Theology

[Buster Bluth]

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.

How old is that? Isn't that, as far as archeological evidence in concerned, based on the Old Roman Creed from the second century?

 

[arndtjc]

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.

You're blowing my mind! I wish I could rep every post!

 

[Buster Bluth]

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Can someone give me a response to Sam Harris' presentation at Notre Dame?

 

[SaltyND24]

My feelings to an extent...

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[Cackalacky]

1. I don't know, but I can't imagine that of all of the religions on earth, there is only one that is right.
2. I don't know. Which version? Which translation? The King James version? mostly no.
3. I don't know. I know of no primary sources for his existence, only texts that were written well after his death.

And that is ok. I just do my best to contribute to the universe and be a positive fellow human being, and tread lightly on the earth.

 

[gkIrish]

To me, the Church (and I'm not Catholic fyi) is a vessel for "community." What I mean by that is that I think it's great that the Church gets people to come together once a week to both socialize and "pray" for good. Sure, the history of Christianity is morally repugnant in many ways. However, modern Christians are for the most part, good people. And the modern Christian church encourages people to be good and to be hopeful.

I don't place any value in the Bible as a guidebook or historical reference. But I do think it's good that people hope for salvation, even if the evidence of its possibility is marginal/nonexistent. Maybe Christians are partially right and man was created in God's image. But maybe that means God is also fallible, which explains all of the bad shit that happens to good people. Idk, food for thought.

 

[IrishLax]

This thread has surprisingly not spiraled out of control yet... kudos to everyone for being respectful and constructive

1. IMO, I can't envision a scenario where there isn't some sort of supernatural force in the universe. I only have a rudimentary grasp of physics from my engineering background, but simply put there are a lot of things that physics comes close to explaining how they function but is so far away from explaining why they function how they do that I believe the inexplicable and imperceptible strongly implies the existence of the supernatural.

2. The Bible... IMO, anything written how the Bible was written cannot be "accurate" unless you're assuming some sort divine providence allowed it to be written perfectly despite so many issues that come with the time period. Too many edits, authors, and time elapsed between events for it to be truly "reliable" from a historical perspective. I think most see the value in everything else that can be gleaned from it.

3. Obviously a real person, everything else is up for debate. You can believe what you want on faith. Remember that there was actually a debate within the early Church whether Jesus was truly the Son of God or just a really awesome dude... and they went with Son of God. What if the debate went the other way?

 

[bobbyok1]

This thread has surprisingly not spiraled out of control yet... kudos to everyone for being respectful and constructive

I second that. I appreciate everyone sharing their views on the 3 questions. Seeing how we all have a shared common interest in our Fighting Irish football team, I thought it would be beneficial to hear our thoughts on a few related topics of interest to me and so many others.

 

[NDBoiler]

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...

Buster -

I think a lot of your questions in this post and your previous ones are very valid questions. But I also think that most can be (or attempted to be, since this is such a vast subject)answered in one of the following two ways:

1. Free Will - When asking why couldn't Jesus (or God) stop the spread of desease, manipulate people's dreams, etc., you're delving into the concept of God eliminating the Christian belief of free will - that God does not dictate what you do/feel/see/hear like a robot, but rather it is your choice to decide to accept God's love and live your life as a "good" person or choose to do harm to yourself and others or "sin".

2. Human Comprehension - The concept of the Earth's origin and the like is what IMO I consider to be beyond human comprehension. That to me is why it makes perfect sense to have all these valid questions - they are impossible to answer with any degree of certainty for simply this reason. That is the answer to those questions, to the best of our human capacity to understand or explain them.

 

[Cackalacky]

Buster -

I think a lot of your questions in this post and your previous ones are very valid questions. But I also think that most can be (or attempted to be, since this is such a vast subject)answered in one of the following two ways:

1. Free Will - When asking why couldn't Jesus (or God) stop the spread of desease, manipulate people's dreams, etc., you're delving into the concept of God eliminating the Christian belief of free will - that God does not dictate what you do/feel/see/hear like a robot, but rather it is your choice to decide to accept God's love and live your life as a "good" person or choose to do harm to yourself and others or "sin".

2. Human Comprehension - The concept of the Earth's origin and the like is what IMO I consider to be beyond human comprehension. That to me is why it makes perfect sense to have all these valid questions - they are impossible to answer with any degree of certainty for simply this reason. That is the answer to those questions, to the best of our human capacity to understand or explain them.

