Religion

[roymond]

The choice that everyone has to eventually make involves a deeply personal acceptance or rejection of God.

The choice doesn't have to be made. Many may make it, but there's no rule in nature that forces this choice.

It is a decision based on our most elemental spiritual composition, and I would argue that, ultimately, the presence or absence of a missionary influence is irrelevant.

Perhaps in relation to this specific topic, but the presence or absence of missionary influence has had life or death consequences. More the later than the former in the case of catholic influence.

[starfinger]

I don't understand how the presence or absence of a missionary influence can be irrelevant.

I accidentally took a mental leap in the middle of that last sentence. Let me try to fill in the blank.

I believe that our response to Jesus occurs entirely in the spiritual realm.

Satan was a spiritual being who saw God in the face, and still succumbed to pride and envy, and was cast from heaven. He has a fundamental spiritual incompatibility with the spirit of God. (There were other angels that followed him, so he was not an isolated anomaly.)

We too are spiritual beings, currently attached to physical bodies. Our spirit is who we are, and it is ultimately what is judged. We will all, at this spiritual level, be confronted wth Jesus's offer of redemption. Will we be too selfish or prideful to humbly acknowledge the need for his redemption and accept it?

It is a question more about our spiritual identities than our conscious experiences. And that is how I arrived at the thought that a missionary's presence was irrelevant.

There is interplay between our spirit and our consciousness. Realizing our spiritual nature and submitting our spirits to the will of God while on this earth is the key to supernatural joy, and communion with God -- the real purpose of our existence. This is the message of evangelization.

Similarly, twisted spirits glory in sin and reject God. By some miracle, these people can be consciously convicted of sin, and they can change.

-craig

[starfinger]

Perhaps in relation to this specific topic, but the presence or absence of missionary influence has had life or death consequences. More the later than the former in the case of catholic influence.

YES. I cannot begin to justify that crap.

-craig

[Leaf]

I've been in quite the funk for a while...stress... worrying about age, feeling like I'm outta control, the whole nine yards. Couldn't figure out just what the fuck was wrong.


I knew this was the weekend anniversary of the disappearance of a friend of mine, and I'm not really posting this to have a big "feel sorry for my loss" reaction (but that is appreciated, however it's been done already... ) but the thing is, he disappeared May 1st, and May 5th is his birthday. (Joe Skogan).


Last night my band which has been defunct, and which started out pretty much as a way to remember him, jammed. since we were on Quadra Island, and I had to catch the last ferry home, the rest of the band left the jam site (which Joe practically lived in) to go to the pub, while I waited for Dana to come pick me up.

that's the pre-text to the actual thing that relates to "religion".... or at least this was the closest thread I could find to do this....


I feel like he's there... so I start talking to him, timid at first, but I gain some momentum, and I tell him that I miss him...that I wish we hadn't had a falling out, that the band we were in many years ago HADN'T split up... that he was a great player with a wonderful sense of style, and that I wish I could see him again, hear him play... and then this huge wind ripped, with a whooosh! through the trees....and I was feeling really weird and melencholy, so I thought nothing of it... and then I heard our car coming down the long, winding driveway and I said "thanks man."


It was when I opened the car door, that I realized...there was no wind blowing. Everything was totally still. I asked Dana if she has noticed any wind on her drive here, and she said "no..."


I felt a huge weight off my shoulders... I felt pretty light. It was an amazing moment... not because of what it could have been... cause who really knows if the wind was real, if it was a coincidence, if it was Joe, if it was ... a fluke. Who knows.


All I know is I feel WAY better, and I believe he's still around. That's what is most important.

And I share that in the religion thread partially as notice that I've felt like I got too egotistically bruised by being overlooked in the wiki thread...childish... definitely. But hey.... one thing we humans do too much of is expect others to be perfect while we fail miserably at things repeatedly.


So, after the wind and my talk with Joe, I felt released. I think it's that spiritual release and sense of freedom that is a big part of religion for everyone regardless of their choice of faith or theories. And I think it's one of, if not the most important aspect of it, beyond the histories and bullshit and anger and ... all of it.

