Searching for GOD...

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There are religious secularists, and there are religious groups that will accomodate other concepts in a 'live and let live' approach, but the potential for 'we are the only way' is manifest.

But that also describes antitheism doesn't it. Dawkins et al. tell us that real atheists should not live and let live. You could hardly accuse them of being religious.

In any case Christianity makes the seismic seemingly counter intuitive claim that a carpenter from Galilee is the way. Mere church membership is not the way.

[Outrider]

Totalitarian? The big totalitarian outfits have had an atheist vibe I think.

Like fundamentalist Islam? Like the Christian Crusades? Like the American Republican Party? Like the Nazis?

Or perhaps you meant Communist Russia? Yes that was avowedly an atheist movement, but anything more than a cursory review shows their atheism sprang from their totalitarianism as a mechanism to shut down the power groups that were the churches, rather than their totalitarianism coming from their atheism.

O.

[Outrider]

But that also describes antitheism doesn't it.

I've no idea, I haven't seen any significant output from these 'anti-theists' you dribble on about.

Dawkins et al. tell us that real atheists should not live and let live.

Do they? When has Professor Dawkins suggested that religious people should be killed? Or taxed differently? Or, in fact, when has he suggested anything other than they should be treated exactly like everyone else?

You could hardly accuse them of being religious.

Or totalitarian, which was rather more to the point that I was making.

In any case Christianity makes the seismic seemingly counter intuitive claim that a carpenter from Galilee is the way. Mere church membership is not the way.

Some Christianity does that. Other Christianity says 'Jesus is the way, but only if you're white', or '...only if you're rich', or '... only if you're straight'... The acceptance of the idea that there's an absolute authority that you have some special insight into is a recipe for totalitarianism, and you aren't going to get that with atheism.

That's not why atheism's right, it's just a rewarding benefit.

O.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Torridon,

"He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."

And the great man talking about Our Lord.

George Viereck: “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”
Einstein: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”
George Viereck: “Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”
Einstein: “No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.”

Yes the best part of a loaf is the ootsider.

Gonnagle.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Totalitarian? The big totalitarian outfits have had an atheist vibe I think.

Like fundamentalist Islam? Like the Christian Crusades? Like the American Republican Party? Like the Nazis?

Or perhaps you meant Communist Russia? Yes that was avowedly an atheist movement, but anything more than a cursory review shows their atheism sprang from their totalitarianism as a mechanism to shut down the power groups that were the churches, rather than their totalitarianism coming from their atheism.

O.

Ah, the no true atheist argument.

As far as I can see the crusades were a bit rag bag.

From what you are saying religion gives rise to totalitarianism which gives rise to atheism.

Are you sure you don't mean that Communist Russia and Pol Pot weren't proper atheists.

one criticism of saying that the bad things in any atheist state come about because of a religious element is that you have redefined the word religion to mean anything bad.

That just makes you look like an unthinking bigot.

[Alan Burns]

They fly planes into buildings, killing themselves and thousands of others - how much of a profound certainty do you think they lack? They 'know' Allah, at  least as profoundly as you know Jesus - at least one of you must be wrong. You can believe it's them, but you can't know it.

Jesus said we will know false prophets by their fruits.

[Maeght]

No such thing as a proper atheist. You either have a belief in god or Gods or you don't. Anything else is in the field of politics, philosophy and so on.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But that also describes antitheism doesn't it.

I've no idea, I haven't seen any significant output from these 'anti-theists' you dribble on about.

Dawkins et al. tell us that real atheists should not live and let live.

Do they? When has Professor Dawkins suggested that religious people should be killed?

I don't know.
Do you have to kill people to seriously demean and marginalise them?

[Alan Burns]

I can imagine how real Jesus might be, I can see how impactful the idea of Jesus can be on people, but I cannot see how you can justify the claim to know, nor how you can say that your demonstrable certainty somehow trumps someone else's equally demonstrable certainty.

No, you can never imagine the certainty of my relationship with Jesus without knowing Him yourself.  I concede that there are many Christians who have not come into a full relationship yet.  There are many false barriers to faith - I am just so grateful that Jesus has been able to make Himself known to me.  It is my most precious gift.

[jeremyp]

And the great man talking about Our Lord.

George Viereck: “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”
Einstein: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”
George Viereck: “Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”
Einstein: “No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.”

Einstein was a great physicist. He was not a historian or a literary critic. It's absurd to suggest a piece of fiction cannot "pulsate with every word" with the character of the protagonist. I suspect Einstein never read any good novels.

