thanks for the kind words. let me follow this up by saying my son, who is 9, just recently got back from summer camp. it is decidedly a Christian camp (no not Jesus Camp!!! ). they are very clear that they will be doing bible study and singing praise songs, etc. about 2 years ago, when he was 7, my son told me he wasn't sure he believed in God. i told him that was fine....that if he wanted to know why I did, i would share that with him. and he did, so i did. i do not want his faith to be mine. i do not want him to leave my house at 18 and find the only reason he believes in God or attempted to follow Jesus was because he was under my roof. that sort of faith is weak and worthless. he had a group of friends going to this camp, and he wanted to go with them. so we picked him up from camp and asked him how it was of course on the long ride home. he said it was fun...that he got a little homesick and wasn't sure he'd want to go back. and said his counselor scared him talking vividly and descriptively about hell. (i give his counselor a break because he's 19 years old -- he said no one else in the camp talked about that at all). i'm REALLY not into scaring people into faith. God as fire insurance is flimsy. I can't contemplate my own death so I don't live for avoiding that....I always smile when I read people here posting that really faith is about dealing with death....it's not for me. Never has been, honestly. So this gave me an opportunity to tell my son that I would never want him to find his faith as a response to fear. I asked him, 'did your counselor tell you he had been to hell? that he knew what it was like from experience?? did he tell you that the word we translate as hell when Jesus speaks it is Gehanna, which was a literal place in Palestine?" of course the answer to all those questions was no. I'm glad that I was able to have the discussion with him...but I'm sad for those kids who will see a love of God as nothing more than a wager...a bet that, if he's real, i better believe so i don't end up in hell...just in case. That kind of crap has been in the Church for a while. And that's "in-or-out" theology, to me.
Your opinions on faith consistently blow me away. I just really want to say Thank you, I've read your posts for years and years now.. and it has helped me so many times get a deeper understanding and really develop my own thoughts on faith so much better. I found myself hating the Christian Faith my parents had forced and guilt-ed me into my entire life, but you rarely type anything that isn't well thought out and inspiring and more often than not you address everything I had a problem with growing up. So yeah, sorry to get totally gay up this thread here... but really, thanks.
The most important thing to any organization whether it be a religion, a nation, or a small business is survival. If your rival has a chance to make your organization cease to exist then that rival will be confronted in some sort of way. Atheists get so much grief for the same reason Muslims and Christians have been fighting for 2000 years. Survival.
This is exactly what I was talking about in my previous post. The Christian faith needs more of this today.
Outstanding post MadMax, as a preacher this point is significant, I have 5 children who have all grown up in a pastor's home (that is stinking difficult) and they all have their own genuine faith and love for Jesus, they are not fear mongers nor do they judge others, instead they have the joy and peace of following Jesus- all but one are over 18 yrs old, how Jesus is presented is critical for this to take place in a family (at least in my experience) the in or out reference to me demonstrates how using fear tactics effects people when you motivate people with fear you end up using manipulation and intimidation to control them at some point, as children grow older this breaks apart and becomes the very motivations that drive teenagers away this is the 'crap' that destroys the faith of children I run across alot of religious people who hold some kind of fire insurance belief and are motivated by inward fears, I find this results in religious hypocrisy I am seeing a reaction to this kind of intimidation (ie reaction to TV preachers and the Religious Right) I see alot of confusion in children because Jesus is forced upon them the pendulum is swinging away from intimidation and dominating control but I find it rarely stops in the right place today I have seen Christian love removed from the Cross of Christ which I believe produces another form of hypocrisy, it is one where there is a judgmental bias towards those who are like this 19 yr old boy at the camp it is a hypocrisy that withholds mercy towards the Sauls of the world who are religiously wrong it produces alot of bitterness and offense within the church itself it promotes misunderstanding, slander and pride it creates error concerning God's love, his judgments, and His view of sin and man today we are swinging away from a view that God's love reconciles sinful men to God and that this love changes men and women today the church is swinging towards a view that God's love reconciles God to sin and it is God that is changing to accomadate this there are alot of 'new' views of God and His love today, few really get Jesus death on the cross right I have more and more Christians telling me salvation is universal, this is a rapidly growing belief where fear is bad, pride is also dangerous and it is spreading to the point that the church is divided between hypocrites of various veiwpoints- those who resent those who think they are fundemental and right and those who look down upon those who don't conform to fundemental views. we are now moving from a church of fear to one full of offenses as a preacher I find it odd that fear and pride work so well to take away the meaning of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins it used to be a very good message
Evolution does NOTHING to dispell a beleive in God --- Just because you know how god did something . . .does not mean that he didn't do it Rocket River
agreed and thanks for pointing that out....to turn around and judge that kid would be awful. that he's a kid makes it easier for me to write it off.... but this is where I fall down for sure. i tend to be much more judgmental of who I would call the religious (ironic since most here and elsewhere would use that term to describe me). i'm pained by what I see in the Church and it makes me more likely to lash back with judgment. which is not of Jesus.
