Why do Christians make God out to be dumb?

Hi mudh... Think about the Galilleo Affair in the 16th century.Rev. 2:29 He that hath an ear (a brain), let him hear (and reflect upon) what the Spirit (of the Human Psyche) saith unto (the evolving body of) the churches.1) Spam is when the SAME message is repeatedly sent to many different people, sort of advertising the message.Please note that the message of the seven spirits before the throne of God is mention quite a number of times, in many verses. I have only pointed it out in just one verse, here... so far.2) The assumption IS that this kingdom is within us is the "psyke" (Greek for soul). Isn't the kingdom of God within (Luke 17:21)?3) Howbeit, why not? These seven transcendent "angels," we find them in the next generation and in the one previous, in all.4) What, THEN, is your identification of the these "seven angels" represented by "the seven stars?"5)
Rev. 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold (the golden spiritual insights of the irrepressible idea of psychic Consciousness emerging from scripture) tried in the fire (of time), that thou mayest be rich (in continued church leadership); and (buy) white (pages)
raiment (of revised books of your misinterpretations), that thou mayest be clothed (and protected in thine thinking with secularly acceptable scriptural confirmations), and that the shame (as visited in Geocentricism) of thy nakedness (the unsupportability of thy
intuitive irrationalities) do not appear (and confront you); and anoint thine eyes (awaken) with eyesalve (reality), that thou mayest see (socio-psychologically).[This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-16-2004]

Are you suggesting that The prophet John the author of Revelations studied Freud and Jung? LOL!!! Thats a good one.
Are you suggesting that Revelations and its symbolism should be contorted and changed and interpreted by using psycology? What makes your psycological associations of the cryptic messages in Revelations any more factual than David Koresh's? Revelations is a story written by a pissed off Jewish man who had a bone to pick with the Romans and with orthodoxed Jews who were against this new faction of Judaism called Christianity. It was written IMO to keep the newly formed christians in line and scare them into maintaining faith. The story almost got shit canned when it was proposed to go into the cannon. The only people that believe that it is literal are superstitious fundalmentalist, and the idea of trying to bastardize the story into Freudian psycology is absurd to say the least. I have more respect for the literalist, at least they stick to what is in the text.

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

(Well, your opinion seems as strong here as anyone's.)Certainly, the reality of our human Ego seems evident even in these posts back and forth. Other confirmations of these moderns "Spirits" can be found in items like the monthly magazine, "SELF." They are not the property nor isolated opinion of Freud.Is our sexual behavior, for instance, is indeed the actions resulting from thoughts in our mind, Libidinal. Then, certainly John and many others would have recognized this long before Freud.(However, I am of the opinion that we, as a people in Western Culture, have been enculturated not to see that they are part of us, our psyche, which in the Greek means "soul."
We had long been taught to NOT to recognize these factors as in ourself, and in our social group action, but as external. They were seen as demons that come into us, that roam in the society.)The name for that behavior which assumes soiritualisms and cratures outside of us that come into us is defined as Animism in Webster. It has been attributed to the basis for barbarian and savage belief in other cultures, where we recognize it as the foundation for their superstitious religions.But, Freud and Carl Jung have been instrumental in bringing conscious attention to these seven stars of our thinking, the seven psychic apparati they dubbed Archetypes. These two men met much resistance in stating their observations. People were not easily setting aside their former long held belief, that there is no Subconscious Mind.In only the last half century, most sensible people realize that these "angelic" sources of urges, desires, instinct, needs, wants, and all the logical and rational thought we have, are vested therein.Nevertheless, many smart Jews, way smarter than guys like you, or me, KNEW these "spirits," but by a different :1) Lucifer = The Pleasure Principle = ID
2) Satan = Physical Drives = LIBIDO
3) Mammon = The Aggressive Drive = EGO
4) Devil = Feminine principle of Intuition = ANIMA
5) Baalzebub = The Reality Principle = SELF
6) False Prophet = The Logical/Mathematical Mind = SUPEREGO
7) False Shepherd = Psychic Balance = HARMONYThe eighth emerging psychic factor has been brought to our attention by martyrs.8) The Good Shepherd = Brotherliness = CONSCIENCE[This message has been edited by kofh2u, 04-16-2004]

How many times are you going to post this garbage?

