Charismatic Chaos

Call it intuition. I realize that your argument is that the evidence shows this to be the likely case. This scenario...namely that humans are powerless without Gods communion, is to you the snake oil of the apologists. Essentially, you look at the lesson as God showing us what we can do by living as Jesus lived, yet providing no help. Perhaps you have intuitively believed as this scrip would suggest: Implying that we have the ability (as humans) to resist sin.(Our carnal nature of pride, greed, and lust)Star Trek, a fantasy that inspired a generation of future scientists, was a story where humans tried to do their best and overcame many seemingly insurmountable challenges without the help of any God. I do not have an optimistic outlook on the future of humanity without God. The bottom line is that we collectively need further lessons. Seeing us as simply evolving animals with no help from God is depressing. I fear we will fail. Perhaps this shows one of my own human flaws---that I have always relied on help my entire life to get out of the worst jams---many of which I myself created. Perhaps I would have been better off if nobody ever helped me.

Apologetics seeks to defend the Christian faith. Recently, I read a good book (or am reading now) called The Logic of God. Basic Apolojartics says that it is ok to throw God away. Apologetics begs to differ.From Chapter 6:

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Paul Tillich, the noted existentialist theologian, traveled to Asia years ago to hold conferences with various Buddhist thinkers. He was studying the significance of religious leaders to the movements they had engendered. Tillich reportedly asked what if, by some fluke, the Buddha had never lived and turned out to be some sort of fabrication? What would be the implications for Buddhism? Mind you, I would conclude that Tillich was concerned with the indispensability of the Buddhanot his authenticity. The scholars did not hesitate to answer. If the Buddha was a myth, they said, it did not matter at all. Why? Because Buddhism should be judged as an abstract philosophyas a system of living. Whether its concepts originated with the Buddha is irrelevant. As an aside, I think the Buddha himself would have concurred. Knowing that his death was imminent, he beseeched his followers not to focus on him but to remember his teachings.

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thus in the case of Buddhism, all agree.
What about Christianity though?

quote:

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Jesus is absolutely indispensable to Christianityand His claims are also unique. First is His description of the human condition. He declared that the heart is in rebellion against God. Second, Jesus offers a unique solution to the problem. The provision He gives for you and me is utterly unique, and it is not cheap. It is the cross. This graciousness of forgiveness is not found in other worldviews. For instance, Islam says that for you to get to heaven, your good deeds will have to outweigh your bad. In other words, you pay. When Christ comes and says to you and me that He is offering forgiveness and doing so through the payment of His life on the cross, it is an extraordinary truth. The Bible says we need a Savior and we need forgiveness. There is only one place in the world where love, forgiveness, and justice come together, and that is at the cross. This truth of Christ’s grace is unique. Third, Jesus is unique because in Him was no sin; He lived a perfect life. Even Pontius Pilate declared, I find no fault in this man (Luke 23:4 KJV ).demonstration of His uniqueness. Christianity, therefore, is Christ. Indeed, Englishman John Stott wrote, If Jesus was not God in human flesh, Christianity is exploded. We are left with just another religion with some beautiful ideas and noble ethics; its unique distinction has gone.1 At the very heart of Christianity, Jesus is the image and the incarnation of the invisible Godthe One who came to live among us to show us God’s love, perfection, and grace. And this reality changes everything.

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This apologetic defense is to me hardly snake oil. I know that you never liked the idea of Jesus paying the penalty for us...as if it were somehow cheating. On this note, however, I must go with the apologetics rather than the apolojartics.

What case would you make for throwing this apologetic away?

If one day you discovered that you were supposed to trust Christ rather than throwing Him away, would you feel any need to repent or do you believe--as do the secular humanists, that Heaven has room for consensus and uniqueness?

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Critics would accuse you of marketing a Christianity without Christ. Are you guilty? Is Jesus any more than a character that we can learn examples from?

Col 1:19-23 writes:

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For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, 20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.

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21 And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled 22 in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight -- 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
NKJV

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John 17:1-5 writes:

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Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, 2 as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 4 I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. 5 And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
NKJV

Note: That they "may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent". Key concept: That we should know God through Jesus and by accepting Jesus as more than simply a character in a book.

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Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

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Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
~"We, humans, are engaged in an ongoing war of ideologies. I see it in this microcosm of EvC Forum just as I see it in the governments and attitudes of people throughout the world. Take your pick: Oppression or Seduction .
"~Thugpreacha

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You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo

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As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.
? R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

Easy for you to say. I've noticed that when you cant frame an argument the way that YOU want it to read.I noticed the online definition of word salad: Really? You accuse me of mental illness?

To all of you academicians: One does not necessarily need a degree to be relevant. A Holocaust survivor, for example, would likely be more relevant to a source than a WW II Historian.

True. But he was an expert on his own personal experience with Christianity and his subsequent left-brain attempt at explaining it. To you, facts are all that count. In the case of a mystical and/or lifechanging experience, the creative literary side of us comes out more than our analytical side.To be fair, the creative side of us can also be more deceptive. One must weigh all of the evidence from those who have actually experienced religious transformations or epiphanies. Or would you discredit all such as hearsay?

