How close are Christians to their god?

There are different kinds of judgments. Not all judgments are moral judgments. One of the unwritten rules of our society is that a person must not have a booger hanging from his or her nose. I'd pass you a tissue.But I'm off-topic. Something about "judgment" might make a good PNT.abe: Keep in mind also that there is such a thing as a favorable judgment. So if you don't judge people, you never judge favorably either. Actually we all do it--frequently.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

Yes and no.I find the idea of Satan, some great opponent of GOD nearly laughable. If there is a GOD, one who created this universe, who intuitively understood the relationships and effects of all the forces, the idea that there is some existing enemy just seems silly. If GOD is the creator, and destroyer, then nothing can really threaten GOD.If there is a Satan, I believe he is the willing servant of GOD, the tester, the teacher, who provides opportunities for us to learn, expand, grow, evolve.Do I believe I have been tested? Sure. I just hope that I passed more tests than I failed. I also hope that I learned something from every one of the failures. Pretty sure. I've touched on that in the past here and while it is certainly possible that God is Loki, the trickster, I don't think that the evidence supports that conclusion.However, I'd like to return to something I said earlier. All we can really deal with is this universe, the one we live in. We have no control or influence over the actuality, the territory that is GOD. We could, and I think some folk do, operate from the position that the world is the product of and run by some malevolnt entity. I think that would be a good description of either the ID position or classic Biblical Creationism. They tend, it seems to me, to look at the evidence and then discount it because "Goddidit" and so our interpretation of the evidence must be wrong. They see humans as some special creation, that God stepped in and changed the rules, that God is playing a shell game, making us guess which shell hides the pea while all the time She has palmed it.The universe I see does not seem the product of a malevolent spirit. It appears to follow reason and logic, even if we do not yet understand all the workings. There have been surprises, but looking back on them the reaction most often is "Well, that makes sense" or "Why didn't I see that?"AbE:Forgot to address this, sorry. Please remember that you too are onboard. While each of us may be very sure of our beliefs about what happens after death, none of us have really tested it yet. We are all on the journey, just some pretend that they know for sure what the destination is. I know what is on the ticket, but also know that I once headed off to see a young lady at Randolf Macon but ended up spending a wonderful weekend at SweetBrair.Edited by jar, : add response on journey.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

riVerRat,Nice post. Thanks. It’s nice to see some self-deprecating humour. In a word - no. I’m not even sure I know what it means. There are those who seek definitive of universal truths, but I am not one of them. Truth appears to be a close relation of certainty, and certainty, as I said in an earlier post, is the mother of delusion. Again no. Sorry to be such a killjoy. I can honestly say I’ve never asked ”why are we here’ or ”what is the meaning of my life’. My view of life in that respect is very simple. Mankind is one form of energy (possibly as per superstring theory), amongst many countless others - no more or less significant, just different. I don’t need to feel special or significant.I’m always mildly amused when religious people suggest that anyone showing an interest in their faith has a secret desire to believe also. After all, if I wanted to find out more about paranoid schizophrenics, I wouldn’t expect them to start suggesting I had secret desires in that direction.My interest is in people, and religion is one of the ”biggies’ in that area. Although it appears to be becoming less so, at least amongst the Western civilizations. Maybe that’s part of the attraction as well. A desire to observe the evolution of human emotion as the tide of scientific knowledge sweeps away so many of our long held understandings. If I had to guess, the Western religions of two hundred years hence will be barely recognizable to today’s believers.The polytheistic belief structures of yesteryear fell into disuse as they no longer provided a good fit for man’s understanding of reality, so were replaced with more up-to-date models. With the speed of scientific understanding increasing at an exponential rate, my guess is be that religion needs to start changing pdq, or risk extinction, at least in the Western world.So yeah, you're right, I probably am a little bit nutz like you.

Of course, such a transition would not be smooth, or irreversible. For those who do keep faith, responses range from a trenchant rejection of science, to a re-evaluation of God's act of creation.I'm an agnostic and like you I have no yearning for an ultimate "truth". However, many humans do clearly crave such certainty. Given this fact I think some form of religion will always be a part of human culture, no matter how far our science advances. Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

Exactly, and no matter what kind of judgement, I will not pass one along, unless I am willing to be judged the same way. It's called being hypocritical.For as I have judged, so will the father judge me. This does not mean we cannot judge. I believe that is a fine way to live.In other words, I don't want someone to say about me when I die, he sure could dish it out, but he could not take it. I was playing handball with a bunch of people, and this one guy had no palate. Whenever he got excited his boogers would freely flow out to his zz top like beard. All the other people would make fun of him, and not tell him. I am with you, and would hand the guy a tissue. But not everyone would.

So do you feel everything we observe and test is purely subjective, because we are viewing it through our limited subjective minds? You say you never thought about it, then present us with some possible explanantion, wierd. I find it hard to believe, that you have never thought about were we come from, and by the statement you just provided, obviously some thought has gone into it. Yes, I feel everyone pocesses this "secret" desire to believe in God. God put it there, and it is why we seek Him, and the truth. I am fine if you do not accept this, but it is what I have come to believe. ? But what if your wrong?
Being called a schizophrenic is really not that pleasing at all, and is more of an attack on a person, something we should stay away from in having a rational debate, and is also part of the forum rules. There is no proof what so ever that everyone who believes in God is a schizophrenic. Schizophrenia is a fairly easy condition to diagnose, and has measurable conditions that go along with it. This is not a new condition in life, and has been happening for ages. We are always at this fore front of what is real, and what is not, yet God stands the test of time. Nothing in life is new.Ecclesiastes 1:9
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. I agree with this, and is why religion is subjective. But you blur the lines between religion and God. My desire is to get back to way of thinking before all this religion. Religion should not be used as a measure as to whether God exists or not. Pure love will never change.

