Another thing about Popes

[GottaBigOne]

I want to add soemthing about Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism.

Many people feel that agnosticism is somehow a middle ground between either believing in gods or not believing in gods. I would argue that this is not so. Something that Gearge Smith calls spheres of influence. Agnosticism and theism/atheism deal with two totally different concepts; knowledge and belief. Gnosis is the greek word for knowledge. An agnostic is someone who says that they don't know if gods exists or not, and may go further to say that it can't be known by anyone. But this does not make a statement on whether or not they believe in gods. So while an agnostic might say that they don't KNOW whether gods exist or not, they can still believe that gods exist, or they might not. One would be an agnostic theist, the other an agnostic atheist.

I've posted about this before but I feel it may be needed again. I know that there was someone who did post a definition from the oxford dictionary, but I feel like that definition may be a little too ambiguous. For clarification I think it would be better if we thought of theism as simply the belief in gods, and nothing else, and atheism as the lack of belief in gods, and nothing else; as a base to build upon. Building upon that base we could characterize someone who lacks a belief in gods, but then goes on to express a positive belief in the non-existence of one or more gods as an explicit atheist, and the more general atheist who simply lacks belief as an implicit atheist. For myself I would say that anyone who argues that there are no gods, or that a certain god doesn't exist would be anti-theist, but who am I to invent a term?

 

[B_DoubleMeatWhopper]

Originally posted by hungrick@Apr 30 2005, 11:46 PM
But I'd still like to know one thing at least from the catholic view, and that is:

"What do we need to be saved from?" or put another way: the need for salvation presupposes some problem with humans in the first place. Salvation from being human? Salvation from being alive? Salvation from a view that we are inherently evil or sinful?

In theological terms, 'salvation' is synonymous with 'redemption'. Catholics are not really fond of using the past participle 'saved' because of the connotation pinned onto it by fundamentalists; 'saved' is mostly a Protestant word. However, we do use the noun 'salvation'. 'Salvation' is a deliverance from the consequences of sin. When Protestants talk of being saved, they are usually referring to a state in both this life and the afterlife. The Catholic use of the word 'salvation' is something different: it's almost exclusively an eschatological term. It refers to what happens to the soul after death. If a soul attains salvation, it enters its eternal reward, or Heaven, if you prefer. In the Catholic view, salvation is not merited through religiosity, but by being true to one's own conscience. We recognize that morality and spirituality are distinct from religion, and an atheist or agnostic can have impeccable morals while a self-professed Christian can be spiritually bankrupt. Our belief is that we are redeemed not by being a Christian, but by being a good person.

 

[jonb]

@Jacinto:
Actually, an agnostic is just someone who's come to the conclusion that we can't know about deities and other metaphysical business. I will say that Catholics are one of the more tolerable denominations. (As opposed to evangelicals who always find the most internecine means of expressing their faith. I will NOT turn this into a Bush-bashing thread, even if his supporters tried to gain a few political points off the Pope's death.)

 

[GottaBigOne]

Originally posted by jonb@May 1 2005, 03:53 AM
@Jacinto:
Actually, an agnostic is just someone who's come to the conclusion that we can't know about deities and other metaphysical business.

Isn't that what I said???

 

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper+Apr 30 2005, 06:35 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoubleMeatWhopper &#064; Apr 30 2005, 06:35 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-hungrick@Apr 30 2005, 11:16 PM
"If you don&#39;t accept Jesus Christ as your Lord & Savior, you&#39;re condemn to eternal damnation."

This is one of the big problems with threads like this: everyone lumps all Christian denominations together and seems to think they all share the same beliefs. This thread started with comments about the Pope, so one would assume that Catholicism is the religion to reference. The above quote is highly Protestant. The Catholic Church doesn&#39;t teach that one needs to be Christian or believe in God in order to attain salvation. They did away with that idea in the Sixties.

[post=306711]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]
DMW: Actually the above quote is evangelicaland fundamentalist, not modern day Protestantism. The true Protestant churches are the Prebyterian, Lutheran and Anglican or Episcopol. The Methodist Church slips in because intil 1939 its official name was the Methodist Episcopol Church and can trace its linaage as well back to the apostles. It considers itself part of the "holy catholic and apostolic church" mentioned in the Nicene Creed witch is part of our liturgy as well as yours. I played for a Catholic funeral mass recently and I recited the Nicene Creed and it was word for word the same as the one written in our liturgy. In fact I knew nearly all the liturgy. For those who may not know Christian theology, the word catholic means universal. And apostolic means coming from the apostles.

