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john_doran
Guest
that they’re only pretending. as you say.
or that they’re making poor choices, perhaps as the result of an inclination toward making poor choices inherited from a distant ancestor.
- Status
or that they’re making poor choices, perhaps as the result of an inclination toward making poor choices inherited from a distant ancestor.
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
AnAtheist
Now, look at the world and decide for yourself what people are doing to each other, no matter of what religion they are. Even those pretending to follow a loving god are quite good in slaughtering other. So what can we learn from that?
Now you look at the world and see how Christians love one another. When they are bloodthgirsty, it is not because they are Christians, but because they have rejected Christ and gone to the Devil. Likewise, I can take you down the corridor of any prison and show you the vast majority of men who are there not because they went to Church. but more than likely because they hadn’t seen the inside of a Church most of their lives.
Now, look at the world and decide for yourself what people are doing to each other, no matter of what religion they are. Even those pretending to follow a loving god are quite good in slaughtering other. So what can we learn from that?
Now you look at the world and see how Christians love one another. When they are bloodthgirsty, it is not because they are Christians, but because they have rejected Christ and gone to the Devil. Likewise, I can take you down the corridor of any prison and show you the vast majority of men who are there not because they went to Church. but more than likely because they hadn’t seen the inside of a Church most of their lives.
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
AnAtheist
*I just quoted other Christians, who claim that God requires bloody sacrifices for sin atonement, culminating in the ultimate sacrifice (Christ).
*
If a father willingly delivers himself to a horrible death to save his children from sickness and dying, would you call him bloodthirsty?
*I just quoted other Christians, who claim that God requires bloody sacrifices for sin atonement, culminating in the ultimate sacrifice (Christ).
*
If a father willingly delivers himself to a horrible death to save his children from sickness and dying, would you call him bloodthirsty?
A
AnAtheist
Guest
Gilbert Keith:
No, but to assume a bloody ritual is somehow necessary to please God, that I call bloodthirsty. And if that God insists on bloody rituals, then I call that God bloodthirsty.
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Gilbert_Keith
Guest
AnAtheist
No, but to assume a bloody ritual is somehow necessary to please God, that I call bloodthirsty. And if that God insists on bloody rituals, then I call that God bloodthirsty.
Not if the object of that ritual is to give us life everlasting after our own attempt to throw it away. The bloody ritual to which you refer is not one that God asks of us, but the one he asked of Himself and sacrificed to Himself in the person of Jesus. Freely asked and freely given, this is not bloodthirst, but rather a desire for justice and mercy to come together in the most human and divine way possible … through the mystery of the Incarnation. We are forgiven … and we are saved. But we must cooperate in our own salvation by offering the sacrifice with Jesus.
What you seem to want is a bloodless creation … where justice defied by Adam and Eve can be overcome without a price (and a mighty big price) being paid.
This is the problem of certain criminals in jail. They thought they could defy the law with impunity … and they are bewildered and angry that they got caught and have to pay the price. No doubt they also think the courts are bloodthirsty. But the really bloodthirsty people are those who, without God in their souls, go about seeking whom they may rape, plunder, and kill … and get away with it.
These are not Christians … and if they wear a cross around their necks … it is only to pretend they are Christians and to throw us off our guard. The devil likes to smile at us and pass himself off as an angel.
No, but to assume a bloody ritual is somehow necessary to please God, that I call bloodthirsty. And if that God insists on bloody rituals, then I call that God bloodthirsty.
Not if the object of that ritual is to give us life everlasting after our own attempt to throw it away. The bloody ritual to which you refer is not one that God asks of us, but the one he asked of Himself and sacrificed to Himself in the person of Jesus. Freely asked and freely given, this is not bloodthirst, but rather a desire for justice and mercy to come together in the most human and divine way possible … through the mystery of the Incarnation. We are forgiven … and we are saved. But we must cooperate in our own salvation by offering the sacrifice with Jesus.