I think about how the universe came to be and now we fit into it, but I see no reason to believe some God because I don't have all the answers. I certainly don't think such answers can be found in a book comprising of a mixture of myths with a smattering of history from around 2-2500 years ago.Furthermore, the God we "know" is represented by a host of competing man-made creations. All assumptions. If a God does exist somewhere, who is to say what form he takes, what his intentions are and if he is even remotely intrested in sin or salvation?The only path our species has to any sort of "truth" is to attempt to observe the universe that surrounds us and to see what we can learn. Humanity might never know THE TRUTH. On the other hand, humanity might one day puzzle out the entire workings of the cosmos to such an extent that we can recreate it in it's entirity.At that point WE, in a sense, could become God and yet still be none the wiser as to the "truth" of our own universe's origins.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

Does that mean that we could start tithing to ourselves? (Oops, we already do that!)

Sounds like searching for truth, if you ask me. Me either, whew. Neither would I. To me it's a combination of things. I will not ignore any of them, and take all things into consideration as I experience them. You mean, the religion we know.
God is God, no matter how we go about trying to seek Him, or honor Him. It is religion that is subjective. The only thing I can say is, that is why it is so important to understand what Jesus was saying, and what He tried to teach us. Only arming yourself with that knowledge, and them comparing to real life will give you the answer to that. At some point, God will speak to you, then you'll know. I agree. We are god's, with a little "g".
But we can only play with what is here.

Nice poem.

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Was Christ a Christian?

jar, As I may have mentioned earlier, I got off at the first stop. If you look out the window you’ll see me, a leaf blowing in the wind, free but fragile, not afraid of either the freedom or the fragility.One of the things about the journey though, is that most don’t hitch a ride, most are placed on the train as toddlers and must decide whether they wish to stay for the long haul or get off at the next stop.What am I talking about? I guess one of the things religions are good at is getting themselves into the human psyche at a very early age. Christianity has the festivals of Christmas, Easter and, in the States, Thanksgiving. Christmas in particular is a big deal for young kids. It helps promote a positive association with a belief in Jesus. You get gifts, you give gifts, you feel good - by the way we’re celebrating the birth of Jesus. These are powerful messages for kids in their most formative years, even in secular families. Boring old science doesn’t get a look-in until much later, when the human is well on the way to becoming what they will grow in to.

riVerRat, That’s a good question, and I wish I had short answer, but I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible.I don’t think our minds are limited, but our terms of reference certainly are, to the point of being subjective even. If we take a fundamental, creationist Christian, a Buddhist and a secular scientist, they will have different views as to the nature of reality. These views will irreconcilable on some, even many issues. The point here isn’t whether any of them are ”right’ or ”wrong’, it is the fact that each group will consider itself to have viewed the evidence objectively and applied rational logic to underpin their view of reality. But they will have arrived at wholly different conclusions.So how can we have any expectation that any human view as to the nature of reality is anything other than subjective, or bound by the limited terms of reference of a species of life living on a small planet in some distant corner of a vast universe? Apologies if this caused offence. It was literally the first thing that popped into my head. Perhaps it was Freudian. Despite the Freudian possibilities, I was not suggesting that I think religious people are schizophrenic. The point I obviously failed to make was that it was possible to have a legitimate interest in a person or group of people without possessing any desire to be like them or share their beliefs. If you read carefully, you will see that I used the words, ”why we are here’ and ”what is the meaning of my life’. ”Why we are here’ implies a reason, and a reason presupposes many things, which is why I never ask that question. Both are loaded questions. I do ask questions like, ”can I understand the processes which led to the state of being that exists within this time and space?’ This is a much more open question, and does not exclude anything, secular or religious. If we start by asking the wrong question, our chances of reaching a satisfactory conclusion are much diminished. If that makes me weird, them I’m guilty as charged.Edited by dogrelata, : No reason given.

to which dogrelata replied:

quote:

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As I may have mentioned earlier, I got off at the first stop.

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I need to respond to this because I believe that you misunderstood what I have said. I do think though that it is an important point to discuss.TTBOMK both of us are alive and living in the same universe. The journey I was talking about is life, the life either of us leads. The destination for both of us really is unknown. I may well believe that it is some afterlife, while you may well believe that there is none, but neither of us knows for sure. Until and unless we get together and comapre tickets neither of us knows which destination we chose, but then neither of us knows if we will reach the destinatin we expect or find when we do get off something totally unexpected. We will both end up at THE destination, regardless of what we expect it to be. Of course. I will not argue that at all. If you read much of what I post here at EvC I believe that you will find me often arguing the very same points.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

to which dogrelata replied:

quote:

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As I may have mentioned earlier, I got off at the first stop.

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I need to respond to this because I believe that you misunderstood what I have said. I do think though that it is an important point to discuss.TTBOMK both of us are alive and living in the same universe. The journey I was talking about is life, the life either of us leads. The destination for both of us really is unknown. I may well believe that it is some afterlife, while you may well believe that there is none, but neither of us knows for sure. Until and unless we get together and comapre tickets neither of us knows which destination we chose, but then neither of us knows if we will reach the destinatin we expect or find when we do get off something totally unexpected. We will both end up at THE destination, regardless of what we expect it to be. Of course. I will not argue that at all. If you read much of what I post here at EvC I believe that you will find me often arguing the very same points.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion