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Author | Topic: My Beliefs- GDR | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Tangle writes: Which, has nothing at all to do with Christ or religion. It's a universal desire. Exactly. There is something that speaks to all of us. I believe it is God.
Tangle writes: No. When you have people in Afghanistan loving their neighbours they are doing it either because it's the will of Allah or because it's the right thing to do - but probably both. They would resent and deny any implication th at they are serving a Christian God by living the way that they do. I don’t dispute that at all.
Tangle writes: But you are of course simply cherry pocking Jesus's sayings to suit what you prefer to believe: It is hard to avoid that. What I try and do is pick verses that are consistent with the overall theme of what we have of Jesus saying. That is one reason I suggested reading the Sermon on the Mount to get the context.
Tangle writes: And so on. It's pretty clear that accordingto the bible, you only get to the kingdom through a belief in Christ. A couple of things about this point. Firstly just what does it mean to believe in Jesus? Does it mean that we give intellectual assent to His deity or even His existence? One might say that they know Obama is President of the US but that doesn’t mean the same thing as believing in Him. Secondly getting to the Kingdom does not mean the same thing as getting to Heaven. Being part of the Kingdom in this life is being part of His church that is about bringing His love to the world. (I realize that isn’t always evident when you look at our churches. )The whole future narrative is about being part of a renewed Earthly creation whenever that happens. The Bible is actually pretty vague as to what happens in the interim. It basically tells us that those who have chosen to genuinely follow Christ, by allowing God to change their hearts, will go to be with Him in some way whatever that looks like. The bigger message though is what happens at the end of time and the Earth is renewed. The Bible is very clear that it is for all creation, although it does say that there will be those who reject it.
Tangle writes: It's very simple and it's a universal human desire; there is therefore has no requirement or need to believe in a Christian mythology or dreams of afterlife to achieve it. I haven’t said that it is. I realize I’m cherry picking again, (as you did), but Jesus says in Matthew 9:
quote: This helps explain why the churches are full of sinners. Hopefully, most of them are repentant sinners, well... hopefully some anyway. He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I'd say that you'd have to duck and dive, twist and jive more than you've managed so far to take these to mean anything other than what they actually say.
Mark 16:16 ESVWhoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. John 14:6 ESVJesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. It's crystal clear what these verses are intended to mean. To make them mean something else, you need to actually change the meaning of the words.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Taq writes: In order to justify your argument from incredulity you double down with a tu quoque fallacy, and it isn't even an accurate one. Either there is an intelligent first cause or there isn’t. I simply made the statement that I believe that there is and I gave a brief explanation of one of the reasons for that. I can’t absolutely say, regardless of how strong my beliefs that an intelligent first cause exists, that I am correct but I believe that the existence of such an intelligence is more probable than not.
Taq writes: Also, it isn't that an atheist can't believe there is a god. We can believe there is a god, we just need to see the evidence first. The Gospels are evidence. They were written by people with the intent of having them believed and it is very clear from the way they were written that it was something they believed. Now it is fine to reject that evidence on whatever ground you like but it is evidence. The balanced universe is evidence, one complex living cell is evidence, the fact that we can think about these things is evidence etc. You have not found the evidence for a god or gods compelling and so you reject it. I think that the point is that there is insufficient evidence for you. For me the evidence is sufficient.
Taq writes: Finally, you have not shown how one is more probable than the other. I understand that these are beliefs, but to assing a probability to them tries to push your beliefs into the realm of statistics where they just don't belong. Perhaps you could say that you personally find the theistic/deistic argument more compelling both spiritually and emotionally. I suppose I do, although I’m not sure what it would mean to find it more compelling spiritually. However, I also find it to be compelling from an ontological point of view.
GDR writes: Also we are able to distinguish right from wrong. We have a sense of morality that IMHO goes beyond personal survival which indicates to me an on-going interest.Taq writes: Why would this require a deity? I didn’t say it did. It is my belief that a deity is responsible. I may be wrong.
Taq writes: So you can't accept a naturalistic origin of life or first cause even though we have some potential pathways, but your incredulity doesn't seem to stop you from believing that a deity came down in the flesh and rose from the dead.Why incredulous of one, but not the other? My whole OP dealt with that so whatever I would say here would just be repeating what I have already gone over.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Tangle writes: I'd say that you'd have to duck and dive, twist and jive more than you've managed so far to take these to mean anything other than what they actually say. Interesting how in your last post you accused me of cherry picking verses. As I said earlier it is important to look at the entire context of what is in the Gospels.
Tangle writes: Mark 16:16 ESVWhoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. Interestingly enough it is highly unlikely that this verse was part of Mark's original Gospel. It is written in a very different style than the Gospel up to 16:8.
Here is what wiki has to say about Mark 16 Even if we are to assume that Mark did write it, and also make the rather dubious assumption equating being condemned with not being part of God's new creation, it would be inconsistent with the rest of the Gospels and we can just put it down to on over exuberance on Mark's part.
Tangle writes: John 14:6 ESVJesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. That verse isn't at all inconsistent with what I believe. I believe that Jesus is the way to the Father but that doesn't mean that you have to serve Him as a Christian to come to the Father. I suggested reading the last part of Matthew 25 but you seem to have ignored that. I'll quote it here.
quote: The first thing that we notice here is that there is no mention of what their theological beliefs might be. Jesus is saying that, regardless of your theology when you feed the hungry, house the homeless etc you are serving Him. So yes, I believe Jesus is the way, the truth and the life but it is for all of mankind.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9
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Tangle writes: I'd say that you'd have to duck and dive, twist and jive more than you've managed so far to take these to mean anything other than what they actually say. I thought I'd respond again to this and partly that is in light of a point you made on the supernatural thread. I take the Bible very seriously. I take it seriously enough that when I read the Bible I can see that it is clearly written be men, (as far as I know no women), representing their understandings of God, their cultures, themselves etc. It is not a God dictated book. The Gospels are written to be believed but that too is subject to personal and cultural conditioning. Matthew for example is writing primarily to a Jewish audience and so He was very careful to emphasize the connection between Jesus and the Hebrew Scriptures. This is not to say that he got it wrong but it just means that what he wrote represented his understanding of what Jesus said and did. When we get away from the idea that the Bible is a book dictated by God and look at it as an book written by men inspired to write about what they knew and believed we get a narrative of God reaching out in love to the Jewish people and through them to the world. The Gospels, as I have said were written to be believed. Why were they written at all? IMHO there is no reasonable explanation for them to do this if Jesus had simply died on the cross. He would have just been another in a fairly large group of failed messiahs, albeit one with a different message than the others. There is enough consistency in the Gospels and for that matter the Epistles to understand that Jesus was a man of peace and love. He talked about loving enemies and that the way to deal with the Romans was to forgive, turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and so on. Jesus claimed that the Father was acting through Him and that He spoke for the Father. He would just be another crackpot but God vindicated all that Christ said and did by resurrecting Him. In light of that it makes perfect sense to read the Bible through the lens of what Jesus had to say about God the Father, so that when we read about God ordering genocide or public stoning we can be confident that it was from the selfish hearts of humans with their own agendas and not from Yahweh at all. So my point is that although it may look like I am picking and choosing what to believe but that isn't the case. I am picking and choosing based on what we can know what the Word of God, is as we see it incarnate in Jesus.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Have you addressed the view that Jesus' death on the cross paid for the sins of those who believe in Him? I've missed it if so. What do you do with that idea?
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
GDR writes: So my point is that although it may look like I am picking and choosing what to believe but that isn't the case. I am picking and choosing based on what we can know what the Word of God, is as we see it incarnate in Jesus. Well of course you are picking and choosing. Your first choice is to decide that the bible is not the inerrant word of god but the words of man. After that, you are free to set your own interpretation on what's written and accept or reject them as you see fit. I don't blame you at all for doing that - obviously the bible isn't the word of god - but it's a very modern practice to apply such liberal interpretations. Even today the vast majority or Christian religious dogma has it that in order to be save you must believe in Christ. Once you accept the non-superaturalness of the biblical stories and accept that they are errant, you're on a pretty slippery slope with no rational reason to believe that any of it is true at all. Let alone the wilder claims - such as the resurrection. Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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ringo Member (Idle past 412 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
GDR writes:
What if the God that you believe in is the third cause? What if He believes in a second cause but even He doesn't know anything about the first cause? Either there is an intelligent first cause or there isn’t. In other words, how are the concepts of "God" and "first cause" even related?
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Phat Member Posts: 18262 From: Denver,Colorado USA Joined: Member Rating: 1.1 |
To me, it all boils down to belief in human wisdom and rationalization versus belief in God...admittedly irrational for an educated mindset.
You say you see no need to believe in " such a non entity...(a concept at best)" and that humans can do fine without it. I think you have answered this before, but would you be willing to accept such a concept if such a concept became alive, personal, and evident?(assuming that He hypothetically could.) Would you surrender your final answer and accept the evidence? (and before you answer, im guessing that you will say "I see no evidence and have asked for it before!! Thus .....) right? So what I'm saying is do you honestly think you could accept Him before the evidence presented itself? As in a hypothetical or shall I say conditional acceptance. You may then resort to saying you see no need for such a hypothetical, in which case I would claim that you decided to reject a potential actuality by asserting your human wisdom as the final arbiter of said belief...(am I being to obtuse with words?) Edited by Phat, : No reason given.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Phat writes: I think you have answered this before, but would you be willing to accept such a concept if such a concept became alive, personal, and evident?(assuming that He hypothetically could.) Of course, I'll happily accept any real world evidence.
Would you surrender your final answer and accept the evidence? Why on earth would I not? I don't hold a belief about God, I simply have no evidence on which to accept one. If that evidence appeared I'd be more than happy to accept it.
(and before you answer, im guessing that you will say "I see no evidence and have asked for it before!! Thus .....) right? Wrong.
You may then resort to saying you see no need for such a hypothetical, in which case I would claim that you decided to reject a potential actuality by asserting your human wisdom as the final arbiter of said belief...(am I being to obtuse with words?) I'm sorry to dissapoint you Phat, all a rationalist needs is evidence. Just make a single amputated limb grow back with the touch of a healing hand and I'll happily bow down like the rest of you.Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Faith writes: Have you addressed the view that Jesus' death on the cross paid for the sins of those who believe in Him? I've missed it if so. What do you do with that idea? Before I try and answer that I want to say is that the question itself again brings the focus back on personal salvation. Yes, personal salvation is a great and wonderful thing but if we make it our focus then it turns Christianity on its ear and makes it all about me and what happens to me when I die. The early Jews had made it all about them. Even though the message was for the world they kept it largely to themselves. There hope was that Yahweh would anoint a messiah that would lead them against the Romans and free them from Roman tyranny. Jesus however said that He did have a plan for the Romans but it didn’t look at all like the Jews expected. In fact Jesus was passing judgement on Israel. Here is a passage from Matthew 23 that is but one example of judgement.
quote: Don’t forget that Matthew more than other Gospel was written for a Jewish audience. Jesus told them that dealing with the Romans meant loving them, turning the other cheek and going the extra mile for the hated Roman soldiers. It wasn’t a hugely popular message. Jesus then goes on to tell them that the result of the rejection of His message will be the destruction of Jerusalem and that the Temple itself will be completely destroyed. All through the OT is the theme that if they could just get right with Yahweh by following the laws and making the right sacrifices, Yahweh would rescue them from their enemies and give them control over their own land. Jesus points out that they never did get it right when He says things like I desire mercy not sacrifice. As I mentioned to you in a previous post Jesus often referred to Himself as the Son of Man, obviously referring back to Daniel 7. Here is a small bit from that chapter:
quote: From what I have read it is understood that The Son of Man would be understood to be Israel itself. Jesus however referred to Himself that way. Jesus also very pointedly chose 12 disciples representing the 12 tribes of Israel. Jesus, IMHO, saw Himself as standing in for Israel and He would be the one who actually fulfilled the desires that Yahweh had for the whole nation. As a result Jesus believed that through Him God would establish the Jewish Kingdom, except that it wasn’t going to be just for the Jews but for the entire human race, and that it wasn’t going to be about one plot of land but for the entire planet, which goes back to the original Abrahamic promise.
quote: Jesus also referred to Himself as coming to serve and would have seen Himself in Chap 55 of Isaiah as the Suffering Servant. This is from Isaiah 53.
quote: I think that the two passages I have quoted are the passages that would have been first and foremost in what Jesus would understand about what the Father was doing through Him. Jesus knew what would happen to Him when he declared Himself as the Messiah on His entry into Jerusalem. He was upsetting too many apple-carts by what He was doing. So Jesus went to the cross as the nation Israel — as Israel as it was meant to be from the beginning — and died at the hands of evil personified. This was all accomplished as a huge act of faith that He had it right, and that He truly understood what the Father was telling Him through the scriptures and in answer to prayer. He died as the one true Israel. Without the resurrection Jesus would have just been shown as a peaceful prophet who got it all wrong. However, we see through the resurrection that He got it all right. He was raised again to a new resurrected body and His Kingdom of followers was established for the world. So, to answer your question Faith. In the death and resurrection of Jesus His Kingdom of followers was established to be agents of His love, mercy, forgiveness peace and justice to the world. When people turn to Jesus as Lord and hunger for that message of love in their hearts they are pre-judged and made right with God and welcomed into His eternal Kingdom. The point though about that happening in the here and now is that by becoming members of the Kingdom we have been given a job to do. A couple of points on that though. Just because I might say the right words and acknowledge Jesus as Lord does not fill the bill. It is about having my heart transformed to one that longs for God’s goodness to permeate the world. It also does not mean that everyone else is hell bound. As CS Lewis said: quote: I hope that answers your question.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Tangle writes: Well of course you are picking and choosing. Your first choice is to decide that the bible is not the inerrant word of god but the words of man. After that, you are free to set your own interpretation on what's written and accept or reject them as you see fit. Actually, as I continue to study the Scriptures my views have changed considerably over time and will no doubt change again. I simply start with Jesus and I realize in saying that, that I am dependant on the NT authors.
Tangle writes: I don't blame you at all for doing that - obviously the bible isn't the word of god - but it's a very modern practice to apply such liberal interpretations. Even today the vast majority or Christian religious dogma has it that in order to be save you must believe in Christ. Actually I do think that the Bible is the word of God in that He speaks to us through it. I just don't think He authored it. There are certainly those who believe that about being saved but I don't accept that it is the majority. It certainly isn't scriptural.
Tangle writes: Once you accept the non-superaturalness of the biblical stories and accept that they are errant, you're on a pretty slippery slope with no rational reason to believe that any of it is true at all. Let alone the wilder claims - such as the resurrection. Reason is a God-given gift and I assume that He expects us to use it. I contend that the message of the Bible is very clear when taken as a whole. It is when we look at it a few verses at a time that we get led off track. Another point in trusting the Gospels. Although they show up as having one author it is clear, particularly in Luke because he spells it out, that the Gospels are compiled from the words of a number of Jesus' followers. The Gospels are not just the thoughts of four men. In addition to that of course we can cross-reference the Gospels to see where they are in agreement and where they might differ giving us greater confidence in where they concur. They are all very clear on the resurrection. That alone makes the Gospels different than any other books in the bible.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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GDR Member Posts: 6202 From: Sidney, BC, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 1.9 |
Ringo writes: What if the God that you believe in is the third cause? What if He believes in a second cause but even He doesn't know anything about the first cause?In other words, how are the concepts of "God" and "first cause" even related? If I am correct in my speculation about time in the OP then there is no need for a first cause for God. If God is eternal the the idea of a first cause is meaningless.He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
So, to answer your question Faith. In the death and resurrection of Jesus His Kingdom of followers was established to be agents of His love, mercy, forgiveness peace and justice to the world. When people turn to Jesus as Lord and hunger for that message of love in their hearts they are pre-judged and made right with God and welcomed into His eternal Kingdom. The point though about that happening in the here and now is that by becoming members of the Kingdom we have been given a job to do. Doesn't really answer my question, GDR, whether Jesus' death on the cross paid for our sins against God, sins that damn us since we can't pay for them ourselves. Did His death pay for our sins? I don't see an answer to that in your post.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9489 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
GDR writes: Actually I do think that the Bible is the word of God in that He speaks to us through it. I just don't think He authored it. There are certainly those who believe that about being saved but I don't accept that it is the majority. It certainly isn't scriptural The majority of Christians are Catholics, they believe that in order to get to heaven you must be baptised. They say that their beliefs are based on the scripture that you choose to interpret in a different way. It's pretty much a central part of all Christian belief that in order to be saved you need to believe in Christ. It's an extremely modern view that maybe it's not necessary - probaably heresy :-) Life, don't talk to me about life - Marvin the Paranoid Android
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