Theism

[Darth Tater]

Folks, there's a reason I let two threads on this topic stay open. One is for those who believe in religion to post their views and reasons for them, the other is for those who do not subscribe to a set religious world view. I was hoping this would make it possible for us to avoid debate, but I see the non-theists are already moving into the theists thread, and I'm sure the reverse is happening, I just haven't gotten to reading the second thread yet. Don't do this folks if you wanna keep these threads open.

[crickhollow]

Originally posted by Eärniel
Please don't get angry at me for asking. But something you said, Crickhollow, just caught my attention.



Is it because you find evolution-theories irrelevant regardless whatever true or wrong arguments they give, or is because the feeling inside you that tells you there is a creator is stronger?

a valid question. Please note that my last post was directed towards Anduril.
As I said, I thought emplynx's "Pailey's watch" illustration pretty much laid clear my thoughts on the matter, and I was trying to sum up without repeating word for word e's post. Do I make sense now?

[Earniel]

I think I do, thank you.

[Arathorn]

With regards to why I have such convictions regarding the religion I am in. I will try to look at myself in the third person; being born to Catholic parents as I've said earlier.

Being raised in this tradition, the beliefs, which are engrained in the "formative" yrs of child development happen to be christian. Beliefs, as observed, are very dificult to change. So, am I saying that my choice of beliefs are quite trivial? Quite possibly but not certainly. They are a bet.

After much reflection, my best BET and I do mean BET as in wager, is the same as that of Pascal; meaning:
a. if I believe in and strive to do God's will and he exists and made the universe, paradise awaits
b. if I believe in and strive to do God's will and he does not exist, I am merely mistaken
c. if I do not believe in nor strive to do God's will and he exists and made the universe, damnation awaits
d. if I do not believe in nor strive to do God's will and he does not exist, I am merely correct

Presented with these choices, I'd rather be merely mistaken than eternally damned.

I am assuming also that being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, His scope is beyond my full understanding and, therefore, my exact understanding of these concepts as defined by him are beyond my full grasp. I strive to know his will but being human, I can only grope towards the seemingly closest path to understand him and see him.

Until I see salvation, I won't fully understand Him.

Regarding the bible, I believe it to be accounts of several witnesses handed originally from gen to gen by word of mouth and eventually in written form. I do not claim to know whether they are true or all false, literally. I do believe that many of the accounts, especially in Genesis, are parables.

Those are just my opinions, whether or not people believe them.

[Twilight]

I like that way of thinking about it Arathorn. The consequenses of a wrong desision are rather bad. My belief goes deeper than just playing the chances, but it is still a good place to start off from.

[Laurelyn]

I was, and am being, raised a Chriatian. Both my mother's family and my father's family are Christian; my mother's the most so of my relatives.
However, not much of it has rubbed off on me.
Basically, I don't believe in "God." And yet, in a way, I do.
I think that there is a creator(s) of the world, a being(s) that is responcilbe for our existence and our fate. And I think that whatever/whoever, this concept might be, we can't really comprehend it in its entirety. The way I see it, God, Zeus, ect . . . are all simply names we can give to this power(s) that created us.
For instance, to me this supreme power has taken a form that I can relate to; who knows if the names and representations I have linked to this will stay the same as I continue to grow up, and my interests and things I can try and understand will change. But right now the future seems irrelevant to me; What I beleive in is essentially the same as the Christian GOd, but the rules I follow and the tales I think of as history (for instance, Jesus, to me, is essentailly fictional, although his story is quite beautiful) are different.

[Arathorn]

Actually, I have another explanation for my beliefs (not proof of truth). When you were born, and assuming you are part of a family, you have faith in the fact that the people who raised you, fed you, put you through school, tucked you in at night and consoled you when you had problems are your family because you were told so. They may not actually be but to you they are. Since you felt loved somehow (it depends on the family, I know), you have faith that it is true and normally it wouldn't matter to you whether it were some big scheme to trick you (no DNA test required).

The same is true with God. If you were taught about him all your life, you have faith in that.

