Why are you not a Christian

[Ben Kenobi]

demand justice? absolutely not! If I were omnipotent and had Adolf Hitler (whom I despise for his heinous actions) in my custody I would not punish Hitler I would use my omnipotence to allow Hitler to understand the harm he had done and manipulate the chemistry of his limbic system so that he would regret his actions and repent for them.

And how is that any different from punishment?

People will say this violates free will but Hitler is my creation, the hatred that motivated him was a result of faulty reason, faulty intuition and faulty emotional responses that I indirectly created. Whatever motivated him to do what he did was messed up and that's what I'd fix. What use is justice? revenge?

Justice is punishment, I'm surprised you think it's not punishment to muck about someone's brain and the way they feel.

If evil is harmful to God he can use his omnipotence to instantly and pre-emptively "heal" whatever harm it does on the fly.

How can he heal harm done to himself. It's like a contract. We break the contract with him, and there has to be restitution. How can imperfect men make perfect restitution with God?

That would be infinitely preferable to punishing the sinner. the punished sinner is still evil after all unless annihilated. If annihilated why create it in the first place?

Question for you, is there anyone who isn't evil?

[Provost Harrison]

I must say though I do find the title of the thread presumptious. Why am I not a Christian? Well, by default, no one is a Christian - so the question should be more why are you a Christian or whatever faith/philosophy you subscribe to...

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Grandpa Troll


This does not coinsicde with teachings of God through his Son Jesus Christ.

From my undederstanding, God made man in his own image, not a robot but a free thinker with a will of his own.

Man sinned in the Garden of Eden, going against what God had commanded Adam NOT to do.

Through trials and ritualistic observances man again showed its sinfulness to not obey God.

Christ was the only fulfillment possible, sacrificing his own Son to pay the price for our sins.

It is a gift.

The only "qualifying" event to earn is obedience and declaration he is your Lord and belief in your heart. Simple, childlike Obedeince.

Only God can truly see into the heart of men, past the human desire to sin, whetehr of not a person actually believes in and truly accepts Christ as personal Lord and Savior.

This is my understanding, forgive me, Im in lots opf pain and thus have taken Vicoddin and if not clearly explained, I ask forgiveness.

Bruce

I'd have no problem with this system so long as everybody got a chance to make a perfectly informed choice with certainty of all of the relevant facts. Otherwise it's not a fair choice at all.

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Asher
If you think Noah's Ark, walking on water, etc. makes sense, that's your own business. I disagree.

Nice try at escaping the point. Stories are there for the practice, and not the other way around.
BTW, there is archeological evidence that a huge deluge happened. The story of Noah's Ark is a great tool to understand what was the Hebrew's relationship to natural catastrophes.

New testament vs old testament. Google it.

BS contradiction, there is an incredibly high amount of interpretations of why one follows from the other

Stoning people and murder is never not mean-spirited.

What else would you expect from a law made in the 3rd millenium BC ?

Why do you waste our time? This has nothing to do with science. It also doesn't change the fact that religions do operate on fear of the unknown. That's fundamental, and undeniable.

I tried to imply that fear is an immanent part of all human practices, including science, which I doubt you would reject on this ground. Besides, it's overly simplistic to claim that religions stem from fear alone. An introduction to ancient myths would enlighten you on this. But being a free thinker, you prefer the freedom offered by your iPod instead of filosofical books.

Are you this dense? The whole point was to ask why we are not Christian. I gave out in a stream-of-consciousness style why I am not. That's one of my reasons. I honestly can't believe you are doing this -- acting like this is some rigorous academic argument, when ALL it is is my opinion.

So you admit that you were BSing in the first place. This is where philosophy becomes practical, because it strives to make consistency an immediate and spontaneous practice.

Unfortunately for you, you show you do not comprehend the argument. I'm referring to the followers, not the theologians / inventors of crap.

You were the one talking about consistency, and then you admit to begging the question by detaching religion from its practices that don't fit your "rigorous" definition.

When you make **** up, it's easy to have incredible scope in ideas.

Yes, making **** up such as thinking about human dignity, the power of meditation over bad passions, or the arbitrary nature of religious rituals.

I do appreciate you taking the time to prove my opinion of philosophers right yet again, though.

