The Tension of Faith

Definite improvement, I still skipped a bit, but maybe that's more me than you... I get bored very quickly with hair splitting word games that don't add value to anything.

Commandments aren't opinions and we are given no freedom to disagree with them, we either obey them or violate them. God is Authority, God tells us what is right and wrong. That's it. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You may well have convinced yourself that you know. The challenge is in convincing us. Does this mean that if you believe (or *know* as you claim ) what God actually means that the argument is thus over? Does this mean that your beliefs, being traditional, are thus infallible? In other words are you claiming that God is authoritarian and absolute and those who understand His words are thus also authoritarian and absolute?My point is that you seem to be arguing that there is one correct belief. That being what God has said. Are you saying that over the years you have grown in knowledge and understanding to the point where you are beginning to understand Gods actions? This is also what I was taught--that Hell is the default option for people who wont accept God. Comments? Can you define what true Christianity is? Do you believe that there is only one interpretation of what true Christianity is? I agree that I too am responsible for the words that I write and for the message my posts send to others. As long as I am at this forum I have a responsibility to be as honest as I can. Often I fall short.

Yet the Bible also tells us that God's Commandments are not absolute but that even common courtesy should take precedence over the commandments. An example from the Old Testament can be found in 2Kings 5 when Elisha tells Naaman not to get his panties in a wad just because he goes with his master to worship Rimmon and bows to Rimmon and from the New Testament Jesus himself tells us that even common sense should override God's commandment when he points out that if you ass falls in a crack on the Sabbath you should not wait until the next day to pull it out.And the Bible itself tells us that Man has the capability and responsibility to also know what is right and wrong just as God. That's it!It is only the Christian Cult of Ignorance that does not seem to understand anything the Bible or Jesus might teach us.

Some argue that all of us have violated one or more of the commandments and continue to do so. What will become of us?

The permission Elisha gave to Naaman to accompany his master in his idol worship had to be based on Elisha's knowledge that Naaman's heart was changed and that he himself could no longer worship idols so that his act would be only an outward obedience to his master. At least he could anticipate God's forgiveness because he had already repented from idol worship. Idol worship is a sin of the heart. The act should also not be allowed so I'm not completely happy with this interpretation myself.As for saving the life of an animal on the Sabbath that does not violate the commandment because a commandment mustn't be used to do evil. It is not a compromise or an exception, it is in keeping with God's will.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

"Some" argue? Hardly. It is understood that we all sin against all the commandments all the time, Phat. Reemember that Jesus explained that the commandment against adultery forbids adultery in the heart and not just outward behavior, also the commandment against murder forbids hating someone in your heart.What will become of us? How can you ask such a question? Do you believe that Christ's death on the cross means that your sins are forgiven? The commandments remain in force, every jot and tittle, forever, they cannot be abrogated. But Jesus' death paid their price for those who believe in Him.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

We will live as long as we live and hopefully learn from our mistakes, acknowledge our failings, try our best to make amends and to not repeat those mistakes.

Thank you for agreeing that God's commandments are not authoritative, that humans have the ability and responsibility to determine what is right and wrong and that even common sense and courtesy trump God's commandments.Edited by jar, : fix sub-title

Absolutely agreed - assuming your real world production means, essentially artefacts, relics, remains etc. Hence my comments differentiating historical evidence and scientific evidence. Or forensic evidence or what have you. In my oft cited post to Tangle - Message 655:

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Human sources may be relics such as a fingerprint; or narratives such as a statement or a letter. Relics are more credible sources than narratives.

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The answer is yes. The reason why it is 'yes' is revealed in the nature of the questions and also explained in more detail throughout my last post. "it makes claims about how things are/were." That's what I mean. If I say to you 'My name is Mod'. It is my testimony that my name is Mod. I'm not using it in any more of a complex way than that. I'm using it as the noun that is produced by the verb 'to attest'. As in 'to bear witness' or 'To affirm to be correct'. If you have a preferred word for what I'm talking about - let me know. 'Attestations' seems a bit ugly to me. If you were to attest/assert as true/aver/declare/avow/witness/asseverate/allege/avouch/depose/affirm/proclaim/profess/swear/whatever to returning from Mars, that would be evidence you had returned from Mars. Whatever the appropriate plural noun is for a set of attestations is, would be evidence. Well then, we agree. 'Everything is evidence' in a trivial sense. What's interesting is what it is evidence for and to what extent. That isn't a criteria for evidence, its a filter. But I can read between the lines. Much of history then can be said to be not based on evidence. Its an unusual position but there you go. If you think most of history comes from relics you'd be wrong. There's a reason why the period before writing was called 'prehistorical'

