Theology

[bobbyok1]

As a vocational pastor I have been digging into three questions as of late and wanted to present them to interested IE members for mutual growth. I must admit I come to this discussion with preconceived notions of the correct answers to these questions, but I do feel as though I have much more room to grow in my understanding. The questions were stirred in me as I engaged a DVD series called "True U" by Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical para church organization). I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and dialogue about the three. Humor is welcome, but please no abusing one another through hateful, degrading or belittling speech. Thanks!

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

(Since these are each huge questions that do not have simple answers feel free to tackle one at a time).

 

[GATTACA!]

As a vocational pastor I have been digging into three questions as of late and wanted to present them to interested IE members for mutual growth. I must admit I come to this discussion with preconceived notions of the correct answers to these questions, but I do feel as though I have much more room to grow in my understanding. The questions were stirred in me as I engaged a DVD series called "True U" by Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical para church organization). I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and dialogue about the three. Humor is welcome, but please no abusing one another through hateful, degrading or belittling speech. Thanks!

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

(Since these are each huge questions that do not have simple answers feel free to tackle one at a time).

Bill Nye would like a word.

 

[TheRealLynch51]

IMO...

#1: I think a god or some sort of higher being is real (Im more in the school of Karma)

#2: The Bible is not historically reliable at all. Most books of the bible were written hundreds of years after the time of Jesus and the clash between the New and Old Testament seem wrong to me. Still think they're are some decent values to be found in there.

#3: Jesus was real and was one of the greatest philosophers of all time with some great messages about love and handling ones self. However, he was not the son of a god, he didn't perform miracles, and his crucifixion wasn't glorified over anyone else's. He was a great man with a great message.

That is all.

 

[no.1IrishFan]

IMO...

#1: I think a god or some sort of higher being is real (Im more in the school of Karma)

#2: The Bible is not historically reliable at all. Most books of the bible were written hundreds of years after the time of Jesus and the clash between the New and Old Testament seem wrong to me. Still think they're are some decent values to be found in there.

#3: Jesus was real and was one of the greatest philosophers of all time with some great messages about love and handling ones self. However, he was not the son of a god, he didn't perform miracles, and his crucifixion wasn't glorified over anyone else's. He was a great man with a great message.

That is all.

This is not true.

 

[notredomer23]

As a vocational pastor I have been digging into three questions as of late and wanted to present them to interested IE members for mutual growth. I must admit I come to this discussion with preconceived notions of the correct answers to these questions, but I do feel as though I have much more room to grow in my understanding. The questions were stirred in me as I engaged a DVD series called "True U" by Focus on the Family (a conservative evangelical para church organization). I would love to hear your ideas, feedback and dialogue about the three. Humor is welcome, but please no abusing one another through hateful, degrading or belittling speech. Thanks!

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

(Since these are each huge questions that do not have simple answers feel free to tackle one at a time).

Question 1. Yes. This was no an accident. Something created the universe, whether it was the monotheistic God or something else.

Question 2. Meh. Some stories in the Bible should be taken as just that-- stories. I tend to think the New Testament is much more accurate than the Old, but some of the Old Testament is really cool(and historically accurate) such as Isaiah and Maccabees.

Question 3. Real Person. Don't think that is really disputable now even by atheists.

All IMO.

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

1. Don't know

2. Don't know

3. Don't know

About to read A Secular Age by Charles Taylor.

 

[Ironman8]

I believe in the second coming of Reesus.

 

[CTHindman]

#1. Yes. Without a doubt. Is he a "clockwork" God that only set the universe in motion or the active God that affects day to day life, I do not know for sure.
#2. I do not think that the bible was ever intended to be a history book. I believe that just as Jesus spoke in parables, the bible is full of parables. Historical accuracy does make the it more or less valid in our lives today.
#3. Jesus is the Son of God. He was real. I believe that he was self actualized, much like The Budha and other famous religious individuals in history. I do believe he was capable of love that in itself was a miracle at that time in history. His ability to accept people seems to be losses in today's Christianity.



Sent from my Etch-a-sketch using Tapatalk.

 

[dshans]

Oy vez ist mir!!!

 

[KPENN]

Question #1- Is there a God? (A question of origin)

No I don't think so. In my opinion Theists use a very lazy thought process when the topic of creation comes up, that "something can't come from something", when there is no explanation(that I am aware of) where god came from, his origin, etc...

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

Maybe bits and pieces but for the most part I don't think so.

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

Maybe a real person, but the story is a fairy tale. I'll just leave this

10 Christ-like Figures Who Pre-Date Jesus - Listverse

 

[bobbyok1]

Bill Nye would like a word.

Nice! I didn't catch his debate he had recently.

