Please tell me what kind of special "work" is involved in being a proper Christian and why it CANNOT POSSIBLY be done without accepting physics-defying miracles and Jesus as a super-human son of God?

What is "rational" depends on what is assumed.

For example, if you assume God exists, then the most irrational thing to do is to believe he doesn't. But if you assume God doesn't exist, the most irrational thing to do is to believe he does.

So what this really brings to question are the base set of assumptions with which you will use to understand and interact with the world.

Back in the the gigantic "evidence" thread, I laid out a series of assumptive steps that were the start of my journey. It started with the possibility that God is out there and that he might be trying to get my attention. The only commitment I made was a commitment to pursue the truth, whatever it may be. There was quite a bit of reflecting on my life, things I had done and was doing, how I thought and felt about various issues, where I thought I was going, and all that stuff. There was also a good amount of reading. This was all part of the process of seeking answers. Somehow, through a process that I cannot trace, I stumbled my way back into Christianity.

Many people have in their base assumptions things that already preclude God's existence. I don't know where you're at, so I can't say anything directly to you. I can only suggest that you consider the possibilities, weigh the risks and rewards of the pursuit (and the results), and make the decision that you think is best based on whatever scheme, heuristic, or whatever it is that you've got, and go from there.

So you admit there are different types of agnostics yet you laugh at my definition? (which make up a good portion of them)

I admit my definition does not cover all agnostics, but it does cover a large portion.

Agnosticism (Greek: α- a-, without + γνώσις gnōsis, knowledge; after Gnosticism) is the philosophical view that the truth value of certain claims — particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, ghosts, or even ultimate reality — is unknown or, depending on the form of agnosticism, inherently impossible to prove or disprove. It is often mistakenly put forth as a middle ground between theism and atheism.[1]

Demographic research services normally list agnostics in the same category as atheists and/or non-religious people,[2] using 'agnostic' in the sense of 'noncommittal'.[3][dubious – discuss] However, this can be misleading given the existence of agnostic theists, who identify themselves as both agnostics in the original sense and followers of a particular religion. Some authors assert that it is possible to be both an atheist and an agnostic[4] and some nontheists self-identify as agnostic atheists.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostic

You seem to be having trouble understanding atheism. It appears you think atheists claim to know there is no God of any kind, and they're 100% sure of that. Maybe a small few will say that, but I would call them out as believing something they have no facts whatsoever to back it up. (other than they just "feel" that way)

Name me a God that someone currently or has previously worshiped and I'll tell you I believe with 100% certainty that God is man-made. That is not something most agnostics would say.

And no, I'm not looking for a reason to believe in God. I'm perfectly happy without any type of God in my life. All I'm saying is it would be stupid for me to claim I know with 100% certainty no God exists. Again, just like it would be stupid for me to suggest I know with 100% certainty there is no flying amusement park somewhere in the universe that we haven't found yet.

So what do you say about the fact that America is one of the most religious countries in the world and is also one of the most violent?

i believe you fwiw

Do you believe that a person MUST take a stance on God before doing anything else in life?

Do you think that's why we "deny god"? Because we want to live some kind of hedonistic lifestyle where anything goes?

Funny how all of my family and friends think of me as being fairly straight-laced and boring. As an atheist, I guess I should be having all kinds of orgies and killing sprees.

How's the view up there on that pedestal of yours?

From what I've gathered, the work involved in being a proper Christian involves sitting on the internet all day posting religious nonsense on 2+2. Oh, and clucking your tongue at atheists for not swallowing your tripe.

No, you can certainly go through life without giving God more than a glance.

My point was that the notion of "rational standards" requires a set of assumptions, and that your assumptions affect whether a conclusion is "rational" or not. I just picked a very blatant example to make that point.

You have several points in here so there is no simple answer to the agree/disagree option.

On the first paragraph, the definitions of deist that I can find involve either a God that does not interact with our world or at least a rejection of revelation as a foundation for religion. That does not describe me so I am not a deist as I see it. The point about the "cop-out" makes no sense to me, sorry.

