Bible Questions? III

That may be right. Christianity is still evolving. There are competing versions in play right here on this very thread. You may have noticed my on-going battle with OWB over biblical literalism. Christian fundamentalists believe that the Bible is inerrant, and that every Christian must believe that. They say that God inspired only the canon, that all other views must be rejected, that we know this by "faith", and any questioning is sinful and dangerous--because it could lead people to come to the conclusions you've come to. Another approach, taken by the Catholics and Orthodox churches is that the Bible is not to be taken literally, but the Church is inerrant. My position, that of Progressive Christians, is that the best Christians can do is read a lot, think a lot, be aware of the differences, and use their best judgment based on the evidence at hand, that will never be inerrant, and a good Christian goes by the basic principle of unconditional love taught by Jesus. History will decide which one prevails, but Progressive Christians face the disadvantages of being rational and nice, which often don't do well in competitions for public support.

 

Very much so, the power of Rome.

An edict by emperor Constantine 8 years after the Nicene convention

This therefore I decree, that if any one shall be detected in concealing a book compiled by Arius, and shall not instantly bring it forward and burn it, the penalty for this offense shall be death; for immediately after conviction the criminal shall suffer capital punishment.

 

Private support is all that is needed.

There is also christian mystical tradition. The mystical path is "praying in secret". The mystical practice provides evidence through healing. The first miracle, the restoration of "sight".

Questions, beliefs, about the veracity of one view over another do not contend with truth but with each other. It is practice that demonstrates truth. The Apocalyptic view waits for verification and is left with no thing but argument. They do not know how to build consensus, but rely on coercion of the mind through the threat of negative consequences.

 

I hope you're right. Some features of the contemporary American scene make me less than optimistic. Mainline churches are steadily shrinking in numbers, while the conservative, fundamentalist ones are growing. In a study of this phenomenon, Finke and Smith, in Why Conservative Churches are Growing, conclude that religious organizations are stronger to the extent that they make people feel safe and special, provide unamibiuous answers to life's questions, and give them direction in every aspect of their lives. They're derisive about the mainline churches who suggest that "relgion is not meaningfully reduced to membership counts" and that "what matters is what is in people's hearts..." America has little patience for losers. For a sense of security, people are willing to pay the price of believing that the earth is 6,000 years old, of dismissing as worthless nonsense the findings of geologists, paleontologists and historians that humans had domesticated the dog before that time, of worshiping a deity who is (falsely) portrayed as having genocidal tendencies, and of accepting the tortured rationalizations of biblical contradictions we've been treated to in recent days. As a result, they make religion look repugnant and/or ridiculous, and drive thinking people into the arms of atheists. In the fourth century, organized Christianity made an important decision to climb into bed with the Roman Emperor. The result, from a growthsmanship point of view, was a spectacular success. Christianity is now the world's largest religion, although in a form Jesus would have difficulty recognizing, or more likely, recognize it for what it is: Shammai-syle Pharisaism. . More recently, evangelical Christians made the fateful decision to get into bed with the Republican Party--again with big payoffs, temporarily, at least. I hope and trust Jesus will eventually prevail, but I foresee a bumpy future.

 

And so how do they defend their belief in free will? Surely the two (blind faith, not questioning) cannot logically coexist. By the way I've read every page in this thread. It's been a very interesting read.

I personally have derived a lot of happiness, pleasure and meaningful thought out of analysing the stories, and what I believe to be metaphorical stories, of the bible. I've gotten much more out of this than I've ever gotten out of a preacher's sermon or any literal belief/lessons derived from the bible.

This is proof of the terrible state of individuality today. People want to feel safe and normal and alike as vanity has replaced individuation. Some people seem to treat religion as a first aid or personal floatation device. It's there when and if they should need it, but they don't really practice its practical use. At the risk of sounding horribly cliche; God is dead.

"When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident... By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."

