Another Big Big Thread of Religious Discussion

[Serenity]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

Ridiculous. How can you rationalize risking your own soul for the claim of saving someone else's?

Er... doing good is risking yourself for others? That's just basic morality.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

You think in too much black and white. You can't even come up with a verse to support that. The bible doesn't say there's only one of two situations you can end up with... it says we will be put through the fire and our deeds on earth will be tested, and we will be treated according to those deeds. Someone who put their faith in Jesus before they died but lived the life of a murderer is saved from eternal damnation, but has no reward. You could easily make an argument that one who lived a good life but doesn't put their faith in Jesus doesn't make it to heaven (as they cannot), but doesn't have that much of a punishment either.

Basic Christian theology is that there is Heaven and Hell, and that's it.

Besides, unbelief IS wickedness.

Originally Posted by 2 Corinthians 6:14

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

First of all, if you look at the original language of this, the Law he speaks of in this verse doesn't not neccessarily mean Jewish law. It basically means the laws of nature and of morality and of good and evil. It doesn't mean the specific Jewish law such as don't eat pork. The laws that govern morality do not change. Evil is evil, and good is good. This does not include societal laws that governs how a government or a nation should be run. So yeah, your point falls flat again... so much for using the verse that you keep using to save yourself.

Oh, alright, sure. Jesus was talking about the laws of nature and morality.

Originally Posted by Jesus, Luke 16:16-17

The Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. It is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for the least stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Why would Jesus lump together the Law and the Prophets if we define the Law as the "law" of morality? Besides, by that logic, the Old Testament wouldn't tell us to do anything that was immoral, but it specifically advocated RACE-BASED SLAVERY.

Originally Posted by Leviticus 25:42-46

Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

" 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

EVEN AGAIN, why the hell would Jesus need to tell people that, yes, he isn't here to say that evil is good and good is evil? I mean, who the fuck would possibly think that?

Besides, you haven't offered any evidence to this "fact" that Law doesn't mean Law.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

He also made it clear you can't follow the first four without following the second six. It's like saying the brain is more important than your kidneys or your heart or your liver. You need all of them to live.

And if I can (hypothetically) replace my heart with a robotic one which is less likely to fail, and, thus less likely to cause my brain to die. This is perfectly acceptable, because my brain is more important than my heart.

Full of hatred? So if everybody loved their neighbor as they loved themselves, the world would be full of hatred? Seriously... that doesn't even make sense.

Because the only fucking verse in the bible is love thy neighbor as thyself. The goddamn ten commandments specifically advocate a lack of religious freedom, and blatantly place wanting somebody else's stuff on a similar level to actual crimes and wrongdoings, such as murder. Because, of course, if I look at my neighbor's wife and say "I'd like a piece of that" without actually doing anything about it, that's a crime. Declaring things to be thought crimes is the antithesis of goodness.

Originally Posted by I_Like_Swordchucks

I believe God is infallible. The Bible was written by men. You could easily argue for sexism with the book of Timothy without misinterpreting the Bible, I just think that Paul was wrong and that Jesus would have totally disagreed with him.

It would be far easier to argue for sexism in the bible by consulting the few stories in the Old Testament which are about a female lead.

[MasterOfMagic]

Originally Posted by Serenity

Well, I'd say it's distinct. Since no living white person in America owned slaves prior to the Civil War, and even directly prior to it, when slavery was at it's height, no state had a .1 or greater result to the equation of total slave holders divided by total white persons. Asking a white person to apologize is the same sort of ancestral blame that was used to rationalize the oppression of blacks (and other non-white non-semites) because of the sins of Ham (Genesis 9:22 + 9:25). On the other hand, the Catholic Church is a static entity which has remained functionally mostly the same over the past millenia. It would be more akin to the United States government apologizing for ever allowing slavery in the first place.

Err, I know you guys have moved on to the rest of this post, but I kinda feel compelled to say: That sentence is just as silly as white men apologizing for [blah]. I mean, gawd, you know how long ago that was? And, barring that: There were different people with different morals and such running the government back then.

I would be so pissed if they went and did that. It would just be retarded...I wouldn't be able to wrap my head around it.

[ZAKtheGeek]

Oh, and this too.