Assuming the existance of God, my point on religion is that all human descriptions of God are likely to be only approximations to reality that have some utility in some situations but are unlikely to be totally true. An analogy would be waves and particles to describe matter. IMO the Zeus model is not very good. I am not saying we have it exactly right now.

Religions are made man. I agree. As such all religions are undoubtedly tainted by the agenda of those in control. The major feature that makes me a Christian is that I feel that Jesus seems to have gotten it right, if one focuses on his teachings. I practice Catholicism because again IMO that is the religion that I think still tries to stay close to that example (with partially acceptable results, I concede).

So in total, I agree in part and disagree in part.

I haven't made a study of U.S. violence. I could but why should I?

The malevolent spirit abroad in the world and the fallen nature of man can form all kinds of violent forms that only categorized crime statistics could track.

I don't see any necessary corellation between religion and violence either. The only corellation I see is that Americans are good at retaining fundamental values from the American Revolution era i.e. the right to practice religion and the right to bear arms.

Christians have a spiritual code in addition to a moral code to follow. Moral codes don't offer reconciliation with God as a benefit.

One responsibility we have is to support our churches economically and through personal service. That's something no non-church member has to do.

Hedonistic lifestyles vary by individual. I've had all kinds of people on 2+2 indicate they're not allowing God to interfere with them having a good time. You can ask THEM what they mean by that. But the poker world isn't known for a lack of degeneracy.

Besides that post wasn't responding to you so why are you making it about yourself? It was in response to m's post and in the past he's been pretty vocal in his support of libertarian lifestyles.

Again...spirituality is not exclusive to Christianity, and to think otherwise is arrogant. And since we're on the topic, what would you call a person who lives a Christ-like life to a tee, but happens to not believe in the divinity of Jesus?

I've heard arguments from many many "true" Christians that "true" Christians do not go to church. Disagree?

You say that as if ancient peoples didn't kill each other.

I'd hate to see what people 1000 years ago would have done with modern weapons and technology...

Only Christians think humanity is getting worse. The rest of us who live in the real word know the opposite is true.

You did some goal post shifting. You asked a question above specificially about Christians and I answered it specifically. Since my experience is mostly related to my Christian background I tend to make a lot of responses based on that experience. If you study up on the female brain you'll find thats a tendency of most women. We tend to relate to everything most of the time through personal experience. Not very objective I know just a fundamental fact based on gender brain differences.

I'm quite aware there are other forms of spirituality though I keep getting this objection raised and I don't know why. Because I speak from experience doesn't mean I'm unaware of other forms it takes. I've done some reading on the I Ching, Daosim, Buddhism and Eckhart Tolle plus the God Gene book which deals with a spiritual gene so yes I know sprituality is built into most people. We should have more threads about how exactly people lose it or deny it instead of all these what flavor are your belief threads.

As for the Jesus Christ to a tee thing you don't live a Christ-like life without him. It may appear you do but there is an unseeable element called grace that you just don't receive without him and without grace you aren't in the same judgment category as a person that receives Christ. I think the degree of knowledge you hold re: Christ will be a key factor at the time of Judgment. If you reject him with knowledge you're in trouble.

As for "true" Christians I think church is recommendable because there we have fellowship and other rituals people aren't used to performing at home any more but some people that don't go are true Christians. You can tell them by the way they live their lives while they acknowledge Christ. Not all people trust institutions for various reasons it doesn't mean they don't live good lives, acknowledge Jesus or not do charitable works.

I really don't like judgment questions because I think they are the exclusive domain of God and one of the core reasons for sect division: Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheranism. The bible says "judge not lest ye be judged" and you have to be an expert on soteriology to understand each fine distinction and be able to answer every objection regarding it. I think its enough to know John 3:16, accept Jesus as your personal Savior, read the bible and do what it teaches and leave judgment up to God because humans tend to make a mess out of judgment questions. Understanding soteriology intellectually on your own is a key individual responsibility. A lot of churches take it over but this is an area of considerable hair splitting so I think people should study it and think it out for themselves in addition to any church input they receive.

Most of the people on here aren't even aware of "replacement theology" so I would definitely check things out for myself because otherwise you are merely surfing opinions and opinions aren't good enough when you're making your own eternal fate decision.

