The World's history according to Christianity

[AnAtheist]

trogiah:

I don’t want to put words in your mouth (or on your computer screen?) but I still am not sure about the first statement. Is the world, in broadest terms, acceptable or not? Or perhaps I should rephrase, Do you accept the world (in its broadest sense) or do you reject it.

There is a difference between accepting and acceptable, don’t you think? “Acceptable” implies, that the world should be made up in a certain way, if it largely does, that is acceptable. To accept it, is taking it as it is. In that sense I accept the world (reality).

To draw out my main point in all that, I think everyone has to make a fundamental decision, to accept reality or to reject it. I suppose I am just trying to define in this discussion that accepting reality means calling it fundamentally “good” and rejecting reality means calling it fundamentally “bad”

I don’t agree. To judge reality as good or bad you need a presumption of how reality should look like, otherwise you cannot compare. I don’t make such a presumption, I just take reality as it can be observed.

 

[AnAtheist]

Strider:

To say that God “waited 12 bln years,” or “4 bln years,” ignores the fact (at lest for me and many of us, it’s a fact) that God not only created matter, He also created time. He exists outside of time, therefore all history is always before Him. God does not “wait.”

Granted.

Given that perspective, it doesn’t sound so artificial. And for the Jews, or any group of people He would have chosen as His own, the growth from primitive, bronze age hunter-gatherers to the point of living in cities with a complex culture takes not only time, but concptual growth, which is what is going on in the Old Testament. That’s why God did not become one of us until the “fulness of time,” or until civilization, or some small segment of it, was ready for Jesus’ message.

That is interesting, but hardly convincing. Culture may not have developped much in the bronze age, but the intellectual capacity of humans have not changed much since then. If you’d give a caveman from 30.000years ago a modern education, he’d most likely would fit into the present without anybody noticing.

Whence came matter? Did it always exist? Is the Big Bang just recycling a yoyoing mass of matter, or is there an alternate universe where matter exchanges places?

That are all valid assumptions, I honestly don’t know for sure. Cosmology over the last few decades has made tremendous advances, we can reconstruct the history of the universe to a fraction of a second after the big bang. What happened before is still unclear, but I am confident, mankind will get deeper insights in the future. Right now, I think the universe is one huge quantum fluctuation.

Whence came life? If life evolved on earth in complete randomness, …

Basically yes. The evolution theory may be far from perfect, but it gives us insights about how that all may have worked.

And what IS life, that spark of energy and activity that allows the cell to metabolize energy and the spark that animates me and that leaves me at the moment of my death. What is it, where did I get and where does it go when I die? I snuck that third question in there, but it’s inseparable from the second.

Agreed. There is no spark, that animates us. We consist of the same matter as anything else. But the way how that matter is arranged makes up life (and minds ultimately).

 

[AnAtheist]

Contarini:

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t mock Christianity for believing that the Jews were right (over against the rest of the human race) to worship one transcendent God, and also mock us for believing that they were wrong to deny the belief of much of the human race that the divine is capable of taking flesh among us.

Sure I can. Christians insist, that this is the very same god. Christians talk of absolute Truth. The Jews either knew that Truth or not. So, were they right or wrong?

The Christian belief is that God was preparing the way for Christ by teaching the Hebrew people the truth of His transcendence,

Ok, so he used a little cultural relativism to make his way? And that stopped 2000years ago? No further preparations? How can you be sure of that?

and that He was a radically different kind of being than the gods worshipped by other ancient peoples.

That is a matter of perspective. Different yes, but radically?

By his death Jesus destroyed the power of death. Human beings had cut themselves off from the life of God. By voluntarily submitting to death, Jesus ransomed us from the power of death and overcame it.

That is exactly where Christianity bugs me. God creates death, God creates humans who cut themselves off, and then he submits to his own creation to overcome it. ???