What you seem to want is a bloodless creation … where justice defied by Adam and Eve can be overcome without a price (and a mighty big price) being paid.
This is the problem of certain criminals in jail. They thought they could defy the law with impunity … and they are bewildered and angry that they got caught and have to pay the price. No doubt they also think the courts are bloodthirsty. But the really bloodthirsty people are those who, without God in their souls, go about seeking whom they may rape, plunder, and kill … and get away with it.
These are not Christians … and if they wear a cross around their necks … it is only to pretend they are Christians and to throw us off our guard. The devil likes to smile at us and pass himself off as an angel.
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SamCA
Guest
Gilbert Keith:
Why should Adam and Eve’s children be in any way culpable for the sins of their parents? This is a concept found throughout the Bible – the sins of the father passing on to his children – but repitition doesn’t cause it to make any more sense.
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buffalo
Guest
Read carefully from the Catholic Catechism:
The consequences of Adam’s sin for humanity
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All men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as St. Paul affirms: “By one man’s disobedience many (that is, all men) were made sinners”: "sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned."289 The Apostle contrasts the universality of sin and death with the universality of salvation in Christ. "Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men."290[403](javascript
penWindow(‘cr/403.htm’) Following St. Paul, the Church has always taught that the overwhelming misery which oppresses men and their inclination towards evil and death cannot be understood apart from their connection with Adam’s sin and the fact that he has transmitted to us a sin with which we are all born afflicted, a sin which is the “death of the soul”.291 Because of this certainty of faith, the Church baptizes for the remission of sins even tiny infants who have not committed personal sin.292[404](javascript
penWindow(‘cr/404.htm’) How did the sin of Adam become the sin of all his descendants? The whole human race is in Adam “as one body of one man”.293 By this “unity of the human race” all men are implicated in Adam’s sin, as all are implicated in Christ’s justice. Still, the transmission of original sin is a mystery that we cannot fully understand. But we do know by Revelation that Adam had received original holiness and justice not for himself alone, but for all human nature. By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. And that is why original sin is called “sin” only in an analogical sense: it is a sin “contracted” and not “committed” - a state and not an act.[405](javascript
penWindow(‘cr/405.htm’) Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam’s descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ’s grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.406 The Church’s teaching on the transmission of original sin was articulated more precisely in the fifth century, especially under the impulse of St. Augustine’s reflections against Pelagianism, and in the sixteenth century, in opposition to the Protestant Reformation. Pelagius held that man could, by the natural power of free will and without the necessary help of God’s grace, lead a morally good life; he thus reduced the influence of Adam’s fault to bad example. The first Protestant reformers, on the contrary, taught that original sin has radically perverted man and destroyed his freedom; they identified the sin inherited by each man with the tendency to evil (concupiscentia), which would be insurmountable. The Church pronounced on the meaning of the data of Revelation on original sin especially at the second Council of Orange (529)296 and at the Council of Trent (1546).297
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john_doran
Guest
i don’t know. why should one’s children be the heir to one’s genetic (mis)fortune? why should my debts pass to my wife and children in the event of my death?
i can’t make much sense out of the equations of string theory, but the math isn’t any less efficacious for all that. why should this be any different?
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YinYangMom
Guest
Every choice has a consequence.
Sometimes the consequence is good.
Sometimes it’s bad.
But what one person chooses for himself, will have a ripple affect on those around him.
That is the fabric of life.
When Eve and Adam chose to disobey God’s rule a consequence for that choice was their independence, in a way. Man would from that moment on have to labor for his basic needs to be met (food, clothing). Woman would experience pain in childbirth, and their children would be born with the stain of their sin.
I guess it’s kind of like Pandora’s box…once you ‘know’ something, you can’t ‘unknow’ it…and you can’t not pass on that knowledge to your children as they grow up and ask all those ‘why’ questions.