Just like Catholism changed its doctrine in the 1960&#39;s the Protestant or Liturgical Churches have done so as well. In faith and practice, none of the "mainline" Protestant chruches teach or follow that doctrine.

The viewpoint in Methodist Churches is that Jesus did die to atone for the sins of everyone. But that God has the ability through the Holy Spirit to talk to everyone. Everyone regardless of religion or nonreligion is invited to God&#39;s holy table in heaven. Only those who don&#39;t refuse to go in are left out. The cornerstone of Methodist doctrine is the free will of man to choose is own eternal destiny. It is not decided for him. It is a choice.

I was rasied in one of those fundamental evangelistic churches, I left it to join the Methodist Church to get away from that doctrine. I believe in Open Communion, all are welcome to the Lord&#39;s Table at Holy Communion regardless of their past if they wish to come and take the Sacrament. And I believe in Open Baptism, Methodist recognize all Trinitarian Baptisms. "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit." We will sprinkle, pour or immerse. We will baptise infants or we will wait until confirmation, the parents choice.

In closing, a comment was made by on the posts the good job that each of us had done in explaining our religions as in the plural. I don&#39;t consider Cahtolicism to be a different religion. Christianity is a religion. Then there is the Church which Christ himself established. There are many branches of the church just like there are many congregations within one branch. All Christians are members of one church. I believe that as Bishop of Rome, the Pope is the titular head of church here on earth. He is too be revered and listened too for the position he holds. He only has ruling authority, however, over the part of the chruch named as the Roman Catholic Church. But anyone knowing church history knows the esteemed position held by the Pope. St. Peter was the first Bishop of Rome. For two thousand years apostolic succession has continued. Anglican and Methodist Churches claim to be a part of that apostolic succesion. I dont&#39; know about Lutherans and Presbyterians. Apostolic succession is the traditon that the apostles or the original followers of Jesus, laid their hands on the new leaders of the next generation and blessed them, ordained them or what ever word you wish to call it and then next generation and so on until the present. I have seen an ordination. It is a very moving and inspiring service.

It is in the evengelical and fundamentalist churches that believe in the above quote. I have been Methodist for some 30 years and have never heard that preached before. Quite frankly I am turned of by it myself. It puts us as the judge of other people&#39;s eternity. That is too much of a stretch for me.

DMW: If I am wrong you you disagree would you tell me and why. Are we not both members of the same religion and both of us are catholic and apostolic in the fullest sense of the word meaning the English word universal? I know that it was on the news that the new Pope wanted to unite "all Christians."

 

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@Apr 30 2005, 07:00 PM
I want to add soemthing about Theism, Atheism, and Agnosticism.

Many people feel that agnosticism is somehow a middle ground between either believing in gods or not believing in gods. I would argue that this is not so. Something that Gearge Smith calls spheres of influence. Agnosticism and theism/atheism deal with two totally different concepts; knowledge and belief. Gnosis is the greek word for knowledge. An agnostic is someone who says that they don&#39;t know if gods exists or not, and may go further to say that it can&#39;t be known by anyone. But this does not make a statement on whether or not they believe in gods. So while an agnostic might say that they don&#39;t KNOW whether gods exist or not, they can still believe that gods exist, or they might not. One would be an agnostic theist, the other an agnostic atheist.

[post=306727]Quoted post[/post]​

First, yes I accept your apology. I accept that you realize that you don&#39;t understand my thology of religion and that my concepts of Chrsitianity may not be in the least evil.

Let me assure you that even the Bible says there will be false prophets and people proclaiming news that are "not from me." In order words, yeah there have been some folks through the years proclaiming to be Christian preachers or just Christians who spewed forth doctrine that was full of shit. Notice I said the doctrine coming out of their mouths was full of shit. I don&#39;t claim to judge their inner beings and their relationship with a God or the lack of there on at all.


Now to your quote. YOu stated it better than I ever could. The whole foundation of Christian is that you can&#39;t PROVE there is a God. You accept his existence on Faith. Faith is something you have never seen but believe.

You are right. By true definition of the terms, Christians come under the agnostic theist. Can&#39;t prove their is a God, but have a set beliefs or theology about a god.

And there are no true atheists either. They can&#39;t prove there is no God. So agnostic atheists is a technically correct term as well.

Everyone and I mean everyone who has the intellect to understand on an adult level falls into these two camps.

 

[madame_zora]

GBO, I was saying that language does not translate well into math, which is why arguments in logic often leave me cold. Logic attempts to reduce concepts for which there is no mathematical equasion into plusses and minuses, which often leaves out more in depth study of the information being discussed.

