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Great posts from Transponder, Wardendresden, and Mordant. Your posts help me refocus my thoughts and feelings.
An author expressed this idea once in her book: it is not the destination, but the journey that matters. A Christian may consider the destination of heaven no longer a goal to work toward. Instead the goal is to live life, or the journey, through the love and teachings of Jesus. If you were lucky enough to have parents who knew this and practiced this, I believe it would be easy enough to carry on in your religious faith. You would have a support system that pays the gift of love forward and the ideas of forgiveness, such as forgiving oneself, which reinforces Christ's message. If you were even luckier, your parents settled in a community that knew this and practiced it.
However, for those of us who did not have this same guidance as well as a community who gifts love and forgiveness, the Bible is simply ineffective. I was born into a family of dysfunction and nobody could help us. But now I can see why we could not be helped. It had nothing to do with lack of faith in Jesus or the Bible as we were told. The real issue probably was too much faith in God that all will be well in the end, which is the destination. The skills and thought processes my family practiced were perfect for getting to the destination, if it even exists. They prayed, went to church, went to confession, "forgave themselves" and volunteered at church events.
So this author convinced me through her anecdote that the journey mattered more and so required a different set of skills and thought processes. I did not learn these from Christians, but from Jewish people. So I share the same conclusion as Mordant and Transponder. The ideas of love and forgiveness are not unique to Christianity. I really believe Jesus has an important message, but as has been pointed out, it is being missed.
elyn, I agree that it is the JOURNEY that matters most. To me, it is why we are here. The Bible is most often viewed as a "rule book" telling us what to do and what not to do. I think that is garbage and a simply won't hold up to any reason if it's read correctly.
What the Bible truly does is give us a picture of the journey of other men on their paths in this life. Sometimes--probably too many times---they got it wrong. But on the occasion I find the flower amidst the weeds it is eye-opening and a help to me as I come closer to the end of my own journey.
It's up to each of us to find our own journey and do the best we can with it, and hopefully leave a few breadcrumbs behind us for those struggling through their own forests. If someone has found their way in a different manner than my own---God bless'em! The world is hard and sometimes unforgiving--it's my journey to do what I can when I can to make it easier --- and full of forgiveness.
Not yet. Natural selection is slow. I expect that it may never catch up at this point, as technology, urbanization and other trends are changing logarithmically but for the limits of society's ability to absorb it. I don't see how natural selection can ever catch up to that. That's why we have to transcend what natural selection bequeaths us.
Or maybe it is just that the same mental capacity we have to understand our mortality can also be used to transcend tribalism. Perhaps, a minority of people understand the need, and make the attempt. Perhaps, over time, more will do so -- hopefully enough to insure that civil society survives and ultimately thrives.
I don't really care if you attribute that to a "spark of god" or not; so long as you encourage people in the right direction, we have common cause.
I have no issue with high standards and "stretch goals". I just don't see religious faith as any sort of help in that regard. I see a minority of religious organizations as fostering high standards and stretch goals ... that's why I am willing to consider working within one of them, despite the religious baggage.
You're on thin ice there. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I'd not have bothered with children. Not just because of any disappointments, but because of bearing witness to their suffering. I do not see it as a net gain for humanity that I reproduced. There are people better at parenting then I, who have more of a vision and enthusiasm for it. I should have left it to them. I'm basically a parent because I allowed my first wife to bully me into something that I, then as now, had a very "take it or leave it" attitude towards -- at best. Sadly, my intuitions were pretty good there. In part because of just how reality works in this area, in part because I hadn't chosen the best gene donor to cooperate with.
In the same vein, I am no longer so sure of my fellow man, given that I will not even get to die in the same sort of country I was born into, almost no matter what happens in the few years left to me.
I "keep the faith" as you would put it, to the extent that I do, mostly because I don't want my wife to feel isolated / alienated / alone as she ages, and I don't want us to become cranky, bitter, eccentric old coots. I don't want to be left with nothing but memories of a dead son, a daughter who was not a sister to him in life or in death, a stepdaughter who has already announced in no uncertain terms she doesn't want to be saddled with taking care of us in our old age, etc. Are we going to find something of higher quality in total strangers we don't know and who don't know us, because we volunteer at their food kitchen or attend their peace council meetings? I'm dubious. But we have to try.
mordant, I can't even imagine this and not a thing I could write could come close to giving you any kind of peace. But even that doesn't detract from the fact that I still see God at work in His own way in your life--your kindness toward your wife (my father was never particularly kind to my mother--often verbally abusive--and he was great on Bible reading).