Einstein wasn't an oracle, he had unparalleled skills in one area of human endeavour but it does not follow that he was competent in every other.

[Alan Burns]

And if there is some grand single divine truth underlying our existence along the lines that you believe in, then there is no hurry, as in your belief system, this life is but an insignificant blink of an eye and our resurrected selves will find out the truth anyhow in the eternal afterlife. So resist the temptation to frighten people into your way of thinking Alan, its not a reputable strategy to needlessly play on peoples hopes and fears in that way.

You seem to be trivialising the whole purpose of our existence in this world.  Our human lifetime may well be compared to the blink of an eye, but its importance should not be overlooked.  I firmly believe we are here for a purpose, as revealed to us in the revelations of the New Testament.

[Outrider]

Ah, the no true atheist argument.

No, straw-men are for the 5th of November, not the 1st. Try again.

As far as I can see the crusades were a bit rag bag.

So whilst not everyone involved was religiously totalitarian at least some of them were?

From what you are saying religion gives rise to totalitarianism which gives rise to atheism.

No, religion has a tendency towards totalitarianism, though it isn't a necessary conclusion. I fail to see how you get to atheism from that.

Are you sure you don't mean that Communist Russia and Pol Pot weren't proper atheists.

Do try to keep up. They were (probably) atheists. They were totalitarian. Their totalitarianism did not come from their atheism (though it wasn't countered by it, either).

one criticism of saying that the bad things in any atheist state come about because of a religious element is that you have redefined the word religion to mean anything bad.

There's that straw-man again -no-one said that Communist Russia purged the churches because of a 'religious' element - I said it was totalitarian and struck out at other potential power-bases.

That just makes you look like an unthinking bigot.

Or at least it would have if that's what I'd wrote - instead it just shows that you don't read what's written.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Are we capable of understanding this truth? You claim to have done so, but many others with different claims also think they have. Discounting the concept that you're all wrong, is it not possible that nobody is capable of grasping the entirety of the idea of a god, and all the various religious outlooks are fragmentary glimpses of the whole?

I totally agree that on our own, we are not capable of grasping the entirity of the truth behind our existence.  Human attempts to discover the truth do indeed lead to lots of fragmentary glimpses of the whole.

I do not claim to have found the truth on my own.  It has been revealed to me through God's presence in my life.  The God I know is the same God which revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And the great man talking about Our Lord.

George Viereck: “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”
Einstein: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”
George Viereck: “Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”
Einstein: “No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.”

Einstein was a great physicist. He was not a historian or a literary critic.

So he should have stuck to Physics, eh Jez?

Pity your crowd don't apply that to Stenger or Krauss or Carroll.

[Outrider]

I don't know. Do you have to kill people to seriously demean and marginalise them?

How is 'you should have only the same rights and opportunities as everyone else' an attempt to demean and marginalise?

O.

[Outrider]

Jesus said we will know false prophets by their fruits.

No, someone alleges Jesus said that, but the same people allege that Jesus walked on water...

O.

[Outrider]

I can imagine how real Jesus might be, I can see how impactful the idea of Jesus can be on people, but I cannot see how you can justify the claim to know, nor how you can say that your demonstrable certainty somehow trumps someone else's equally demonstrable certainty.

No, you can never imagine the certainty of my relationship with Jesus without knowing Him yourself.  I concede that there are many Christians who have not come into a full relationship yet.  There are many false barriers to faith - I am just so grateful that Jesus has been able to make Himself known to me.  It is my most precious gift.

I don't need to know the certainty you have, because that certainty is unverifiable. You can be as certain as you want, but you can't claim to know because you have no reliable basis for your knowledge. Schizophrenics can be so certain that voices are telling them to kill people that they go and do it, or they try to claw out their own ear canals - your certainty, in the absence of any corroboration, is meaningless.

O.

[torridon]

I think you are a valued and highly respected member of the Religion Ethics community for your exemplary decency.

Oo err.

I think I'd better go and have a lie down 

[Outrider]

I totally agree that on our own, we are not capable of grasping the entirity of the truth behind our existence.  Human attempts to discover the truth do indeed lead to lots of fragmentary glimpses of the whole.

Then how can you claim such certainty in your relationship with Jesus, how can you claim to 'know' that the particular traditions with which you grew up are just conveniently the actual right ones?

do not claim to have found the truth on my own.  It has been revealed to me through God's presence in my life.  The God I know is the same God which revealed Himself to Paul on the road to Damascus.

I suspect it's exactly that god - we just have different interpretations of the underlying premise.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ah, the no true atheist argument.