NDBoiler:
Free Will is a human construct. And neurological science is casting doubt on whether it exists at all. Here is another Sam Harris video. He is really respectful, has facts, and asks really great questions.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/pCofmZlC72g?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

“Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control.” We assume that we could have made other choices in the past, and we also assume that we consciously originate “our thoughts and actions in the present. . . . Both of these assumptions are false.”

As far as #2 goes: the crux of it is to say one cannot know or one does not know presently. Historically, it has always been we do not know until we have a knowledge base that puts a fact within the context of working almost 100% of the time. Or at least that is the position I take.

 

[Buster Bluth]

1. Free Will - When asking why couldn't Jesus (or God) stop the spread of desease, manipulate people's dreams, etc., you're delving into the concept of God eliminating the Christian belief of free will - that God does not dictate what you do/feel/see/hear like a robot, but rather it is your choice to decide to accept God's love and live your life as a "good" person or choose to do harm to yourself and others or "sin".

I can't really buy this as you've laid it out for me. How does the presence of a disease mean that we have free will? Millions of people die every year through no fault of their own and that's free will? Millions of CHILDREN starve to death in environments where they don't even get a chance to be Christian. How does Christianity, or religion, accept the Old Testament's absolutely ridiculous notions on death to nonbelievers and that they're all doomed...and the presence of people on continents Jews didn't even know about.

On the matter of manipulating dreams, I was merely showing the foolishness in appearing in one man's dream and banking on him to convert people manually, versus more effective methods of at least notifying people of the twisted game their soul is supposedly in. The sheer inefficiencies are kind of a joke, on Jesus' part. Just like he's a joke for curing a few men of their diseases when modern science has cured billions. Jesus doesn't even stack up.

2. Human Comprehension - The concept of the Earth's origin and the like is what IMO I consider to be beyond human comprehension. That to me is why it makes perfect sense to have all these valid questions - they are impossible to answer with any degree of certainty for simply this reason. That is the answer to those questions, to the best of our human capacity to understand or explain them.

What I don't get here is that we understand more and more every year. The "god of the gap" applies to your position, in my opinion.

 

[IrishLion]

1. There is some form of higher power. Is it God? Or a god? Or several gods? Or some bro that in the year 2196 figured out how to transcend the space-time relationship and thus now operates on the "outside" of our perception of time? I don't know. The last option would be a cool movie premise. Either way, too many things have gone right for humans to have become what they are now, and for our universe to be what it is. Something(s?) is/are helping, or at least pulling some strings.

2. The Bible is reliable for some if its moral teachings that are applicable today... but that is a small percentage of a very large text. As several other posters have already noted, the Bible is both out-of-date (duh), out-of-touch with many things that we now know to be morally correct on a basic human level, and flawed through interpretation, translation, human nature, etc.

(My thoughts on the Bible follow my own beliefs on God/religion in general: I don't believe that a being such as God would place such a premium on church attendance, sacraments, etc. I think there is a higher power, but I don't think he NEEDS me to be inside of four special walls and under a special roof every Sunday to know that I am living a good life. I believe an entity such as God would place a much higher emphasis on simply living a good life and striving to be the best person you can be. Just as the bible can act as a nice guide for some aspects of life, but is not necessarily "required reading.")

3. Jesus was real. That is historically a fact. He also seemed like a pretty swell guy. Even if he wasn't the son of God (or even if he really was and you don't care either way), he still worked to be a good person, and to teach others how to be good to each other. That is a basic guidebook for how humanity can thrive in general.

 

[NDBoiler]

I can't really buy this as you've laid it out for me. How does the presence of a disease mean that we have free will? Millions of people die every year through no fault of their own and that's free will? Millions of CHILDREN starve to death in environments where they don't even get a chance to be Christian. How does Christianity, or religion, accept the Old Testament's absolutely ridiculous notions on death to nonbelievers and that they're all doomed...and the presence of people on continents Jews didn't even know about.

On the matter of manipulating dreams, I was merely showing the foolishness in appearing in one man's dream and banking on him to convert people manually, versus more effective methods of at least notifying people of the twisted game their soul is supposedly in. The sheer inefficiencies are kind of a joke, on Jesus' part. Just like he's a joke for curing a few men of their diseases when modern science has cured billions. Jesus doesn't even stack up.



What I don't get here is that we understand more and more every year. The "god of the gap" applies to your position, in my opinion.

