Zone1 Why do you need gods?

[Meriweather]

Fair enough point. You are unwilling to tell me what YOU experienced....but ironically you wanted to know what I expected.

I'd say that was a bit of hypocrisy but I'm sure you didn't plan it that way.

I was focused on you and it matters what you expected. My story--and what I expected or did not expect--should in no way interfere with yours. If you want to call that hypocrisy, go right ahead. My intent was separation so as not to contaminate your own thoughts and methods with what are my thoughts and expectations.

 

[Meriweather]

YOU have rejected the faith of my family because you know THE TRUTH. My family, my friends, are all following a faith you deem to be unfit.

Does that give you any pause? Or are you comfortable sitting at the right hand of the father?

I know "THE TRUTH"? That is news to me. You know what truth is? Truth is that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are my favorite books of all time. I re-read them about every three years--I love them that much.

Now suppose your family's favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird--one of the great classics of all time. Are you thinking, "Oh, dear, Meriweather is rejecting my family's favorite classic and therefore she is saying that both To Kill a Mockingbird and my family are unfit. She knows "THE TRUTH" and she deems unfit all those who choose To Kill a Mockingbird over The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Please. Don't be silly.

Are you telling me Protestants don't know that the place at the right hand of the father already has an occupant. Catholics know this occupant as Jesus.

So no, you don't give me any pause at all. I have great faith in the Holy Spirit, and my belief is that He guides everyone, and therefore, I have no worries at all about your family.

 

[Meriweather]

So do we just assume that ALL the murder and genocide in the OT are simple "mistranslations" but all the bits you DO LIKE are correct?

No.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

No.

Which genocides are "OK" in the BIble?

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

I know "THE TRUTH"? That is news to me.

YOU claimed you REJECTED non-Catholic Christianity.

Are you now telling me you are a Catholic BECAUSE YOU DON'T PREFER THE TRUTH?????

Now suppose your family's favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird--one of the great classics of all time. Are you thinking, "Oh, dear, Meriweather is rejecting my family's favorite classic and therefore she is saying that both To Kill a Mockingbird and my family are unfit. She knows "THE TRUTH" and she deems unfit all those who choose To Kill a Mockingbird over The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Please. Don't be silly.

In your version of Catholicism do all people get saved no matter what?

Are you telling me Protestants don't know that the place at the right hand of the father already has an occupant. Catholics know this occupant as Jesus.

I think you miss my point.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

I was focused on you and it matters what you expected.

However you need to justify your actions. I understand.

My story--and what I expected or did not expect--should in no way interfere with yours.

Except all you guys ever offer is a list of how I'm doing something 'wrong' as to why I don't "feel" God like you do.

Can you see what it looks like from MY perspective?

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Humans sometimes have a habit of limiting themselves...not to mention the habit of blaming someone else for their limitations.

Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them. (Richard Bach)

Whatever you do DO NOT APPROACH THE POINT I WAS MAKING. Instead, talk about something else.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Because it contains important truths that went entirely over your head. For example, the fall of man. You don't have the slightest idea of what that was about because you dismissed it and never put in any serious thought into it.

Actually the fall is a WONDERFUL metaphor for "growing up".

When you are a child you are not held accountable for knowing right from wrong. The tree that Adam and Eve ate from was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and when they ate of it, they suddenly had to take responsibility for their choices!

They became fully adult. No longer able to hide behind youthful ignorance. Now they are on the hook for choosing right from wrong.

 

[ding]

Actually the fall is a WONDERFUL metaphor for "growing up".

When you are a child you are not held accountable for knowing right from wrong. The tree that Adam and Eve ate from was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and when they ate of it, they suddenly had to take responsibility for their choices!

They became fully adult. No longer able to hide behind youthful ignorance. Now they are on the hook for choosing right from wrong.

The fall of man account tells us that man knows right from wrong and when he violates it rather than taking accountability for it he rationalizes he didn't do wrong.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

The fall of man account tells us that man knows right from wrong and when he violates it rather than taking accountability for it he rationalizes he didn't do wrong.

LOL. It's like you didn't even read what I wrote.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

It is not hidden. Or, if it is, it is certainly hidden in plain sight. I found it.