You think in too much black and white. You can't even come up with a verse to support that. The bible doesn't say there's only one of two situations you can end up with... it says we will be put through the fire and our deeds on earth will be tested, and we will be treated according to those deeds. Someone who put their faith in Jesus before they died but lived the life of a murderer is saved from eternal damnation, but has no reward. You could easily make an argument that one who lived a good life but doesn't put their faith in Jesus doesn't make it to heaven (as they cannot), but doesn't have that much of a punishment either.

Isn't heaven just being with God? What's better than being with God? And you yourself said hell was just being without God, so I don't see the middle ground of no heaven yet no punishment... Seems pretty black and white to me. If you're not in heaven, you're without God, which is hell. If you're in heaven, you're with God, and that's the best thing ever or something.

[neyo the king]

Erm, sorry to interrupt, guys, but, I've got a question.

It might have already been answered, but... 11 pages (40 posts a page) of religious argument is not my idea of a fun time.

So, anyway, question:

The Tower of Babal. We all know the story. A buncha guys decide to build a tower to heaven. So, God gets scared and says, "You're moving with your anuty and uncle to Bel-Air" totally screwed up their speeches, and destroys the tower.

Query: Why was God scared that a tower might reach heaven? Shouldn't He, an omnipotent being, have known better?

Also, if He was afraid of them reaching heaven, why didn't He try to stop airplanes, or space shuttles, who would have a better chance of reaching heaven than any tower?

Right-o then. Off with you.

[MasterOfMagic]

Originally Posted by Neyo the King

The Tower of Babal. We all know the story. A buncha guys decide to build a tower to heaven. So, God gets scared and says, "You're moving with your anuty and uncle to Bel-Air" totally screwed up their speeches, and destroys the tower.

Query: Why was God scared that a tower might reach heaven? Shouldn't He, an omnipotent being, have known better?

I'm fairly certain that he wasn't afraid of the tower, per say, but what people were capable of if they cooperated. As to why he, an omnipotent being, was scared of anything....maybe it wasn't that, but that it could eventually undermine the punishment he gave us to discourage fruit picking.

I'd be more inclined to question why he'd punish the whole human race, and basically force us into sin, simply because of what our ancestors did. And the fact that he basically set them up for failure in his test anyway...

[neyo the king]

Originally Posted by MasterOfMagic

I'm fairly certain that he wasn't afraid of the tower, per say, but what people were capable of if they cooperated.

...So, God doesn't want people to work together, because he doesn't want people to know what they can do as a group?

Hmm. Sounds like a religion I want to get behind. Thou Shalt Not Work Together. It Makes Me Nervous.

Also, I'd like to note that I use "doesn't", and not "didn't", because "didn't" would imply that God has changed His mind. Which, since He is perfect, and makes no mistakes, wouldn't be possible.

You know, just saying that in case someone used the "It happened a long time ago" card.

Also, whilst I'm here, I might as well say this. The tree of knowledge of good and evil. Why the bloody hell was that stupid thing even in the Garden of Eden, and not in heaven (Don't get me started on the tree of everlasting life.)? And what did God, an omnipotent being, even need such a tree?

And don't you dare say "To test Adam and Eve, of course!" Because God, being omnipotent, knows everything, so he could easily just know the outcome. So why do the damn experiment!?

Also, what the hell was the Devil doing in the Garden of Eden, and why did God let him have his way with Adam and Eve? Why wasn't he in Hell, like he was supposed to?

Anyway, where did the Devil come from, anyway? Wasn't he a fallen angel? How could an angel, one who was created by God (I say that angels were created by God because, since the Devil was in the Garden, and since there were enough angels for him to form an army, then that would mean that angels came before the planet Earth. See the logic?), whose job is to mindlessly stroke God's ego, revolt? Why would God, creator of everything, create a being that would revolt against him?

And, don't say, "Because it's all part of the master plan," because I can disprove that, too. Prayer. We are told that if we pray really hard, God might maybe give us what we want. But, if there is a plan, God wouldn't give us something that goes against it, for that would go against His plan, and so God would have to change it. But God can't change it, because that would imply that he made a mistake, and we've been here before.

I have more, but I feel that this is enough for now. Many of these questions might have already been debated, but then, all the better, because you can give me a direct link to the answer.

Oh, by the way, go ahead and keep answering my previous question (above). I want more takes on that.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Well this is why I believe the concept of free will is key.
God could have just removed the tree and removed all decisions from Adam and Eve but that's basically underminind their free will, a key good that needs to be maintained, lest we are all mindless autonomons.