Again, fair questions Buster, but I don't know who can answer them for you with any certainty. I certainly can't.

 

[T Town Tommy]

To me all three answers are derived from our personal faith. I have faith that God exists, see the Bible as a series of love letters from God to me, and believe Jesus came to earth with a message and a mission for all mankind.

If the answers to the three questions were so easily proven, then there would be no need for faith... or the free will to dismiss religion as something manmade. And that leads us all to examine ourselves, choose to believe what we believe or not believe, and live our lives accordingly.

But as for me and my house.... we will serve the Lord.

 

[irishog77]

I don't think the presence of disease or starvation eliminates the theory of free will. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing endeavor-- an absolute. Free will can exist while forces beyond our control exist (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, disease, drought, Oprah).


Also, no debate about Christianity is complete without this:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Ixjtxle483I?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[NDBoiler]

NDBoiler:
Free Will is a human construct. And neurological science is casting doubt on whether it exists at all. Here is another Sam Harris video. He is really respectful, has facts, and asks really great questions.
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/pCofmZlC72g?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>



As far as #2 goes: the crux of it is to say one cannot know or one does not know presently. Historically, it has always been we do not know until we have a knowledge base that puts a fact within the context of working almost 100% of the time. Or at least that is the position I take.

If you are interested in an attempt at neurological explanation as it relates to God and consciousness, I recommend reading Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander M.D. If nothing else it is an interesting read.

 

[greyhammer90]

I always thought this was the closest I've ever come to hearing my own thoughts on the Catholic church put in an eloquent way. Watch if you're interested.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6L1xvdZMC10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[Black Irish]

Having free will doesn't eliminate the possibility that bad things can still happen to you. Maybe I was lucky to have good teachers in that regard; I never considered believing in God, or going to church, or being a moral person as a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to me. The point is, to live your life so that you will achieve the Kingdom of God (Heaven). Do good, avoid evil, help your fellow man. You aren't really living for this life, but for the next.

 

[Cackalacky]

If you are interested in an attempt at neurological explanation as it relates to God and consciousness, I recommend reading Proof of Heaven by Eben Alexander M.D. If nothing else it is an interesting read.

I have read it. I was interested in his observations but the whole account is littered with assumptions and unsupported assertions. I have a copy that I physically highlighted and made notes in it while reading (Sorry I do that...LOL). There are also many critics and varying accounts by him and the doctor's that took care of him of what his actual brain status was.

 

[NDBoiler]

I have read it. I was interested in his observations but the whole account is littered with assumptions and unsupported assertions. I have a copy that I physically highlighted and made notes in it while reading (Sorry I do that...LOL). There are also many critics and varying accounts by him and the doctor's that took care of him of what his actual brain status was.

I agree, the book is definitely without its flaws. I mainly found it interesting being that is was from a neurosurgeon's perspective that is probably not the status quo for most of the medical field. (I do the same with books in regards to highlighting too LOL).

 

[Cackalacky]

I agree, the book is definitely without its flaws. I mainly found it interesting being that is was from a neurosurgeon's perspective that is probably not the status quo for most of the medical field. (I do the same with books in regards to highlighting too LOL).

Glad I am not the only one who damages books while I read them. As an aside and probably too much based on the OP but "consciousness" is a totally fascinating thing to me. When it begins, when it ends. That is one of the great mysteries for me.

 

[gkIrish]

I always thought this was the closest I've ever come to hearing my own thoughts on the Catholic church put in an eloquent way. Watch if you're interested.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6L1xvdZMC10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The point about the Catholic Church being obsessed with sex was interesting. I don't know the facts behind his accusation about contraception/Africa, but if true, that's pretty bad.

 

[Cackalacky]

I don't think the presence of disease or starvation eliminates the theory of free will. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing endeavor-- an absolute. Free will can exist while forces beyond our control exist (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, disease, drought, Oprah).


Also, no debate about Christianity is complete without this:

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Ixjtxle483I?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

#howtowearamullet

 

[Bogtrotter07]

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.......

I take Mike's post as a starting point. As good as anyone can get, or have. One stands on it's own basis, my only comment is in humility, it, or God is beyond my understanding; which makes me susceptible to both hucksters and cynicism. I must ride a narrow path in the middle.

