LOL LOL

I had never seen the article above. When I read it I thought, “this sounds like it is going to be a very reasonable post. The quotes used are very good, and he is laying out the argument that neither side can really prove anything to the other—but then he ends the whole thing with “guide people from their prison of faith”.

“Prison of faith”? LOL That sounds like QuestionMonkey is really trying to present a reasonable argument. Saying “inside of faith” and “outside of faith” is fine—but to end the article calling the “inside” a “Prison” is hilarious as hell. I have believed for many years, and I am in no prison—a little closed-minded about my faith and those who would mock it or attempt to “disprove” it—sure. But I am in no prison—I can say after 35 years (I was saved when I was 17 and am 52 years old now) that the greatest day of my life was the day my next door neighbor handed me the Gospel of John.

I can only say with the blind man, who was not very good at explaining to the Pharisees why he believed in Jesus, “All I know is that once I was blind, but now I see”. My joy was great then, and is even greater now, because I am closer to the day when I will stand before the Lord than I was then (I am older now, but just as filled with hope)

Man—if that is prison, give me 8 life terms!

The word ‘islam’ means submission. Obviously submission to the will of Allah, as prescribed in the five pillars of faith. The big-3 monotheisms are alike in dismissing an individual’s will, “not my will but thy will done” as we’re shown in the poignant scene at Gethsemane in the NT.

Self-assertion takes on the character not of honest questioning and personal growth, but of insubordination and rebellion. Think of Prometheus vs Jesus.

With characteristic, combative verve, Kierkegaard condemns the doubter as insubordinate, a rebel against fideism:

“They would have us believe that objections against Christianity come from doubt. This is always a misunderstanding. Objections against Christianity come from insubordination, unwillingness to obey, rebellion against all authority. Therefore, they have been beating the air against the objectors, because they have fought intellectually [against] doubt, instead of fighting ethically [against] rebellion. . . .So it is not properly doubt but insubordination.” (Lowrie 122)

Thus, SK. It’s not surprising that even attempting to leave a religious culture which demands ’subordination’ or ’submission’ to someone else’s interpretation of an alleged “will of god” adversely affects the psychological well-being of the “apostate.” Guilt feelings. Guilt is the elder brother of Sin.

Becoming-who-you-are or “Individuation” (to use Jung’s terminology) is the goal of personal growth. It cannot occur without self-doubt or without doubting authority figures. When you’ve made a “leap of faith” into hyper-religious space there is no return except by self-assertion, and doubt is just a form of it.

Irrational self-assertion characterizes the popular culture, the “secular” culture. Irrational fideism characterizes fundamentalism, jewish, xian, or islamic.

Tolerance, that wide band of humane behavior, lies between inhuman anarchy and inhuman puritanism. Trying to navigate in that band requires years of training and making a lot of mistakes. And, there is no end to learning until life itself ends.

bipolar2
c. 2007

Idealogical extremism / fundamentalism is a major cause for human suffering.

I think the urge to de-convert people is no more laudable than the urge to convert them. It seems to spring from the same instinct: the desire to influence others and make them resemble yourself. I wouldn’t want people to resemble me! The world would be insufferably boring. We would all drive at the speed limit, but I can’t think of any other advantages.

The only thing I would like to quash is intolerance. I wish that Muslims would stop hating Christians and vice versa, and I wish the Pope would stop attacking atheists.

I would not want to convert someone like A.M. Brewster, but life would be more pleasant for everyone if he would take some time to learn about atheists. He wrote:

“I suppose if a person believes they’ve evolved from nothing, for no reason, with no purpose for their existence, and they don’t accept there’s a supernatural being that loves them . . . I guess that kind of person would be pretty miserable.”

That’s absurd. Most atheists are as happy as a clam. I am delighted that we evolved from nothing, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I assume Brewster is happy with his life and his beliefs. Why does he imagine that other people are miserable with theirs? Whatever happened to good-old American-style live and let live?