The pleasure is shared.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Geronimo
That's a scientific question. Would you provide the response that they must arise from variations on logic, inference and reason? I just said there's no accounting for taste. That means I don't think it's possible to explain these values. It's like asking me where someones favorite color comes from.

You think where someones favorite color comes from is a similar question? I think it's very easily answered!

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


And how is that any different from punishment?

It fixes the problem rather than punishing it. It's like the difference between fixing a cars broken brakes and throwing stop stix out in front of it on the road.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Justice is punishment, I'm surprised you think it's not punishment to muck about someone's brain and the way they feel.

because it doesn't fit the definition of punishment. Is it bad? no worse than creating them in the first place (which certainly involves mucking about with their brain.) God allows people to muck about in each others brains but isn't willing to do so himself and has to resort to punishment?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
How can he heal harm done to himself. It's like a contract. We break the contract with him, and there has to be restitution. How can imperfect men make perfect restitution with God?

He's omnipotent. Lucky him. He can make new contracts on the fly. restitution is of no value and punishment doesn't fix a broken contract anyway.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Question for you, is there anyone who isn't evil?

Everybody can be evil to greater or lesser degrees but not necessarily all of the time. Someone can go the rest of the life without doing any evil. Buddhist monks might routinely pull this off i don't know. I regard evil mainly as acting on motivations that give little regard to the well fare of others. The more willfully harmful the behavior the more evil.

Someone whose motivations are so messed up that they do a great deal of evil is the sort of person I start to apply that adjective to but there's no sharp dividing line.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Blake


You think where someones favorite color comes from is a similar question? I think it's very easily answered!

This is the thread to tell us I think. I'll do you the courtesy of not responding until you spell out your answer.

[Ben Kenobi]

It fixes the problem rather than punishing it. It's like the difference between fixing a cars broken breaks and throwing stop stix out in front of it on the road.

Say I steal 20 dollars from someone. Is the problem solved when I return 20 dollars to him?

because it doesn't fit the definition of punishment. Is it bad? no worse than creating them in the first place (which certainly involves mucking about with their brain.)

It's a violation of free will, which is much worse then creation. Creation gave us the opportunity to do evil, at the cost of giving us free will. I would be horrified if someone were to be stripped of such, it would be worse then death honestly.

God allows people to much about in each others brains but isn't willing to do so himself and has to resort to punishment?

With punishement, that's no different from discipline. You can recover from that and be exactly who you were before. Stripping someone of their free will isn't punishment, it is destroying them.

He's omnipotent. Lucky him. He can make new contracts on the fly. restitution is of no value and punishment doesn't fix a broken contract anyway.

So what would restore a broken contract between men and God?

Everybody can be evil to greater or lesser degrees but not necessarily all of the time. Someone can go the rest of the life without doing any evil. Buddhist monks might routinely pull this off i don't know. I regard evil mainly as acting on motivations that give little regard to the well fare of others. The more willfully harmful the behavior the more evil.

Anyone who is honest would say that we all have some evil in us that manifests itself at various times. All of us have hurt other people. It doesn't matter. Now you talk about evil, but it isn't some black blob sitting out there. It's in each one of us. None of us are in a right state with God because we do not do as we ought.

Your punishment would erase any individuality we have. That's far more brutal then even death because in death you retain your soul.

Someone whose motivations are so messed up that they do a great deal of evil is the sort of person I start to apply that adjective to but there's no sharp dividing line.

Exactly. It's like yeast. You don't need alot of it, a little bit of it works through the whole loaf.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
I see you point. --But for me, it had the opposite effect. I was a priggish know-it-all going into college. There, I ran into the quote of Thoreau: "Every man is my superior in some way and from that, I learn."

The idea that American's leading philosopher acknowledged that, at least in someway, everyone else had some superiority to him really bi+tchslapped my own arrogance. It made me much more humble and desirous of listening to other people to discover their perceptions of the world.

Funnily enough, it was almost that very thought which ended up leading me to Buddhism. At some point, I'd had enough of arrogance and *****-slapped my ego. And I started taking other people - all people - really seriously, seeing what I could learn from what they did...

That led quite easily to sincere universal compassion and to seeing the deep truth in Buddhism.