Sure. But I think most of the assumptions that can be stated are relatively contingent. The most relevant are the assumptions that relate to our subjective experience of our own internal worlds. Any dissonance there at the base of everything is a problem.

I could certainly come to believe in God, in theory. That is, my basic assumptions don't lead to any sort of necessary conclusion that God doesn't exist. In fact, they're more likely to support the conclusion that God does exist. But at this point they don't come anywhere near supporting either conclusion.

However, one assumption that I am unlikely to ever be able to dismiss is that there is gratuitous suffering and misery in the world.

Yes. You certainly shouldn't be trying to believe things that completely fall apart at the core. (This is different from there being difficult questions that you may not be able to resolve.)

This is fine. Some Christians try to put themselves in a position where they want to make claims about everything, even if the evidence isn't there yet, or they haven't taken the time to consider the situation carefully, and they make all sorts of wild statements that they can't back up. It's better to wait for more information than to blindly charge forward. There's a proverb about that:

Proverbs 19:2 -- It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.

I would call that an observation instead of an assumption, and I agree that it's true. I hope nobody has suggested that you deny the existence of the suffering in the world or somehow try to overlook it as not relevant.

Grumble... I feel like we're talking about different things. In my interpretation, in atheism you're pretty much left with materialism, full stop? First you live and then you die. When defending "your position" "you" point at scientific laws contradicting the bible, talk about logic and common sense. Granted I don't think you do (Madnak) but the Our House-faction within atheism does. Splendour thinks you need to believe in Jesus to be saved, I think you don't need to be a Christian at all for that; both S. and me are Christians though (but not both Jesusians or Paulians).

Ok, seems like I'll have to tag along with your soft atheism in what follows. You seem to think that there are atheists who have metaphysics. Some apply their observations of reality to their metaphysical system, others don't. For those that don't: what's the ontological status of your morals if not a mere theoretical dualism which serves no practical purpose? What I mean is: atheist X "one should be nice and not steal" meets person Y "nobody has property in the first place" who takes X's car and drives off. I simply see no argument in this case for X to condemn Y or even claim his car back. Aren't you left with a hyper relativistic and individualistic moral perplexity that performs a merely theoretical role? One that seems to be highly illusionary?

As for the atheists who base their metaphysics in reality, the way I see it you're pretty much left with evolutionary psychology (cf. infra)

I made a few separate paragraphs to make my post more readable. In hindsight I accomplished the exact opposite.

I'm not sure what you mean? If science doesn't deal in facts, what does it deal in? If a certain variant of string theory isn't supported by factual evidence, is it still a scientific theory? Or is it food for history books? Old theory gets dropped, adjusted and new theory tested again. As it stands naturalism is indeed well aware of anomalies (biased observer, freak of nature); hence the 5% rule. I'm pretty sure you know all of this, so I'm kinda boggled why you make a problem out of it? I think it's a solid belief, but nonetheless a belief, and a system as well?

I stand corrected, it's 98%. Bonobos have the same genes (the difference is statistically insignificant), they underwent the same evolutionary mechanisms as us (same habitat, same sexual selection), but they also have a distinctly different psychology. They could be white ravens, true. Unfortunately for EP humans have 99.9% of their genes in common, underwent the same pressures, yet come up with significantly different minds (within the human race).

The article I linked deals with taste differentiation (irrelevant for our topic), but is otherwise the most recent and accurate study I could find cf. our shared DNA.

I thought the irony of that paragraph (and my post in general) was clear; what I meant was that if you believe in a) scientific method (cool, np), b) evolution (also obvious) but c) put most of the weight of your explanation of the human mind in genetic make-up and evolutionary mechanisms THEN you should also accept d) that we're psychologically identical; which we're obviously not.

Since I think most (MOST) atheists accept a, b, and c, you should also accept d. Since d nonsensical, the problem (or belief) must lie with either a, b or c.

Apparently we need to screw this one back a few notches; let's start like this, and see how it goes.

