Divine Inspiration or Divine Dictation?

[crazy canuck]

Made redemption in the next life possible, you are forgetting that.

Right, God loves us so much that death in this world is the only good thing.  How very Cathar of you.

[Valmy]

Encourage and hold sacred are not the same thing.  I don't think anyone here would encourage everyone in the world to die fighting injustice, but even the secular world holds such people in esteem (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Sophie Scholl, etc..)

But we are talking about seemingly meaningless suffering.  How does starving to death in a famine advance justice?

[grumbler]

Honestly, none of you seem to get that suffering is an integral part of Christianity.  Were all the depictions of Christ on the Cross too subtle for you guy or what?

How could an immortal omnipotent god suffer?  The whole crucifixion thing seems to me to be the most emo display of passive-aggressive attention-getting I can think of in literature.  I suppose it impressed the suckers, though, so that god dude probably thinks it was worth the humiliation.

[Valmy]

Made redemption in the next life possible, you are forgetting that.

So why send us down here?  Just to be evil so that we might be miraculously forgiven?  In that context aborting fetus' should be considered an ultimate act of mercy and sacrifice.  They will never be born so they cannot sin while you are cosigning yourself to eternal damnation.

[crazy canuck]

If you read your NT you will see Christ suffered and died for us so we didnt have to.  You see the story goes that God so loved the world that he gave his only son.  God loves us so much in fact that he created this world for us.  But he did a really shitty job and then cheaped out on the maintenance contract.

It only makes sense at all if you realize that after Jesus died his followers had to grapple with why it was he died.  They interpreted it this way and the funny part is that their interpretation grew to to be much more important to his religion than anything he actually did or said in life.  Then they even went back and made his birth miraculous as well.

History has a sense of humor that way.

It makes even more sense if you assume that Jesus never actually lived and that the Gospel writers were part of the larger mystery religion movements in the area at the time that were all calling for the world to end soon.

[Queequeg]

Dying of hunger does not make one a martyr but I don't see how it would matter from a Christian perspective, as if the farmer lived a good life (and presumably his poverty would be a plus in the long run) he'd be set for eternity.

You guys might be uncomfortable with this way of thinking, but its perfectly coherent if one starts off believing in the basics of Christianity (afterlife, Jesus, God, etc...). Just because you might find it repellent doesn't make it incoherent. 

[crazy canuck]

Made redemption in the next life possible, you are forgetting that.

So why send us down here?  Just to be evil so that we might be miraculously forgiven? 

A very good concise critique of why the Christian notion of God makes little sense.

[Valmy]

It makes even more sense if you assume that Jesus never actually lived and that the Gospel writers were part of the larger mystery religion movements in the area at the time that were all calling for the world to end soon.

Either he lived or he didn't.  It really makes no difference to me.  The important thing is what it has to say about spirituality and the human experience.

[Queequeg]

Honestly, none of you seem to get that suffering is an integral part of Christianity.  Were all the depictions of Christ on the Cross too subtle for you guy or what?

How could an immortal omnipotent god suffer?  The whole crucifixion thing seems to me to be the most emo display of passive-aggressive attention-getting I can think of in literature.  I suppose it impressed the suckers, though, so that god dude probably thinks it was worth the humiliation.

Never understood attacks on the trinity, as anyone with any knowledge of anatomy would recognize that it is possible for three things to compose one organism.  Is Grumbler 1 Grumbler or is he billions of different, unrelated cells who just happen to be working together? 

[Valmy]

You guys might be uncomfortable with this way of thinking, but its perfectly coherent if one starts off believing in the basics of Christianity (afterlife, Jesus, God, etc...). Just because you might find it repellent doesn't make it incoherent. 

I understand it and it obviously was a great comfort to people for centuries.  But it just does not work today, it just does not resonate with modern western people.  Religion will move on as it always has and always will.

[crazy canuck]

Dying of hunger does not make one a martyr but I don't see how it would matter from a Christian perspective, as if the farmer lived a good life (and presumably his poverty would be a plus in the long run) he'd be set for eternity.

You guys might be uncomfortable with this way of thinking, but its perfectly coherent if one starts off believing in the basics of Christianity (afterlife, Jesus, God, etc...). Just because you might find it repellent doesn't make it incoherent.

The thing that makes it incoherent is that the Gospels claim God is all loving and all powerful.  It makes no sense to have an all powerful all loving God which allows evil to occur in the world.  How does one explain away all the senseless death and suffering in the world if a all powerful all loving God exists.

Again, if anyone can give me a good answer to that I would be happy to hear it. 

[crazy canuck]

I understand it and it obviously was a great comfort to people for centuries.  But it just does not work today, it just does not resonate with modern western people.  Religion will move on as it always has and always will.

Just because the religion has been around for centuries doesnt mean it gave great comfort.  It just that you could be burned at the stake for saying stuff like this back then.

[Valmy]

Never understood attacks on the trinity, as anyone with any knowledge of anatomy would recognize that it is possible for three things to compose one organism.  Is Grumbler 1 Grumbler or is he billions of different, unrelated cells who just happen to be working together? 

If you think of God that way then why does it matter if there is three or four or 1 billion?

[Queequeg]

You guys might be uncomfortable with this way of thinking, but its perfectly coherent if one starts off believing in the basics of Christianity (afterlife, Jesus, God, etc...). Just because you might find it repellent doesn't make it incoherent. 

I understand it and it obviously was a great comfort to people for centuries.  But it just does not work today, it just does not resonate with modern western people.  Religion will move on as it always has and always will.

I'd agree with you that religion evolves, but I fail to see why Christianity is all of a sudden vestigial.  How many Christians blow themselves up in Churches or behead women for adultery? We are reasonably well integrated, and once this retarded Evangelical reaction burns itself our most of us will still be here.  I'd argue that Christianity's greatest strength is its ability to evolve; unlike Islam, Christianity is a belief system rather than a way of life. 

[Valmy]

Just because the religion has been around for centuries doesnt mean it gave great comfort.  It just that you could be burned at the stake for saying stuff like this back then.

Yeah well people found the ideas so comforting and any threat to them so threatening that they defended them rather violently

Unfortunately I should not put that sentence in the past tense just yet.