EdgyDolmen
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 417
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A butterfly was a caterpillar until a miraculous transformation occurred. You may be able to provide a scientific explanation of metamorphosis without having at least a faint glimpse of a Creator’s role but I can’t provide an explanation without that glimpse. I have no need to employ a Christian interpretation of God to explain it. The Creator will suffice.
Shouldn’t God be self-evident? As I have said, He is to me! I had neither fear, trauma nor epiphany but a gradual metamorphosis to reach my present understanding. God exists but I no longer recognize the entity described in the Christian Bible! I am a Deist. Reason and nature make the Creator self-evident.
As Thomas Paine said; "To claim a dishonest belief in the Bible God would compromise reason and honor." Would God have me leave reason behind? Would He have me ignore principle? I find the idea that God will punish me for questioning the feasibility of Christianity or punish me with eternal torment because of the transgression of 'Adam' incomprehensible. This same religion would have me believe that eternal damnation awaits all innocent offspring and suggest somehow that idea is superior to reason.
I am obliged to recognize evidence where it is or the lack of evidence where it is therefore, as long as I retain my wits, if my judgment fails me it is a misfortune and not a sin. It has been said that the Creator would not reward me for having been born a genius so why should He damn me if I’m born a idiot? God surely would not punish me for that which He chose not to bestow or not bestow upon me. Christians say to ask for grace in prayer but grace is necessary to assist me in finding faith, which eludes reason. Isn’t that a conundrum!
Shouldn’t truth also be self-evident? No revealed religion is self-evident or even apparent. Miracles only few men are said to have witnessed are certainly not sufficient to prove the truth of that religion.
The Bible God seems to be overwhelmed. The Devil appears to be a much more powerful Being seeing that the number of the damned far exceeds the number of the saved. Shouldn’t the purpose of the sacrifice of the Son of God ultimately have been intended to vanquish or at the least limit the Devil’s influence? Atoned? If you believe the Bible story, Jesus was reduced to an excruciating death yet the Devil seems to have maintained the upper hand. How then was the whole of humanity benefited by His death?
I’ve wondered why the miracles of Jesus were true and those of Pythagoras, Esculapius, and Apollonius and many others were false? If all of Jesus’ miracles were true then all Jews who saw the great miracles of Jesus were undoubtedly converted to Christianity! Weren’t they? No, instead of having any belief in Him they saw to it that He was put to death. Seems all these true miracles of Jesus had little affect on the people that Jesus came to convert.
The religion that began as the “Jesus Movement” was later proclaimed by ignorant fanatics as Christianity. Later the Apostles suffered death to prove the truth of the fanaticism they preached to mankind. To suffer martyrdom for any cause proves nothing, except that your position is untenable.
Likewise, when we indicate what 'we' have seen or experienced that is first hand information but when we repeat what others have seen, we prove nothing, except that we are willing to believe what is at best second hand information. The whole structure of Christianity is built from second hand information. It was built by those who had an interest in establishing it and it is kept alive by those who now have a vested interest in maintaining it.
Preachers are always talking to us about the weakness and errors of the human mind; but are the minds of these preachers more infallible than our minds? Is the preacher’s understanding less subject to error than your mind or my mind? Can’t the preacher’s passions and interests deceive him in the same way that others could be deceived? When we question a preacher’s interpretation he endeavors to frighten us; but terror is not a convincing substitute for truth and fear will never be proof of the preacher’s credibility. Believe, or you will be damned. This is the strongest argument in all theology.
Furthermore, the dogma of eternal punishment is the offspring of foolishness, of evil, and of blasphemy. If God will punish all sin eternally and equally, what proportion exists between the offense and the punishment? None! If he punishes sinners for his own satisfaction, he becomes a monster of barbarity and if he punishes to correct others, his harshness is useless to those who are not witnesses to the punishment. In order that we may always be terrified at the idea of this possible infinite punishment, Christianity has made man sufficiently powerful to not only offend the Creator but to offend Him apparently for all eternity.
Not all but many Christians would have us believe that God the Father judges mankind deserving of his eternal vengeance; God the Son judges mankind worthy of His infinite mercy while it seems the Holy Spirit remains neutral. How can we reconcile this concept with the unity of the will of God?
Worship? How can man be so arrogant as to believe that God requires a mere mortal to worship Him anyway? What need has this Deity of this worship? Would this add anything to His happiness or to His glory? I think it is a greater honor to raise our idea of the Creator as being so great that we can do nothing for Him because we are insignificant to His glory. Also if any worship is required and if one type of worship be more acceptable to Him than another it must be that which proceeds simply from an honest heart!
Reason tells me that when we commit crimes it is man and not God that we injure. Christians choose to concentrate on passages such as “Love thy neighbor” yet in reality Christianity more often teaches us about a God that is cruel, sinister, jealous, and ruthless in His fury. Can the God of Moses, of Joshua and of David be the God of an honest man? Religion is dangerous when it confuses our morality and it is false when it destroys the perfection of the Creator.