Can you not see how the sins of the parents, do indeed, pass on to the children? Not all, of course, but consider alcoholism, drug addiction, addiction to porn, anger management issues, smoking, sexual promiscuity… Mothers and fathers who raise their children in these environments do indeed pass on the tendency toward those same addictions to their children. No, the children aren’t culpable for those sins directly, but indirectly they fall under the same patterns. Which is what happened with the children of Adam and Eve. Cain became jealous of his brother enough to kill him. Had Adam and Eve not sinned the first time, Cain would not have known jealousy and thus would not have killed his brother and the world would be a different place.
The Bible doesn’t repeat the lesson…life confirmed the truth of the matter…entire nations fell because of the bad choices of the patriarch. That’s the way it happened and the BIble just records it so that we can learn from the mistakes of our predecessors. The thing is, the real lesson to be learned is that God always offers hope and redemption - always - and it is up to us to choose that path regardless of what path we were on before. When we start making good choices, we receive God’s blessings and our children benefit from those blessings.
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cheddarsox
Guest
Gilbert Keith said:
Often, nothing helps the person, no outside force swoops in to save the day, That stuff happens in comics, but not too often in real life. A person turns to their own beliefs, that is true, and for some that includes a personal god. And that is good. Beliefs are good if they help a person in exactly the situations you describe, i think that is the purpose of religion.
For you, a personal deity, or a belief in a personal deity aids you, so by all means, hang onto that deity with both hands and your teeth as well, it makes you a stronger person. For others, such a belief does no good, so they adopt other coping mechanisms.
My impersonal deity helps me. To know that the situations that arise in my life are not the “plan” of some supposedly “all loving god” who is choosing not to come to my aid, that helps me, to believe I have not been singled out for abuse, torture etc. To know that that stuff happens for no real reason at all, but in the end, the world keeps turning, the universe keeps doing its thing, and I will return to the calm from whence I sprung. That keeps me going.
I am not talking about a hypothetical man under extreme circumstances, I am talking from real personal experience. I have been there, and the belief that I am experiencing the universe, for what it is, big, powerful, impersonal, indifferent, has helped me accept and meet the challenges of life, and go on. Because to me, that is hope, that is what being human means, that is the ultimate justice. That things are the way they are, to acknowledge that has helped me get up, and try again rather than worrying over why it was happening, and getting bogged down in trying to make sense of some “plan”.
cheddar
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YinYangMom
Guest
This makes quite a bit of sense.
I can certainly understand how viewing personal experiences in this way aids in moving forward, as guilt and remorse which come from a religiously formed conscience are heavy burdens.
With your view, you may regret certain decisions but by chalking them up as part of the bigger picture, you’re able to not dwell on the repercussions for you or others so that you can learn from your mistake and move forward. Mistakes happen.
I don’t get where the ‘deity’ part comes in though. Why have an impersonal deity at all? What purpose does it serve? If everything continues regardless wouldn’t that just be attributed to science and nature and not necessarily a deity?
G
Gilbert_Keith
Guest
I have been there, and the belief that I am experiencing the universe, for what it is, big, powerful, impersonal, indifferent, has helped me accept and meet the challenges of life, and go on. Because to me, that is hope, that is what being human means, that is the ultimate justice.
You know, this is very eloquent, but it doesn’t lead me anywhere. What you seem to be embracing is certainly an indifferent universe, but why would you call it “divinity without a face.” It’s just a universe without a face. Why would such a universe give you hope? It doesn’t offer you hope because it never offers you anything but indifference. And it can’t give you any comfort of any kind because it is impersonal and doesn’t care about you. So how do you get comfort and hope from it?
You know, this is very eloquent, but it doesn’t lead me anywhere. What you seem to be embracing is certainly an indifferent universe, but why would you call it “divinity without a face.” It’s just a universe without a face. Why would such a universe give you hope? It doesn’t offer you hope because it never offers you anything but indifference. And it can’t give you any comfort of any kind because it is impersonal and doesn’t care about you. So how do you get comfort and hope from it?