But I suppose you could also take that approach as "Learn what you can from others so you can kill them better", maybe it depends on who you use as superior role models. I decided to learn from very happy, peaceful and good people whom I admired. None of my early great gurus and teachers were Buddhists, they were just completely ordinary people who happened to know how to be happy and good.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
Nice try at escaping the point. Stories are there for the practice, and not the other way around.
BTW, there is archeological evidence that a huge deluge happened. The story of Noah's Ark is a great tool to understand what was the Hebrew's relationship to natural catastrophes.

I'm not escaping the point, you are. The Bible is filled with all kinds of **** that simply doesn't make any sense. You're arguing that this is a "tool" to understanding, and that's fine, but that's not how I view it. I can't believe this is up for discussion by a supposedly reasonable person -- there's lots of stuff in the Bible that is very far-fetched or non-sensical to a reasonable mind. This should not even be up for debate.

BS contradiction, there is an incredibly high amount of interpretations of why one follows from the other

What's BS? Are you saying there's no differences between New and Old Testament? Remember the whole claim you're contesting is "beliefs change over time". You can't be serious.

What else would you expect from a law made in the 3rd millenium BC ?

I would expect nothing less. But you're avoiding the point again, the point is it is there -- in writing -- in the text that is central to the faith. It's there, it's mean, and it's unabashedly so. Don't bother trying to deny the obvious.

In fact, it's still mean spirited. Again, most Christian churches reject the idea of equal rights for homosexuals. If that's not mean-spirited and exclusionary, I don't know what is. Regardless of your lame justifications on the age of the book that guides the faith, this is happening today and it is real.

I tried to imply that fear is an immanent part of all human practices, including science, which I doubt you would reject on this ground. Besides, it's overly simplistic to claim that religions stem from fear alone. An introduction to ancient myths would enlighten you on this. But being a free thinker, you prefer the freedom offered by your iPod instead of filosofical books.

I never said it was driven by fear alone. It's one of the many tools that makes it an effective faith for people to maintain.

And I think you'd have to be quite the astounding ****** to make a case that "fear" is a main reason people accept science. Whatever your disturbed beliefs are on the matter, it's still avoiding the issue. Fear is one of the main motivations behind keeping faith in a religion. This is a point that is true for Christianity, that you have said is "wrong". To contest this, you compared it to science.

I must say, you are an original thinker, but thats only because you clearly detach yourself from reality.

Are you this dense? The whole point was to ask why we are not Christian. I gave out in a stream-of-consciousness style why I am not. That's one of my reasons. I honestly can't believe you are doing this -- acting like this is some rigorous academic argument, when ALL it is is my opinion.

So you admit that you were BSing in the first place. This is where philosophy becomes practical, because it strives to make consistency an immediate and spontaneous practice.

!!
WTF?
I didn't "BS". The thread asked for an opinion, I gave it. That's not BS, it's a ****ing opinion.

This is precisely why philosophy courses are useless. You're so completely hapless in debates, it's unreal!

You were the one talking about consistency, and then you admit to begging the question by detaching religion from its practices that don't fit your "rigorous" definition.

!!!!!!!!
WTF?

This doesn't make any sense at all. Way, way out there.

If you don't think religions lend themselves well to groupthink, you don't know what groupthink is. You can't even argue the point, you didn't even try -- you just spouted this nonsense which is way outside of the realm of sanity.

---------

Is anyone else reading Boris' posts? I need to be sure I'm not dreaming here. This is out of this world...

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi




Good question.

No, he couldn't. When one has sinned, who does one hurt? They hurt themselves, and they hurt other people around them. They also break the covenant that was made with God.

Now, for God to redeem his people, how could such covenant be restored? They had plenty of animal sacrifices, but they could not serve as the substitution for the offenses against God.

If he just snapped his fingers, what justice would there be in that? There would be consequences for the sins that men had for breaking his covenant. If he did it this way, the convenant would mean nothing.

This is why the atonement is necessary for Christ, and why only Christ could acheive it. He was perfect, he was both God and man. As such, he could serve as both the perfect sacrifice that was required to redress the sins of men prior.

This is why further sacrifices are unnecessary. Christ died for our sins, he chose that path and chose to submit to death on a cross. And because of that man was redeemed of his sins, and could be saved.