There are literally thousands of descriptions of even the Christian "God", so which description is being refuted? Different groups of Christians believe significantly different things, different versions of the Bible present different images, different individuals believe only parts of the whole. To sufficiently refute the existance of God, one would have to define the profile first. I am not trying to be willfully difficult, but these are some of the problems I had with the author you posted.

There are groups of Christians we know as "fundies" and we know in general what they believe about God and religion, but there are also many sects of Catholics, Protestants, Jews and many others whose beliefs are not the same as the fundies. They all claim the same God by name, but what they believe about him is extremely different. Not everyone who knows my name is Jana would have the same things to say about me either, some would see me as a static person with concrete traits, others might see me as a myriad of contradictions. None of these opinions go any distance to prove my existance or the lack thereof. Because I am currently alive, this is much easier, but try to prove that anyone who has been dead 2000 years existed, and you will have more than a fair share of challenges. Try to prove their value to society, and it comes down to a matter of opinion.

Yes, I am an agnostic, I don&#39;t think the existance of any God can be proven using the "reasonable man" test. I feel that whatever anyone chooses to believe is exactly that- a choice, but I don&#39;t feel I am in a position to either condemn or condone a person&#39; beliefs when I can&#39;t even clearly define my own.

 

[B_hungrick]

Originally posted by DoubleMeatWhopper+Apr 30 2005, 07:33 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(DoubleMeatWhopper &#064; Apr 30 2005, 07:33 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-hungrick@Apr 30 2005, 11:46 PM
But I&#39;d still like to know one thing at least from the catholic view, and that is:

"What do we need to be saved from?" or put another way: the need for salvation presupposes some problem with humans in the first place. Salvation from being human? Salvation from being alive? Salvation from a view that we are inherently evil or sinful?

In theological terms, &#39;salvation&#39; is synonymous with &#39;redemption&#39;. Catholics are not really fond of using the past participle &#39;saved&#39; because of the connotation pinned onto it by fundamentalists; &#39;saved&#39; is mostly a Protestant word. However, we do use the noun &#39;salvation&#39;. &#39;Salvation&#39; is a deliverance from the consequences of sin. When Protestants talk of being saved, they are usually referring to a state in both this life and the afterlife. The Catholic use of the word &#39;salvation&#39; is something different: it&#39;s almost exclusively an eschatological term. It refers to what happens to the soul after death. If a soul attains salvation, it enters its eternal reward, or Heaven, if you prefer. In the Catholic view, salvation is not merited through religiosity, but by being true to one&#39;s own conscience. We recognize that morality and spirituality are distinct from religion, and an atheist or agnostic can have impeccable morals while a self-professed Christian can be spiritually bankrupt. Our belief is that we are redeemed not by being a Christian, but by being a good person.

[post=306808]Quoted post[/post]​

[/b][/quote]


DMW, thanx for the explanation of catholic belief around the issue of salvation or redemption. This all presupposes that human beings are inherently sinful, that is, our original nature is flawed. A new-born baby is sinful by it&#39;s very nature. That baby is guilty of being human or is separated from god, so therefore s/he needs to be redeemed. Is this correct catholic teaching?

This seems to be an extremely warped world view to me. As I said before, it presupposes that we are fundamentally evil. Is this a catholic view? Also the reality is that most humans are both good and bad, and usually our negative actions flow from being harmed. What I mean is, people don&#39;t seem to me to be inherently good or inherently bad. We seem to react according to the situation we&#39;re in. If we&#39;re attacked, we usually protect ourselves & try to harm the other person. If we&#39;re treated well, we treat others well.

I would like you to address the issue of our true nature from a catholic position. Are humans born evil?

Thanx.

 

[madame_zora]

Here is the first argument from Austin Cline that I will explain my problems with:

1. God is morally perfect (premise)

Most Christians would agree with this.

2. Any act that God condones, commands, or causes is morally permissible or mandated (from 1)

Yes, it is morally permissable for God to do it, not necesarily Man.

3. Any act that God forbids is morally impermissible (from 1)

True, examples please&#33;

4. The Bible accurately reveals many acts condoned, commanded, or caused by God

True, to what are you referring?

5. In the Bible there are acts which God forbids but which God also condones, commands, or causes

To what are you referring? Here is where I start getting annoyed, I get the feeling he has never cracked open the Bible.

6. It is incoherent for a morally perfect being to condone, command, or cause immoral acts

What he is referring to as "immoral acts", Christians would call the judgement of God, which is above reproach. Also, the New Testament describes a God who has had a change of heart. Jesus came to Earth to replace the law of old with the new law of love. This does not mean God was imperfect to begin with. Does being able to grow make God weaker or stronger? Perfection is not static, IMHO, something need not be immovable to be perfect. Perhaps it is our conceptualisations that are imperfect, but not necessarily God.