 

[Old Man Mike]

It's too late for this old man to respond to such deep matters, and this isn't a proper medium for doing so. I will risk making a few absurdly inadequate comments.

1). GOD exists as one of the two absolutes in existence. The other is the Chaos, what the ancients thought of as "nothing" or utter disorder, and modern science would call the sea of micro-black holes. Our most intelligent scientist, John von Neumann reasoned that for the Universe to exist there must be, by Quantum Mechanical law, an "Observer" to collapse its Wave Function from this State of Chaos. That Observer must be beyond this Universe, and there was only One Entity that he could think of to do that job.

2). The Bible is a great mix of different types of literature, so the question is naively put. Some of it is allegory. Some of it is poetry. Some of it is cultural law and mores. Some of it is legend. AND some of it is historical. Biblical archaeology has shown a huge amount of historical truth in some areas of the Bible, and this is not in academic dispute.

3). Jesus was clearly a real person, and this is attested to not only in Josephus but in several other old sources. The depth of early followership that He had alone shows this. By the 200s a Roman empress [no Christian she] was so impressed with his life that she had a temple built to honor him and two other "wonder workers". Whether one believes that Jesus was Son of God is a different question. I believe that He is, though I have no scientific proof, nor does anyone. His words alone are so humanly counterintuitive, however, that one wonders who else they could have come from.

Now, old man will hit the sack.......

 

[Irish YJ]

1. Yes. I'm more of a spiritualist in the sense I believe in a higher power. I don't think we just "happened".
2. Reliable is a stretch, but here are some elements that are semi accurate. In my research regarding the origination of the book, the gospels, etc.... Just too many human hands in the mix. And I don't buy into the explanation that the humans where driven by divine inspiration. Hell, pagans had a hand in picking the books and choosing our holidays.
3. Yes he was a real person. Was he the son of god, I'd like to think so.

Bonus: I do not buy into Papal infallibility at all, nor do I feel the Vatican has historically been a great role model to the masses. Again, just men, and subject to all their flaws and failures.

 

[greyhammer90]

1) I think there is something, though not what we expect or conceptualize. If there is a singular god with a mind and a conscious awareness of "himself"(which I doubt) I don't think he cares about us at all. It wouldn't be like us caring about ants, because I think ants are more relatable to us then we would be to a God.

2). As others have said, parts are probably based in history. But much of it is fables and stories passed down to express our society's morals.

3) I have no opinion or knowledge. His ideas are special though, and are the reason I do consider myself a Christian. I don't know if the man was the son of a guy that hangs out with angels or anything, but his philosophy was and is holy in my opinion. If that makes sense.

 

[notredomer23]

Now, old man will hit the sack.......

is hitting the sack your version of a mic drop

 

[gkIrish]

1. Yes

2. No

3. Real person. Not really even a debatable question.

 

[Brooklyn]

1. Yes

2. No

3. Real person. Not really even a debatable question.

This is what I think also. Pretty much word for word.

 

[Jebediah Springfield]

No I don't think so. In my opinion Theists use a very lazy thought process when the topic of creation comes up, that "something can't come from something", when there is no explanation(that I am aware of) where god came from, his origin, etc...


Maybe bits and pieces but for the most part I don't think so.


Maybe a real person, but the story is a fairy tale. I'll just leave this

10 Christ-like Figures Who Pre-Date Jesus - Listverse

That article is setting off my bullshit detector.

 

[Irish YJ]

That article is setting off my bullshit detector.

I'm not saying that every single word in that article is legit, but a lot of the comparisons are historically factual from a documentation perspective (not saying the stories are true, but similarities in other religions/mythology is there). Most of this stuff is easily found in libraries, so please, don't take anyone's word! I've had several intellectual debates on the topic going back to logic class in college. I consider myself Christian, and Catholic, but I can't turn a blind eye to fact and data. I'm very much like Greyhammer's #3 response.

 

[Irishnuke]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. God in human form. A third of the holy trinity.

 

[DomerInHappyValley]

Talk about completly loaded questions.
1. I suscribe to the big bang theory while maintaining that the odds were extremely great
Something gave it the best possible chance of succeding then sat back and let nature take it's course.
2. Like it or not the bible was written by man, not handed down from God. Historically man has always tried to control man. The message in this case is more important than the delivery. But I don't buy that he didn't have any siblings or a wife.
3. I don't know other religious text agree he was a real person without being the son of God, but a great prophet.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Question #1- Is there a God?

Impossible to tell. The furthest we can get to is that the Big Bang happened billions of years ago, but where did all of that stuff come from?

Atheist or religious, you are either placing your faith in a god creating matter or matter existing permanently. That's the part of the universe that is so fascinating: what is permanent? What is the beginning? How can there even be one, in a physical creation of matter sense?