 

And lively! How would fundamentalists defend their belief in free will and blind faith too? Since I'm not one, I can only speculate. They'd probably say that free will gives us a choice about whether to sin or not, and when we choose to believe false doctrines we're therefore fully responsible. I believe in free will, but I don't think faith requires blind obedience to anything, and involves fidelity rather to principles rather than believing unbelievable doctrines.

Me, too.

It can seem that way sometimes, but (S)he has a way of popping up now and then to show that the obituaries were premature. I just got back from Sunday school, where I had a chance to see Christianity working in the lives of ordinary people. If I probed their beliefs, I might argue with this or that particular, but these are good people whose lives and morals seem to be animated by their faith--the humble, sincere kind, not the obnoxious Pharisaical kind. I saw exactly the same thing among Muslims in the Sahara desert and Buddhists in Thailand. To me, God is the Spirit that animates such people (as a concept, not a friendly ghost). Of course there are plenty of Christians, Muslims, and even Buddhists who are willing to slit each other's throats. That's unfortunately the human condition. That's the down side of free will.

I guess I do regard basic truths of Christianity as self-evident: the Sermon on the Mount, love thy neighbor, the parable of the Good Samaritan, etc. To me, these have intrinsic merit, and can stand on their own, regardless of what we might believe about the historical Jesus, the virgin birth, the Resurrection, the Trinity, etc. One of my concerns about fundamentalist belief in an "inerrant" Bible is that people get the idea that if one passage seems to conflict with another, the whole thing must be wrong and their faith will come crashing down like a house of cards. Since I never believed that from the beginning, I doubt that my faith would be that vulnerable.

 

I regard "faith", as a little willingness to allow, the opposite of skepticism.
"Belief" on the other hand is a symbol chosen to represent an "unknown" variable, A substitute for knowledge.

 

Question does any one have verse on how G-d views Atheist? of acknowledging that they will exist.

 

Is this what you are looking for?
(Psalm 10:4) . . .The wicked one according to his superciliousness makes no search; All his ideas are: “There is no God.”
(Psalm 14:1) The senseless one has said in his heart: “There is no Jehovah.” They have acted ruinously, they have acted detestably in [their] dealing. There is no one doing good.
(Psalm 53:1) The senseless one has said in his heart: “There is no Jehovah.” They have acted ruinously and have acted detestably in unrighteousness; There is no one doing good.
(Isaiah 29:16) The perversity of YOU men! Should the potter himself be accounted just like the clay? For should the thing made say respecting its maker: “He did not make me”? And does the very thing formed actually say respecting its former: “He showed no understanding”?

 

Still evolving? Yeah, God is working out how he wants to be served by trial and error.

I'm neither a literalist or a fundamentalist but I do believe the Bible was inspired of God and that parts of it should not dismissed as "collection of various ancient myths, stories, prayers or opinions".

Yes, God inspired only the canon, that all other views should be rejected and yes we know this by faith but this idea that any questioning is sinful and dangerous is just wrong. Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld, to be such one must have taken the time to search out whether what he believes is true and that would involve a lot of questioning.

Nice to know you're a "Progressive Christian", I guess that's why you seem to believe the rest of us are regressive.

Actually this is not a contest for public support, in fact Jesus indicated that his true followers would be few in number. This should be the attempt to find out how God wants to be served and then do so.

As for your statement, "a good Christian goes by the basic principle of unconditional love taught by Jesus", that's a nice sound bite but what does it mean. Most who use the word love have no idea what it means in a Biblical sense. In fact a lot of people equate love and sex but the Bible never uses the the word love in that sense.

 

I'm not sure why this is considered such a bad thing.
I don't know about you but having unambiguous answers to life's questions, such as why do we grow old and die, what happens after we die, what is the future of mankind and who is God, seems like a good thing.

As for having direction in our lives, really if you were on a ship at sea and it had no direction how would you feel? Our lives need direction, so that if we should get off course, we will know which way to go to get back on course.