For point two, us modern folks who want to call "The Bible" a thing, as in singular, I think sell that collection short. As many have alluded, it is the entire culture of a people over thousands of years. Compounded is the fact that it splinters off in to records written after most were gone that had met the man, of a man strongly deified who lived in the middle of a time of political and religious turmoil. Much of the pre-human shamanism and superstition was being evaporated. Trade routes and engineering were putting increasingly distant points on the globe in a position of regular contact, so ideas, information, and beliefs could be shared. And people were becoming harder to control . . .

I once took a class whose sole focus was on the Book of Job. It was written and rewritten, by those who had the power and control over hundreds of years. That was an easy task as it turns out because writing was such an expensive technology, that the wealthy controlled its use and preservation. Job was where we meet the ha satan (from the verb root implying “to be at enmity with.”) I saw several lectures including one by a professor Dr. Bradley Crowell. He painted what started as a literal device used to question God, for making a point to the reader, kind of like a prosecuting attorney, and followed the development into a real character, that was "deified in an anti-God" manner. This of course led to the creation of "Hell" as a place of punishment, as opposed to "Sheol" which was the Hebrew definition of the afterlife for well over a thousand years. It is easy to see with the increasing desperation of the Hebrew people and the early Christians as a small subset, that the superpowers, first the Greeks, and then the Romans challenge orthodox theology by shredding the Retribution Principle which was key to those in control remaining so.

Here is the development. It can be seen in the different parts of Job :
1) First the good and righteous will profit in this world, so respect the wealthy and powerful. Those who are poor have an ethical issue, they are the sinners!

2) Well it is true that those who are good will be rewarded, but that reward will come after this life, in the afterworld. So go ahead and despise the poor, and deformed, they are wicked, but all of us good and chosen believers will be tortured and may not succed as well as we planned in this world will be rewarded in the afterlife. And for $29.95 you can now purchase the entire blueprint to get to the final salvation, what is a mystery for most has been revealed to us, Mo, Larry, and Curly, and we are willing to share to you if you send your check today. We will enclose the secret decoder pin so you to can decipher God's word in your life every day! (Okay so I hyperbolized a bit, but when it became clear, that the rather materialistic promises of the Hebrew theology were not going to be fulfilled literally, it was an adopted affectation pretty close to this.)

Which brings us to the intellectually most superior issuance of ideas on the topic :

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AcO4TnrskE0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Can someone give me a response to Sam Harris' presentation at Notre Dame?

Which brings me to question three, or Mike's number three; so here.

3) There are two Jesus'. Simply. There is the historical Jesus. And then if you admit anything can be above our literal interpretation, as in a spiritual or world or universe beyond ours, then there is a Jesus of Ideas and Other Non-tangibles. I would call this a Jesus of Love. When I was young I tried to do a thesis of how certain Dãoist principles followed the new trade routes. What if Jesus were a trader not a carpenter? After all the craftsman the words used for Jesus were actually more indicative of a stone worker. But what if his career, which he practiced in the years he "disappeared" were actually trading, and he traveled to great far lands and was exposed to un-orthodox thoughts?

I cannot continue this however if you want to look farther, the Founding Fathers, so misquoted and misunderstood today, many of whom were deist not Christians, have provided an "enlightened" view from their time. Research Jefferson's Bible. Thomas Jefferson correctly attributed the teachings of Jesus to being the "greatest moral code ever laid down for man." Further Dr. Bart D. Ehrman, who started as a fundamentalist preacher, and has become a preeminent New Testament scholar has identified another phenomena which has led to the twisting of the story of Jesus. Those first to see Jesus and testify to that were women. You see Jesus didn't believe in many of the conventions of the day. I believe his sole motivation was love. And that was the sacrifice that got lost; his real sacrifice was his own ego! And that was the example he set.

So then what a fiery caldron! So much revisionism because those he spread his message to, "Love one another," were so incapable. Revisionist and apologists, took a toll on the true Jesus. Misogynists, so powerful and popular in the Church from the time of the Nicene revisions to the time of Charlemagne, demoted and enslaved women from the exalted status they had with Jesus. The wealthy enslaved the poor which was so at odds with Jesus' fundamental message. And the sociopaths rewrote the message, apparently with thoughts of war and blinding savagery dancing in their heads!

Love one another, as I have loved you. Love one another. Love.

I always thought this was the closest I've ever come to hearing my own thoughts on the Catholic church put in an eloquent way. Watch if you're interested.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6L1xvdZMC10" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Voilà!