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Prehistory is the period of human activity between the use of the first stone tools c. 3.3 million years ago and the invention of writing systems

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wikipediaAny ideas what you'd like to call it instead? Historians as in the aforementioned post to Tangle certainly approach documents with a critical and skeptical mind. I'm not suggesting we accept as true statements made in historical texts.I'm happy to approach a written text, knowing it is likely to have some biases and to try and ascertain those biases and errors, and combine that with other pieces of evidence to try and build a picture of what things were like in the past. And I'm happy to call the written text a piece of evidence. They are 'what results from events in the real world'. Apes that can write about things are from the real world. When September 11th occurred, apes wrote about it. Many of them said things that weren't true, of course. Even in science a physical piece of evidence can be misleading. The trick is approaching the evidence knowing what produces it, and understanding the probability that it was caused by something other than the hypothesis in question.I think it personally makes more sense to think of evidence the way I have described it rather than try to change the word. But if ultimately you want to take that position 'I want a different word' that's fine. I just think its easier to simply acknowledge that not all evidence is of equal value and to use adjectives such as 'documentary evidence', 'forensic evidence', 'archaeological evidence'.When King James I/VI and a collaborator wrote about how and why they tortured witches, I'd treat the evidence as important information about the past. Not just in the trivial 'There was a person who claimed to have tortured witches' sense, but in a 'it is likely true that he tortured witches {corroborated by other written statements that generally affirm this} and that he had no reason to lie about some specific torture. But also acknowledge that his statements that witchcraft sank one of his ships to be, at most charitable, a mistake on James' behalf.And James wasn't a Nazi, so I hope that's an improvement (though if I was talking to Faith, I guarantee this example would result in some topic divergence)

Quick aside: I've had the pleasure of seeing it with my own eyes. It's a (fairly long) walk from where I am.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery" only mentions committing, not thinking. "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't mention hate, in your heart or anywhere else.--Percy

Obviously false. The whole book of Leviticus, not to mention Deuteronomy, is a commentary on the commandments. There is a LOT of room for interpretation. Even Bible-thumping Christians can't agree on a straightforward commandment like, "Thou shalt not kill."

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Romans 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

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There is no either/or. There is no us or them. All.

Agreed. Let me rephrase again. Is there any utterance I could make sufficiently absurd that it couldn't be considered evidence? If not, then everything is evidence. There's a raft of possibilities, but I guess I like the word "accounts" best. We don't agree, and the word "evidence" isn't useful in that sense where it's just a synonym for everything. Well, as I said, I'm giving up on that. The people willing to discuss this possibility with me in this thread have pretty clearly rejected the idea of giving different names to real world evidence versus spoken/written word evidence. It doesn't feel like it's just a matter of finding the right word. So am I. But this discussion emerged from comments I made to Faith in response to her claims that John (or some book of the Bible or maybe the whole Bible) was evidence of it's own truth and accuracy, and I don't agree with that. But what you've said does. We've emerged from the menace of the Godwin curse unscathed, so all is well. --Percy

If you claim it to be true, it is evidence. All attestations are evidence of that which is attested to. Not everything is evidence for a given thing. If you said 'I have two heads' it would not be evidence of time travel. It would be be evidence that you have two heads. It wouldn't be as good as something physical such as me seeing your two heads, or a photo, or a medical certificate etc etc. It isn't a synonym for everything. And we do agree that in a trivial sense 'everything is evidence' in that fingerprints are evidence of fingers making a print and that this is trivial. We agree that ' My owning a cat may not be evidence that I own a dog, but it is evidence of many things cat-related, so my owning a cat *is* evidence.' We agree that this is a trivial and useless position in the context of this discussion.I trust we also agree that what isn't trivial is 'what it is evidence for and to what extent.'Since I agree with everything you said in the section I quoted, I'm not sure how you can say we don't agree? With what, in the section I quoted, do you claim I disagree? I accept that the existence of John increases the probability of John's claims being true from the baseline probability of them being true had John not existed. I gave a mathematical argument to this end, which you have not commented on.