OK...stupidity like how? That original (or inborn) sin is stupid? The evidence is pretty clear that humans by nature are always looking out for #1. We can argue the point, however. The reason I believe it is because I felt it from both entities. While wise enough to know I cannot get away with saying the devil made me do it, I recognize my inner nature somewhat well by now. Deep down I question a lot. Rarely do I doubt, unless I find something unfair and have prayed about it repeatedly. And even then, I will admit that having two spirit beings is helpful. If its yes, I praise God. If its no, I curse satan. How do you expect me to "defend" God? It makes much more sense for an uncaused first cause to be God than it does simply chemicals. The whole reason Intelligent Design was named as such is because of this. The absence of evidence does not automatically equate to evidence of absence. You seem to think that reality is "founded" on human discovery and verification. Evidence is great for what its worth....in material terms. Evidence can verify your chemicals. Evidence cannot verify a spiritual realm. I think that deep down you dismiss the possibility of a spiritual realm because you can't put a timestamp of Evidence on it. "Many are called yet few are chosen. Narrow is the path to righteousness and few find it. Broad is the path towards independence... Yes, they produce material well being. We are talking about the realm of the mind and philosophy. Some things have left a mystery for now. We don't understand multiple universes, but there is some hypothetical evidence that they could exist. Perhaps since we have no math formula to allow God to be properly hypothetical, you simply threw the concept away. Is the idea of a "good" God creating evil (or the possibility of evil) illogical as well? I have an argument for that which you may have heard a bazillion times. How many times have you seen participants line up in a race with Carl Lewis and then all decide they can't win? So what led you to think that God didn't exist? Seems a bit as if we replaced Him with ourselves.Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

OK, I'll buy that. I've experienced enough to *know* that there is another realm but not enough to verify what that realm is. I naturally attached its meaning to the dogma.Evil was created by God. We don't know why, but since He claims we can avoid it, we try our best usually. The fact that we sometimes allow it is a clue to this puzzle.God is good. Not "complete" as jar suggests. That's simply too threatening. Which is another clue.Satan only exists because God gave him the right to rebel. Apparently the whole concept of free will vs authority is being tested.Humans are the product of our genetics and our decisions. The problem here is that God is God before humans even were. Thus, we cannot limit God as we do our other unevidenced creations. God is a human creation and yet not a human creation. IF God exists, He came first.

What reasons do we have to think its false? I can think of a few you might use:
1) There is no evidence God does anything.
Upon which I would say to quit using evidence as the only standard. Quite clearly the dogma basically says that a minority of people will understand and a majority either won't get it or will reject it.
2)How would we know which God turned out to be real, if any?Obviously the One who would want relationship with humanity---to become reconnected. Our major mistake as a species was disconnecting.

So you reject the "dogma" that God is good all the time and all the time God is good? It seems the GOD you imagine is so complex that we would be lucky to even get an audience.

I was always taught that God is good. A God Who is simply "complete" as you suggest is not logical as he would essentially have a dualistic personality.Modern Charismania always has a Hero (Jesus) a Villain(Satan) and a Victim: Unregenerate humans.Ironically, global politics has followed this theme.
We have a Hero (US Freedom and Democracy, a Villain(Islam is the most recent, along with Terrorism) and a Victim. I often see myself as the victim, but we have discussed others---namely ethnic minorities. It seems as if the global struggle always involves some who want what others have.But getting back to this---why is God complete rather than good? A case can be made scripturallly for both positions.

Which "God" though? Good One? Complete One? Or even the bad one...Iran calls us "The Great Satan"...is there any truth to that?

How can you possibly determine which scripture to pick then? What is the purpose of scripture?

In another topic, you say that the idea of God is not illogical. So why is the idea of an angel who freely (and finally) chose to rebel a nonsensical idea? You must answer by saying "because he would know from the start he couldn't win" but I challenge that assumption. I need to look no further than myself. Sometime s I choose to be rebellious because I think and believe that I CAN win.And free will is anything but useless. It is a reality. Within limits, we have free will. We cannot freely choose our own heaven (or hell) and we cannot freely choose to teleport across the universe. We do have limits inherent to our nature. But we freely decide every day how to act. What to believe. And whether or not we want to be "good" or a bit naughty. We do have these choices. Good and evil are absolutes, however. We cannot simply decide that good is bad without lying to ourselves.

Perhaps I should clarify. If God exists and is anything like the One I describe, you would have free will within limits. the only way you could have free will with no limits is if you yourself were godlike. Now...I'm not sure what the definition of "godlike" would be, but it sheds light on the story of the angels. Even the fallen ones were a bit like gods. They were eternal. They had power within their assigned realms. (substitute the word predetermined for assigned) In other words, you may have free will to ignore God, avoid Spinich, and live in canada. What you dont have is free will to define reality, control the weather, live forever or be able to lift 2000 lbs. When the snake declared that A&E would be as gods, the snake meant (in my opinion) that they would live eternally one way or another...either as in rebellion or in communion with universal truth and love. Again, assuming the snake as an extension of satan, satan can live forever. What he can't do is supervise the universe. What e cant do is woo followers through love and discipline. What he can't do is be God. At best, he can be like God in certain aspects. Humans listened to the wrong voice, but apparently it was foreknown to happen. It's not as if God made a mistake. It's a lesson that we are still learning and processing.Furthermore, there are many of you who don't believe that God exists. Your right to decide on your beliefs is an aspect of your free will. What you don't have a right to do is define reality. If God (or satan) exists, it is beyond the scope of your limited free will.

Not necessarily. They knew of good and they knew of evil. Not everyone can explain the difference. Obviously the serpent wouldn't want them to know what evil was. Think about it. (Unless of course, you don't equate the serpent with evil)Explain how Adam learned the difference. He certainly did not seem to show it.