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YinYangMom
Guest
Gilbert Keith said:
Think about it…
it’s not about him this way…
things happen just because…
if you didn’t have to be held accountable for your actions you’d be at peace.
if there is no long term punishment for mistakes made there’s hope for tomorrow and the next day to do it right the next time.
That sounds comforting to me.
My comfort, however, comes from Christ’s mercy.
Because He exists I know I can be forgiven for my mistakes which gives me hope for tomorrow to do things right the next time.
My peace comes from knowing that with each confession I also become empowered to do it right the next time through His grace.
Grace is awesome.
I would not be comfortable in a world without Grace.
C
cheddarsox
Guest
Your analysis of how I handle repercussions is not accurate, I would prefer if you did not put words into my mouth, so to speak (you did use the term “you” as opposed to “some people who believe this way” ) I take my actions and their repercussions very seriously. There is no escape from consequences, they are not a figment of a particualr religious belief, they are reality. I have to live and deal with the reality of the impact of everything I do. True, I do not have the SAME spiritual reaction as people of other beliefs, but that does not mean I have no reaction at all.
I do not have a deity. Not even an impersonal one. I don’t use the term deity to describe my beliefs, because the term deity implies some sort of being. I use the term divine, because I know that there is/are things out there that fill the role of divinity. All powerful, never changing, ultimately just etc.
Science is a method of gaining information through observation, hypothesis and testing, so, that certainly is not divine, it is merely a function of human thought. Nature, sometimes I use that term to describe the divine. It is a reasonable fit. I have a term I use that is a perfect fit, but it would not make any sense to anyone else, so I don’t share it with others.
cheddar
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cheddarsox
Guest
Gilbert Keith said:
I observe what I see around me. And I see that as long as there is life, there is hope to make that life better, more productive, to experience more of what there is. So, no matter what, I acknowledge and experience it, it is mine, my life, all I have, and I will live it. That is very important and rich to me.
I used to have a heap of “supposed to be’s” hanging over my head. Life was supposed to be, a certain way, and if it wasn’t, it was a sign that something was wrong, and then I had to figure out what was wrong, and round and round chasing my tail. I literally went nuts, and spent a great deal of time wishing my life away , because it was not what it was “supposed to be”, then…I realized that the “supposed to be” was someone’s or some group’s idea of reality, it was not reality. I opened up my eyes and observed reality, I embraced it, I began to live. Not only the nice moments, the cozy moments the moments that fit the “supposed to be”, but all of them. WOW!!!
I acknowledge the divine wonder of it all. I was freed from the hell of imperfection, when I woke up and saw the divine perfection. It is all so damn amazing, even pain, even death, even all of it, so incredible, so complex, so awesome.
I no longer spend my life ignoring the divine because it does not look the way it’s “supposed to”, now I experience it, acknowledge it, worship it much more fully.
I don’t hope for some future escape from this imperfection, I don’t need to. I think that the type of hope you speak of, and the type of hope I speak of are different. I live suspended in hope, that I will not close my eyes again, that I will continue to experience every wonder that is life, until my life ceases.
This life, this universe are my realities, I do not deny them or make them secondary to something wishful. What could be more amazing than this? Nothing, if I truly experience this to the fullest. Why hope for something else at the expense of ignoring the whole amazing reality that I am already immersed in?
I don’t hope to get it someday. I have it now. That is why I worship. I am so blessed…I have it now.
cheddar
G
Gilbert_Keith
Guest
cheddarsox
*I don’t hope for some future escape from this imperfection, I don’t need to. I think that the type of hope you speak of, and the type of hope I speak of are different. I live suspended in hope, that I will not close my eyes again, that I will continue to experience every wonder that is life, until my life ceases.
This life, this universe are my realities, I do not deny them or make them secondary to something wishful. What could be more amazing than this? Nothing, if I truly experience this to the fullest. Why hope for something else at the expense of ignoring the whole amazing reality that I am already immersed in?