Small problems: Claim: EP projects a postmodern, Western mind on humanity's mind in general. Here's a psychological paper that considers incest world wide; long, but interesting and very kinky read. Parents eating their children, sex with mom... It shows there isn't really a taboo on incest, pedophilia, etc in the rest of the world; instead it shows they're the norm sometimes.

Let's also consider human fear in relation to dangerous animals.
-"Humans are afraid of snakes and scorpions, because...:". "People" aren't afraid of snakes or scorpions, "people" keep them as pets (warning: animal abuse in link).

-People are afraid of wolves and tigers. Yet wolves and tigers never attack us unless as a last resort when extremely hungry or profoundly provoked. Specimen that actively hunt humans are extremely rare.

-Lions. Sure. Then again, elephants, buffaloes or hippopotamuses don't scare us. Yet the latter 3 are far more dangerous than lions. Locusts and mosquitoes leave me completely unimpressed, yet they're on spots 7 and 1 resp. in Africa's top 10 deadliest animals.

-Some people are afraid of horses. A phenomenon known in psychology as hippo- or equinophobia. Others are scared of dogs. I mean... if there's 2 animals that helped us out over the past 30 millenia...

-Note to add: in the above list there are 3 animals with whom we have to compete for food (lion, tiger, wolf); instead of making us scared they should make us angry, right? Also: all species mentioned (except for mosquito and locust)are revered as beneficial by one culture or another...

-Now, those are just my small missunderstandings. The big missunderstandings are: predict, like any other science does. And test your hypotheses (induction), also like any other science does. Until then, a superstition which doesn't align with the facts.

Indeed, now since my lifespan is meaningless relative to the length of the universe, and my size is meaningless relative to the size of the universe, and the size of my actions is meaningless relative to the size of those of the universe... My entire being is pretty much meaningless relative to reality.

Obviously our lifespans aren't the same. But we'll all end up equally in the grave. Sure, you can be the richest man on earth. And you can be the richest man in the graveyard too. Because that's where we're both heading. So yeah, for me "fleeting" and "meaningless" do amount to the same, unless "fleeting" has a chance to grow into something of a different order.

I hope my previous paragraph explained my view on things a bit better this time. True, it's gloomy - but hey, the West is a culture of death, and I'm a Westerner -. I hope it explains why I think atheists are logical positivists, and why I think soft atheists should call themselves something other than "Judean People's Front" instead of "People's Front of Judea". You just don't really hate the Romans.

Agreed on the theists part, I would also think that my other arguments count against most theists as well (with an adjustment here or there; e.g. replace science with council). I just see it in the postmodern world (not the West alone, not the West pre WWI).

Take the Christian theists on this forum, for instance:
-None of them know there's no devil in the bible (except for maybe Jib); "satan" translates as accuser, not devil (your devil doesn't need an advocate theists, he IS one). None of them notice the accuser never accuses anyone of not believing in Jesus.
-None of them notice Jesus never said anything about starting a new religion.
-None of them know 666 equals not just Nero, but also Gevurah (in and on itself something like "blind unchained justice"), and a ton of other things. The wiki page on numerology isn't that bad, most others suffer from tin foil hat syndrome.
-None of them know there's no hell (except for Jib or maybe Aaron - just a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem idd) or that Jesus never spoke of Holy Trinity,
-That there are gospels from after Jesus' so-called resurrection.
-None of them know that the guy the Jews set free (cf. Pilatus) was called "Jesus Son of the Father" (translation of Jesus Barabbas); "the" Jesus always referred to Father in his teaching and prayer. He never said Father equals God equals me.
-None of them know the bible doesn't start with "In the beginning...", but with a word that means "In the beginning", "Birth", "Origin", "In principle", "Basically" all at the same time. And that's just the first word of that book. That Arab guy in the Qu'ran thread was right; and not just for Qu'ran-Arabic. Pretty much the only reason why I still call myself a Christian: language and cultural heritage.
-Or that there's no evidence for the existence of Nazareth in Jesus' day, but there were Nazarenes.
-Or that when a Jew is addressed as "rabbi", he's married and has children (unless specifically mentioned). For those who don't know... Jesus was addressed that way.