Not intended to be any rebuttal of your post, you are not judgmental at all, I know you and I could never see you showing disdain for any human except a disdain for the harsh and hypocritical, that is Jesus like, I think you have been an example to me as you are to many in Clutchfans my point was that I see great change in the American church - a move away from fundementalist religious hypocrites, which is good, but one that also is leaving behind alot of the beauty of Christ I find in His suffering on the cross for sinners, it is strange to me (I was speaking as if we were at lunch ) As a preacher, I for one am holding on to the simple message of Jesus dying on a cross because He loved this sinner it is helping many people experience God's love in our area it is not a message of fear but of love, at least for me
gotcha...good stuff and agreed. but even if you didn't intend it, i can use a kick in the butt on that stuff occasionally anyway.
What's the alternative to thinking, though? How could anything be more limiting than eschewing the driving force behind human evolution and culture? In seeking the truth about the world around us, the ideas of Karl Popper are far more useful than any vague notion of a supreme, supernatural being. It's how we go from "mere thinking" to the "solid conclusions" to which you referred. Also, though things like "love" may be difficult to quantify, it is not impossible to do so. The key is finding a meaningful definition of the term you want to study.
I think his point was that science supports evolution's existence, but not god's, for which there is no evidence.
I'm still reading through this thread but in regard to your original question I would say this is an example of why you as an athiest feel you are getting grief. So what if Sweet Lou is sitting on the fence regarding whether he thinks there is a god(s) or not. You are harping on him for not making a decision eitherway and then harping on him regarding getting a clue on believing in god gets him into some kind of heaven. Have you considered that your attitude might be just as close minded as those who you feel give you grief?
I disagree. I think Jesus' message can be seen in any number of religious iconoclasts, some of which predate Jesus himself. Even the bible hints at this, saying that Jesus was a high priest in the order of Melchizedek. It is a mistake, in my opinion, to interpret something like "pick up your cross and follow me" as inclusive to those who follow only a particular version of the "me". The true genius and inspiration found in Jesus/Buddha/Krishna et. al. is not in the personification of the teacher, but in the message - all of which tend to resonate on destruction of the ego and the embracement of compassion and love as a methodology to achieve peace, happiness, or enlightenment.
Evidence? I could argue the exsistence of planets is evidence there is a god. Also, i could come up with a formula to say the world if 1 day old. If everybody excepts my formula, then by science I would be right. But that don't make me right. Understand/ Just like the methods used to determine how old the earth is. It is science's best guess, but not infallible.
Just to follow up on this post I think that there has a been a dichotomy set up between science and religion when there isn't really one there. I don't think the issue of whether god(s) exist is a scientific question as there is no way to set up an empiracal test to prove such. That is a question of faith and in that context I see nothing wrong with accepting a scientific view of the Universe and still believing in some greater power. I say this a lot but I think it always bears repeating. Science and faith are not mutually exclusive but the means and methods of one shouldn't be used to argue the validity of the other. To me its a very shallow view of both science and religion to say that one can disprove the other. I think as rational humans we need both since we might rely on empiracism and logic to construct a rational view of the World at the same time as rational, and here I mean thinking, beings we have questions about our existence that can never be answered empiracally. Why am I here? Is there a purpose to existence? What happens when I die?