We simply don't know, and there is nothing wrong with that. May I present Buster's Razor: It's possible for a god to exist and for a religion to properly explain the truth of the universe, but that religion does not currently exist.

Question #2- Is the Bible reliable? (That is historically)

The Bible is not reliable historically or morally; it's nothing short of repulsive. In Mark Twain's words, "It's not the parts of the bible I don't understand that scare me, it's the parts I do."

If a god wrote the bible, then he condones slavery, women being second-class citizens, incest, arraigned marriages, racism, xenophobia, murdering your children, etc etc etc. The god of the Old Testament is a piece of shit. To convince the Pharaoh to release the Jews...he kills the first-born of every family in the empire? WUT. Sounds like a keeper.

The Bible for me is like the sewer system of a city that's been around for thousands of years, each generation builds on top of it and overtime parts disagree with other parts, gets exponentially confusing, and simply doesn't make sense from an outsider's perspective. I believe that the Bible is a collection of ancient stories that the Jews either created or gathered from their time in Babylon, it was written in different languages and translated into Hebrew and Aramaic. Then the Christians took the words and built a new belief right on top of it, with a ton of it disagreeing with the previous entrees. They translated the Aramaic and Hebrew into Greek and Latin, and a millennium later Europeans translated that into English/German/French/etc. We know for a fact that they weren't very good at these translations. Hell I just read the other day that in Hebrew letters and numbers are the same thing and it's ultra confusing (I mean Latin does work the same way...) and that's why we have totally batshit numbers in the Old Testament (e.g. Noah was like 600 years old, the Jews wandered around Sinai for 40 years, etc).

Question #3- Who is Jesus? (Real person? Fairy tale?)

Jesus may have been a real person, and a fantastic pacifist, but he wasn't god. I find his entire life to be rather illogical, and laughably inefficient. To prove to people that he is the son of god, he's going to cure a few fellows of a disease and perform some miracles... and then ask you to tell all of your friends. WHAT? He shows up in Saul's dream and converts him to Christianity and now-Paul tells people they need to convert Gentiles too? Seems like there is an easier way to show everyone "the way." Here's an idea: show up in everyone's dream, simultaneously, with the same message. Then it's undeniable. The sheer inefficiencies in getting the message out were the first signs something was up. If you're God, use a little of it and tell us you're the one truth yadda yadda yadda follow me etc etc.

I can remember asking a priest in sixth grade, after 9/11 happened and they explained to us that Muslims actually have a very high opinion of Jesus (to try and mitigate the xenophobia), "Soooo...they think Jesus was lying about being the Messiah and was just a prophet? Why would a prophet lie and why would you have such a high opinion of a liar?" And he gave me a pretty crappy answer of "History = his story. They lied on that one.." But in Eighth Grade I transferred to the nonreligious Maumee Valley Country Day and had Muslim classmates and I asked them the same question and they said "The apostles and such took Jesus' message of pacifism and drastically altered it. He didn't mean that he was THE son of God, but that we are all God's children and should be peaceful." That blew my brain for a while, and sure enough the Christians in the first few centuries didn't have their message together AT ALL. It took until ~325 AD, and a Roman emperor demanding it, for some of them to settle on the idea that Jesus was indeed the one and only son of God and that all other beliefs are blasphemy and should be killed... (how Jesus-like).

Jesus seems like a fantastic guy to listen to, if you grade on a curve, but he wasn't god.

 

[arndtjc]

No
No
Debatable. I think no, as there are other Jesus-esque figures in religions that predate Christianity. Had he been real, I don't think he created miracles as the religion goes, nor was he the son of god as he doesn't exist...

Just my outlook!

 

[PerthDomer]

The whole son of god dogma was well established in Christian doctrine pretty early...

 

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

I think "Is the Bible historically reliable" is a tough question because it's not a history book. Some stuff is very reliable IMO. Stuff about the powers in the Middle East at the time are probably very accurate. However, Genesis and Exodus are iffy. Noah did not get millions of animals in twos onto an ark because the world flooded. Difference in languages did not happen because people built a multistory building. As much as I enjoy the Bible's story because the people in it are interesting, especially the story of King David, it's not a textbook nor is it the perfect moral code.

As for God and Jesus, I do not really care about religion.

 

[Buster Bluth]

For me to believe in a religion, I either have to understand it or trust the entity that is promoting it. I do not understand Christianity, and I certainly do not trust the Church. The history of the Catholic Church is contemptible. All you need to know about is Martin Luther and the whole story comes crashing down. The guy was a Catholic Priest who wanted the members of his Parish to have a closer relationship with God, and that ultimately lead to his excommunication. His biggest transgression was... translating the Bible from Latin to German? WHAT THE FUCK?