That really doesn't make any sense to me. Basically all of the things that you say God was constrained by are things that he made up himself. I suppose you could say that God is constrained by his own rules, but then that makes him look rather silly for an omniscient being to get himself in a legal bind like that.

We break the contract with him, and there has to be restitution.

How can you apply that sort of "there has to" to an omnipotent being?

Also a transcendent diety who seems to have a deep and abiding interest in human genetalia strikes me as a bit bizarre.

[Ben Kenobi]

That really doesn't make any sense to me. Basically all of the things that you say God was constrained by are things that he made up himself.

Think of it as character. Just as your character prompts you to do certain things, it's the same with God. God's character is good, therefore evil actually grieves him.

How can you apply that sort of "there has to" to an omnipotent being?

That's how justice works. If we harm someone we should make amends for it, and that usually requires far more then just returning that which was stolen.

Also a transcendent diety who seems to have a deep and abiding interest in human genetalia strikes me as a bit bizarre.

Well that's a difference between Christianity and other religions. The body isn't evil or dirty. Quite the opposite.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


Say I steal 20 dollars from someone. Is the problem solved when I return 20 dollars to him?

No I have to make you burn forever in hell first then I'll be satisfied...meaning I'll never be satisfied because it turns out forever is that long.

In all seriousness the problem would best be 'solved' by you returning the 20 bucks and repenting from theft. That is if time travel is disallowed. If you won't or can't repent we can constrain you from theft. But why should we punish you?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi

It's a violation of free will, which is much worse then creation. Creation gave us the opportunity to do evil, at the cost of giving us free will. I would be horrified if someone were to be stripped of such, it would be worse then death honestly.

It is emphatically not a violation of free will if done properly. so long as the person personally experiences no
instances in which they felt constrained they haven't lost their free will. Stricter definitions of free will appear to indicate God hasn't given us free will anyway given how deterministic our brains seem to be. Why would I or anybody want "Actual" strict "free will" (whatever that might be) over a perfect illusion of free will that allows me to do as I choose? Further debate will probably center around free will and may need to continue when I come back. Certainly this "free will" concept is central to christianity.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
With punishement, that's no different from discipline. You can recover from that and be exactly who you were before. Stripping someone of their free will isn't punishment, it is destroying them.

Then don't strip them of their free will. fix them. If a God takes away a drug addicts drug craving have they lost their free will?

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
So what would restore a broken contract between men and God?

A time machine or a new contract would do the trick.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Anyone who is honest would say that we all have some evil in us that manifests itself at various times. All of us have hurt other people. It doesn't matter. Now you talk about evil, but it isn't some black blob sitting out there. It's in each one of us. None of us are in a right state with God because we do not do as we ought.

Fine. I don't think punishment is the proper response by an omnipotent perfectly good being however.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Your punishment would erase any individuality we have. That's far more brutal then even death because in death you retain your soul.

naw, Hitler gets to keep his soul in my hypothetical scenario. The guy is fixed not annihilated. This discussion may require carefully defining terms, so could you define soul and free will for me so I can address that when I get back?

[Blake]

Originally posted by Geronimo


This is the thread to tell us I think. I'll do you the courtesy of not responding until you spell out your answer.

Someone has a favorite color, because that color invokes good feelings in them. Maybe they like to think of themself as a passionate person, and they associate red with passion, and then when they see (that particular shade of red) they feel nice and warm.
If not for their previous experiences and the associations they have formed (mental formations), if not for how they try to define what their "Self" is, seeing red would not invoke that feeling, it would not be their favorite color.

Lets say, our case study is a teenage girl. And then she gets raped by a man in a clown suit with bright red face paint. Now that shade of red, invokes feelings of deep fear and loathing in her. It becomes her most hated color, she throws out all her red clothes, seeing red can make her cry. Red is now associated with terror, pain, powerlessness.

That is the nature, of favorite colors, of having a taste in color.