No, straw-men are for the 5th of November, not the 1st. Try again.

As far as I can see the crusades were a bit rag bag.

So whilst not everyone involved was religiously totalitarian at least some of them were?

From what you are saying religion gives rise to totalitarianism which gives rise to atheism.

No, religion has a tendency towards totalitarianism, though it isn't a necessary conclusion. I fail to see how you get to atheism from that.

Are you sure you don't mean that Communist Russia and Pol Pot weren't proper atheists.

Do try to keep up. They were (probably) atheists. They were totalitarian. Their totalitarianism did not come from their atheism (though it wasn't countered by it, either).

one criticism of saying that the bad things in any atheist state come about because of a religious element is that you have redefined the word religion to mean anything bad.

There's that straw-man again -no-one said that Communist Russia purged the churches because of a 'religious' element - I said it was totalitarian and struck out at other potential power-bases.

That just makes you look like an unthinking bigot.

Or at least it would have if that's what I'd wrote - instead it just shows that you don't read what's written.

O.

The trouble is though that Christ was not a totalitarian by any stretched of the imagination.
We all know that atheism is the big non.

But with atheism inexorably and inevitably comes the belief that Man is the final moral arbiter.....and from that, the most powerful men...........As I said the Biggest and most deadly totalitarian outfits have an atheist ''vibe''.

[Outrider]

You seem to be trivialising the whole purpose of our existence in this world.

You seem to be asserting that we have a purpose in this world.

Our human lifetime may well be compared to the blink of an eye, but its importance should not be overlooked.  I firmly believe we are here for a purpose, as revealed to us in the revelations of the New Testament.

You can believe that as much as you'd like, but you can't claim that we're trivialising it unless you can demonstrate adequately that it exists, and your believing it doesn't manage that.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I don't know. Do you have to kill people to seriously demean and marginalise them?

How is 'you should have only the same rights and opportunities as everyone else' an attempt to demean and marginalise?

O.

I don't think you've been following the antics of Doctor Dawkins lately, have you.

[Outrider]

The trouble is though that Christ was not a totalitarian by any stretched of the imagination.

We have no idea, there's very little known about the person the idea of Jesus is based upon. As to the figure in the New Testament, that's your interpretation (and probably mine if it meant anything), but that's irrelevant to the people who are totalitarian in his name. He represents an absolute knowledge and power to which they think they have privileged access. It matters not if the depiction of Jesus were totalitarian, only that some of his followers are.

We all know that atheism is the big non.

That's a use of the word 'know' that I'm not familiar with - perhaps you could rephrase?

But with atheism inexorably and inevitably comes the belief that Man is the final moral arbiter....

Well, sentient life, which for functional purposes for the moment means man, yes.

and from that, the most powerful men...........As I said the Biggest and most deadly totalitarian outfits have an atheist ''vibe''.

Or, to put it differently, some totalitarians been atheist, and some have been religious. Even if you could show that they were more 'successful' as totalitarians because of their atheism, that still wouldn't be a lead from atheism TO totalitarianism, but there's a very easy thread from religion to it.

O.

[Outrider]

I don't know. Do you have to kill people to seriously demean and marginalise them?

How is 'you should have only the same rights and opportunities as everyone else' an attempt to demean and marginalise?

O.

I don't think you've been following the antics of Doctor Dawkins lately, have you.

Yes. I don't think you've been listening to what he's saying, but rather to what you'd imagine he means - that says more about you than him.

O.

[jeremyp]

And the great man talking about Our Lord.

George Viereck: “You accept the historical existence of Jesus?”
Einstein: “Unquestionably. No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life. How different, for instance, is the impression which we receive from an account of legendary heroes of antiquity like Theseus. Theseus and other heroes of his type lack the authentic vitality of Jesus.”
George Viereck: “Ludwig Lewisohn, in one of his recent books, claims that many of the sayings of Jesus paraphrase the sayings of other prophets.”
Einstein: “No man,” Einstein replied, “can deny the fact that Jesus existed, nor that his sayings are beautiful. Even if some them have been said before, no one has expressed them so divinely as he.”

Einstein was a great physicist. He was not a historian or a literary critic.

So he should have stuck to Physics, eh Jez?

He was entitled to talk about anything he liked. I was just pointing out that he was capable of saying things that were blatantly wrong, like this nonsense that Jesus personality pulsating through the gospels is means they are true.

Pity your crowd don't apply that to Stenger or Krauss or Carroll.

We do, but they don't tend to say stupid things about works of obvious fiction.