erasmusinfinity - 19 December 2007 03:09 PM

Well, Craig.  I don’t wish to be offensive to you.  I didn’t call you stupid or ignorant, but if you consider being called stubborn to fit into the same category as those words than I’d suggest that you lighten up.  And maybe be a little bit less stubborn about it.  Believe me, I am more than a bit accustomed to being told that my beliefs are offensive.  And quite oppressively I might add. 

I understand. It is new perhaps, not to have a theist agree with your critisisms about Christianity, and even publically say that if the new world is one without Christianity, he would gladly embrace it. There are reasons I am a theist which have nothing to do with propoganda, viral meme’s, brainwashing and the such. It is that reason my roommate, calls himself an agnostic even though he will always defend the atheist view.

Craig_SOtW - 19 December 2007 02:46 PM

As for humanism, how do you know your humanist views are right?  Where do you draw your morals & ethics?  Do you assign a purpose to the world?

That is for society to decide, as for me, feeding the poor, helping the homeless, educating the masses of the evils of men looking to take advantage of them. People abusing power is not just found in religion, but governements, corporations, etc. you don’t need ‘God’ to know what is good and evil and what is good for the benefit of life.

You and I may disagree about matters of gods, but if you really mean what you say about putting humanitarian causes at the fore then you and I probably have much in common.  More, perhaps, than I do with many other atheists and more, perhaps, than you do with many other christians.  Whatever you wish to call yourself, I am glad that you put deed before creed.  That is what matters to me most too.

The matter if a God, gods, or anything of the like exists, really has no relevance to you or anyone else. I am much more about deed before creed, though my creed does not contradict my deeds.

I am headlocked with many Christians once they realize what I teach, but since I can provie them with reason and logic to my belief, which has the essense of what they wanted to believe in the first place before entering Christianity, I actually make a lot of head way with them. Not every Christian is a fundamentalist who agree with their Church and doctrine, just because they sit in a fundamentalist churh and listen to it’s teachings. Sometimes, they just don’t know anything else and for the same reasons (which at this time I do not want to discuss), they cannot deny they are Christians.

dougsmith - 19 December 2007 03:17 PM

Craig_SOtW - 19 December 2007 02:54 PM

Really, I’m not sure what sort of apologetics you are reading, but I’d seriously urge you to do some looking around to find out what serious scholarship says on these issues.

Like Wikipedia?

Certainly the external links at the bottom of the wiki page are a good place to start, such as HERE (Columbia Encyclopedia):

A place for burning refuse in later Israelite times, it provided imagery for a fiery Hell in the Books of Isaiah and the New Testament.

... or HERE (Jewish Encyclopedia):

Gehenna The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch was originally in the “valley of the son of Hinnom,” to the south of Jerusalem (Josh. xv. 8, passim; II Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. ii. 23; vii. 31-32; xix. 6, 13-14). For this reason the valley was deemed to be accursed, and “Gehenna” therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for “hell.” ...

And I did not disgree with that. What I disagreed with was that you think Jesus was talking about what Christians think Gehenna means presently today. As I said, this is difficult to explain especially since you already think you know what you are talking about as well. I can quote you the Christian propoganda, the false doctrines which they have passed from generation to generation as well doesn’t mean they are correct. Even the Wikipedia article makes it clear, Gehenna to the Jew is not what Gehenna means to the Christian. So when it comes down to who is more correct about their interpretation, is it Christians (who came years after Gehenna was created) or Jews, who knew what it was and what it symbolized.

Retrospy -

Craig_SOtW - 19 December 2007 02:46 PM

I believe in Heaven, and without going into detail, all humankind is headed there.

What purpose does Heaven provide?  How do you know it exists?  Is Heaven indistinguishable from nothingness?

Nobody knows. Whether it exists as a celestial spiritual playground, or is a metaphorical idea of the mind in which we live in the memories of our children, friends and other loved ones, it really doesn’t matter. My hope is for it’s reality, even if it is not real.  Nobody knows what happens after death, we just know we die, our memories can die, or knowledge can die, but what we are will live in time even if forgotten by the future. Since energy cannot neither be created or destroyed, then we certainly are not gone so it can never be nothingness. The fact of it’s reality is irrelevant, as Jesus himself said to share with your friends, spend your wealth on those whom you love, and you have built treasures in heaven. Heaven may even be the times we are with our friends and family, and the peace and goodness that comes from such close relationships. Heaven is not my goal.

Retrospy -

Does your God practice in-group/ out-group associations (rules to the club)?