Time to bring this stuff to a new topic.See where to do it below.Adminnemooseus

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WHERE TO GO TO START A NEW TOPIC (For other than "Welcome, Visitors!", "Suggestions and Questions", "Practice Makes Perfect", and "Short Subjects")Comments on moderation procedures? - Go to
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too fast closure of threads

I realize that most Christians take Revelations to be symbolic and that they acknowledge all of the linguistic devices you cite. My next question is therefore: how do we know when the bible is to be taken literally and when it is to be taken figuratively?Why is it that, since Revelations is so completely ridiculous, fundies see it as symbolic, but when it comes to things like virgin births, global floods, six-day creations, resurrections, and other completely ridiculous passages the bible is to be taken literally?

Good question for the Fundamentalist.Revelation warns them that, until the time which Daniel earmarked as that special moment when "knowledge abounds and men travel extensively," no one will be educated enough, knowledgeable enough to understand the scriptures.These Fundamentalist have taken the seat of Moses im dictating their "way too early" interpretations, while many have ignored the command of the White Throne Judgement: Fed the hungry, clothe the naked, drink for the thirsty, welcome strangers, visit the imprisoned, and care for the sick.(Not all are without charity, of course. The redeeming quality of Christianity has been to focus all generations, present and past, on this concept previously missing in the society of men in the Western Culture.)Rev. 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold (the golden spiritual insights of the irrepressible idea of psychic Consciousness emerging from scripture) tried in the fire (of time), that thou mayest be rich (in continued church leadership); and (buy) white (pages) raiment (of revised books of your misinterpretations), that thou mayest be clothed (and protected in thine thinking with secularly acceptable scriptural confirmations), and that the shame (as visited in Geocentricism) of thy nakedness (the unsupportability of thy intuitive irrationalities) do not appear (and confront you); and anoint thine eyes (awaken) with eyesalve (reality), that thou mayest see (socio-psychologically).

Sorry for taking so long to reply, I was gone all weekend. Considering we are idiots compared to God, if His plan is "very intelligent", then how can we (being idiots) truly understand what His plan is? Take for example a politician trying to explain a new economic plan to someone who has no idea what he is talking about, the plan may be very intelligent, but the guy who's having it explained to him won't understand it because he doesn't have the intelligence. So how can a very intelligent plan make sense to everyone if people are too stupid or ignorant to understand it? Yes, He does. Though it's been so long, I've forgotten exacly what we were talking about... Ok, I've done my best to persuade you, but I can't, so belive as you wish (though I still disagree entirely).

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"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that you -- your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules" -Francis Crick in The Astonishing Hypothesis

That would be a pretty good indication that the politician is trying to pull something sneaky on people, not that his plan is intelligent. When was the last time somebody told you a plan that made you say "Huh, that doesn't make any sense at all - it must be brilliant!"The defining feature of extremely brilliant plans is that they're immediately clear to everyone. When faced with an extremely brilliant plan, the reaction of most people isn't "That's so complicated, I'll never understand it!" but rather "that's so simple, why didn't I think of that?" I tell you this because I've made a somewhat amature study out of observing cleverness in action. The point is that your God, whose nature is goodness, somehow has free will without the choice of committing evil, so why can't we?

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The defining feature of extremely brilliant plans is that they're immediately clear to everyone. When faced with an extremely brilliant plan, the reaction of most people isn't "That's so complicated, I'll never understand it!" but rather "that's so simple, why didn't I think of that?" I tell you this because I've made a somewhat amature study out of observing cleverness in action.