Is it a useful thing to have a favorite color? Is it useful, to be particular about what you will wear or not wear, because it must invoke the right feelings? If you could, would it not be better to liberate yourself from having seeing-color invoke-feeling, and be able to enjoy all seeing equally? Look at this, particularly from the angle, of mental-suffering due to preference in color, obvious in the case of the rape victim, less obvious but still apparent when for example being unable to buy clothes or a car or something, because it's the "wrong" color.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Blake
It's because Buddhist teachings taught me how to do that, or at least, allowed me to learn faster, I had already learned how to control a lot of emotions by myself, Buddhist teaching accelerated that learning significantly.

Where is the faith there? Buddhism is a "How To" guide for that kind of thing, you don't need faith in a "How To" guide, you merely need trust it enough to follow it.

So what is trust?

Lets say, a student goes to university. He decides that one of his professors is an idiot and refuses to believe what that professor says "If I hear that fool say it, then it must be wrong!". Of course he fails that course.
Another student decides that the professor is his idol, and practically memorizes everything he says! If he heard the professor say it, it must be true! He does poorly in that course, but doesn't fail.
And the third student, takes a balanced approach. One which allows doubt and skepticism in moderation. He assumes that the professor is sincere, but does not assume that the communication process is infallible nor learning automatic, so he goes through a process to ensure he thoroughly understands what the professor is trying to communicate. He thinks "Yes, this professor is an excellent teacher, but I do need to do my own thinking, and it is helpful for me to verify what I hear him say, to ensure I am understanding correctly"

The Buddhist attitude towards the Buddha, needs to be that of the third student. Trusting that the Buddha is an excellent teacher and sincere in his teachings, but not trusting the communication process itself, not believing learning to be automatic.

And how does one come to trust the Buddha? The same way as one comes to trust anything, really. And the Buddha knew a lot about building trust, that's why Buddhist Monks have so many rules. Why is there a rule which says a Monk may not be alone with a Lady? Because then, as long as Monks follow that rule, no-one can ever suspect a Monk of banging a lady - and the existence of the rule sends a warning to the Monks - that if you DO break this rule, you must assume you will be suspected of having sex.

When you come to understand the sheer integrity and wisdom of the Buddha, it's not hard to trust him as a teacher. To say; Damn, no other religious teacher has even come close to having that much foresight and designing such an excellent teaching framework.
But of course the most important thing, is to see that some of the Buddha's teachings work, or have already worked, for you. In my case, it was seeing what had already worked, some of the things I'd already done and had benefited me, turned out to be recommended by the Buddha. So I could very easily see the wisdom in his teachings.


Finally. Why call oneself a Buddhist? If the Buddha is merely a teacher and not an idol?

That just comes down to what is most important. For instance, until about 6 months ago, I would probably have said the most important thing, was that I was a Programmer. Now to me, the most important thing, is that I'm a Buddhist. Nowhere does faith come into it... I didn't need faith to call myself a Programmer, I don't need faith to call myself a Buddhist. Buddhism is simply the most important thing to me. It makes me happy to be a Programmer, but it makes me even happier to be a Buddhist!


There is a difference between a disregard for logic, and recognizing the limitations of logic. Logic is not all-powerful.

For instance, you may have noticed this game called Politics. In a two party system, all people use roughly the same process of logic, inference and reason, to decide which party to back.

And on average, 50% choose one party, and 50% choose the other party.

How can that be, if the same process of logic, inference and reason is used by all people?

If you think about that; it will reveal some of the limitations of logic, inference and reason. While it can be used to make decisions, it does not arrive at truths.


There is a difference between recognizing the limitations of logic, and believing or wanting oneself to be free of logic.



Why? Then I would have to clean the fingerprint off.



What is your idea of transcending then? It really is more, recognizing the limitations and unsatisfactoriness of. For example, someone may look at a girl and think "Wow! That girl has a perfect body!", they are obviously being deluded by their lust-driven monkey-brain, the girl's body is as imperfect as every other body.
The someone's mind, could then generate this idea of the girl being perfect in every way, and then pursue and perhaps date her, and then there will be the slow and painful process of understanding that the girl is not in fact, perfect, that she does not in fact, live up to expectations of being perfectly satisfactory, because the expectations were unreasonable, rooted in delusion.

Wow, there's no way I'm going to try to deconstruct all of that. This is about as productive as arguing with Pat Robertson, but without the laughs.

Let's just say whatever makes you feel "happy" is fine by me; at least it doesn't make you step on anyone's toes like other "paths" tend to do.