I don’t hope to get it someday. I have it now. That is why I worship. I am so blessed…I have it now.*
Apparently, things are going well for you in your life right now. You sound very content with the world as you find it. That is not the condition of most people’s lives. It becomes increasingly less the condition of our lives as we mature. The reality gradually dawns upon us that in a godless universe there is no guarantee of justice or mercy, and all around us there is considerable evidence of wasted and hopeless humanity. This is the condition of the vast majority of mankind … and of virtually everybody at the hour of death. We enter the darkness, even the most notorious atheists, no longer cocksure that it was all pointless except for what pleasures of the moment we could manage along the way.
Your philosophy is working for you at the present time. Will it always work for you? If someday your life and your liberty are threatened, or the life or liberty of your loved ones is threatened, and there is no possible way to deal with the situation but to get down on your knees and cry out to heaven for mercy and justice … would you refuse to do so because your divinity has no face?
*I don’t hope for some future escape from this imperfection, I don’t need to. I think that the type of hope you speak of, and the type of hope I speak of are different. I live suspended in hope, that I will not close my eyes again, that I will continue to experience every wonder that is life, until my life ceases.
This life, this universe are my realities, I do not deny them or make them secondary to something wishful. What could be more amazing than this? Nothing, if I truly experience this to the fullest. Why hope for something else at the expense of ignoring the whole amazing reality that I am already immersed in?
I don’t hope to get it someday. I have it now. That is why I worship. I am so blessed…I have it now.*
Apparently, things are going well for you in your life right now. You sound very content with the world as you find it. That is not the condition of most people’s lives. It becomes increasingly less the condition of our lives as we mature. The reality gradually dawns upon us that in a godless universe there is no guarantee of justice or mercy, and all around us there is considerable evidence of wasted and hopeless humanity. This is the condition of the vast majority of mankind … and of virtually everybody at the hour of death. We enter the darkness, even the most notorious atheists, no longer cocksure that it was all pointless except for what pleasures of the moment we could manage along the way.
Your philosophy is working for you at the present time. Will it always work for you? If someday your life and your liberty are threatened, or the life or liberty of your loved ones is threatened, and there is no possible way to deal with the situation but to get down on your knees and cry out to heaven for mercy and justice … would you refuse to do so because your divinity has no face?
Y
YinYangMom
Guest
My apologies. I was trying to convey my understanding of what you were saying so that you may clarify any misconceptions, which you’ve done. Thank you.
I appreciate that you regard consequences highly and the distinction between deity and divine.
Is my understanding correct then, that to you divinity is something in and of itself as opposed to **an **attribute of God? We view God as being Divine, but that’s just one of many attributes He has revealed to us…mercy, love and justice are a few of the others.
Y
YinYangMom
Guest
This, I understand. It is enough for you and it allows you to fully participate in life. That is a blessing indeed. I would think God would be pleased that you appreciate everything around you as you do - with such zeal and passion - as it is but one of the gifts He gave to man.
He offers more, though, for those who seek it. And yet, if I understand you correctly, LIFE is enough, more than enough for you that you see no reason to look beyond life for more or better, doing so distracted you from appreciating the wonders around you…am I following you correctly?
C
cheddarsox
Guest
Gilbert Keith:
The truth is, I have had my life and liberty threatened, I have had horrendous injustice occur to me and members of my family and friends. My life is not easy, is anyone’s? Why do you assume that the only way my faith can work is under easy conditions?
I have cried out for mercy and justice, and there are plenty of times that I think “wouldn’t it be a better world if…” I am human, of course I wish things were different at times. But when I follow that line of thought, I know, in my heart of hearts, that I could not come up with a better way. When I get past myself, and look at the big picture, what other way could there be? And the reality is, that this is the way it is. And even when it is not going my way, it is amazing, and awe inspiring, and the divine is worthy of worship.
I do not worship because my life is just the way I want it to be, I worship because it is my genuine response to the awesomeness of reality.
Mercy and justice sometimes come in small doses from the people in my life. Sometimes we can ease each other’s pain, or sometimes technology can help fix a tragedy and allow life to continue, but no, the universe does not change its course to accomodate me, nor anyone else, and in the end, I do find comfort in that. That there is order, and it all goes on reguardless of my personal triumphs or tragedy.
