seriously about God knowing EVERYTHING before it happens (although this really isn’t required) and if we accept that free will exists even with God’s foreknowledge (which, I believe we have agreed) then perhaps what God would see before the “actuality” of his choices" would be the (nearly?) infinite potential choices and paths he might make. That would prolly be closer to true foreknowledge of the type we’re discussing.

973

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
How many times do I have to say the same things over and over? Yes, I was an am willing to alter my beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence. wait - let me say it again . . . and again . … . and again . . . [/quote]

Actually, that’s not what I asked…at all. I didn’t ask if you needed overwhelming evidence to change your beliefs. I asked if there was even the POSSIBILITY that one of the five reasons you cited was invalid, that you would be willing to change your beliefs.

I’m asking this because you said earlier that you had “incontrovertible proof” for your beliefs, which by definition means absolute, unassailable, proof. If it were shown that even a possibility exists that one of your beliefs is invalid, you could no longer claim that your proof was incontrovertible.

This is common to human decision making. The more we invest in our decisions, the harder it is to back away from them, even in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary. It’s called escalating commitment, and has been the subject of a lot of psychological research. Point being: you might want to consider how that search leads to an unjustified level of commitment, simply by virtue of the effort you put into the search.

974

[quote]Oleena wrote:
I appreciate your honesty. Do you feel that, according to your human understanding of what it is to act with loving foresight, that god could have done a better job in some areas?

pat wrote:
forlife wrote:
pat wrote:
They made bad choices? That would be the place to start.

The point was that if it takes the “breath of god” for people to exist in an afterlife, this implies that the damned also receive the “breath of god”, otherwise they would cease to exist upon death.

Ok, I am not sure what the confusion is. The damned become so because they want to be that way. That’s their own choice.

If your asking why God created creatures that can choose to act in a way that is against their own nature and himself, I have no idea. I don’t know why he did anything the way he did it. He could have made us all cats that live on Mars for all I know.
You’d probably want to ask Him yourself. I haven’t been given that revelation.

[/quote]

Well I cannot speak for God per se, so I don’t know what his ultimate goal of all this is. If everything we experience, whether we like it or not, accomplishes the goals he set forth and on step out of it would not, then he could not have done a better job.
Now if your asking me if I wished he created the world with a lot less suffering, then hell yes, I wish he did. But things are what they are. Personally God has been really, really good to me. That, however, is not quantifiable in anyway.

975

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
So you believe all humans have the breath of life, and thus will live forever, but that no other living thing on the planet has the breath of life (animals, birds, plants, germs, etc.)?

yes[/quote]

Do you also believe that only humans have free will, and that no other living thing has free will?

976

To summarize, the christians gained freedom to practice their religion, and then were not as kind to other religions, such as paganism, which they did take over through various means including force at some points. Here’s a little fun reading on it:

http://www.tolueislam.org/Bazm/Joommal/ASK_3_1.htm

[quote]pat wrote:
Oleena wrote:
I was refering to the actions around and before Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire and it spread throughout Europe. Plenty of blood from other branches of christianity and pagan religions was shed to instill religious order.

pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
pat wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Oleena wrote:

inquisition, which everyone loves to forget and make escuses for.

Are you out of your dolphin-wannabe head? WHO in the name of chickens and bonobos everywhere is making excuses for the Inquisition? The perpetrators of the Inquisition are locked in chains awaiting Judgment Day as we speak and they aint got themselves a good enough lawyer to get ‘em off. Holy Headstocks, Batmanoleeme, I can’t believe you lobbed this hand grenade. Those men weren’t Christians. They were evil, despicable, black-hearted fiends. You have got to snap out of it. You’re trippin’, sweetheart.

Most women of the Middle Ages were totally dominated by men. Any man in the family could order a woman to do as he wished. If a woman refused, she was beat into submission, as disobedience was considered a crime against God.

If a man did that he was following his sinful heart not Christianity. Quit attaching the sinful practices of man to what Christ set out for his followers.