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Well, this is assuming that God's intelligence is approximately comparable to human intelligence. Vastly stupider beings than humans usually don't seem to comprehend our master plans. It really isn't all that hard to outsmart a dog, for example. If God's intellect is only to ours what ours is to animals, there is no reason to believe we would have any way to understand his plans.It's not that the plan is seen as brilliant because we don't understand it, it is that our understanding is not relevant to the brilliance of the plan.

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The point is that your God, whose nature is goodness, somehow has free will without the choice of committing evil, so why can't we?

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Outstanding point. However you do know that you are just setting up a "God is different/mysterious" rebuttal, right?

Dogs don't talk, nor does the Bible proclaim them to be made in our image. From the evidence of the Bible I maintain that the Christian God is considerably more comparable to human-scale intelligence than a dog's intelligence is to ours.Good point, though. Again, God can't be too different than us, being as we're made in his image.Anyway, arguments from ineffability are conversation-killers. Who wants to worship a God so weird he can't be understood? Who wants to worship a God so mysterious you don't know what eternal consequences your actions could carry?

He can be just different enough to kill the discussion. This is one of my points in another thread, though, so no need to talk about it here.As to dogs talking, that really depends on your definition. Based on my dog's barks and actions when people come to the door, I can tell who it is. As far as a higher communication standard capable of transmitting complex philosophies and advanced science, I have to agree with you. However, to a vastly superior being, our chatter may be no more than the barking of a dog.Perhaps God's language is too complex for him to express advanced ideas to us, and ours too inferior to express anything more than basic thoughts. God's speeches to us in the Bible could be phrased to us in a way we might understand, kind of like a command to a dog."Made in his image" is too vague to draw any applicable conclusions. It has been said that apes mirror human behavior, but I don't think that it is just a language barrier that prevents them from typing the works of Shakespeare.

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Who wants to worship a God so weird he can't be understood? Who wants to worship a God so mysterious you don't know what eternal consequences your actions could carry?

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Um... Fundies?

Who, then, do you think he talks to with it? Languages are created by communities. If we're in communion with God then we needs must be speaking the same language, because we create the language, together. I disagree. Clearly it means that the similiarities between God and man should be taken to outwiegh the differences. Fundies might agree with the first part - that God is beyond understanding - but I'm certain they feel confident that they can estimate the eternal consequences of specific actions in this world. But naturally I'll defer to the opinion of any fundie that would care to comment.

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Who, then, do you think he talks to with it?

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Languages are created by communities. If we're in communion with God then we needs must be speaking the same language, because we create the language, together.

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Other God's? Perhaps Angels are advanced enough to understand him. Perhaps after we die our intelligence is elevated to a level in which we can understand Him. It really doesn't matter. A sole human on a desert island has a language that nothing else in that system can understand.I live with my dog, we are a community, but I can't explain Atlas Shrugged to him. Of course, I can't explain Atlas Shrugged to most people, so maybe that is a bad analogy.

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I disagree. Clearly it means that the similiarities between God and man should be taken to outwiegh the differences.

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That is your interpretation, and a valid one. I think mine is valid too though, as far as communication potential goes. Apes are an image of humans in their behavior, but we can't communicate on a meaningful level with them.To me, the ineffability of God spoken of by most theologians and philosophers that I have read implies that the differences outweigh the similarities. I won't press this though. Like I said, your interpretation is fine, it is just that it isn't the only one.

Only because he brought one with him. Humans who have never been exposed to language, however, not only have difficulty picking it up later (and never master it), they suffer considerable cognitive shortcomings as well. (The stuff that we can do that apes usually can't? They can't do it either.) I wouldn't be so sure about that. Sign-language studies with apes are very illuminating in that regard. I think that it's very much the case that it's language that creates human-scale consiousness, not the other way around. I agree that that's a logical consequence of ineffability. That's why I don't believe that ineffability is entirely Biblical.