7. The God of the Bible is incoherent and, therefore, cannot exist.

The God of the Bible was reported about by humans, hence the errors in timelines, references to slavery, women as second class citizens, apocalyptic writing has not been ackowledged- none of these things prove that God does not exist, only that the Bible is inconsistant. Not understanding the purpose of the New Testament can be forgiven, many who call themselves Christians can&#39;t even understand that basic premise, but to simply cover an entire system of beliefs with a few sentences and say it&#39;s all or nothing, I just can&#39;t roll with. Why must it be all or nothing? I don&#39;t accept that premise, so the arguments fall apart after that. Why must perfection be unchanging? Any idiot can hold fast to ideas that no longer fit the times, it takes a progressive and creative mind to be able to adapt as things move forward. why couldn&#39;t God be that? If we are "created in the image of God" then why would we even be a little surprised that a perfect being can change?

I can easily agree that the "Truth" of the Bible could easily be discredited, but I don&#39;t think that a biography is proof for or against it&#39;s subject. It&#39;s a collection of stories, opinions, experiences and beliefs of MANY different authors. It is NOT an autobiography&#33; Any collection of short stories would prove as inconclusive if we tried to look at it as a cohesive book, which it simply isn&#39;t- nor is it an historical text. It is am impassioned collaborative surrounding the very emotional views of a People&#39;s love for their creator, how could it NOT be wrought with clerical error and inconsistancy? Trying to judge the Bible as something it isn&#39;t is just a waste of time, to me at least. I believe if 50 people wrote about Gandhi at various times after his death, the book resulting would be as flawed, but that doesn&#39;t mean Gandhi wasn&#39;t real.

 

[GottaBigOne]

Here is the first argument from Austin Cline that I will explain my problems with:

1. God is morally perfect (premise)

Most Christians would agree with this.

2. Any act that God condones, commands, or causes is morally permissible or mandated (from 1)

Yes, it is morally permissable for God to do it, not necesarily Man.

This would be hypocracy, which in my opinion would discredit the moral perfection of said god.

3. Any act that God forbids is morally impermissible (from 1)

True, examples please&#33;

God forbids lying, killing etc.

4. The Bible accurately reveals many acts condoned, commanded, or caused by God

True, to what are you referring?

5. In the Bible there are acts which God forbids but which God also condones, commands, or causes

To what are you referring? Here is where I start getting annoyed, I get the feeling he has never cracked open the Bible.

Just because he doesn&#39;t cite any examples does not mean he has not read the bible, maybe you should read more of the site, it has a lot more information about a lot of religions. He is probably referring to times when god lied, or killed people i.e. Abraham and Isaac, and the story of Moses and the Pharoah.

6. It is incoherent for a morally perfect being to condone, command, or cause immoral acts

What he is referring to as "immoral acts", Christians would call the judgement of God, which is above reproach.

so you&#39;re saying that god can do anything he wishes and it does not have to hold up to his own standards of morality? Hypocracy yet again.

Also, the New Testament describes a God who has had a change of heart. Jesus came to Earth to replace the law of old with the new law of love. This does not mean God was imperfect to begin with. Does being able to grow make God weaker or stronger? Perfection is not static, IMHO, something need not be immovable to be perfect. Perhaps it is our conceptualisations that are imperfect, but not necessarily God.

I know we&#39;ve had this discussion before madam and i think the difficulty lies in your sense of the term "perfect." you seem to have a feeling that it is a subjective term, and can be used lightly. I disagree; a being in order to be perfect, in the strictest sense of the word, must be unchanging, because in order to be able to change one would need to be lacking something, if one lacks something, then one was not always perfect; and if we are talking about "perfect" in the strictest sense, then in order to be truly "perfect" one must be perfect at all times. That is one of the problems with assigning the characteristic of "perfect" to god, it is a very high standard to live up to; I think thats why it is often felt that perfection is impossible. One can be able to say that god is very close to perfection and that would be fine, you&#39;ve then defined your god in terms that are at least possible.

7. The God of the Bible is incoherent and, therefore, cannot exist.

The God of the Bible was reported about by humans, hence the errors in timelines, references to slavery, women as second class citizens, apocalyptic writing has not been ackowledged- none of these things prove that God does not exist, only that the Bible is inconsistant. Not understanding the purpose of the New Testament can be forgiven, many who call themselves Christians can&#39;t even understand that basic premise, but to simply cover an entire system of beliefs with a few sentences and say it&#39;s all or nothing, I just can&#39;t roll with. Why must it be all or nothing? I don&#39;t accept that premise, so the arguments fall apart after that. Why must perfection be unchanging? Any idiot can hold fast to ideas that no longer fit the times, it takes a progressive and creative mind to be able to adapt as things move forward. why couldn&#39;t God be that? If we are "created in the image of God" then why would we even be a little surprised that a perfect being can change?

