God's choice: quick question for Christians

[Sriram]

I just picked up your post and carried on having a read through the rest, untill I noticed torridon's post 163, a well laid down explaination of how we humans arrived where we are today and it's also more or less where the evidence lies about the foundations of where and how our moral and ethical ideas originate.

None of the religious subscribers here or anywhere else have managed to supply any material that could be used as anything near to substantive supporting evidence for any of these, many, god or gods ideas

The whole idea of the various religions are to me so obviously man made, I see it  mainly because  life would be just the same as it is now without a god of any kind and there's no good reason to think there is such a thing as a god.

I susspect a lot of so called followers of the various gods have invested some considerable time and effert into the various proceedings involved worshipping them etc, they, even after the penny has droped don't like to admit as much.

How can anyone that thinks they have god presented in human form with the head of a blue elephant, expect to be taken seriously?

What's the point of having a discussion with someone that thinks a blue elephant headed human, figures in any way with day to day life?

Regards ippy

ippy,

You're off at a tangent and haven't understood a word of what i have written. Let us leave it at that!

[torridon]

You may be interested in these verses from Matthew 10:

13 If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

Reading the Gospels, I would suggest that Jesus showed a lot of working, e.g. backing up what He said by numerous miracles. This was not enough for some. When confronted by the miracles, they accused Him of doing his works by the power of Satan, not God! Their attitude is an object lesson in the impossibility of someone with the wrong worldview being able to understand. They had their own worldview of what the Messiah should be, Jesus didn't accord with that and so regardless of what He did, they were never going to accept him.

So why should anyone be judged upon their ability to understand ? Would a just, wise and loving god condemn people who cannot understand string theory ?

[Stranger]

Since you are bothering people on the issue of distinguishing religious beliefs from ''just guessing'' perhaps you could explain what you mean by it.....

and why religious beliefs? Isn't that just special pleading on your part.

Come on Vlad, this has been explained so many times - are you really too dim to get the argument, even if you find fault with it?

One more time: the world is full of people who make unfalsifiable and unverifiable claims; this includes, but is not limited to, religious claims. Many of these claims (especially religions) are mutually exclusive, so they cannot possibly all be true. So, how can anybody distinguish any of these claims from guessing, mistake, wishful thinking, and so on?

If I had to guess a belief I might not choose the ones I have derived by encounter and response which up to now are so poorly explained by those people who for some reason best known to themselves start guffing on about science.

The point being that what you describe as "encounter and response" was an experience of some kind (I'm assuming that you aren't claiming a physical encounter with physical evidence). As stated before, religious experiences are not uncommon - neither are they confined to one religion. So how do you know that you have the correct interpretation of your experience and that others, from other religions, do not? And how on Earth are the rest of us supposed to evaluate it along with all the other unfalsifiable and unverifiable claims?

[SusanDoris]

Your post is good sweetpea and so is Swordofthespirit's, I'm in agreement but others would say the Faith Sharing Area is the place for Christians to talk about their faith - & for people of other faiths.

What I do not understand is why a thread was started, addressed specifically to Christians & inviting answers from Christians, with the purpose of shouting down everything they say? Especially when it was a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily from a non-Christian point of view & the author must have known that.

Should I infer from that last part  that if it cannot be answered by a non-Christian then it can be answered by a 'Christian?  If so, what is the answer?

The other question that is being avoided is: what about all the other religions and gods you do not believe in; by what method do you know yours is the right one?

[Robbie]

The question was answered but " it was a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily from a non-Christian point of view".

The rest of your post isn't relevant to this thread and is also something that has been asked before even in my time on this board, again not answered satisfactorily from the point of view of non-Christians & about which Christians don't always agree.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Robinson,

What I do not understand is why a thread was started, addressed specifically to Christians & inviting answers from Christians, with the purpose of shouting down everything they say?

It wasn't. "Shouting down" would entail something like, "shut up, I'm not listening to you". In fact what's happened is that the answers have been listened to, and their inconsistencies challenged. That's how dialogue works.

Especially when it was a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily from a non-Christian point of view & the author must have known that.

"The author" knew no such thing. A group of people appear to believe two things that are mutually inconsistent, and arguably contradictory. Why would they not be able to consider that paradox and respond to it?   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Robinson,

The question was answered but " it was a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily from a non-Christian point of view".

What makes you think it's been answered satisfactorily from any point of view?

The rest of your post isn't relevant to this thread and is also something that has been asked before even in my time on this board, again not answered satisfactorily from the point of view of non-Christians & about which Christians don't always agree.

