Calling all Christians - how well do you know your doctrine?

[grumbler]

I have to wonder if that's something that non-Catholics are taught.  I'll have to ask some of the locals.

I'm not religious at all and I knew that.  I just don't think that it is very important in a modern Christian context.  It was important when the "Classical" intellectual pagans were becoming a staple of Catholic theology, but these days their presence in theology is less important and taken for granted.

[grumbler]

So he's metaphorically omnipotent?

Well if the core book has God not being Omnipotent maybe that is not as fundamental as everybody thinks? It is a spiritual quality of some sort. Jumping up and down demanding he be consistently and logically omnipotent when it seems pretty clear that was never claimed in that sense seems pretty absurd.

Anyway this science shit doesn't bother me. If you want science read a science book.

Science? Who is talking about science?

If you want to posit a non-omnipotent God, that is fine - but there are kind of some logical issues with that as well. I mean, this is the guy who literally created the universe right? From nothing?

Is this the same god we are talking about?

I mean, if he created the universe, and created all the rules that govern the universe as well, then isn't he pretty much by default omnipotent, regardless of whether or not you believe it to be metaporical or not?

I suppose we could hypothesize some kind of deity that has the power to create the universe from nothingness, but does NOT have the understanding to know what he is doing, or how it would turn out?

I think you are getting pretty far, at that point, from the God of Christianity though...

The problem with the non-omnipotent-and-omniscient god is that he could fuck up and send people to hell when they deserve heaven, and the reverse.  If there is a chance that someone goes to hell who doesn't deserve it, then the concept of the perfectly just god disappears.  That's the problem with "judgement" theology:  if the judge isn't omni-omni, his judgments are faulty, but if he is omni-omni then he could have set things up so there was a lot less suffering by the innocent.

Marti is now sounding more like a Hindu than a Catholic - reincarnation until you "get it right" and "merge with the divine" is what Hinduism is all about.  There just isn't any judging: it is a process of eliminating karma, life by life, until you have no karma and join with Brahmin, the "ultimate reality."

[Martinus]

Marti is now sounding more like a Hindu than a Catholic - reincarnation until you "get it right" and "merge with the divine" is what Hinduism is all about.  There just isn't any judging: it is a process of eliminating karma, life by life, until you have no karma and join with Brahmin, the "ultimate reality."

Pretty much - that's why I said Christianity would make much more sense if it had the concept. I am, if anything, a Christian heretic (on a good day) but don't really consider myself a Christian, strictly speaking.

[Martinus]

As for the broader discussion, I think omnipotent and omniscient are just a way Christians (and Catholics especially) are trying to square the circle of having a God that is "awesome" while not falling to pantheism they consider a heresy (because it screws up with some aspects of their theology). Personally, I think pantheism makes more sense when talking about the nature of God than the "omnipotent and omniscient person" thing that Catholics have going.

That also shows why I think religions should evolve with our understanding of the world - because otherwise they become outdated and ridiculous.

[Berkut]

That also shows why I think religions should evolve with our understanding of the world - because otherwise they become outdated and ridiculous.

THe problem there though is that one pretty quickly concludes that the rational "evolution" is to say "Yeah, it is all bunk".

It is pretty hard rowing to take a step down the "religion is a beleif system that can change with changing knowledge" path and end up somewhere other than atheism/agnosticism.

[Martinus]

That also shows why I think religions should evolve with our understanding of the world - because otherwise they become outdated and ridiculous.

THe problem there though is that one pretty quickly concludes that the rational "evolution" is to say "Yeah, it is all bunk".

It is pretty hard rowing to take a step down the "religion is a beleif system that can change with changing knowledge" path and end up somewhere other than atheism/agnosticism.

i think it is a matter of personal preference, really. Self-actualization and "sense of meaning" are the top level of Maslov's hierarchy of needs, and I think religion/spirituality of some sort plays an important part in that for many people. Of course it's not for everyone, but also other means of fulfilling this need (such as creating art) are not for everyone. But I think it is healthy to have something filling that need nonetheless.