I can easily agree that the "Truth" of the Bible could easily be discredited, but I don&#39;t think that a biography is proof for or against it&#39;s subject. It&#39;s a collection of stories, opinions, experiences and beliefs of MANY different authors. It is NOT an autobiography&#33; Any collection of short stories would prove as inconclusive if we tried to look at it as a cohesive book, which it simply isn&#39;t- nor is it an historical text. It is am impassioned collaborative surrounding the very emotional views of a People&#39;s love for their creator, how could it NOT be wrought with clerical error and inconsistancy? Trying to judge the Bible as something it isn&#39;t is just a waste of time, to me at least. I believe if 50 people wrote about Gandhi at various times after his death, the book resulting would be as flawed, but that doesn&#39;t mean Gandhi wasn&#39;t real.

This is where my previous point comes into play. Austin Cline is not trying to say that no gods exist, he is simply saying IF,IF, if, if, if you take the bible to be the accurate description of a god, then that god can not exist. But for his refutation, you must accept the bible as infallible, I guess. Since the bible is a collection of books about a god, in which christianity is bult upon, then I argue that the god of the bible is the god of christianity, and hence that that god does not exist. Of course there are differing interpretations of the bible, most of which have come about in response to a logical attack on theology that can get around the problem of the contradictions of the bible, but I feel they lack any real case for being more true then the complete bible.

[post=306869]Quoted post[/post]​

[/QUOTE]

 

[madame_zora]

Okay, I do see what you&#39;re saying. I absolutly do not accept that perfection must be static, so we will never see eye-to-eye on the rest of the discussion. Bear in mind though that my reasons for participation in such a discussion are for the purposes of discovery, if I were not deeply interested in your views, I wouldn&#39;t ask.

The Bible is a collection of many, many authors giving accounts of varying stories and experiences, many of which were oral traditions for over a century before they were ever written down. To even hold out a small hope that it would be possible for the Bible to be infallible is (to me) completely foolhardy. I can&#39;t have a serious conversation about total absurdity, you see what I mean? Take it in the context of if a book were written and collected over the same period of time about any living or dead person, what would your expectations be of it&#39;s accuracy? I can only back up and try to glean the more important lessons, but I can&#39;t get caught up in the minutia and find any value whatsoever. I also don&#39;t "stand and argue in the face of a fool", or at least I try not to. When I am confronted by a literalist, I cut and run asap.

My own understanding of the Bible is certainly not at the scholarly level, but I have studied it at my own level and with the support of several group studies at three separate times in my life, so it is not unknown to me. While Austin Cline may or may not have perused it, I doubt sincerely he has put much effort into it, I did read quite a lot from his site. I got a strong feeling that I was getting a movie review from someone who hadn&#39;t seen the show- no proof on that, but a clear lack of substance.
When people know details, they are likely to use them, and he just doesn&#39;t. That doesn&#39;t mean his opinions have no value, I just appreciate it more when someone knows their subject matter a little more thoroughly than reading the cliff notes.

We have discussed this and I know that you don&#39;t consider the Bible to be a fun read, but it&#39;s hard to take a small excerpt out of it and understand it&#39;s meaning in a work of literature that is so compound. From a logical standpoint almost any point in the Bible could be refuted that way, if you completely remove faith from the text, but then why converse at all? Viewed with skepticism only, I could make a healthy argument against any wriiten concept that I had even an entry level understanding of, but it proves nothing.

Here&#39;s a fun one. Some people believe that during the ages of 12 through 30, when there is absolutley no information on the life of Jesus, that he was actually travelling the world and ended up for several years in a monastery in India&#33; Would I like to believe this? Sure&#33; It would explain a lot about where his advanced concepts about love and forgiveness came from if he was influenced by Buddhism, and it would go further to link the major religions which has always been of interest to me. There is no way I will ever know conclusively if this is true- I won&#39;t be travelling there to track down the documents myself, so I must read what is published and draw my own conclusions. For any interest on the subject, you can start here:

http://www.tombofjesus.com/core/majorplaye...ch/notovitch-p1

 

[GottaBigOne]

I know that we wont ever see eye to eye on this. I respect your views.


Hey, by the way, did you call me a fool????