[neyo the king]

Actually, I have something else to say. Please, excuse my questions, but I only wish to understand.

Why did God create man from dust? If he can create angels from, I dunno, magical happy cloud, or whatever, why is man made from dust?

If you answer "It's symbolic", I present this: Symbolic to who? Had God had his way, Adam and Eve would have lived in Eden, just, you know, tending the garden. But, after (what basically amounts to) the Devil giving people the ability to know, understand, and learn, God had to kick them out of his happy place for not playing right. So, without the knowledge from the fruit, there wouldn't be a need for symbolism. And it couldn't have been for future generations, because they, too, would be stupid, mindless automatons tending God's little playroom, had God had his way.

So, then why even bother with the garden in the first place? Did God get bored? Can God get bored? Are we just a horrible plaything gone arry? But how could a plaything of God's go rouge? Isn't he perfect? Doesn't he have fail-safes? ARE YOU TELLING ME, THAT GOD COULDN'T CONTROL WHAT AMOUNTED TO TWO MERE SPECKS OF DUST, AND AN ANGEL WHO LOST HIS WINGS!?

IS GOD NOT ALL POWERFUL!? IS GOD NOT ALL KNOWING!? ARE YOU QUESTIONING GOD!?

...And so, I come to the one thing that God never wanted us to do.

Think.

It took an act from the Devil to give us this power. The power to question. To reason. To learn. God never wanted that.

We are but mere sheep to him, only to follow, never to think. That is the one unforgivable sin. To think is to question God. To question God is to have no faith. To have no faith is eternal damnation.

Sorry about that. I got a little riled up there.

Please, answer my questions to the best of your ability.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

But we were created with the ability to think so surely God intended us to us it.
The abilities of Adam and Eve pre the Fall are unclarified. We don't really know what they coudl and couldn't do. But they had the ability to reason, as Eve reasoned with the snake and made a decision, so I don't see where you claim they couldn;t think from.

Besides trying to understand the motives of God is nonsensicle using a rational framework as it can't be built into a system of past experiences and things you know about it. You are basing your judgements on the motives of God on human pyschology which is like me basing the motives of a rock on human pyschology.
And we don't even know if the universe or God is rational. As Goedel ( I think it was him, I always mix up my mathematicians) showed, it is impossibility to prove the rationality of a system from within said system.

[neyo the king]

Originally Posted by Barrel-Hating Sycophant

But we were created with the ability to think so surely God intended us to us it.

Sorry, but I seem to remember something in the Bible, right after Eve had eaten the fruit, about her eyes "being opened," and her realizing stuff, like the fact that she was naked. After Adam eated it, they were both utterly confused as to this whole "knowing" bit, so they went to Big Daddy for help, only to realize that "knowledge" is bad, and ban-worthy.

You know, the above could easily be a soap opera's sex story arc. Just replace "eating fruit" with "hot virgin sex", "knowledge" with sex as well, and make Adam and Eve brother and sister. But that's neither here nor there.

The abilities of Adam and Eve pre the Fall are unclarified. We don't really know what they coudl and couldn't do.

Actually, we know that they were not ashamed of being naked near each other. That, to me, implies that they didn't realize that it was significant. And they didn't realize it because...

But they had the ability to reason, as Eve reasoned with the snake and made a decision, so I don't see where you claim they couldn;t think from.

They were only doing as they were told. Adam was told to name all the animals. So he did. They were both told not to eat the fruit. So they didn't. Then, Eve was told to eat the fruit, so she did. Then she told Adam to eat the fruit, so he did. They didn't think, they only acted on what they were told.

Besides trying to understand the motives of God is nonsensicle using a rational framework as it can't be built into a system of past experiences and things you know about it. You are basing your judgements on the motives of God on human pyschology which is like me basing the motives of a rock on human pyschology.

I'm sorry, but all this is is the Classic Christian Cop-Out (alliteration ftw): "God works in mysterious ways," prettied up with big words. That argument doesn't roll in my town.

And we don't even know if the universe or God is rational. As Goedel ( I think it was him, I always mix up my mathematicians) showed, it is impossibility to prove the rationality of a system from within said system.

Linkz to this guy please. Until I read what he said, this also sounds alot like the Classic Chiristan Cop-out.

Alot of my questions remain unanswer. Hop to it, people!