[alison]

Hi Chef - I know I said I was buying out of this - not because anyone else was being uncivilised, but because I get too upset by what's happening in this world of ours...many of which crimes are committed in the names of various Gods (including that Christian one).

For example: I, personally, think it's wrong to flatten entire cities while claiming that everyone who lives there - men, women and children - are agents of Satan. I think any act of mass punishment is wrong: the firebombing of Dresden was wrong, the genocide of the Jews was wrong. Razing Sodom and Gomorrah would have been wrong too. These acts can only be done if you divide the human race into different categories, Them and Us, and decide that They are less than human. The Saved, in this case, are Us, and everyone else can go to Hell. This division seems to me, in my ethical universe, pretty close to original sin. The Gospels ("Love one another as you love Me") were about something radically different; it was called the New Testament because it took issue with the vengeful patriarchal God of the Judaeic texts (that is, until Paul came alone and put all the patriarchy back). Maybe you think this Old Testament stuff is ok, that it's even just. I'd rather read the Upanishads, which are much more civilised.

But... :rolleyes: I will try to be a good girl. I find it oddly revealing that you equate your truth claims for God with Hamlet. You can of course deduce from Hamlet that Shakespeare probably existed (or Bacon or whoever you think wrote the plays). But how can you deduce from Shakespeare that Hamlet exists? So perhaps Matthew existed: that doesn't prove that the God he wrote about did. What am I missing?

Does man have free will? According to the Bible, yes. Does everyone get an equal shot at knowing God? No. Sorry. It's quite clear on that. Someone that got to watch Jesus in action had a better chance than someone who didn't. Someone who grows up in a home with a loving father has a better chance than someone who grows up abused. Still, God holds them all accountable for their own actions. You may not be comfortable with this, but I am. Someone who grows up in a home without a father in the US is twelve times as likely to commit a violent crime. Does that mean that they're not responsible for their crime? I say it doesn't. I say that giving them the free ride would be an insult to everyone that came from that same situation and overcame it. That's my opinion. I'd be in the wrong profession if I felt differently

This passage struck me: it's almost classic. There's an essay by Freud which talks interestingly about the absent Judaeic/Christian God being a reflection of and even a compensation for the absent father; a punishing and distantly loving authority figure who never answers, a vacuum which has to be filled by all sorts of emotional fantasies and projections. The Christian God - which is clearly in this description a male god for men and most certainly not for women - obviously fills this kind of emotional need for you. (You do not mention your mother at all in relation to God, but you've mentioned your father very often.)

[kongming]

In any version of hell (the one I outlined or Tex's) one would assume that the kind of suffering there will mirror and then surpass any suffering those individuals caused.

I don't find it at all convincing that Jesus suffered for mankind's sins. Why not the 6 million jews? Did they too suffer for mankind's sins? Shouldn't the guilty ones suffer for their own sins?.

[kongming]

Maybe if science can discover why reason is not enough for some people then we will move one step closer to discovering the truth.

Reason is not sufficient for many people, and when the satisfaction that reason affords falls short of settling the tormented soul, you pass reason by and leap to faith.

[Gary Wassner]

Zoroastrianism and its derivative Manichaeanism, both taught that Deity not only chose to create two classes of souls classified as the Redeemed and the Lost, but that He logically fated them to either Paradise or to Hell. Predestination was not originally a Hebraic concept, but it was conceptualized long before Calvin and Martin Luther. The way you are describing predestination sounds more and more like Zorasterianism, Tex. The word predestination is a weak and inaccurate translation of the Greek word Pro-Horizo. Check out the etymology. In this case, pro translates as prior or coming before and horizo, the basis for the english word horizon, means border or limit. More accurately, the word translates as predetermination, not predestination.

***Just a note***

I am on vacation as of tonight. So, if my posts are scarce for the next 10 days, please carry on without me. Where I am going internet access is not easy to achieve. I can log on once or twice a day for a short time only. I will really miss this debate. Please keep it civil so that we can all continue to benefit from it. Maus is going to play big brother in my absence.

[kongming]

Well, I don't think I'm either. As far as I know Socrates didn't speak to God and he was enlightened. Abraham, Moses, Mary, Joseph possibly Peter and a host of saints from Patrick and Brigid to Martin Luther did speak to God and as far as I know they weren't insane. I would say that if you think God is speaking to you but it is actually Satan you are listening too, then maybe you're insane. On the flip side if you think that Satan is talking to you and you are listening to him then I doubt you are insane, but you're probably evil.

If you speak to god and he speaks back, are you enlightened or insane?

[Gary Wassner]

But how would you ever know, Kong? How, tell me? Do we leave this determination up to the person having the experience? Isn't that kind of like letting the patients run the asylum?

[kongming]

I am frightened nevertheless of the christian right in the US now. I am frightened by the blurred lines between church and state, as Alison said. I think religion should be a private thing between the individual and his god. When it becomes institutionalized and politicized, it tends to become divisive and hurtful.

Yah, that perturbs me too. But unfortunately in a deocracy we have to listen to everybodies opinions (well not have to, but they ARE allowed to voice them). I'm not from the US I'm from Canada and the air up here might be thinner which might make us too tired for radicalism... Actually off topic but that reminds me of a statement about the differences btwn these two nations. It is said that during the founding of both countries and up till the great wars that every canadian town had a Police department, a church, a bank and a hudson's bay outlet on the four main corners. Every American town had four bars. This has always helped me explain alot. But I would like to mention one view that I have always held: That the Americans being the sole Superpower is not as bad as everyone thinks. In fact, I submit that any other nation in America's postion would create a much nastier world order. Anyway I hope that our friend's to the south can successfully manage to keep church and state seperate. Maybe the religeous right need to be reminded: "Give unto Ceaser what is Ceaser's."

[kongming]

I think we can all agree on that...

And not just about you :D

I would like to say I too, know practically nothing about anything when I take into account the inifinate number of things that can be known.

I'm fairly certain the possession of absolute truth requires an intellect I don't have.

[kongming]

When you said 100% correct I didn't know you meant that the Bible is always right about predicting other events recorded in the Bible. Since the metaphysical credibility of the Bible is the very thing at issue, I had assumed that you meant the Bible's accuracy with regards to post Biblical events. You would be begging the question otherwise - assuming the truth of the very thing you're arguing is true in order to make that argument - which, it turns out, is exactly what you were doing. Even you yourself admit that "[e]veryone mentions things that seem important specifically to them, things that others never say. Happens every time." Witnesses can be unreliable (since this has been one of my recurring themes I find it confusing that you would think "I have no understanding" of this?)..

Well bible could be considered evidence for the metaphysical interpretation if the secular recordings are found to be accurate. If the portions of the bible that we CAN prove as true or false have been proven true then it it such a logical leap to say that it is very probable that the rest of it is true too? I mean especially if Tex is right when he says that the predictions made in the bible came true then the only way that I can see this as possible is if the metaphysical stuff is true, because so far science has not found a way to replicate predictions of this kind. Yes we have weather predictions (which are hardly accurate at all and seem pointless to me at this time, maybe in the future out inproved technology will change that...) and other predictions based on evidence leading up to a physical event, but the bible's predictions are not using the physical world as I know it to make these predictions.

[kongming]

And I worry that we humans will end up committing collective suicide unless we find a way out of this quandary..

And many would argue the exact opposite. Wouldn't you rather hedge your bets, not put all your eggs in one basket, or (enter cliche here).