What do you mean, I am verbose
Shouldn’t God be self-evident? As I have said, He is to me! I had neither fear, trauma nor epiphany but a gradual metamorphosis to reach my present understanding. God exists but I no longer recognize the entity described in the Christian Bible! I am a Deist. Reason and nature make the Creator self-evident.
As Thomas Paine said; "To claim a dishonest belief in the Bible God would compromise reason and honor." Would God have me leave reason behind? Would He have me ignore principle? I find the idea that God will punish me for questioning the feasibility of Christianity or punish me with eternal torment because of the transgression of 'Adam' incomprehensible. This same religion would have me believe that eternal damnation awaits all innocent offspring and suggest somehow that idea is superior to reason.
I am obliged to recognize evidence where it is or the lack of evidence where it is therefore, as long as I retain my wits, if my judgment fails me it is a misfortune and not a sin. It has been said that the Creator would not reward me for having been born a genius so why should He damn me if I’m born a idiot? God surely would not punish me for that which He chose not to bestow or not bestow upon me. Christians say to ask for grace in prayer but grace is necessary to assist me in finding faith, which eludes reason. Isn’t that a conundrum!
Shouldn’t truth also be self-evident? No revealed religion is self-evident or even apparent. Miracles only few men are said to have witnessed are certainly not sufficient to prove the truth of that religion.
The Bible God seems to be overwhelmed. The Devil appears to be a much more powerful Being seeing that the number of the damned far exceeds the number of the saved. Shouldn’t the purpose of the sacrifice of the Son of God ultimately have been intended to vanquish or at the least limit the Devil’s influence? Atoned? If you believe the Bible story, Jesus was reduced to an excruciating death yet the Devil seems to have maintained the upper hand. How then was the whole of humanity benefited by His death?
I’ve wondered why the miracles of Jesus were true and those of Pythagoras, Esculapius, and Apollonius and many others were false? If all of Jesus’ miracles were true then all Jews who saw the great miracles of Jesus were undoubtedly converted to Christianity! Weren’t they? No, instead of having any belief in Him they saw to it that He was put to death. Seems all these true miracles of Jesus had little affect on the people that Jesus came to convert.
The religion that began as the “Jesus Movement” was later proclaimed by ignorant fanatics as Christianity. Later the Apostles suffered death to prove the truth of the fanaticism they preached to mankind. To suffer martyrdom for any cause proves nothing, except that your position is untenable.
Likewise, when we indicate what 'we' have seen or experienced that is first hand information but when we repeat what others have seen, we prove nothing, except that we are willing to believe what is at best second hand information. The whole structure of Christianity is built from second hand information. It was built by those who had an interest in establishing it and it is kept alive by those who now have a vested interest in maintaining it.
Preachers are always talking to us about the weakness and errors of the human mind; but are the minds of these preachers more infallible than our minds? Is the preacher’s understanding less subject to error than your mind or my mind? Can’t the preacher’s passions and interests deceive him in the same way that others could be deceived? When we question a preacher’s interpretation he endeavors to frighten us; but terror is not a convincing substitute for truth and fear will never be proof of the preacher’s credibility. Believe, or you will be damned. This is the strongest argument in all theology.
Furthermore, the dogma of eternal punishment is the offspring of foolishness, of evil, and of blasphemy. If God will punish all sin eternally and equally, what proportion exists between the offense and the punishment? None! If he punishes sinners for his own satisfaction, he becomes a monster of barbarity and if he punishes to correct others, his harshness is useless to those who are not witnesses to the punishment. In order that we may always be terrified at the idea of this possible infinite punishment, Christianity has made man sufficiently powerful to not only offend the Creator but to offend Him apparently for all eternity.
Not all but many Christians would have us believe that God the Father judges mankind deserving of his eternal vengeance; God the Son judges mankind worthy of His infinite mercy while it seems the Holy Spirit remains neutral. How can we reconcile this concept with the unity of the will of God?
Worship? How can man be so arrogant as to believe that God requires a mere mortal to worship Him anyway? What need has this Deity of this worship? Would this add anything to His happiness or to His glory? I think it is a greater honor to raise our idea of the Creator as being so great that we can do nothing for Him because we are insignificant to His glory. Also if any worship is required and if one type of worship be more acceptable to Him than another it must be that which proceeds simply from an honest heart!
Reason tells me that when we commit crimes it is man and not God that we injure. Christians choose to concentrate on passages such as “Love thy neighbor” yet in reality Christianity more often teaches us about a God that is cruel, sinister, jealous, and ruthless in His fury. Can the God of Moses, of Joshua and of David be the God of an honest man? Religion is dangerous when it confuses our morality and it is false when it destroys the perfection of the Creator.
What do you mean, I am verbose