Consider this: There are many different kinds of women in this world. A woman who attracts one man may repel another. Let us imagine that Brewster meets my wife and finds he intensely dislikes her, and sees nothing attractive about her. Would he imagine that I could not possibly love her? Why is it so difficult for people to accept that other people have different tastes, different beliefs, priorities and so on. Why does that bother anyone?

Some are religious by instinct; others are not. If you are inclined to be religious then go ahead, and if not, then don’t worry about it. Just be true to yourself and be happy.

It is a historical fact that the early Christians were not certain that Jesus is God and held contending beliefs about his nature. There were Christians who were “Adoptionists”, who believed that Jesus was a human being “adopted” by God to be His Son. There were Christians who were ‘Docetists”, who thought that Jesus was completely divine and only appeared to be human. There were also “Separationist” Christians (Gnostics) who believed Jesus was a human being in whom the perfect Christ dwelled. The reason we know this is that these different understandings of Jesus resulted in writings that later became lost or suppressed by the “proto-orthodox Christians” established the orthodoxy of today. The term “proto-orthodox Christians” was coined by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and is used to denote the group of Christians whose beliefs came to form the views of orthodox Christianity as we know it today.

The verse you quoted is a weak one to use to disprove Jesus’s deity.

I don’t think you are reading the passage objectively. Let me break it down for you A man approaches Jesus and calls him “Good teacher.” Jesus then tells him that it is not appropriate to call him good because only God is good. In other words, Jesus is saying that he is not God.

Mark’s gospel opens with the Father’s confession of Jesus being His Son (1:11)

According to my understanding, the title “Son of God” is a title that was associated with the Messiah and also King David. The Psalms refer to David as a Son of God (Psalm 2:7 and 89:27) Does this mean then that King David is God?

Obviously the Jews completely hated the fact that Jesus thought Himself as God. The Gospel of John doesn’t introduce the divinity of Jesus, it just emphasises it (for purposes I wont discuss here).

How do you know that the Gospel of John is a literal and faithful representation of the life and ministry of Jesus? In fact it is ironic that you declare the “Jesus is God” doctrine as a fact when it is merely a belief that has been interpreted from a collection of ancient manuscripts. If that is a fact, then the stories of Lord Sri Krishna in the Srimad Bhagavatam and the Bhagavad-gita are also facts. All the sacred mythologies of the ancient world that have been preserved in ancient manuscripts and continue to be believed by people today are all facts.

Sojourner wrote:

In most formal debates you would get lambasted for using something out of context or isolating a fact/statistic to aide your side. This shows a lack of knowledge on the subject at hand and a disregard of scholarship. The Bible is no different.

Thanks for the advice, but I don’t think I quoted the passage in Mark 10:17-18 out of context. The passage has Jesus categorically declining to be placed on the same platform of God. Of course in a canon compiled by the proto-orthodox “Jesus is God” Christians, such a passage would be problematic. But the history of Christianity does not belong to these proto-orthodox Christians alone. The Gospel of Mark was written when the New Testament was still decades from being standardized and the writer of the Gospel certainly did not think what he was writing would one day be considered “scripture”. He was only writing down the story of Jesus according to the sources at his disposal (The Gospel Q for instance) and his own understanding. Hence, if one looks at Mark 10:17-18 as a story that was inherited from the historical Jesus, then there is the real possibility of contradiction between what that Jesus thought about himself and the teaching about him that went on to be developed after his life.

But what made you think that Hell was a literal fact to be scared off? Did you not spend some time forensically investigating the claims in the NT? If not, why not? If yes…. How long did you spend on this investigation before you believed it? Had you ever heard of Jesus before your moment of salvation? What was your view of the Jesus stories before that?

You wouldnt encourage me to Belive is any other religion or faith? the rest are all wrong… yeah? what about Gumboism? its really good… if i explain it to you… do you think theres a chance you might abandon christ and join Gumbo? if not, why no? you seemed to have joined Christ without too much inquiry. (or am i assuming too much)

[i made up Gumboism, but its a good one... it's heaven it fantastic... and it's hell is worse than your hell]