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Originally Posted by mordant
Before the Trumpocalpyse I dared to believe that society had reached some sort of tipping point of egalitarian sentiment. How wrong I was about that! Now I just hope civil society and the environment hold together for a couple more decades so I can die in peace. So I can pass the torch (or guttering candle, or whatever the heck it is) to the next generation, and good luck with that.
Not that it's all gloom and doom from my perspective. The fundamentalists and right wing nutters won the last battle, but probably not the war. Their strategy, after all, is not sustainable. They sense this, so they are, like Sherman marching on Atlanta, burning everything in their path in a fit of rage. It's just that the best-case scenario -- a sweep of the midterms and the 2020 elections by saner politicians, rendering our proto-banana republic stillborn -- may or may not produce leadership that can actually heal the massive damage to our institutions and ideals quickly and thoroughly enough to prevent collapse, much more regain the multi-generational ground now being ceded back to the tribal darkness.
This warrior is, obviously, a tired one. My best contribution now is to try to support younger, fresher faces who are going to have to inherit and fix this mess.
Oh, I'm saddened by the trumpocalypse myself--and even more so by the number of people claiming to be evangelistic who voted to put him in office and even tried in my home state of Alabama to put another bad character into office who spent all his time waving the Christian flag. I know those people. I grew up with them and still have a sister and her family living there.
But following Jesus has nothing to do with challenging the path that others are on if it is fruitful, prosperous, and helpful to those around. Your many posts do just that, so why would I challenge them. Transponder is also insightful and provides his own kind of spark.
Yet the world has always had its up and downs, its moments of goodness and those of heartbreak. To me, it is the duty of Jesus followers, by faith or by philosophy, to keep hope alive in those of younger generations so they can see the power that love can wield.
I saw The Last Jedi today, and there is a wonderful quote in it which I hope to keep in the front of my aging brain:
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"That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love."
I still see God at work in His own way in your life--your kindness toward your wife (my father was never particularly kind to my mother--often verbally abusive--and he was great on Bible reading).
Thanks for the kind words. Whether it be God at work or Mordant at work, I am glad that it shows now and then.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
Yet the world has always had its up and downs, its moments of goodness and those of heartbreak. To me, it is the duty of Jesus followers, by faith or by philosophy, to keep hope alive in those of younger generations so they can see the power that love can wield.
A tall order, but we need to try.
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Originally Posted by Wardendresden
I saw The Last Jedi today, and there is a wonderful quote in it which I hope to keep in the front of my aging brain: "That's how we're gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love."
Not batting 100% there, but again ... we must endeavor.
Well, your own posts clearly show why you get to see insults coming your way.
Even after you were corrected by a dozen members, you came back and insulted all the atheists in the world, several times over, in one post, and you did it by saying things that you have had corrected in the past.
You confuse opinion with fact. People giving their opinion does not equate to correction.
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Here we go again. Atheists are simply people who have no God belief. Period.
Some are. Many others are actually quite militant about proseletyzing their message. They function based on their worldview/opinion that there is no God.
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Yet, you said the premise of atheism is deplorable. You said that, to atheists, love is just a chemical, and humans are random. Those are all deplorable things to say.
The PREMISE is deplorable. The premise is that there is no underlying cause to the universe, and the PREMISE is that everything is just random, everything happens by chance, etc. The PREMISE that there is no personal creator to order the universe is sad. It means that there is no such thing as an absolute morality, because it's all based on natural causes and events.
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Then you said that "Since there is no life after death." Well, the only thing atheists agree on is having no belief in God. Some of them believe in afterlife. Some of them believe in a spirit world. Some of them believe in ghosts. Some of them believe in reincarnation.
Perhaps he assumes that the outspoken atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, etc speak for the masses.
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Then you said it really doesn't matter what you do in this life, but the atheists have corrected you on this point time after time, and you just ignore what the people you are insulting have to say.
In any event, without a creator, all of that is still just the result of natural processes, the same sort of thing that results in the brain activity in a believer, and the same activity that may cause one person to live a very nice, loving life, and another to be a serial killer. But it's all natural, and none of it can be condemned as going contrary to an objective standard of morality.
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It's really easy to understand why people who have corrected you for your characterizations of them would see that as a reason to lose their patience and say things you consider insulting.
Again....opinion does not mean "corrected". It means they gave their opinion, nothing more. Their opinion is no more valid than anyone else's opinion.
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Perhaps, if you would pay attention to what they say about themselves instead of trying to impose your own morality on somebody else, you might get kinder words in return.
What objective moral standard have they appealed to again?
You make remarks like this, which are demeaning and insulting to every non-believer on the planet, and then you express outrage when Christians and Christianity are ridiculed. Amazing.
Of course, you do reap what you sow.
If humans are merely the result of a natural process, then what DOES separate us from the rest of the animal life on this planet? Can you explain?
If humans are merely the result of a natural process, then what DOES separate us from the rest of the animal life on this planet? Can you explain?
Reasoning.
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
You confuse opinion with fact. People giving their opinion does not equate to correction.
Some are. Many others are actually quite militant about proseletyzing their message. They function based on their worldview/opinion that there is no God.
The PREMISE is deplorable. The premise is that there is no underlying cause to the universe, and the PREMISE is that everything is just random, everything happens by chance, etc. The PREMISE that there is no personal creator to order the universe is sad. It means that there is no such thing as an absolute morality, because it's all based on natural causes and events.
Perhaps he assumes that the outspoken atheists such as Dawkins, Hitchens, etc speak for the masses.
In any event, without a creator, all of that is still just the result of natural processes, the same sort of thing that results in the brain activity in a believer, and the same activity that may cause one person to live a very nice, loving life, and another to be a serial killer. But it's all natural, and none of it can be condemned as going contrary to an objective standard of morality.
Again....opinion does not mean "corrected". It means they gave their opinion, nothing more. Their opinion is no more valid than anyone else's opinion.
What objective moral standard have they appealed to again?
The problem is that you must impose the religious viewpoint you have on us, and we reject it. Proselytizing (nice to see I'm not the only one who has trouble spelling it ) our message, being Outspoken, may offend you, but it doesn't make us rude. And if some are rude, that soesn't make us wrong.
The conclusion (not the premise) that there is no reason to believe in a Plan or Intelligence behind Life, the Universe and everything, including Morality, doesn't seem at all bad to us. So what if it is? The natural forces that occurred to bring about what came to be is just as good as a god having decided to do it. We only lack that assumption that the whole thing was designed to culminate in humans. We feel quite amazed and humbled to think that we are here on earth and at a time when we can live well and do so much. We do not assume that we have some Right to be here.
And, do I really need to reiterate that a universe without some imposed plan as a meaning seems less good to us than one where we can decide our own plan and meaning, or that the lack of an absolute morality means that we can make improvements as we go along and the continual resistance of religion is a bit of a nuisance. Or that the supposed immutable morality of the Bible constantly has to be mutabled to keep pace with the far better human morality?
It is forgivable to be unaware that these refutations of your arguments, but to have heard them and refuse to take them on board as OUR view, even if they aren't yours, is less so.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-27-2017 at 01:17 PM..
The PREMISE is deplorable. The premise is that there is no underlying cause to the universe, and the PREMISE is that everything is just random, everything happens by chance, etc. The PREMISE that there is no personal creator to order the universe is sad. It means that there is no such thing as an absolute morality, because it's all based on natural causes and events.
If humans are merely the result of a natural process, then what DOES separate us from the rest of the animal life on this planet? Can you explain?
Greater general purpose intelligence, abstract thinking, tool making and story telling abilities, self awareness, opposable thumbs, a bunch of things. What does that have to do with the point of the post you're replying to, though?
You are very rigid about your asserted but un-evidenced theological differences between humans and animals, between the morality of believers and non-believers (and probably really fundamentalists and other Christians). We get that. Just don't paint those who disagree with your views as disagreeing with god or reality, but merely with YOUR VIEWS. Can you maybe do that? A wee bit of epistemological humility, perhaps?
Greater general purpose intelligence, abstract thinking, tool making and story telling abilities, self awareness, opposable thumbs, a bunch of things. What does that have to do with the point of the post you're replying to, though?
You are very rigid about your asserted but un-evidenced theological differences between humans and animals, between the morality of believers and non-believers (and probably really fundamentalists and other Christians). We get that. Just don't paint those who disagree with your views as disagreeing with god or reality, but merely with YOUR VIEWS. Can you maybe do that? A wee bit of epistemological humility, perhaps?
Doesn’t it seem odd that one species would evolve so much further than ALL the others, for no apparent reason?
But badly argued, notwithstanding that it was just what you wanted to hear.
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Originally Posted by jimmiej
Doesn’t it seem odd that one species would evolve so much further than ALL the others, for no apparent reason?
No more odd than one mammalian species evolved flying ability, some reptiles evolved to change colour to match the background and other mammals adapted to a continual sea -life. Ours happened to be the problem -solving and social instinct developed to where it is now. And of course, there were other species with comparable smarts to us, Neanderthals being the closest. We happened to have been the ones to survive. It is remarkable, sure but we can already guess at the environmental bottlenecks and threats that pushed adaptation (as it does) and we don't need to postulate a miracle to explain it, especially when a miracle doesn't fit the evidence.
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Amazing. 
) our message, being Outspoken, may offend you, but it doesn't make us rude. And if some are rude, that soesn't make us wrong. 