 

[B_hungrick]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@May 1 2005, 11:20 AM
I know that we wont ever see eye to eye on this. I respect your views.


Hey, by the way, did you call me a fool????

[post=306944]Quoted post[/post]​

GBO, you are anything but a fool to me. You&#39;re intelligent & have a quick & interesting mind. You also want to argue the logical merits of the proofs for the existence of god, or rather the dis-proofs.

I realize that you feel people are too emotional about this issue, and can&#39;t be rational & calm. I agree with you on this. But at the same time for so many people, these religious issues cut straight through to their own lives. It&#39;s hard for most folks to separate their religious beliefs from their emotions. Religion has a strong emotional component to it, at least christianity. It&#39;s devotional religious practice, and is based on this thing called faith, that can&#39;t be proved or disproved. So while your original thesis is valid, I think people are going to try to drag this discussion into the area that they can compete with you on, and that&#39;s the emotional/faith view.

Just my two cents. Thanx for the discussion. I appreciate it & you very much.

 

[jonb]

Well, the Bible&#39;s full of divine mandates which I don&#39;t want to consider "moral". The classic example, a rapist has to marry his victim. And a man can order his wife&#39;s execution if her father can&#39;t prove she was a virgin.

 

[madame_zora]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@May 1 2005, 07:20 PM
I know that we wont ever see eye to eye on this. I respect your views.


Hey, by the way, did you call me a fool????

[post=306944]Quoted post[/post]​

Not unless you believe the Bible literally&#33; No, fool, I didn&#39;t call you no fuckin&#39; fool, fool&#33;
Just foolin&#39;, I&#39;ve been fooling around all day. I&#39;m feeling foolish, wanna fool around?

Our actual beliefs don&#39;t vary so much as the paths we take to get there. My position is that since I don&#39;t believe I&#39;ll ever know what the "Truth" is about God, I reserve my opinion. Maybe yes, maybe no- I don&#39;t believe the descriptions is the Bible are completely accurate, it&#39;s just a biography and therefore fallible. Is there an infallible God? I&#39;m almost evenly split, so I&#39;d never presume to say. You feel that what canot be proven can be denied, which I can understand, I just look at it slightly differently. That&#39;s really our major difference because the basics are pretty close to the same. You know I love ya, at least you better&#33;

 

[Freddie53]

Boy, it is getting deep here theologically. We are headed the Ph D. level. I&#39;m not sure if if it piled higher and deeper or just really good deep philosophical thinking. Just kidding here.

DMW comments on the Protestant view of salvation. Well he is right except for the some of the liturgical churches. I wil talk about some of the Christian movements but first let me tell you what I understand is the Methodist concept.

A baby is born. But he is doomed to die. This world is not a perfect world. It is not complete. Everything in this world is temporary. What salvation is in the United Methodist Church is a faith journey. It starts the day you were born and ends at death. Salvation is only attained at perfection, which really should be translated as completion. Some of us aren&#39;t ready. God compeltes the salvation for all you wish to enter heaven that are not ready. Catholics have purgatory. We don&#39;t call it that. But after death, God takes our souls or spirit to heaven to live with him for ever in total completion and perfection where there is no sorrow and anything bad. On our journey God does talk to us. He may talk through angels, saints, visions, Scripture, other people and any assorted ways. Our goal is to strive to become the best we can be. We want to live a life that is molded by eternal truths and not by "fly-by-night half truths that get us into trouble. Sanctification is a big Methodist word. We are God&#39;s creation and God loves us. So no we are not evil, but we aren&#39;t perfect either. Our goal is to strive strip off any imperfections we have and cultivate perfections. In this sense of the word we are talking about daily choices.

We want to love more, hate less. share more envy less, be in tune with God and his beautiful creation more and be less jealous of others. We want to become "beautiful" people.

We also look at God as the comforter. His Holy Spirit is there to give guidance aod comfort. Life has a lot of disapointsments, having a God who loves and cares and "hold us next to him while we are hurting is a great comfort.

I don&#39;t doubt there are evil people. Some in history have certainly lived lives that would make us say they were evil. But to say that all people are born evil is a very big stretch. To say all of us are born with some imperfections and tendancies to make wrong choices is true, but that doesn&#39;t make us evil.

Evil things are the deliberate and willful expressions of hatred, envy, coveting to the extreme, deliberate and volutenter murder, stealing to great excess. (we all walk out with the bank&#39;s pen every now and then.) and outright lying to the point of deliberately destroying someone else. But still doing evil things don&#39;t make the person evil. In Christian doctrine we are God&#39;s children. We may be like spoiled children who need to be called down every now and then, but that doesn&#39;t make us evil.

