Divine Inspiration or Divine Dictation?

[Valmy]

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. 

I agree with this.  I always thought the contradictory nature of the Bible and the fact it came from so many sources prevents it from ever being the enormous burden that the Quran is to Islam.

[Queequeg]

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?

Well, on a personal level I don't; I think God can be as much Ahura Mazda, Vishnu, Allah and Jehova.  But that said, again, we are using different ways of thinking here; I assume a belief in Christianity, in the Nicean Creed, that God can be Three-as-One, and you have just admitted that such a relationship is possible in nature, therefore there is no further argument.

[crazy canuck]

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.

The religious wars the world has endured has very little to do with any comfort that religion might have given people.

[grumbler]

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?

Never understood the concept of the trinity in the context of supposedly monotheistic religions.  How many gods are there?  if just one, did that god come to earth?  if so, how could said god "suffer" in any but the most trivial ways?

You analogy of me as jesus doesn't work.  There is only one me, and I am not part of a trinity.

Now, you may know as a Christian that suffering is a big part of your religion, but it isn't obvious from the stories of a god pretending to suffer that this is so.

[garbon]

Then you are torturing the word into meaninglessness.

Isn't that the whole point of us not really being able to comprehend God?  Our feeble attempts to describe his ways are doomed to failure.

[Valmy]

Now, you may know as a Christian that suffering is a big part of your religion, but it isn't obvious from the stories of a god pretending to suffer that this is so.

Another great thing about the Bible is how the book of Job explores the whole suffering angle in a very sophisticated hellenistic sort of way (a reflection on when the middle part of the book was written) and never really manages to answer the question.  It is amazing a book like that would be included in a holy scripture.

Obviously that was not about Jesus suffering but rather why good people suffer for no clear reason.

[Valmy]

The religious wars the world has endured has very little to do with any comfort that religion might have given people.

How do you figure?

[crazy canuck]

Isn't that the whole point of us not really being able to comprehend God?  Our feeble attempts to describe his ways are doomed to failure.

That gets back to my qualifier of asking for a good explanation.  Saying that we can never understand why an all loving all powerful God allows suffering in the world is no answer.  It is just a dodge.

[garbon]

That gets back to my qualifier of asking for a good explanation.  Saying that we can never understand why an all loving all powerful God allows suffering in the world is no answer.  It is just a dodge.

So then the point is the a good explanation is unnecessary and counterproductive.

Also, I don't see it as a dodge at all.

[crazy canuck]

The religious wars the world has endured has very little to do with any comfort that religion might have given people.

How do you figure?

Name me one religious war, or any war, that was fought because the comfort religion gave people was threatened.   Religion has been a great device for getting the populace behind a war but it isnt the reason for the war.

[crazy canuck]

That gets back to my qualifier of asking for a good explanation.  Saying that we can never understand why an all loving all powerful God allows suffering in the world is no answer.  It is just a dodge.

So then the point is the a good explanation is unnecessary and counterproductive.

No, the point is a good explanation is not possible and there being no good explanation how such a thing can exist I choose not to delude myself.

[Valmy]

Name me one religious war, or any war, that was fought because the comfort religion gave people was threatened.   Religion has been a great device for getting the populace behind a war but it isnt the reason for the war.

All you had to do was convince people that either their religion itself was threatened or something important to their religion was threatened and they would fight.  In that sense all of them were supposedly fought for this reason.

[garbon]

No, the point is a good explanation is not possible and there being no good explanation how such a thing can exist I choose not to delude myself.

Except that not everything is down to logic.

[Grallon]

Is there a particular pleasure in revisiting the same topics, using the same arguments, over & over ?

CC is right btw.  There's nothing beyond, or below, or before, or after. 

The only thing I can see is time dilation effect when the brain dies...  Perhaps whatever conceit we have about the afterlife at the moment of death streches into infinity during that moment ? 



G.

[Valmy]

Is there a particular pleasure in revisiting the same topics, using the same arguments, over & over ?

CC is right btw.  There's nothing beyond, or below, or before, or after. 

The only thing I can see is time dilation effect when the brain dies...  Perhaps whatever conceit we have about the afterlife at the moment of death streches into infinity during that moment ?

Whether there is or is not is not what I am discussing with CC.  The very fact religious and spiritual ideas get bogged down in what I consider ridiculous ideas like that is regretable.  The religious experience is a very key part of human existance and is worth discussing.  In my mind the experience itself is significant and not all the stories we make up about it.

All I can say about my time after death is that I was born in 1977 and I do not remember my existance in 1976 being particularly horrible.  I presume being dead will be just like the billions of years before I was born.  It will be somewhat disappointing if I find out that is not the case .