DId you? You THINK you found it because it feels good to you. But did you find it?

And if God blessed YOU thusly why does he fail to bless so many others? Are you better than those people that God blessed YOU?

Or does everyone who fails to follow YOUR spiritual path do it wrong?

Perhaps not easily because it takes so much time and research, but then I enjoy research.

Trust me, I've done a lot of research myself. I've spent years reading theology, studying philosophy, reading broadly in a number of religions.

So, don't act like you have put in more legwork. You probably didn't.

The problem is: I understand why you have faith. Many Christians, like you, don't understand why I lack it.

It COULD be that I, too, have studied God like you have. And yet I arrive at a different conclusion so you automatically assume YOU put in more effort than I did.

You are likely very, very wrong.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Humans sometimes have a habit of limiting themselves...not to mention the habit of blaming someone else for their limitations.

Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them. (Richard Bach)

May I make a request? Could you actually READ WHAT I WROTE and respond to THAT instead of finding a random word and riffing on it based on the author of Johnathon Livingston Seagull?

That would be great and MUCH APPRECIATED.

Thanks.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

I'm surprised you didn't implode from the irony.

I make no bones about the fact that I fail to believe in God.

YOU, however, claim to be a Catholic, yet you flip your middle finger to God most days on this forum. It's almost as if you actually MOCK God.

It's OK if you want to mock God. You do what you want. Just don't think you are acting in accordance with your faith.

You know, I actually DO value that commandment. You seem to think that commandment wasn't real. God is a buffet for you.

Not all who say "Lord, lord"...well, you know the rest (probably not though...so far it's clear I know FAR more of the Bible than you do)

 

[Meriweather]

Except all you guys ever offer is a list of how I'm doing something 'wrong' as to why I don't "feel" God like you do.

You haven't done a thing wrong; never thought you did, never suggested you did. We are simply discussing different Biblical perspectives. One perspective is that the Bible presents God has genocidal maniac. That is not my perspective and I have explained why. You see it differently and you explained why. So what is the problem with us having that simple discussion?

How do I "feel" God? Why are you supposing I "feel" anything? I have noted I have had experience of God, and I don't care to discuss those with you, because anything that happened to me will be as worthless to you as the Bible. You seem to want an experience, and that is why I asked what you expected. I am still not sure why you found that so offensive. It was simply a logical question to ask anyone who wishes to have an experience of God. If you don't wish to pursue that line of discussion, I don't see a problem with your decision.

 

[BreezeWood]

Because it contains important truths that went entirely over your head. For example, the fall of man. You don't have the slightest idea of what that was about because you dismissed it and never put in any serious thought into it.

how is that a conclusion from 2 million years ago when man is recorded to have arisen -

or even related to the desert religions based on a false premise of an occurrence in the garden of eden when in fact the participants willingly chose their own fate over servitude and were granted their wish for self determination through deeds for their earned remission to paradise.

- than the servitude through worship of a messiah that would indeed be the fall of humanity.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

He also knows we are intelligent beings, capable of getting to the truth, despite changes in words and languages.

Justify it as you must.

We put warning stickers on ladders to keep people from getting hurt. God, however, doesn't mind if a few people wind up in hell because they failed to learn Hebrew with the degree of knowledge that YOU have.

God truly has blessed you! You should be thankful that you were blessed with knowledge of ancient Hebrew! Selah!

 

[BreezeWood]

There is contemporary evidence as scant as it may be. The powers of the time--considering the expense of parchment and ink--didn't spend much time on anything other than the ruling class. Jesus was far from that.

and what about a relief of the exemplar in clay depictions or a single stone relief or statue of who was claimed to have come back to life ...

the fact why there is so little contemporaneous evidence was their importance was shunned at the time and only came to lite tangentially 400 years latter by the falsely construed c bible actually written by the crucifiers to emphasis servitude over the true 1st century events of liberation theology, self determination.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

You haven't done a thing wrong; never thought you did, never suggested you did.

So why did you "reject" the faith I had for so many, many decades of my life?

Do you OFTEN reject that which people do correctly?