This is not a full description of Methodist theology on salvation but maybe it helps. Most Methodists have an outlook on life that God is going to redeem or claim all of his people that are interested to be called the chidlren of God. And that includes everyone who has ever lived, is living or will live. It includes Chrsitians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindues and the other religions as well as agnostics and atheists. Yes atheists, life is a jouirney. Salvation is not complete until the end. There are atheists who claim to have an encounter with God late in life. And we don&#39;t know what enounters are available after death.

As in an earlier post. In the United Methodist Church the true definition of sin is separation from God, not the individual mistakes everyone makes from time to time. We call them sins. They are only because they help separate us from God teh Almighty.

Now for what I know about other Protestent or non Catholic churches:

First the Reformed Movement. The reformed movment lead by John Calvin is a "getting saved" theology, only modern day Presbyterians don&#39;t agree with John Calvin anymore. Most Presbyterians I know believe in universal salvation which means God as the perfector or completer will do what ever it takes to get all humans into heaven when they die. But Calvin theology is alive in some but not all Baptist churches and some nondenominations.

Second the evangelical movement. This group most definitately beieves in the "accepting Jesus as PERSONAL Savior. Those that don&#39;t accept will burn forever in Dante&#39;s hell. Dante didnt&#39; write a book of the Bible.

The Fundies. They have the same basic salvation concept that the evangelicals do. This movement started a little over 100 years ago and is gaining strength. One reason that mainline denominations have had losses of members is that some of their members have adopted the "fundie" doctrine and have left mainline churches and headed to fundieland. The fundies believe in a literal translation of the Bible. Something that very few if any Bible scholars up into the last two centuries believed. Numbers mean something in the Bible seven is complete, 12 X12 is an infinite number. So the Bible says that 144,000 will get into heaven. What is really means is 12 X &#33;2 which is an eteranl number plus three extra zeros. We all know what added zeros does to a number. That is the only number that the fundies recongize as a symbolic number. That is because there are more than 144,000 fundies. The fundies are right about everything. Not only do they believe that homsexuality is a sin, but they beieve that all homos will burn in hell forever and ever. Regardless, just being a homo is enough. The fundies want to make everyone just like them. They add to the Bible constantly. And what they add is not to be challenged. All the stuff that add to Revelation is unbelievable. IT is hard to separate true reliogous people who are fundies from politicians who use fundie theology to try to get elected. And many fundies don&#39;t go to church or do any of the things they profess. They have a higher than average rate over the population in general over many so called "sins."

 

[jonb]

Well, we can start with adultery on the list of typical fundie sins. And murder. (Most of them haven&#39;t killed someone, but they voted for someone who declared a war on Iraq and lied about connections between Iraq and Al Qaida.)

 

[Freddie53]

ORIGINAL SIN AND THE BIBLE AND WHO IS GOD - My View

First what is the Bible. It is a record of man&#39;s relationship to God. God is perfect man is not. So if you take the Bible as a whole and can truly understand it as a complete body of work and udnerstand the symbolic parts, the parts where men misunderstood and the parts where men understood, get past translation difficulties and understanding the relationship of culture and civil law, well we might have a perfect document. But....we can&#39;t do that.

Much of the Bible is mytholigical in that it is told to make a point about something. IT is not factual material. This is particularly true of the Old Testament. The Creation sotry covers 7 days a perfect cycle. HOw long is a day? There wasn&#39;t an earth here in the beginning. So a day is an era that could cover billions upon billions of years. The Adam and Eve story, a story told to illustrate man&#39;s condition. We will all die. But God will provide a way to eternal life. Of course it is our fault according to the story. Every ancient culture in that area has a Garden of Eden story, Noah story and Creation story and they are remarkable similar. They were passed down by oral traition and then Moses wanted the stories that had been told around the campfires for years to be canonized. So it was ordered. Moses didn&#39;t write the first five books of the Bible. He had it done. Much of it was done after his death which is recoreded in the book that he "supposedly" wrote. Growing up I got into trouble asking how Moses could have written the last part since he was dead.

The Bible is sacred because it has stood the test of time. In the stories are eternal truths that can be found if you look for them.

While I myself choose to believe the Virgin Birth, and actaul Resurrection stories. To be believe that is no more "flaky" then to believe you will come back as something else later on or to believe in a life after death to start with.

I choose to believe in the basic premises of the Bible.

Who is God? Well we know from CAT scans and MRI&#39;s that brain waves serve as mental function. We know how a computer works. The Bible says that God is everywhere but you can&#39;t see him.