But the question remains nonetheless: if I'm confronted with ten believers in ten different religious faiths on what basis should I privilege the opinion of any one over those of the other nine? 

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Since you are bothering people on the issue of distinguishing religious beliefs from ''just guessing'' perhaps you could explain what you mean by it.....

and why religious beliefs? Isn't that just special pleading on your part.

If I had to guess a belief I might not choose the ones I have derived by encounter and response which up to now are so poorly explained by those people who for some reason best known to themselves start guffing on about science.

Who knows I might even have settled on yours.

Some got there before me very competently in his Reply 177.

[bluehillside Retd.]

torri,

So why should anyone be judged upon their ability to understand ? Would a just, wise and loving god condemn people who cannot understand string theory ?

Quite. In this country at least too we generally don't allow people to enter into contracts until they're 18. How I wonder does the "if you believe you're in, if you don't though...etc" deal work for those who are not competent or mature enough to sign up? Is there a special procedure - parents or guardians given power of attorney or something? I think we should be told! 

[ekim]

But what would you look for or investigate? Let’s say I think really, really hard about Jesus, about Mohammed and about Colin the Nabob of the Leprechauns and – lo and behold – each time I feel all snuggly and transcendent when I do it.

What would that tell me? What it would tell me is that the act of contemplation gave me an altered mental state, but it would tell me nothing whatever about whether the object of that contemplation was in fact real.

Now compare that with a materialistic proposition – that jumping out of a 20th storey window will bring you to a sticky end for example. You can test this claim and, regardless of your background, your culture, or your opinions the result will be the same and so on that basis we can construct a probabilistic model of gravity being real.

Can you see the difference here?

Oh yes, I can see the difference and it illustrates the difficulty in suspending the habit of trying to treat the 'inner' as a material object for investigation and forming a subjective model of the result.  It is also based upon the assertion that the only 'reality' is a physical one because that is the only one the mind can form a model of and provide evidence for.  I doubt whether anybody is interested in my take on the Jesus method because most seem more concerned in either sustaining a belief or destroying or belittling a belief.  However I would suggest that it is based upon the word used in the New Testament 'metanoia', which in my view is badly translated as 'repent'.  In this context there is the physical objective world, beyond that the metaphysical subjective thinking, model making 'world' and beyond that meta (beyond) noia (mind).  So to take your points 'investigation of something, thinking hard, feeling snuggly, altered mental state, objects of contemplation' are terms that do not belong to metanoia.  It has more to do with conscious stillness in the midst of the subjective and objective distractions.  So I would say 'Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand' is an invitation to find that space now and sustain the connection, not when you are dead.
Here endeth the first lesson.

[ippy]

ippy,

You're off at a tangent and haven't understood a word of what i have written. Let us leave it at that!

I'll assume you didn't read torri's post on this thread.

So you're telling me that the people that originated these "religions", didn't adopt any and every idea that was already there as useful editions of ideas for them to add to their portfolio of spurious claims of superior moral and ethical integrity.

Like I said after having invested some considerable time and effort into the promotion of blue elephant man, I suppose it would involve some loss of face to admit how pointless the idea was, even when the penny has dropped, in the first place.

Why do people believe such obvious rubbish? It's not only stretching the imagination in the first place, there's not even a shred of evidence that would support the magical, mystical and superstitional base of any religion and no the ideas were formed inside the heads of mankind by survival/evolution first and then Mr ju ju man when he found he was able to manipulate his fellows via ju ju-religion like ideas, they both came out of the same cook book; it's so obvious?

Regards ippy

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

Oh yes, I can see the difference and it illustrates the difficulty in suspending the habit of trying to treat the 'inner' as a material object for investigation and forming a subjective model of the result.

But the problem is that oftentimes those who have an “inner” (ie, subjective) experience also claim it to have an objective cause, and therefore a truth for other people too. And then they proceed accordingly. 

It is also based upon the assertion that the only 'reality' is a physical one because that is the only one the mind can form a model of and provide evidence for.

No it isn’t. There may be any number of other realities – indeed, for what it’s worth I think there probably are other realities. Rather materialism allows us to construct a model of reality that’s distinguishable from just guessing about stuff, and it has nothing to say to conjectures about the non-material. Trouble is though, nor does anything else.