Retrospy -

Craig_SOtW - 19 December 2007 02:46 PM

If you mean by water baptism, the lord’s prayer, accepting by faith that Jesus is the Son of God in order to be saved et al. There is no work, no belief, no word, no faith, no anything which is conditioned on us to be in the favor of God. You are as much blessed or more than I who believes, the rain falls on all humankind.

If someone were to live in a shelter and wear a body suit outside, so as to not be touched by rain, (or a colonist on a planet other than earth) would that exclude them from your club?  I assume your comment is metaphor for “no, everyone is in the club” but I thought I better clarify being that you got your information from a source that literally used the word rain.

In the same way that I will never be accepted as an atheist, is about the biggest difference you will ever find. If extra-terrestials live, then they too are part of the club, they will never be called human, but they are accepted and favoured by God regardless.

Retrospy -

Retrospy -

As for humanism, how do you know your humanist views are right?  Where do you draw your morals & ethics?  Do you assign a purpose to the world?

Craig_SOtW - 19 December 2007 02:46 PM

That is for society to decide, as for me, feeding the poor, helping the homeless, educating the masses of the evils of men looking to take advantage of them. People abusing power is not just found in religion, but governements, corporations, etc. you don’t need ‘God’ to know what is good and evil and what is good for the benefit of life.

What it sounds like to me, is that your theist methodology places your views very similair to deist views.  This is all done under the name Christianity, something nearly all other Christians would dislike.  Would you agree?

Yes, I also do not care if Jesus was born of a virgin or not, it makes no difference. In fact, it would make more sense that Jesus was born a bastard son of an adulterous woman named Mary, than it would to have a ‘sinless’ Mary give birth to a ‘sinless’ man. (You will notice that all obscure and nonsensical doctrines Christianity has, has more obscure and nonsensical doctrines to defend those doctrines) The symbolic nature that He was born in such a lowly manner to the people of the time, would only give more credence to Christian faith, and I can go into all the logic and reasoning behind it, as Scripture supports that view as well. Does that mean I disagree with Matthew? No, it means that Matthew either did not have good logic and reasoning, or when Matthew said virgin, he referenced as that Jesus would be born to a woman; unlike other religions which have Mithras born from a rock, etc. Only later interpretted when the problem of the ‘virginity’ of Mary was addressed 300 years later, that they made a creed about it.

You gotta remember, Christianity prior to 300 years, was not uniform under a central authority other than God, it was not until Rome adopted it as an official religion did you get creeds and such fighting against what they called ‘heretical’ views. In my experience, all that was, was some bishop thought he was smart and had a doctrine he wanted to be made ‘official’ and through charasmatic and manipulative tactics, had it standardized and it was offensive to this man’s pride to have them challenged so he brought them to be anthemetized and even murder those who question it!

Retrospy -

I find it interesting that everyone claims they are interpreting the words of the bible correctly, from context, and yet they come up with soo many different explanations.  It sounds like you may believe in moral relativism, is this true?  I’d like to see how the bible defends moral relativism.

Yea, there are many interpretations of the words of the bible, that is what makes this so much fun to debate. As I believe all truth is objective and not subjective, we still deal with human beings, their pride, their egos, their emotions, their hopes, their dreams, and so they will not, even genetically, accept objective truth. That is the problem we have as humankind, we were created (whether supernaturally or through evolution) to filter everything through our emotional center of our brain before it ever gets to the reasoning part, it had great purposes when we are in danger or our survival but has become more and more redundant as civilization has become more advanced.

Thank you for that somewhat lengthy and tedious discussion Craig.  The process of dissecting Craig’s beliefs is what points out an important aspect to humanist bridge building.  Craig is, by the common definition, an agnostic.  He simply prefers to speak the language of theists in order to be understood by them, whether he is aware of this or not, I can’t tell.  If it walks like a duck, doesn’t talk like a duck and acts like a duck… well I’ll throw out the anomoly and move on.

The fact that many theists would consider Craig part of the out-group is testament to our natural tendency to align ourselves with those who will benefit us and disassociate with those who will not.  Personally, I think Craig’s humanist aims will potentially be more inline with many of our views than some self proclaimed atheists/ agnostics. 

I have no intention of flushing out the irrational logic behind redefining the term Christianity beyond this point.  Redefining Christianity has been tried a few thousand times throughout history.  The popularity of these new definitions has found a majority of its success by abandoning the values that, as far as I can tell, Craig & I both aspire - Critical thinking and respect for others.  I prefer to focus on repairing the issues that divide us and calling attention to the problems that we all have an investment in.

Welcome to the forums Craig.  I look forward to hearing your unique views on a variety of humanist issues.

A Christian Agnostic.

Craig,

What does “SOtW” stand for?

Just the initials I used from my former handles, Craig is too common and I hate Craig2007 blah blah blah.