When I was Catholic, I cried out to God, and was ignored. That was of no more use to me than not crying out at all. And people gave me piles of words to explain that God really was there, and really did love me, etc etc, but these things all happened for a reason…but no one knew what the reason was…Now I know the reason, it is the nature of the universe.
An answer that is really not all that different from the Catholic answer, except I don’t bother to put a face on it. And I don’t make up a bunch of human explanations for that which is beyond my understanding. I accept, even the hard stuff, and worship anyway. The final result isn’t much different, it is the explanations that vary. I see nothing in the universe, or about the way it operates that points to the type of God Catholicism teaches about.
Having lived both faiths, I have to tell you, the one I have now has allowed me to worship more, function better, take part in life to a fuller degree, move past/through hardship, and love the divine much more, because I love it for what it is, not for what I hope it will be.
cheddar
Please don’t demean me and my faith by making excuses for me. Do you expect your posts here to be taken at face value? I do. Don’t tell me what the only possibility for me is in a given situation, and I will have the same respect for you and your faith.
The truth is, I have had my life and liberty threatened, I have had horrendous injustice occur to me and members of my family and friends. My life is not easy, is anyone’s? Why do you assume that the only way my faith can work is under easy conditions?
I have cried out for mercy and justice, and there are plenty of times that I think “wouldn’t it be a better world if…” I am human, of course I wish things were different at times. But when I follow that line of thought, I know, in my heart of hearts, that I could not come up with a better way. When I get past myself, and look at the big picture, what other way could there be? And the reality is, that this is the way it is. And even when it is not going my way, it is amazing, and awe inspiring, and the divine is worthy of worship.
I do not worship because my life is just the way I want it to be, I worship because it is my genuine response to the awesomeness of reality.
Mercy and justice sometimes come in small doses from the people in my life. Sometimes we can ease each other’s pain, or sometimes technology can help fix a tragedy and allow life to continue, but no, the universe does not change its course to accomodate me, nor anyone else, and in the end, I do find comfort in that. That there is order, and it all goes on reguardless of my personal triumphs or tragedy.
When I was Catholic, I cried out to God, and was ignored. That was of no more use to me than not crying out at all. And people gave me piles of words to explain that God really was there, and really did love me, etc etc, but these things all happened for a reason…but no one knew what the reason was…Now I know the reason, it is the nature of the universe.
An answer that is really not all that different from the Catholic answer, except I don’t bother to put a face on it. And I don’t make up a bunch of human explanations for that which is beyond my understanding. I accept, even the hard stuff, and worship anyway. The final result isn’t much different, it is the explanations that vary. I see nothing in the universe, or about the way it operates that points to the type of God Catholicism teaches about.
Having lived both faiths, I have to tell you, the one I have now has allowed me to worship more, function better, take part in life to a fuller degree, move past/through hardship, and love the divine much more, because I love it for what it is, not for what I hope it will be.
cheddar
C
cheddarsox
Guest
There are no words in English, that I know of, that encompass my understanding of what I am referring to here as the divine. I beleive that there is something pervasive in the universe that makes everything work together the way it does, that governs all and gives everything its inherent nature. Because this something has ultimate “control” over all, I refer to it as the divine.
The closest thing I can think of is this, when people say god is love, that comes close. That which acts as god, is the love, the cooperation of everything. Love can be seen as the inherent cooperation of all things in the universe.
Most people see these things as dry scientific things, but they actually are not. The laws/forces in the universe are utterly amazing and complex and incredible.
Everything cooperates in incredibly complex ways to make the universe that we know. It is incredible even when what is occuring is not in our favor. Our personal displeasure with it does not change the fact that it is awesome.
My personal term for what I refer to as “the divine” here, means “the all, and the manner in which the all operates”, it is also rather like, “I AM”, it is what is.
Hope that helps.
cheddar
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