I doubt whether anybody is interested in my take on the Jesus method because most seem more concerned in either sustaining a belief or destroying or belittling a belief.  However I would suggest that it is based upon the word used in the New Testament 'metanoia', which in my view is badly translated as 'repent'.  In this context there is the physical objective world, beyond that the metaphysical subjective thinking, model making 'world' and beyond that meta (beyond) noia (mind).  So to take your points 'investigation of something, thinking hard, feeling snuggly, altered mental state, objects of contemplation' are terms that do not belong to metanoia.  It has more to do with conscious stillness in the midst of the subjective and objective distractions. 

So I would say 'Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand' is an invitation to find that space now and sustain the connection, not when you are dead.

Here endeth the first lesson.

All very lovely no doubt, but here’s the problem with it: there are many people of many faiths who claim different facts for their beliefs that are also we're told obtained by contemplation etc. You can feel as much “conscious stillness" as you like, but as soon as you make claims of objectively true causal phenomena – “Kingdom of heaven”, “connection” etc – you’re in trouble. If you stick to, “I feel all tingly when I think about this stuff”, that’s fine; the minute you jump to, “therefore this stuff is causing me to feel all tingly” then you overreach.

Here endeth the second lesson.     

[ekim]

All very lovely no doubt, but here’s the problem with it: there are many people of many faiths who claim different facts for their beliefs that are also we're told obtained by contemplation etc. You can feel as much “conscious stillness" as you like, but as soon as you make claims of objectively true causal phenomena – “Kingdom of heaven”, “connection” etc – you’re in trouble. If you stick to, “I feel all tingly when I think about this stuff”, that’s fine; the minute you jump to, “therefore this stuff is causing me to feel all tingly” then you overreach.
 

Yes, that's what happens when the thinking mind buts in and tries to think about it as 'stuff' and make images or models of the experience, or retrofit it to religious scripture.  There are also the dangers of ego inflation from the experience which is probably what Satan's temptations of Jesus was meant to warn against.  After all you can't have a Heaven full of egos can you, it's bad enough on Earth.

[bluehillside Retd.]

ekim,

Yes, that's what happens when the thinking mind buts in and tries to think about it as 'stuff' and make images or models of the experience, or retrofit it to religious scripture.  There are also the dangers of ego inflation from the experience which is probably what Satan's temptations of Jesus was meant to warn against.  After all you can't have a Heaven full of egos can you, it's bad enough on Earth.

Well fine so far as it goes, but how then should we treat claims of fact (“God”, "Satan" etc) made by those who do think their objects have caused their experiences if not for, “you’re just guessing about stuff”?

[Sriram]

ekim,

Well fine so far as it goes, but how then should we treat claims of fact (“God”, "Satan" etc) made by those who do think their objects have caused their experiences if not for, “you’re just guessing about stuff”?

How does it matter whether we use Internet Explorer or Google to connect to the internet? It all the same.

The deities and images don't matter....its the connection and the inner transformation that is important.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

How does it matter whether we use Internet Explorer or Google to connect to the internet? It all the same.

It doesn't. The analogy fails though because we can establish that there is an internet. With religious claims on the other hand all there is is the narrative that there's a connection to something, but no means to establish whether there actually is something to connect to. 

The deities and images don't matter....its the connection and the inner transformation that is important.

They matter a lot when some want to claim them to be real, and to proceed accordingly in ways that affect others. 

[Sriram]

Sriram,

It doesn't. The analogy fails though because we can establish that there is an internet. With religious claims on the other hand all there is is the narrative that there's a connection to something, but no means to establish whether there actually is something to connect to. 

They matter a lot when some want to claim them to be real, and to proceed accordingly in ways that affect others.

Well...there are billions of people who understand the connection and transformation.

I agree that some people might get extremely attached to their specific images and deities...leading to fanaticism. But as long as that does no harm...it is ok.   

But I think in course of time  (due to globalization) these people will also realize that specific images are not very important and they will then focus on the inner transformation.  All paths lead to the same goal.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

Well...there are billions of people who understand the connection and transformation.

No, there are billions of people who have explanatory narratives for the world and their experiences of it that often focus on a bewildering variety of causal agencies. That tells you nothing about the reality or otherwise of those agencies, but a lot about our pattern- and explanation-seeking nature.

I agree that some people might get extremely attached to their specific images and deities...leading to fanaticism. But as long as that does no harm...it is ok.

But if we accept the benign god stories, how then should we deal with the malign one as both types rely on the same rationale of "faith"?   

But I think in course of time  (due to globalization) these people will also realize that specific images are not very important and they will then focus on the inner transformation.  All paths lead to the same goal.