Consider for a moment that back in Martin Luther's day only like 5% of people could read, and only a fraction of those people could read Latin. That is fascinating to me. Here's a situation where 19/20 people have to listen to your sermon and take your word for it--but wait, your sermon and whatnot is in a dead language (Latin) and they can't understand any of it! (Side story: Here are these serfs (read: slaves) working the land for the 1%, and they start to complain that other Dukes/Counts/etc are willing to pay them more for their service and the Catholic Church comes in and says "Ohhh no no, God brought you into this word as a serf at X castle and here are XYZ passages that back this up. It is now illegal for you to switch bosses." That is disturbing!)

So anyway people like Martin Luther start saying that people should be able to read the Bible and have their own relationship with God (basically the fundamentals of Protestantism) and as soon as the Church got word they would kill them! One after another. Those crazy heretics and their wanting to know more about God!

The printing press changed all of that and allowed Martin Luther to get his message out faster than the Catholic Church can put it out, and once he had German political backing (they were pissed at the Pope for living like a, well, Roman Emperor...which he basically was) he was safe and the rest is history. If the Catholic Church is God's Church, stuff like that doesn't happen. Nor does the Spanish Inquisition, etc etc etc. There are thousands of examples that I could point to but the Martin Luther was shows most clearly, for me anyway, that the Church was basically enslaving all of Europe.

 

[Buster Bluth]

The whole son of god dogma was well established in Christian doctrine pretty early...

I am certainly open to correction, but I believe it wasn't "settled" until the Council of Nicaea. The eastern Christians weren't really on board with him being, without question, the son of god. Of course, they didn't fall in line with the new state religion either.

The council was in 325 AD. He died in ~30 AD, right? That's three centuries of not being sure. That's longer than the United States has even been around.

And if I remember correctly, they had to come back and over the centuries come up with extremely confusing views on the Holy Trinity because there are so many holes in that too. Like come on, if Jesus is god...who is he praying to in the garden before the Romans come get him? Himself?

 

[TheRealLynch51]

Golf clap to everyone so far for keeping this civil!

 

[PerthDomer]

Apostles creed sets him as son of god. Nicea defines exactly what that means. Besides for the councils to pass anything you basically had to have something set in stone. Each council in turn ends up being a reputation of heretical sects.

 

[Buster Bluth]

Another point for discussion: the Devil.

My Jewish friends tell me that their Devil isn't even remotely close to the Christian one, nor is their view of heaven. Ummm, red flags there--how can our story be true if the religion were built on never had any of that??? There simply is no Satan or Lucifer battling against God.

If Original Sin created sin, how did the devil know about the fruit? He's a "fallen angel?" What the hell is that and where is that in the Bible? IF God is all powerful, couldn't he destroy the Devil at any time? Isn't the Devil akin to a rabid dog who wants to devour any person he can get his teeth on, and God akin to the lazy deadbeat dog owner who lets the wild beast get out of his yard? If I let a wild dog loose and it hurts someone, I am responsible. God is responsible for everything the Devil does, he created him and allows him to function. It's a pretty stupid story all things considered. The devil isn't tempting you, od is via th devil because ggod is a relentless egomaniac.

Another point for discussion: prayer, God's plan, and His will.

If God has a plan, what the hell is the point of praying for things? That seems pretty silly to me. It'll happen regardless of whether your pray or not.

If it works: "God has answered our prayers!"

If it doesn't "Oooh, mysterious! What does it mean? Let's pray on it..."

Knowledgeable people should respond to me with something along the lines of that it's not asking God for things per se but time spent to better understand him...or whatever. But the loooooong history of prayer for things like a good harvest, a drought to end, to win a war, etc etc has lead to some twisted things, like sacrifice. Religion must inherit those flaws.

Another point for discussion: Native Americans, Chinese, Indians, Pacific Islanders, Sub-Saharan Africans.

Why didn't Jesus tell his crew "hey guys, here is a map of the world. This will help spread the word that I apparently cannot. Keep in mind the THREE CONTINENTS THAT YOU DON'T CURRENTLY KNOW ABOUT, THOSE ARE KEY!." But nope he didn't do that. In fact, he didn't even go see the Native Americans and preach to them that he was their Messiah too (Well, unless you're Mormon...). Actually, wait, I can understand not preaching to them if for whatever reasons he wants the apostles and their descendents to do it. But at the very least couldn't he make them resistant to smallpox so when the Christians get there they don't die by the tens of millions simply for coming in contact with European Christians? Seems like a pretty stupid way to go about spreading the word of god...