The list goes on, and on, and on. And then some. Just look it up (getting tired). As for Subfallen: I have no problem calling a purple raven a raven; I have a problem calling it a raven when it starts to bark and shows up on 5 human legs with a cadillac in it's shoe. What you define as opinions really do change the core structure of a belief.

Why do I think atheism is practically on a par? Because you don't know the above either; the way god and gods have been presented to you is highly irrational. You make the rational conclusion to deny. But you base your decision on information which you believe to be complete, which is obviously not the case. To put it more clearly: Santa really existed.

Same goes for Kabbalah, alchemy, tarot, astrology, Judaism, Anishinaabe mythology or even Aristotle; they don't talk about transforming lead into gold, predicting the future, water, ether or spirits. They talk about something for which they don't have a better word. Both dogmatic theism and atheism will, instead of actively searching, retreat to their respective absolute yes or no. That's the moment where they become not just a belief, but also a system; where dialogue and growth become debate and conflict.

Anyways, I've typed too much, for too long, and way too slow. My main concern atm is: should I circumvent the profanity filter, just to see if Madnak read this dragon post, or not? In other words: I need a rest. Nighty chaps and chapettes.

The difference is 'statistically insignificant' perhaps in terms of numbers. Why does an issue of statistics become important in biology? Where do you get the idea that so crude a notion as simply sharing genes is sufficient for classing two organisms as belonging to the same species?




I've actually seen www.psychohistory.com before, fascinating account of the build-up to Reagan's assassination attempt here: http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln01_leader.html

Just saying, not a very credible source.

As for the rest, you're really itching to find a materialist, evolutionary psychologist, nihilist atheist to beat the crap out of, aren't you? Just a lot of your post is aimed at very specific demographics.

Nah, I'm not left with that at all. And my justification for condemning someone is my own morality; I don't need an absolute basis in order to wield that morality. And I don't need an "argument" for claiming my car back beyond "I want my car back." My moral system could provide an incentive not to reclaim my car, but the incentive to reclaim it exists independent of morality.

It deals with "facts" at some level of abstraction, but not philosophically. I've never liked the term "scientific fact," and it seems to me that the more educated a person is in science, the less likely they are to use the term. But I've used it myself in the past.

What it really deals in is predictions. About the "illusion within an illusion" that objective empirical "reality" represents.

Scientific materialism? Sure, that's a belief system. And a useful one, as a tool. Not an effective platform overall, imo, but still. I just don't associate it as strongly with atheism as you do. But I suppose in this case, I'll accept your position. After all, you're probably further from my generalizations about Christians than I am from your generalizations about atheists.

The genetic material of a given person isn't a direct function of evolutionary pressures, just a function of chemistry and chance. Evolution is what filters the results, that's all.

But d doesn't follow from a, b, and c. We could be sole products of our genetic makeup and that still wouldn't imply that 99.9% similarity would equate to being psychologically similar, much less identical. That all depends on what the .1% is, and how it manifests. Even a single nucleotide difference, in one of billions of nucleotides, can result in some of the weirdest disorders.

But evolutionary psychology is suited toward an explanation of the similarities of our minds, not of the individual differences. Certainly some differences may have an evolutionary basis, but others may be relatively arbitrary. I don't think placing "weight" on causes is usually valid. I could have a genome that causes me to become a lion if I'm born on a warm day, and a coral snake if I'm born on a cold day. Say I'm a snake - what is the "cause?" My genes, or low temperatures?

Eh, I could frame a response to each of them, but the main problem is that evolutionary psychology is much more general than you're suggesting. As are our immediate psychological mechanisms. We haven't evolved to fear wolves, we've evolved to fear animals with teeth. Or sudden movements. Or whatever our parents feared. Or something. It's hard to know exactly. What I'll stand by in terms of EP is that when a person fears a wolf (or even a horse), their bodies are responding to an ancient mechanism that has been selected for.

Much of evolutionary psychology is pseudoscience; much of the alternatives are also pseudoscience. Explanatory power is something, and it's the first criterion. Once you have that, then you can test it. And we absolutely should be testing, imo. But there is too much of a storm around it to test much right now. And frankly, I think the supporters of flimsier models are actually scared their own models will be falsified.