 

[IrishLion]

I have a general question to bring up while everyone is on the topic and *gasp* being civil.

I went to a private Catholic high school. One of our teachers had a medical issue pop up and missed nearly an entire year of school. While they scrambled to find a replacement when it first came up, our principle taught his class for two days, which was a religion class (can't remember the focus).

He was super unprepared and had no idea what the teacher's lesson plan was, so he gave us a lesson on a theory/train-of-thought that basically states: Believing in God and following the Church's guidelines is your best bet. If God is real and you were right, you get to Heaven. But if God is not real and you were wrong, there are still no consequences. However, if you don't believe in God and are wrong, you're going to Hell. Basically, if nothing else, it's better to believe in God and to follow his rules because at the worst religion is wrong, and nothing happens when you die.

Does anyone know what this theory is called?

Believe + Follow Rules + God exists = Heaven
Believe + Follow Rules + God doesn't exist = neutral
Don't Believe + Ignore Rules + God exists = Hell

(My other thought on the subject is that this seems like a flimsy foundation to give to high school students as to why they should believe in God. "What's the worst that can happen if you're a good Christian? God isn't real? Then you've got nothing to worry about either way!")

 

[greyhammer90]

I have a general question to bring up while everyone is on the topic and *gasp* being civil.

I went to a private Catholic high school. One of our teachers had a medical issue pop up and missed nearly an entire year of school. While they scrambled to find a replacement when it first came up, our principle taught his class for two days, which was a religion class (can't remember the focus).

He was super unprepared and had no idea what the teacher's lesson plan was, so he gave us a lesson on a theory/train-of-thought that basically states: Believing in God and following the Church's guidelines is your best bet. If God is real and you were right, you get to Heaven. But if God is not real and you were wrong, there are still no consequences. However, if you don't believe in God and are wrong, you're going to Hell. Basically, if nothing else, it's better to believe in God and to follow his rules because at the worst religion is wrong, and nothing happens when you die.

Does anyone know what this theory is called?

Believe + Follow Rules + God exists = Heaven
Believe + Follow Rules + God doesn't exist = neutral
Don't Believe + Ignore Rules + God exists = Hell

(My other thought on the subject is that this seems like a flimsy foundation to give to high school students as to why they should believe in God. "What's the worst that can happen if you're a good Christian? God isn't real? Then you've got nothing to worry about either way!")

The old "you can't win the lottery if you don't buy a ticket" argument. (Notice, as an argument against this line of reasoning, the kind of people who play the lottery consistently.)

 

[Buster Bluth]

Having free will doesn't eliminate the possibility that bad things can still happen to you. Maybe I was lucky to have good teachers in that regard; I never considered believing in God, or going to church, or being a moral person as a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen to me. The point is, to live your life so that you will achieve the Kingdom of God (Heaven). Do good, avoid evil, help your fellow man. You aren't really living for this life, but for the next.

I am not at l saying that life cannot be hard. I think that 1) it's awfully strange that a god would make such a huge portion of his people succumb to smallpox and, regardless, not ever know of Jesus. How many hundreds of millions of people lived their entire lives in India, China, the Americas, etc without ever hearing about anything other than a polytheistic religion? And where in the Bible's history of earth do these people part ways with the original Adam and Family? 2) How do I even have the option to reject Jesus if I've never heard of him? Just a crappy promotional job on the part of Jesus and God. It's just so highly illogical.


Then there's the question of why people are born disabled, retarded, or with mental illness. All I ever hear in return is "God doesn't give us obstacles we can't overcome!" To which I wonder, why do people kill themselves then?

 

[Emcee77]

I have a general question to bring up while everyone is on the topic and *gasp* being civil.

I went to a private Catholic high school. One of our teachers had a medical issue pop up and missed nearly an entire year of school. While they scrambled to find a replacement when it first came up, our principle taught his class for two days, which was a religion class (can't remember the focus).

He was super unprepared and had no idea what the teacher's lesson plan was, so he gave us a lesson on a theory/train-of-thought that basically states: Believing in God and following the Church's guidelines is your best bet. If God is real and you were right, you get to Heaven. But if God is not real and you were wrong, there are still no consequences. However, if you don't believe in God and are wrong, you're going to Hell. Basically, if nothing else, it's better to believe in God and to follow his rules because at the worst religion is wrong, and nothing happens when you die.

Does anyone know what this theory is called?