 

[Neithan]

Atheists like to ask what the relevance for believing in God is. Well, what is the relevance for not believing? If God could be proved or disproved by reason, than faith would not be needed, it would be totally useless. Since reason alone can not explain things that we generically believe to be true (e.g. free-will) than faith is relevant. But what, I ask, is the relevance for militant atheism? If there is no God, why care about those who believe that there is? If there is no God, everything is completely irrelevant, including this discussion.
Gilbert Keith:

And here is another example of an atheist starting to come to his senses with respect to scientific plausibility at any rate.

abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=315976

This ticks me off a bit. Wow, so this pompous, self-righteous elitist materialist now decides in advanced age to admit “oh, well hey… I guess stuff just can’t happen on its own,” eureka!! Hallelujah he accepts a “minimalist god”! The heavens rejoice! The Angels sing! … I am not impressed. Besides, I have enough confidence that science will eventually unlock the mechanism for the evolution of life. Then the naturalists will gloat and the fickle skeptics will ponder again “see? stuff does happen on its own!” (as if direct human manipulation can demonstrate no intelligent agent). Atheism has been running in circles since Democritus. It’s untenable, and no amount of scientific discovery will change that.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

Right now, I think the universe is one huge quantum fluctuation.

see, that’s interesting: since there’s no good scientific theory supporting this belief, why do you believe it?

this strikes me as a similar position to be in as many of the theists whose own beliefs you reject as unsupported by the evidence.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

see, that’s interesting: since there’s no good scientific theory supporting this belief, why do you believe it?

For two reasons:

1. There is no satisfactory theory supporting that or similar “beliefs”, but there are alot of things that point into that direction. Like it is compatible with proven laws of physics.
2. It is the best theory I have. The best theory you have is “goddidit”. That is obviously a better theory to you than to me, but I regard it unsatisfactory. It explains everything and nothing. Accept that as a theory and we could abandon further fundamental research.

I am more than willing to change my theory, if new evidence shows up. Are you?

 

[exoflare]

eptatorata:

You do not visit atheist boards, because you don’t want to try to “convert”, or you do visit atheist boards, but without such an ulterior motive?

I don’t ever visit them. But I guess I could.

 

[exoflare]

AnAtheist:

Highly doubtful. Sources?

Like it matters, right…? ^_-

cmns.mnegri.it/miracolo/

therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

 

[eptatorata]

Neithan:

But what, I ask, is the relevance for militant atheism? If there is no God, why care about those who believe that there is? If there is no God, everything is completely irrelevant, including this discussion.

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by militant atheism?

One fundamental asymmetry in the relationship between atheists and theists, Christians in particular, is the mandate to evangelize and to force the Church’s idea of morality on everybody else. If atheists are militant, whatever that means, it is most likely a reaction.

 

[Mijoy2]

AnAtheist:

That is exactly where Christianity bugs me. God creates death, God creates humans who cut themselves off, and then he submits to his own creation to overcome it. ???

And what is difficult to understand? AnAtheist, you want a bullet-proof explaination based entirely on verifiable logic. Of course this is what our intellect drives us to do. This is perfectly normal and we need to live our lives predominately this way.

But not totally this way. If we did how would gain certain pleasures. If we look at a baseball game through the eyes of pure logic it becomes a pretty ridiculous pursuit of chasing a hitting a ball. We could intellectualize this game into yielding no pleasure for us at all. We could do the same thing for many of the other pleasure of life. When a man looks upon a woman, his wife, his sees the beauty of Gods creation. He doesn’t see a few microns of skin on top of some subcutaneous fat surrounding organs and muscle tissue all held together by a foundation of bones.

The world of the faithful tracends a purely intellectual pursuit. Love is not something we can define. The beauty of nature and what it does to many of us when we; look out to the sea, look at a snow capped mountain, look to the cosmos etc. is demeaned by being addressed only from the logical intellectual perpective. Is the Ocean a few trillion gallons of salt water or place of wonderous beauty?

Such is the pursuit of faith.

I suspect you will find this not worthy of your time but I’d recommend spending a few minutes listening to Peter Kreeft talk about the sea.

peterkreeft.com/audio/12_sea-spirituality.htm

I’d also highly recommend reading, *Crossing the Thresold of Hope *
By Pope John Paul II. It’s a question and answer book so it can be read in multiple sittings over time. Read the questions that interest you. He does a wonderful job of combining the intellect with the heart; with the love of Christ. I’ve read some of your thoughts and I think you’;d do good to educate yourself more on some of the teachings of Catholicism. Who better to do this by then our Holy Father, particualrily at this time.