To me, assuming a monotheist view, the details don't really matter which religion's God is the true God. You can have many different names and versions of his story but if you all believe in one maker, chances are he's the same one everyone else believes in. Probably your church heard the Word differently or the other guy's church heard it differently. In the end it's not that important. Kinda reminds me of Tolkien's Eru, The One, Iluvatar. You could say the elves had a different religion from the dwarves, hobbits.

Again, these are just my ideas. Feel free to ponder.

[Darth Tater]

The next non theist who posts their personal views in this thread gets a 24 hour ban. The opposite is true for the other thread. Maybe over moderation can get you folks to LISTEN TO ME!

[emplynx]

Originally posted by Anduril
....and how do you conclude from this that the divine being involved is the Christian God, and not some other undocumented divine being?

If some one believes in God, the argument is entirely different. To prove god and to prove that God the Father of Jesus is the true God is entirely different.

[Nibs]

Okay, okay... I'm an optimist today. I must have been in a weird mood. Anduril's phraseology certainly was open and nonspecific. I'll expound now.

As aforementioned, I'm a Mormon, the church also known as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Basic beliefs: a latter-day prophet presides over the organization, baptism by immersion, repentance, eternal marriage, and we have another testament of Jesus Christ, known as The Book of Mormon. And missionary work. Lots of it. I, myself, will be leaving on a two year mission within this year. Where am I going? Everyone asks that. I don't know until I turn in my "papers" and get back a letter. The prophet sends us where he feels inspired to.

Boy, howdy, that's a lot in one paragraph. I could do pages on each of these points, but I'll spare myself and you the time.

[afro-elf]

Darth Tater

Just a question. I think a HEALTHY discussion may be ok.

So far it does not look like anyone is doing a Johnny Storm ( Flame On)

But IF the non theist and theist are trying to gather insight can we not ask question of why?

Can you only ban those who flame of EITHER side?


Anduril Kudo's

your exposition was delivered in a clarity that i myself am in the wrong mind set to articulate


to the theist here thank you for your candor with out flame for those you obvious think otherwise

If we can keep up healthy discussion without warring this could be an interesting thread along with the anti-theist thread to learn about our and others

Hopefully we can do it

[markedel]

I'm just curious about the term Judeo-Christian. In my Jewish studies it is emphasised quite strongly that Jewish and Christian theology are often widely divergent, often to the point where the God of the Torah (as in the Jewish Bible and Talmud) is not the same one as that of, shall I say "mainstream" Christian denominations.

So why do Christians use the term Judeo-Christian when Christianity conflicts with Judaism.

[crickhollow]

Well, technically Christianity is an off-shoot of Judaism, we just believe that Jesus is the Messiah.
*looks worried* That's it, isn't it? I mean, I'm not missing another fundamental difference, am I?

So, since Christianity and Judiasm spring from the same roots, that's why we associate them together.

[emplynx]

crick - that is the differrence that creates all others. If the Jews believed in Jesus, they would believe in the New Testament, making them the same as Christians.

[Wayfarer]

I'm not going to get into another foolish and pointless arguement., so I'll keep this breif.

Argument 1: The proof is in the pudding.

I have known too many christians (I must narrow this down-Real Christians. Not professing/intellectual christians) who's lives have radically altered as a result of thier commitment to write it off. Furthermore, despite the vastly different backgrounds and circumstances, we've all changed in very similar ways.

Argument 2: Logicality.

I can't phrase this nearly as well as I want to. But it's next to impossible to justify an atheistic viewpoint. The universe existing on it's own just doesn't make sense. I suppose I could quote you the law of causality: Everything that has a beginning must have a cause. A steady state universe is also highly unlikely.

I could put it like this: Everything that we see and know operates under the same set of natural parameters. The law of causality above is one. Therefore, if it is impossible for the natural system to create itself, we must look somewhere else. The supernatural.

Order cannot arise from chaos. Therefore, all order must ultimately result from a preexisting order, and ultimately you must come to some ordered system that is absolute-it just is.

You must ultimately come back to God.