Believe + Follow Rules + God exists = Heaven
Believe + Follow Rules + God doesn't exist = neutral
Don't Believe + Ignore Rules + God exists = Hell

(My other thought on the subject is that this seems like a flimsy foundation to give to high school students as to why they should believe in God. "What's the worst that can happen if you're a good Christian? God isn't real? Then you've got nothing to worry about either way!")

You are referring to Pascal's Wager.


Pascal's Wager (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Pascal's Wager - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


It's an old and venerable theory. Your principal didn't make it up.


I'm glad you brought that up though. I spent a lot of time in my youth puzzling over theology, but at this point I tend to take sort of a practical view of it. Does our religion make sense? No. Is the world better off for 2000 years of Christianity? Mostly. True, terrible, terrible things have been done in the name of the Christian religion, but the general philosophy of loving your neighbor leads to a world I want to live in. The rest is mostly details and I don't really worry about it any more. I do worry about the teachings of many Christians that cut against the great commandment, leading to presumptuous judgment and self-righteousness and small-mindedness. But I think the system is worth saving, and the only way to save it is from within. So I will jump through a few dogmatic hoops from time to time.

 

[T Town Tommy]

I take Mike's post as a starting point. As good as anyone can get, or have. One stands on it's own basis, my only comment is in humility, it, or God is beyond my understanding; which makes me susceptible to both hucksters and cynicism. I must ride a narrow path in the middle.

For point two, us modern folks who want to call "The Bible" a thing, as in singular, I think sell that collection short. As many have alluded, it is the entire culture of a people over thousands of years. Compounded is the fact that it splinters off in to records written after most were gone that had met the man, of a man strongly deified who lived in the middle of a time of political and religious turmoil. Much of the pre-human shamanism and superstition was being evaporated. Trade routes and engineering were putting increasingly distant points on the globe in a position of regular contact, so ideas, information, and beliefs could be shared. And people were becoming harder to control . . .

I once took a class whose sole focus was on the Book of Job. It was written and rewritten, by those who had the power and control over hundreds of years. That was an easy task as it turns out because writing was such an expensive technology, that the wealthy controlled its use and preservation. Job was where we meet the ha satan (from the verb root implying “to be at enmity with.”) I saw several lectures including one by a professor Dr. Bradley Crowell. He painted what started as a literal device used to question God, for making a point to the reader, kind of like a prosecuting attorney, and followed the development into a real character, that was "deified in an anti-God" manner. This of course led to the creation of "Hell" as a place of punishment, as opposed to "Sheol" which was the Hebrew definition of the afterlife for well over a thousand years. It is easy to see with the increasing desperation of the Hebrew people and the early Christians as a small subset, that the superpowers, first the Greeks, and then the Romans challenge orthodox theology by shredding the Retribution Principle which was key to those in control remaining so.

Here is the development. It can be seen in the different parts of Job :
1) First the good and righteous will profit in this world, so respect the wealthy and powerful. Those who are poor have an ethical issue, they are the sinners!

2) Well it is true that those who are good will be rewarded, but that reward will come after this life, in the afterworld. So go ahead and despise the poor, and deformed, they are wicked, but all of us good and chosen believers will be tortured and may not succed as well as we planned in this world will be rewarded in the afterlife. And for $29.95 you can now purchase the entire blueprint to get to the final salvation, what is a mystery for most has been revealed to us, Mo, Larry, and Curly, and we are willing to share to you if you send your check today. We will enclose the secret decoder pin so you to can decipher God's word in your life every day! (Okay so I hyperbolized a bit, but when it became clear, that the rather materialistic promises of the Hebrew theology were not going to be fulfilled literally, it was an adopted affectation pretty close to this.)

Which brings us to the intellectually most superior issuance of ideas on the topic :

Not to be a downer on your post Bogs, but a couple of issues here. If one chooses to study the Old Testament then they are missing the purpose of why Jesus came to Earth. A new covenant was formed and the old law of Moses ended. Secondly, because one ignores this fact, they miss the true essence of Jesus' message. He clearly scholds the religious scholars of the day and explains beyond reproach how we are to treat the poor.

Finally, for $29.99 you too can purchase a pretty good copy of the Bible and read it for yourself. It will be the best money you ever spent. Love ya brotha!!!

 

[notredomer23]

Where's Rack em???????

Or Jason Pham for that matter. IIRC both are very knowledgeable on the subject.