 

I don't believe in peace at any price or security at the expense of believing comforting falsehoods. As Saint Thomas Aquinas said, a captain who valued the safety of his ship above all else wouldn't take his ship out of port. There are few unambiguous answers in the Bible. As we've seen, there are profound differences in interpretation and translation of numerous passages in Scripture. Reason, judgment, and knowledge, guided by the Holy Spirit and a focus on the underlying agape principle, are our best guides to what Scripture means. Otherwise we miss the forest by focusing on the trees. Saint Augustine said: ""When I understood literally, I was slain spiritually". I have no problem with seeking answers and direction in life, as long as they were the right answers and direction, didn't prevent people from knowing God, didn't extol ignorance and reject reason and knowledge, didn't make people do evil things in the name of good, didn't condone cruelty and injustice in the name of God, and didn't cripple minds, which are our greatest gift from God. I think you're on the wrong course and are trying to drag others along with you. It's not too late to get on the right track before the malestrom.

 

When I went to church, I knew a man that explained his past to me. He then told me that he had aids, but his faith was very strong and I even saw him receive a "Lee Strobel" DVD by a friend of his. His beliefs were not progressive and he was very conservative Christian and he often went in front of the temple and kneeled down to pray. He even offered me a spiritual healing in Gods name. To you he would be a fundamentalist seeking nothing but comfort, but to me he is a Christian.

Did I mention that he doesn't believe in evolution? I can tell you that his mind is very strong and his heart is just as strong. His mind is hardly crippled, but if it doesn't agree with what contemporaries then it should be ignored. To me, that seems more crippling and entrapping within the zeitgeist of the times more than anything else. That's even what a contemporary like one of my favorite thinkers, "Viktor Frankl" has said. At the cost of a specific way of thinking, they are all prevented from understanding the heart of the issue of free will and other such issues in society.

Like Sir Isaac Newton had said, and I'm paraphrasing, "I love Plato and Socrates, but I love the truth more". Many scholars have said that the whole reason why he looked into what he looked into was because of his faith in God. He even believed that stonehenge was an old religious ritual passed down to Adam and Eve because they would lit a fire in the middle and it would represent the sun. He even said that there would be vehicles that would allow man to go 20mph and Voltaire replied back to him mockingly. He said, "That's ridiculous, and even if that were true, our hearts inside our chest would explode". IN received this idea what what the Bible had said that knowledge would increase and that there would be a kind of quickening process.

 

How does that work? What were the results?

 

Also, exactly what cruelty and evil am I committing? Am I burning the Quran? Am I telling gay that they should die and go to hell? Am I doing any of the numerous other behaviors that Jesus would disagree with? I don't. Not exactly sure what you're fighting against, honestly.

 

It felt amazing. He sat next to me, held my hand, then closed his eyes and kept saying such phrases as, "Oh lord, I know you have brought this lost one to us just as you want all your lost ones to come to us and be healed in your name" "Oh lord God, help Michael, give him the spiritual gives that you have given us, in your Name lord Jesus, heal him".

Good results.

 

What were you healed of?

 

Superiority complex

But seriously, I can't really explain it with words, but the Christian faith just started to make more sense and I began to respect these people even more. Some doubts that I had about the beauty of it, and the ideas that "they're delusional" just kinda melted away because their behaviors don't seem delusional at all if they're willing to be 'fools for christ' and for love.

 

You were moved emotionally and encouraged by his faith. I guess you could call that a spiritual healing. Superiority complex makes sense if you thought they were delusional.

As for delusion, love is without condition, everything else is respiration. We are all equal to any virtue, the only thing that can be threatened is our illusions.

 

I just felt more love for my fellow man and felt less shame in believing in what I believed.

I do believe in love and it's changing affect and it is never forceful, but it does leave room for invitation. As for conditions, there are certain conditions to be met in love. Such as a commitment between husband and wife, part of that commitment is to remain faithful to each other. So there is a condition, the condition that they should not have relations with another. This is not to say that the condition is forceful, but that it is decided out of love.