Is Jesus Lord?

[Jon Miller]

To use your analogy...

You know that you want something built..

And we agree that science can provide tools.. but tools can be used different ways..

Like the tool can be used to destory what is already built up. Or to add to what has been built. (In fact, the hammer can be used for both..)

So having faith that what you want built will be built because of science is foolish.. as science can destroy what has been built or add to what is already there.

It is dependent on people.

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I don't think that people can "want" to have religious faith or belief. They either have it or they don't.

I think that if they want it, they have it. If they don't want it, they don't have it.

I could be wrong.

Jon Miller

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Lorizael
Bah. Whatever. This isn't even really what I believe. I'm playing devil's advocate simply because I'm generally opposed to religion. I really wish Sarxis would reply to me with more than just standard dogma; I like discussing these things.

I, too, am opposed to religion, which is mostly about controlling what other people say and do. Or getting money out of people and then controlling what they say and do in the case of scientology.

On the other hand, many times the Christian dogmas are at least formally correct, even if questionable in implementation.

But you cannot evaluate Christianity itself with the tools of Christianity, which is what you have done. You can look at a Christian and go, oh well he's quite faithful, good guy, doesn't **** chickens or men, I'm sure he'll go to heaven. But you cannot look at his faith and say, well you can tell that the entire universe is ordered so that Christianity is true and right because this man is faithful.

That does not follow. And this is what you do. And this is wrong.

No, you are wrong. First, you can't objectively measure spirit. You can only subjectively guage the qualitative results. You see the results, and the person says it is from living in faithful relationship to Jesus.

Second, you are wrong because the results are subordinate to the relationship to Jesus. The list of good attributes can result from an innate disposition, and upbringing, and personal discipline, etc. But such a person without Christ is just as lost as the murderous ganster or what have you.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Wycoff
I think that you're basically doing the same, cherry picking the more favorable parts of religions and ignoring the large amount of bad that comes with them.
Sure, religions teach morals. However, many of the morals that many religions teach are malignant and harmful. The morals that are more universal and benevolent seem to me to be rationally based anyway, and can be derived from a secular philosophy.

I dunno about JM's arguments, but the thread is not talking about religions in general. We're looking at the question, "Is Jesus Lord?" Yes, we are cherry-picking the things that are actually from Jesus and rejecting all the corruption that foolish men have added to Christianity.

You look at those things and you already know that they don't belong there. They are malignant, harmful, deceptive, or perhaps just distracting from the person of Jesus.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I think that if they want it, they have it. If they don't want it, they don't have it.

I could be wrong.

The direct quote would be, "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Elok
Oh dear, it looks like you're trying to understand the Trinity. Poor bugger. I'd give it up now if I were you; theologians have been working on that for centuries with NO progress.

Heck, its easy Jesus is 50% god 50% human, the holy spirit is kinda like divine inspiration and God is well God.

Collective conciusness man

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Jon Miller

The reason why I hate scientism.. is because it makes science into this mystical thing, which it isn't. It takes science away from the ordered, logical exporation of our natural world, and makes it into some mystical search for Truth. This isn't scientific, this isn't what has been successful for the last couple hundred years.. this is harmful to science. It is an ugly path that will lead to decay, and at it's obvious failure, a distancing by all from it's practive and ideals.

Jon Miller

Science has been the search for Truth ever since its beginings in ancient philosophy.

[Elok]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_
Heck, its easy Jesus is 50% god 50% human, the holy spirit is kinda like divine inspiration and God is well God.

Collective conciusness man

Okay, that's a heresy, two non-helpful definitions and no explanation of the interrelation between them. Good job.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
So having faith that what you want built will be built because of science is foolish.. as science can destroy what has been built or add to what is already there.

It is dependent on people.

Jon Miller

I completely agree with this. I can't speak for others, but I don't have any faith in the inevitable, unstoppable progress of humanity. I wouldn't be schocked to learn that the future held a dark age or a collapse of civilization in store for us. I just think that, if we choose to go forward, if we continue to value learning and knowledge, and if we avoid something that would trigger a dark age or a collapse of civilization, then we can go forward. We have the tools that will help us do so.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I think that if they want it, they have it. If they don't want it, they don't have it.

I could be wrong.

Jon Miller

That doesn't fit my experience. I wanted it for a long time, and I tried very hard to believe. I just couldn't. It was never real to me, even when I was trying to convince myself that it was.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Btw, you still at William and Mary? Or am I confusing you with some other W person.

JM

Yep, that's me.

[Sarxis]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Wycoff


I'm just not spiritual. When I was younger, I desperately tried to believe in that. I grew up in a religous family in a religious area, and I wanted to feel what I thought I was supposed to feel. The fact is that I don't, and I can't.

I think that you're correct when you talk about the whole "parallel lines" concept. Some people are spiritual. Some just aren't. [quote]

That is one of my points - if you say you aren't spiritual, then of course you aren't seeing God, because He is spirit.

I don't think that there's any basis to believe that what you're preaching is the truth.

Don't think? So then you really aren't sure. And yet there is an overwhelming amount of evidence to support who Jesus and God are.

I'm just saying that I'm certain that Christianity is a man-made construct, one that isn't even followed by the vast majority of its so called "followers."

What is Christianity then? If it is a man-made construct, then is it true Christianity? In fact, people who followed the Lord at first weren't even called Christians. It wasn't until some time after Jesus ascended back into the heavens that they were called this. But by your statement you say that the religion that you know as 'Christianity' is full of hypocrites who don't practice what they preach. Then are any of them true Christians? But God does preserve his faithful followers from man-made religion.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by _BuRjaCi_
Science has been the search for Truth ever since its beginings in ancient philosophy.

No, it has been a search for evidence to buttress a presumed model. In the last century that shifted substantially towards the objective, but far from entirely so.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Wycoff
That doesn't fit my experience. I wanted it for a long time, and I tried very hard to believe. I just couldn't. It was never real to me, even when I was trying to convince myself that it was.

A two-part question: how old are you, and how long is that "long time?"

[_BuRjaCi_]

Originally posted by Elok


Okay, that's a heresy, two non-helpful definitions and no explanation of the interrelation between them. Good job.

The explanation was collective conciessnes (like the Borg).