 

[exoflare]

eptatorata:

I’m not entirely sure what you mean by militant atheism?

One fundamental asymmetry in the relationship between atheists and theists, Christians in particular, is the mandate to evangelize and to force the Church’s idea of morality on everybody else. If atheists are militant, whatever that means, it is most likely a reaction.

The only people “forcing” anyone to do anything right now are the government. If you’re so for this idea of nobody pushing their idea of morality on anyone, you’d be completely against the concept of law in and of itself.

 

[SamCA]

Gilbert Keith:

I would be the last to deny that members of the Church persecuted the enemies of the Church. However, I don’t see any atheists getting smashed in these forums. That was the point you were raising earlier.

So would you quit the melodramatics … PLEASE!

Wait, I see the problem. That sledgehammer thing wasn’t an accusation or anything. It was just me preemptively answering the question, “But wait! If you just think we’re a bunch of biological machines, why follow morals? Why not just run around killing people or whatever!”

My answer being that we’re self-aware, so smashing a person is different from smashing a computer.

I apologize for the confusion. I wasn’t saying you want to smash atheists, or anything of the like.

 

[SamCA]

Scott Waddell:

I’m a little skeptical (yes, the religious can be skeptical) about your powers to discern the inner workings of these people’s conscience, but let’s grant that they have not examined their belief. What of it? This is judging something by looking at its worst practitioners. As Gary Hoge put it, it is like saying aspirin is no good because it does not cure the headaches of the people who don’t take it.

If someone is really interested in truth, he looks at the best thinkers on a subject and critiques them, not just the random lamers one runs across.

Note, again, that this wasn’t some attempt at an indictment of Christianity. If you’ll look back, I commented that the same is true of atheism, and for that matter all the other religions too.

I was simply pointing out that nearly everyone forms the foundations of their beliefs in childhood, in response to Gilbert saying that a lot of prominant atheists became atheists in childhood so their belief must be somehow less valid.

Nearly everyone’s beliefs form in childhood. That’s all I’m saying.

(I think previous Attack Atheists have put people a bit on guard, huh?)

 

[exoflare]

SamCA:

My answer being that we’re self-aware, so smashing a person is different from smashing a computer.

What does being self-aware have to do with caring what happens to others?

 

[eptatorata]

exoflare:

The only people “forcing” anyone to do anything right now are the government. If you’re so for this idea of nobody pushing their idea of morality on anyone, you’d be completely against the concept of law in and of itself.

That’s a naïve view, followed by a non-sequitur.

 

[exoflare]

eptatorata:

That’s a naïve view, followed by a non-sequitur.

Well, no, YOUR reply makes no sense!
(that sure is easy, lol)

 

[eptatorata]

exoflare:

Well, no, YOUR reply makes no sense!
(that sure is easy, lol)

If this were a political forum, I might be moved to explain. As it is, suit yourself.

 

[Gilbert_Keith]

eptatorata

*I’m not entirely sure what you mean by militant atheism?
*

Militant atheists are people like you and Sam and AnAtheist who visit Catholic Answers in an attempt to convert theists to atheism.

Or why else would you be here? Reacting? Reacting to what?

Our Free Speech Rights?

 

[exoflare]

Gilbert, did you get the PM I sent?

EDIT: oops, so much for a spectacular 100th post!

 

[SamCA]

Gilbert Keith:

Militant atheists are people like you and Sam and AnAtheist who visit Catholic Answers in an attempt to convert theists to atheism.

Or why else would you be here? Reacting? Reacting to what?

Our Free Speech Rights?

I can’t speak for AnAtheist, but I’m not here to convert anybody. I know that’s not going to happen, and I have better things to do than tilting at windmills even if I wanted to convert people. Which I don’t.

I’m here because I’m trying to understand how conservative Christians think. Given current events in America, this seems like a prudent thing to do – plus, I find religion fascinating, in general.

I’m also not a militant atheist, in the traditional sense.