If that “goal” is contemplative bliss or some such achieved by meditation, yoga etc then fine.  When the goal though is to connect with an objectively true god though that’s a different matter.

[Stranger]

Well...there are billions of people who understand the connection and transformation.

Who would they be? I mean, are you trying to co-opt everybody who has a religion, however much they disagree with each other and you? If not, what specific subset do you think "understand"?

All paths lead to the same goal.

I think there may be billions who disagree.

But then, argumentum ad populum is a fallacy - so how can we actually evaluate these claims?

[Sriram]

Sriram,

No, there are billions of people who have explanatory narratives for the world and their experiences of it that often focus on a bewildering variety of causal agencies. That tells you nothing about the reality or otherwise of those agencies, but a lot about our pattern- and explanation-seeking nature.

But if we accept the benign god stories, how then should we deal with the malign one as both types rely on the same rationale of "faith"?   

If that “goal” is contemplative bliss or some such achieved by meditation, yoga etc then fine.  When the goal though is to connect with an objectively true god though that’s a different matter.

It doesn't have to tell us anything about the experience. The experience is an end in itself. 

Our 'need to understand' does put its foot in and try to make some rational sense out of it...but that is really an interruption and does nothing except 'interrupt'.

Anything can be benign or malign depending on the person concerned. It depends on the level or development and extent of transformation in the person. For some people the image or deity becomes a powerful meme and starts fighting for survival and replication. In some others it remains just a preferred image.

In Hinduism we call this the 'Ishta Devta'...or preferred deity of an individual.  No harm in that.

Why is connecting with an objective 'God' or Higher Self any more harmful than just experiencing bliss?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#168

Now compare that with a materialistic proposition – that jumping out of a 20th storey window will bring you to a sticky end for example. You can test this claim and, regardless of your background, your culture, or your opinions the result will be the same and so on that basis we can construct a probabilistic model of gravity being real.

Oh no. serious problems trying to use methodological materialism to justify a position on religion.

It has nothing to say about it as you have kindly demonstrated over the years.

Welcome back Emergence!

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

#173, #174

Sweetpea & Robinson: Thanks, You're welcome!

What I do not understand is why a thread was started, addressed specifically to Christians & inviting answers from Christians, with the purpose of shouting down everything they say? Especially when it was a question that cannot be answered satisfactorily from a non-Christian point of view & the author must have known that.

From what I can see, it's because his faith lies in arguments against the existence of God. If what the Bible says is true then it falsifies his faith, so at all costs he must try and assert that what is claimed is false. It is not a quest to establish truth, but reasons to justify disbelief.

If you were to critically examine the worldview used as the foundation for his arguments, you would find that it is replete with all the kinds of fallacies and logical contradictions that are levelled against religious belief. It's one reason that any attempt to get him to justify his own worldview results in allegations of shifting the burden of proof/negative proof fallacy/etc., .... If you've ever read any of Emergence's posts, he's done on a number on them time and time again.

[Stranger]

If you were to critically examine the worldview used as the foundation for his arguments, you would find that it is replete with all the kinds of fallacies and logical contradictions that are levelled against religious belief.

Such as....?

[SwordOfTheSpirit]

So why should anyone be judged upon their ability to understand ? Would a just, wise and loving god condemn people who cannot understand string theory ?

People aren't judged upon their ability to understand. John 3 v 16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

[Gordon]

From what I can see, it's because his faith lies in arguments against the existence of God.

Then, as usual, you see wrongly: it is the failure or arguments for God that is the notable issue, by dint of them being either incoherent or fallacious.

If what the Bible says is true then it falsifies his faith, so at all costs he must try and assert that what is claimed is false. It is not a quest to establish truth, but reasons to justify disbelief.

'If' - so you'll effortlessly explain how you've excluded the risks of mistake, exaggeration or lies in the Bible: on you go!

If you were to critically examine the worldview used as the foundation for his arguments

We've already dispensed with the 'worldview' nonsense.

you would find that it is replete with all the kinds of fallacies and logical contradictions that are levelled against religious belief.

You still don't get it: nothing need be 'levelled against religious belief' - all that need be done is show the arguments for religious belief (advanced by the likes of yourself) are incoherent or fallacious, which is where you are undone.

It's one reason that any attempt to get him to justify his own worldview results in allegations of shifting the burden of proof/negative proof fallacy/etc., ....

I see you still don't understand fallacies.

If you've ever read any of Emergence's posts, he's done on a number on them time and time again.

In your dreams, Sword - thanks for the laugh though.