[Razgovory]

Given a omnipotent Jesus who went through what is at least described as considerable trouble to provide that salvation, I still don't see why he didn't just set the system up better so it was all unnecessary to start with - given that a fundamental of modern religious belief is that he has the power to set up the system in any fashion he sees fit, and the knowledge to know exactly how any system would turn out...

He gave humans free will to fuck it all up. GG Jesus.

Again, omnipotent.

He could give us a free will, and set it up so we don't fuck it up as well.

Or set it up so lots and lots less fuck it up, or lots more fuck it up.

His perfect knowledge means that he already knew exactly how many would fuck it up, so it must be the case that he in fact wants exactly as many to fuck it up as HAS fucked it up.

So no worries, the system is working exactly as intended. Saved, not saved, it doesn't really matter, because logic tells us that either way, it is what the person entity who set the entire thing up wants anyway.

The bible might *say* they want everyone to be saved, and of course that simply means that the system wants the bible to say that - logically it certainly is not true.

Since you can "unfuck" yourself up pretty easily it seems we already live in that world.  Presumably, Berkut is the type that would throw himself from a passenger ship and then refuse rescue shouting "if you really cared about my safety you wouldn't have built a boat that I would have jumped off from in the first place!"

[MadImmortalMan]

Marty are you on this Christ kick because of Easter? 

I don't know if god can be both omnipotent and just. It seems that's the conflict Christian mythology tries to reconcile.

Free will means all choices are available and all consequences must be taken along with them. If you could make choices but not take their consequences, it would be unjust.

So if omnipotent god wants to hand out some mercy for sins and still maintain justice there's the whole problem of who's gonna pay for all this. And that's where Christ comes into it. Without justice, all that dying on the cross stuff is unnecessary. It's god's way of having it both ways. But it's a lot of effort to go to just to maintain free will rather than simply making it impossible to people to make bad choices.

[viper37]

Where was Christ between crucifixion and resurrection?

Jesus, the man, was in his tomb.  The Holy Spirit took 3 days to come back from Heaven.

[Fireblade]

Where was Christ between crucifixion and resurrection?

He was dead, you stupid fucking Polack

[Martinus]

Marty are you on this Christ kick because of Easter? 

I don't know if god can be both omnipotent and just. It seems that's the conflict Christian mythology tries to reconcile.

Free will means all choices are available and all consequences must be taken along with them. If you could make choices but not take their consequences, it would be unjust.

So if omnipotent god wants to hand out some mercy for sins and still maintain justice there's the whole problem of who's gonna pay for all this. And that's where Christ comes into it. Without justice, all that dying on the cross stuff is unnecessary. It's god's way of having it both ways. But it's a lot of effort to go to just to maintain free will rather than simply making it impossible to people to make bad choices.

Judeo-christian mysticism maintains (similarly to many other mystic systems) that you cannot ascribe any quality to God, because by doing so you are saying that God is not the opposite of this quality, which would mean He/She/It is no longer God. So even saying that God is good, just or merciful limits God (because this means that God is not non-good, non-just and non-merciful - which means there must be something outside of God that is non-good, non-just and non-merciful) and ascribing them to God is only a dualistic illusion created by our separation from God.

That being said, Mercy and Justice (or Severity) are names given to opposing pillars of the Tree of Life, and only in the highest (and unknowable) emanation of God they are reconciled - everywhere else they are in an imperfect imbalance.

[The Brain]

Wotan Clan >>> Christian churches

[The Minsky Moment]

It all comes down to the Gospel of Woody:

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil.  I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever

[Drakken]

That's why I think Christianity works much better with reincarnation - that way you get another chance if you don't get saved on your first run.

Except that it does not mean he went to Hell, but where the souls lay to rest before being sent either place. If you are in Hell, you are beyond salvation.

The canon French version of the Credo pretty much states it: "[...] a souffert sous Ponce Pilate, a été crucifié, est mort, a été enseveli, est descendu aux enfers, le troisième jour est ressuscité des morts [...]". "Aux enfers" means in the sense of the greek concept of Hades or the Jewish sheol, not Hell where mortal sinners are cut away from God's sight and grace.

[grumbler]

It all comes down to the Gospel of Woody:

If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil.  I think that the worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever

Funny, that's pretty much exactly what god said about Woody Allen.