We are simply discussing different Biblical perspectives. One perspective is that the Bible presents God has genocidal maniac. That is not my perspective and I have explained why. You see it differently and you explained why. So what is the problem with us having that simple discussion?

Because right now you have a theologically difficult God concept on your hands. You have a God that is built in part on your personal "feelings" and the Bible. The Bible lays out the metes and bounds of the Christian God. The God YOU worship. Your "pure reason" did NOT arrive at the concept of Jesus as the sacrifice to God (God manifesting himself to sacrifice himself to himself to atone man to himself). That was 100% Bible.

In fact much of what you "know" about God is 100% Bible. On TOP of that you put your feelings and "experiences".

I'm simply trying to figure out the RUBRIC you use to figure out which parts of the BIble are FALSE AND MADE UP and which parts are TRUE.

And we aren't talking "allegory" and "metaphor" here. We are talking LIES. So if someone says "God's prophet told me to kill everyone in that building" there is no "metaphor" there. That's a lie.

I agree with you (or what I think you are trying to say) that the Israelites probably made up their "justification" for the slaughter by suggesting it was God's plan. But at the end of the day there is no way to really parse out that from ALL THE OTHER slaughters in the OT at God's command or with God's explicit help.

In fact, unless you completely excise most of the Pentateuch you are stuck with a God that is a very confusing mess of ideas.

You and I both find genocide to be horrible. We both do.

So when faced with the FACT that the Bible (which establishes the CORE of what God IS in our minds) contains a VERY LARGE NUMBER OF STORIES OF GOD BEING VICIOUS and a murderous maniac, YOU take a surgical scalpel to the holy word and, using your own rationale (flawed, less perfect than God who presumably INSPIRED the Bible) and you are creating a God of your making.

I, on the other hand, say "If I create a god of my own making, am I not just worshiping my imagination?" And I take the other route of saying "well, these stories make sense if we are talking about a made up thing."

I may very well be wrong. You may be right.

But at the end of the day ULTIMATE TRUTH is only one way. You THINK you got it right because no one wants to think they are in error. I THINK I have it right.

Since I see more philosophical and theological INCONSISTENCIES in your position I will continue to see my position as superior.

But I don't want YOU to follow my lead. Just telling you what I see.

How do I "feel" God? Why are you supposing I "feel" anything?

-sigh-

I have noted I have had experience of God, and I don't care to discuss those with you, because anything that happened to me will be as worthless to you as the Bible.

You think the Bible is worthless to me? So you haven't read ANYTHING I've written?

You seem to want an experience,

I have exactly as much experience of God as I think I can have. 0.

and that is why I asked what you expected. I am still not sure why you found that so offensive.

I found it offensive that YOU COULD ASK ME but when I turned the question around you told me you wouldn't talk about it.

Felt like hypocrisy.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

There is contemporary evidence as scant as it may be.

Nope. Even the Josphesus manuscript was written much later and the part that indicated "Jesus" is thought to be a Medieval forgery slipped into the document.

To my knowledge there was no other even marginally contemporaneous evidence.

The powers of the time--considering the expense of parchment and ink--didn't spend much time on anything other than the ruling class. Jesus was far from that.

Justification.

A man came to Judea and WALKED ON WATER, HEALED THE SICK, RAISED THE DEAD and upon whose death the sky turned dark and the earth quaked.

Don't think anyone at the time might MENTION that? Just in passing?

Nah, nothing to see here. Let's have another list of barley shipments written down. THAT was important stuff.

 

[Blues Man]

Correct. You note: If, then....

Which means you hold no belief now. My interest is in your beliefs/ways now, not something that has not yet happened for you. Today, you do not believe, you are only willing to entertain that possibility if "proof" comes your way. So...as you hold no belief in God today, what is your philosophy(s) today? I mean, other than telling people of faith what their belief/faith "really" is?

Again, I am interested in what you do believe...now. Your path...now.

I neither believe nor disbelieve.

My path is simple. I walk softly and try to leave the places I go in better condition than when I arrived. I refuse to consume or use any animal products because I do not want to be part of the cruelty involved in factory farming. I hold no ill will towards anyone.

I do what I do for my own reasons with no expectations of anything in return.