The spirtual release and sense of freedom are sprung from love and forgiveness.

[Mogosagatai]

Amen.

[fluffy]

<a href="http://www.biota.org/people/douglasadams/">Douglas Adams said how I feel about religion better than I could say it myself</a>

This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in—an interesting hole I find myself in—fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!’ This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it’s still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything’s going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for. We all know that at some point in the future the Universe will come to an end and at some other point, considerably in advance from that but still not immediately pressing, the sun will explode. We feel there’s plenty of time to worry about that, but on the other hand that’s a very dangerous thing to say. Look at what’s supposed to be going to happen on the 1st of January 2000—let’s not pretend that we didn’t have a warning that the century was going to end! I think that we need to take a larger perspective on who we are and what we are doing here if we are going to survive in the long term.

[HeuristicsInc]

hey, leaf, that's awesome. i'm glad you found you could do that. and got an answer.
-bill

[jeffhenderson]

I believe in the truth of Christianity ultimately for the same reason as most other Christians that I know: I have had personal religious experiences that confirm it's true. Certainly, I might be wrong in this belief; in no way is experience a perfect source of knowledge. But in general, it is reasonable to trust in the accuracy of your experiences, unless you find good reason to doubt it. People have offered me many fairly reasonable reasons to doubt Christianity, and I have carefully considered each of them. Some of them have made me realize that some of my beliefs were wrong (like the belief in the complete omnipotence of God), but ultimately no objection has given me any good reason to abandon my beliefs.

I don't believe that "Faith" is believing regardless of evidence. That is ignorance. Faith is having the strength to act according to your beliefs because you know they are true.

[fluffy]

But are your experiences only confirmations because you believe it to be a confirmation? Aren't there simpler explanations?

You can walk down the street afraid for your life, thinking that there is an atomic bomb about to go off and killing everyone. But you make it home okay. Did God prevent the bomb from exploding, or was there simply no bomb to begin with?

In Leaf's example... is it maybe possible that Dana didn't notice any wind because she simply wasn't paying attention to the momentary gust which came through at just the right time?

It's very easy for data to fit a model when you ignore the data which doesn't fit it. That's why people tend to believe in things like astrology and luck. Humans are very good at matching patterns. It's what our brains are evolved to do. The problem is that we tend to only record positive matches, and not things which are negative matches.

Pretty much everything in the Old Testament (I'm thinking particularly of the dietary laws in Leviticus) are clearly the case of people eating things they shouldn't, getting sick, and then ascribing it to God smiting them for eating shellfish or undercooked pork (because if the model is "death = smiting" then any repeatable death will reinforce that model), but now we know about microbes and pathogens and allergic reactions, and from a scientific point of view it's a lot simpler than having this complex set of rules and regulations that some imaginary monster under the bed has come up with for no particularly good reason.

[blue]

I don't believe that "Faith" is believing regardless of evidence. That is ignorance. Faith is having the strength to act according to your beliefs because you know they are true.

faith is, exactly, believing, not only without evidence, but even in spite of evidence.

ignorance is lack of knowledge. you can't have faith in something you don't know about.

[starfinger]

Pretty much everything in the Old Testament (I'm thinking particularly of the dietary laws in Leviticus) are clearly the case of people eating things they shouldn't....

First of all, you're talking about a relatively small part of the Levitical laws (and consequently a tiny fraction of Old Testament content).

Obviously the dietary laws are not a reason to believe in God, but for those who appreciate the fact that Israel was a theocracy, it makes sense that God would provide solutions to such obvious-in-2006 health issues.

Summarizing the Old Testament like this ignores meticulously preserved histories, fulfilled prophecies and heartfelt praise from people who saw God at work in their world.

-craig

[fluffy]

But saying they saw God at work in their world ignores that just because they saw God doesn't mean God was there. Especially considering that the Torah, being a work of fiction passed down verbally over several hundred years before it was even written down, is not exactly going to be a photographic record, especially since it'd only contain the positive matches.