Which inquisition are you referring too?

There were several. I would imagine the Spanish Inquisition is the most famous.

The Spanish Inquisition was carried out by King Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain. Pope Sixtus spoke out against it but was powerless to stop it, especially in that he needed military assistance on the eastern front of the war. That inquisition was not carried out by the church, that is a myth.
It was really an excuse to break the Moors who didn’t want to high tale it out of Iberia.

I guess it would have been better for you to ask Oleeme. She was the one who first mentioned it.

Other than the persistent execution of Christians during this period, I am not sure of which blood you speak. Constantine made religious tolerance the order of the empire and stopped the persecution of Christians. But there was no overt campaign to convert by force. At least I am not aware of it.[/quote]

977

[quote]forlife wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Btw, ForeLife/Oleena, there are theologians who argue that while God is in eternity, he observes as our time unfolds. He knows everything that’s happened in the past; and everything that’s happening at this very moment. But not more.

That would be an acceptable resolution to the question I’ve been posing.

However, the notion contradicts what most Christians claim about their god.

By that definition, god would not be omniscient.

Also, it contradicts scriptures supporting the omniscience of god, like Jeremiah 1:5 which I quoted earlier.[/quote]

One could argue that if it hasn’t happened yet (because God is observing the unfolding of “our” time), the actions do not come under the category of “the knowable.” Think of it this way: an “all knowing” entity is all-knowing because he knows all “things.” But “thing” must exist for it to be knowable. He might know of every single molecule in the universe - every movement it’s ever made, and everything about it - and, it is that knowing that makes him omniscient. But the fact that he doesn’t know about molecules that don’t exist says nothing about his knowingness.

Regarding scripture: once again, my beliefs are founded in doctrine/theology of the Church. I think you keep thinking Bible = Church. NOT TRUE. There are many things in the Bible that are mythical, poetic, etc. You can find an utterance in the Bible to justify or cast doubt or mock just about anything.

978

[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
I personally would not marry someone much larger and more aggressive than myself and simply have faith that he will not harm or sexually betray me. Instead, I had logical reasons for selecting him (e.g. he’s gentle with women, loyal to friends, honest in business dealings, etc) which support having faith in him. But it IS faith I have. Because how do I know, until one of us dies without his ever having beaten me, that he won’t?[/quote]

I completely agree with you. We base our decisions on the probability that something is true, without ever knowing with 100% certainty that it is true. And how do we arrive at that probability estimation? Through objective evidence and logical reasoning, i.e., through the scientific method.

What I find incomprehensible is people choosing to believe in something which objective evidence and logical reasoning do NOT suggest is the most probable truth. They justify this belief in the name of “faith”, but doing so equates faith with complete guesswork, and is no more likely to be true than any other random choice.

It is one thing to trust your mom’s chicken recipe, and another thing to trust your mom’s religious belief. Not only is the latter more significant in the scheme of things, but it also is typically far more subjective and ill-informed.

979

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Okay, now who is to say that such a person exists?[/quote]

There are numerous biblical references stating that people are going to suffer forever in hell.

Are you going to argue that a benevolent god would deliberately promote an atrocity like a jewish concentration camp, in the name of the greater good? Seriously?

[quote]perhaps what God would see before the “actuality” of his choices" would be the (nearly?) infinite potential choices and paths he might make. That would prolly be closer to true foreknowledge of the type we’re discussing.
[/quote]

Again, that wouldn’t be omniscience. By definition, omniscience is the knowledge of all things that have happened, are currently happening, and WILL happen in the future, not just the knowledge of the possibility of those things.

980

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
One could argue that if it hasn’t happened yet (because God is observing the unfolding of “our” time), the actions do not come under the category of “the knowable.”[/quote]

That argument would require changing the definition of omniscience. Most people believe that omniscience means perfect knowledge of past, present, and future.

So you call yourself a Christian, but believe that true prophecy doesn’t exist?