What is "reality," and why are you measuring your meaning relative to it? I mean, if I have a 12-inch **** I'm not going to go around moping that it's "really tiny relative to the diameter of the galaxy," am I?

Sounds like an appeal to emotion. An understandable appeal, maybe. But not a well-grounded appeal, as I can achieve a sense of purpose without even thinking about eternity. And I think looking for a "real" purpose somewhere beyond the sense of purpose is missing the target.

Maybe not, but I hate Roman Catholicism. Sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Atheists in general are the only ones I see taking a firm stance against fundamentalism. Recently more of the moderate and liberal religious folks have been doing the same, but they refuse to acknowledge that religious belief can play a role in the harm done by such fundamentalists. What do you recommend? Something so obscure nobody has heard of it? "Agnostic," which aside from being a perversion of the original definition also connotes indecision? "Atheist" is a comfortable label for me, and as social labels go I'm not convinced anything more is necessary.

You seem to have similar sentiments, no?

I don't think I've ever run into a Gnostic in the flesh. Like it or not, "Christianity" has come to be associated with certain principles. I think many of those principles are abhorrent. I don't need to be opposed to Christianity, or generalize it the way I do, but it would be damned inconvenient to try breaking it all down every time I talk about it.

Call me a cynic, but in the best of cases this would be lost on 99.9% of the populace. Maybe it's genetic.

I agree in part with you here. I think there is a lot going on that theists aren't fully aware of but then you've got to wonder how much is by God's design and how much is really good for us to know. When you research biblical topics you come up with a much more expanded view of God's plan but at the same time God seems to only reveal certain things in stages.

You mention that Jesus never speaks of a Trinity and most people would say that the Jews themselves had no doctrine of a Trinity it doesn't mean it wasn't present in the Old Testament. It just took Christ to make it manifest.

I'm aware of Satan as an accuser or adversary. But how do we know that the deeper meaning of Satan wasn't also disclosed to Paul and the Disciples by Jesus because there was no power of the Holy Spirit in the world prior to Jesus' Resurrection.

Michael Heiser is one of the biblical scholars who is adept in a number of ancient languages who first pointed out to me through some of his writings that the Trinity is present in the Old Testament. But is it fully disclosed? It most likely required the Resurrection for it to be disclosed as a part of the continuing process of God's plan.

Here's a sample. I couldn't find the Heiser paper I read originally. It might have been moved from the original site.
http://www.geocities.com/cobblestone...rinity_OT.html

Not me, but you know everything, rite ?

You assume i do not believe you. I am sure you make lotsa assumptions, huh ? Do you know EVERYTHING ?

I am not sure you could call it a belief system. It is more along the lines of a single belief. Many athiest believe things that Christians believe also.

ALL PEOPLE believe! Some believe this and some believe that. ALL people believe. Athiest have the ability to believe just like Thiest believe. Meaning they believe in something by freewill. Athiest believe there is no God. Thiest believe there is a God.

Its actually quite simple. To call it a system is probably not correct, calling it a web of deciet might better fit the catagory. Meaning that the unbelief in a God rises to many divergent beliefs that unfortunatley shroud and lock the unbeliever in a web of unbelief and blindness that is very difficult to get out of without really wanting to get out of it.

All Athiest do not agree on everything they believe or do not believe. But they are in agreement that they do not believe in a God.

Even Christians for the most part are not in agreement on things that they believe. They believe there is a God but on many, many other subjects they disagree vehemently. Which is the cause of some many damn denominations.

If every Christians were to take the Word of God as their main source for truth, then they would overwhelmingly believe the same things about alot. But obviously we know this is not the case.

As for the acceptance of Jesus. No where in the bible that I know of does it say to accept Jesus. I think it says to confess him as your lord and saviour and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead though.

It also says that some people believed His words and others did not. But accepting Him is a misnomer I think.

In our day and time peoples words in general are not trusted because no one really means what they say or say what they mean.

So they read this distrust into God's Word and rightfully so. They are conditioned to be quite cynical and skeptacle by the world that surrounds us. Along with all the false Christians doing stupid things not in harmony with the Word or wise, that just fuel the fires of unbelief.

Pletho