One time when I was in grad school my paycheck was late due to the usual sorts of cock-ups that university administrations preside over. The department secretary was freaking out that I hadn't gotten paid. I said, "Well, it's not that big a deal if it's a few days late since I've saved up quite a bit." Her answer: "Thank God!" My response: "God had nothing to do with my good planning!" She got offended.

People want to see God where it's really the work of man.

People were praising God when word had gotten out that the Virginia coal miners had survived. Nobody blamed him when it turned out they'd all died.

Also, you're doing exactly the same thing by cherry-picking which things to keep considering as factual. You've already discounted the impact of the Leviticus dietary laws because it no longer fits what we know today. Too bad the rest of the stories can't be disproven.

[Leaf]

I do concur with Fluffy's point about ignoring negative matches... my example is merely how my brain intrepreted the data as it coincidentally fit the circumstances regarding my friend, his birthday and a change in temperature and wind.

Still... it was an experience that both closed a door of stress for me, and brought me closer to my friend, as we did have some issues between us (positive and negative) that were unresolved.


I guess the point for me is not about Christianity (and I may not have mentioned this before, but I was raised in a Christian lifestyle, attended church, attended sunday school, sang in a boys choir in many denominations)... but my point is more about... well, what Fluffy said applies here too! It's about the similarity in experience that leads to religious definitions... maybe because we just don't understand these things properly, so we have to use the closest definitions to OURSELVES.. so if you have a christian background, that definition of an absolute source of definitions gives someone a concept of understanding.

Kinda like the whole "the earth is flat" thing. Someone finally noticed it WASN'T, and then proved it, and religious groups had no choice but to redefine the concept.

Maybe what I' m really getting at is that there are observable, spiritual moments that every human has, and sometimes the source, the definiton, is just not actually important. It's the meaning of the moment to you.


Or something convoluted like that...

[blue]

Leaf,

spirituality has nothing to do with religion.

[jute gyte]

People were praising God when word had gotten out that the Virginia coal miners had survived. Nobody blamed him when it turned out they'd all died.

This is brilliantly stated.

[Leaf]

Leaf,

spirituality has nothing to do with religion.

I disagree. Spirtuality is the essence that is used by religion to explain it's power and rules. Without spirituality, and the experience it provides, religion would have nothing to base it's power on.

[starfinger]

You've already discounted the impact of the Leviticus dietary laws because it no longer fits what we know today.

I didn't mean to suggest that the Levitical dietary laws were no longer applicable. Faithful Jews should and do continue to set themselves apart in this way. Gentiles are not bound by Mosaic law, but it does provide invaluable context for the New Testament.

Also, the rest of the OT (other than the Torah/Pentateuch) provides plenty of history,prophecy and praise, without the oral history issue.

-craig

[fluffy]

But most people don't get smitten for eating shellfish or pork anymore.

It's a negative, failure of proof of God's word, which is simply being excluded from consideration.

[starfinger]

Leviticus does not say "if you eat pork, god will smite you."

-craig

[fluffy]

It puts eating pork and shellfish right up there with gay buttsex, which are all abominations. The greater context is that one will be smitten.

It also says that you should sell your neighbors into slavery and daughters into prostitution. More things which are conveniently ignored even by the most devout Hasidic Jews.

[starfinger]

but doesn't it comfort you to know the Jews will have lots of good guidelines for dealing with their slaves if that ever becomes culturally acceptable again?

also, the onus of enforcing these laws was on the people.

EDIT: Looking in Leviticus, I can only find two references to slavery (paraphrased): don't allow destitue foreigners to sell themselves to you as slaves. accept them as bondservants until the year of jubilee (a regularly scheduled servant-freeing land-distribution time). and "don't sell your Israelites into slavery, since they were slaves in Egypt but are now free".

Also, the only mention of prostitution is that priests are not allowed to have wives that were defiled by harlotry, and if a priest's daughter defiles herself with harlotry she is gonna get in trouble.

I don't find this too controversial.

-craig

[Reist]

Religion and what it tries to do, in my mind, is summed up here - in the words of Christ:

Love the Lord your God
Love your neighbour as yourself

Once those are followed, nothing else applies. All laws will follow if you truly believe and follow these two commandments.