There is electrical and wave energy everywhere. We know how much intelligence is in a small brain. What is all the electrical energy and waves thorughout all the universe were connected. Then this electical energy and wave force would have a huge mental capacity to even alter the direction of some things. It would explain why there is order in the universe. If that is true. I would want to have my life on the same order wave length as this intelligent electrical energy and wave force. What do I call this force? GOD. Are there many spirits throughout the world? I think so. Are any of them eqal with GOD? No. But then in the Bible and in orther cultures the word God is both singular and plural. Could this intelligent life force have periods where part of it is in opposition with the other part? Perhaps so. I wouldn&#39;t rule it out. Could it alter life to the point to cause a virgin birth? I would say yes. That is what I believe.

Do I really believe all that I just wrote? Not sure. I have done a lot of thinking about it and trying to reconcile all that I know and have read and heard.

My wife is happier. She just accepts it all without worrying about it. I won&#39;t so much to have every answer. I don&#39;t. But I do have my beliefs. I am satisfied being a Methodist. But DMW, if the Methodist Church fails for some reason, I would feel much more comfortable and would welcome being a Catholic now then when we first met.

 

[GottaBigOne]

Madam, I do know you appreciate me. "love" is a strong word so I wont presume that much, but I want to clear something up. I do not deny the existance of gods (little "g") because they can&#39;t be proven, I simply have no belief, you call that withholding judgement, so we are agreed on that. If someone would describe their god as having traits that I feel make no logical sense then I would deny that god, but not all gods.

I hope I made that clear this time. You call it agnosticism, I call it atheism, because ofr me, atheism as a general concept simply means the lack of beleif in gods, not the denial of gods.

 

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by GottaBigOne@May 2 2005, 02:34 AM
Madam, I do know you appreciate me. "love" is a strong word so I wont presume that much, but I want to clear something up. I do not deny the existance of gods (little "g") because they can&#39;t be proven, I simply have no belief, you call that withholding judgement, so we are agreed on that. If someone would describe their god as having traits that I feel make no logical sense then I would deny that god, but not all gods.

I hope I made that clear this time. You call it agnosticism, I call it atheism, because ofr me, atheism as a general concept simply means the lack of beleif in gods, not the denial of gods.

[post=307094]Quoted post[/post]​

I talked with my pastor about the definitions of the words. He said the standard definition for agnostic is, "that there may or may not be a god or gods I don&#39;t know." The standard definition for atheist is, "There is no god. or gods." He said that that is generally accepted definitions. I know that is what my father said and he had a master&#39;s degree in ancient history.

He said he had never heard of it being dicussed in the terms that you mentioned it and you and I had conversed about. That being all of us are somewhat agnostic since no one can prove or disprove the existence of God.

But the discource that we had proves the power of vocabulary and subtle changes in meaning. Can you imagine taking this discussion, translating into a foreign language and then moving it across other cultrure lines and moving forward or backwards 2000 or more years? You can see how easy it is for differences of opinion to come up.

There are some New Testament Greek words. New Testament Greek is the Greek the people of Greece spoke 2000 years ago and is slightly different from classical Greek of Anthens fame and modern day Greek. Different denominations seminaries give different definitions to some of those words. And no one from that time frame is alive to confirm what the word means in certain contexts.

It has been interesting discussing this and since we have developed a framework for discussion it has been actually fun. So we can take our words and lay out this highly respected dictionaries and still get different answers sometimes. Depending on whether is is a general, Bible, or some other specialized dictionary.

But we all have to come up with what satisfies us individually.

I will close this post with this observatin though. Agnostic is a word that the general population will accept. Atheist is not as generally accepted. I suspect that there are many "agnostics" out there who are really atheists regardless of the definitions. But they like many people want damage control and don&#39;t want to feel the descrimination that the word athesist might bring from some people.


Jana, that is no way is said to reflect on your statement of be agnostic. I suspect you really are even agnostic. My suspecion is that you are still searching as many of us are you don&#39;t want to be limited to only Christian concepts of God or the gods in discussion religion, yet you don&#39;t want to have to "pick" another religion because the "rule book says to pick one." You are somewhat a free spirit. I can&#39;t see you tied down to a "master" set of beliefs written by anyone unless that list of beliefs was written by God himself.

In some ways I wish I could believe the Bible was word or word a set of words coming from a great God and man had nothing to do with it. But I know people, liturature and how the 66 books were selected by Council about 300 AD. There were also other books of the period that were not accepted and books like Revelation that alomst got left out.

I am a Christian though a liberal one. There are holes in Chrstian philsophy. There are holes in all of the pholosophical or religious philosphies. At least I do try to se it from multiple prescriptive.