[emplynx]

To go along with Wayfarer -
Aristotle came up with the idea of an Unmoved Mover. It says that everything that happens has an outside force than creates it. Such as, if you believe in the Big Bang and some one asks you where the materials for the explosion came from you could say they came from another explosion and so on, it goes back forever. Aristotle said that it must have something outside to start it (such as God).

[Darth Tater]

Afro elf, it's very simple. I don't trust you people. I figure if the two apposing sides offer their views in seperate threads MAYBE things can stay clean and I won't have to close either one.

[galadriel]

Hmm, there have been some extremely interesting comments on this one. Time to get up on my soapbox.

I am a Christian. I admittedly am a very stubborn Christian, since I'm getting older/smarter/more pragmatic, and have a tendency to quibble a lot with God. But I still find myself believing in Yahweh (yes, I just typed the actual name of God in Hebrew. Don't skewer me!), the Judeo-Christian God, and believing in Jesus seems like a natural offspring of this belief. Sure, it occasionally crosses my mind that my deep-rooted sense of a divine presence in the world is just a product of my over-imaginative mind. But at the same time, it occurs to me that my skepticism is often derived from a need to justify myself to the rest of the world. Still, questioning is a healthy part of a faith life.

However, my faith is much strengthed since I'm also half-Jewish, which gives me a very cool view of the Christian religion. I understand that God didn't just suddenly decide, "maybe I'll create a son to die for the sins of the human race", but that it has been part of the plan ever since the beginning, that the Jewish people had a very real connection with God. Jesus being Jewish, to have a really complete understanding of the Christian faith, it's important to understand Judaism.

On the flip side, my newfound knowledge that the Bible isn't a perfect, formula-like record of the faith, but a way of experiencing God, is difficult. (Ok, this is my own personal idea, but it makes sense, since metaphorical storytelling is a very Jewish thing, and it helps explain Jonah being swallowed by whales etc: it didn't actually happen that way, but the message is clear.) While this concept makes sense, it's a lot easier to unquestioningly believe every word than to know that, although some stories have a good point, maybe they didn't happen *exactly* like the Bible says.

I also have a problem with the lack of recent miracles in the world. I could deal with the fact that he's leaving the universe alone apart from neccessary actions like the Jesus thing, giving us free will. Perhaps he, as what is commonly termed the Holy Spirit, gives us pointers and tries to get us to do the right thing. But the entire Old Testament is full of miracles. What happened? (Ok, I have a theory about this too: God's Old Testament miracles are limited to Jewish-centric things. Perhaps these things were neccessary so that Jesus would happen as he did. Jesus being the central plan in fixing up this messed up world, those things became acceptable interventions. But this is my own formulation, and not neccessarily true.)

All right, I'll be quiet now. Just one last thing: apart from any religious context, you have to admit Jesus was a really cool person. While he was down here, he showed us exactly how life should be, a model of a perfect society where the emphasis is on giving, not personal gain. While the earth is way too screwed up as it is to implement such an ideology, I find it a shining example of how to live one's life, as did other incredible people: St. Francis, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, to name a few.

[emplynx]

Galadriel, those are some interesting theories. I am not sure abou the metaphor thing... I would not likely believe that ever, BUT I have an opinion about disagreeing of things of the church.
I think that Romans 10:9 (That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.) is the key to Christianity and if you do and believe that, most other theolgocal conflicts are minor. Just my humble opinion.

[Nibs]

Point taken, galadriel. What happened to all the miracles? The Bible is rife with them... why don't we hear about them?

We had a discussion about this in one of my classes recently. The "Miracles of Science" are referred to correctly. We enjoy so much luxury through modern advances that it's difficult (for me, anyway) to think that they, so long ago, didn't have aspirin (okay, maybe in some form, but not the go-to-the-store-and-buy-or-steal-some form). We came to the conclusion that, backed up by such references as Daniel 2:20 and Proverbs 2:6 that those who discover these methods of life preservation must be divinely inspired.

You can agree or disagree... this is just my opinion.