Moritheil:
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For God to take vengeance is just, because everything He does is perfect. It is absurd to hold Him to some sort of standard, because He is the standard. This also relates to the often-stated idea that He is unchanging. (i.e. the standard does not change, so He isn't pulling a fast one on you.)"
If the Standard is to be vengeful, then why are we not supposed to be? Also, God _has_ changed... he _used_ to rain fire down upon cities and turn people into salt. Now he does nothing at all. Ever read "Incarnations of Immortality" by Piers Anthony? In the end we find out that God has simply stopped paying attention to mortals, and no longer cares or does anything to help or punish us.
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Since many of you don't like swallowing that one, perhaps I should put it this way. Perhaps the No.1 cause of injustice is simply not knowing all the details of the case. Unjust punishments (typically) result from that. Well, as we have said, He is omniscient, and knows all, so there is nothing He doesn't know. In that case, He is far more qualified to render justice than you or I, being beings that never know all the details about anything."
This was a theoretical example, which I gave all the details for. Daz is partly right in that I was trying to bring forth moral relativsm. But how would God who must be perfect in all judgements handle something like that? Either He punishes the Yanomami(sp?) tribesmen, in which case he is injust for never teaching them the proper way to live (ie. they had no Jesus), or He doesn't and is injust because he is allowing murders and rapes to happen without punishment.
This is one of the fundamental questions for me: How come God did not tell all peoples of the world of his existence and how to follow his Word? Why did only Europeans deserve salvation?
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I'm a little unclear about what this stuff is that you keep saying was done to someone, and thus makes you so upset. It seems very vague. Perhaps you should clarify."
Umm... didn't I already lists specifics such as the Inquisition, the Crusades, Slavery, Witch Trials, the burning of Gaelic literature when they started taking over Ireland, Molesting young boys... I'm sure I could find other specific examples if you want. But I'd like to get to bed within the next half hour...
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In re: standards, YOU are the one holding them to a higher standard... if I accept your premise that we should accept all religions that don't harm others and let them practice freelyWas that mine premise? I thought it was that all religions are, at best, potentially harmful. In fact I remember Elseenas coming up with some religion in India that only eat plants or something to prove that some can't be harmful. Though I did find members of that religion were embroiled in a property dispute over some palace or another, I guess that's not truly harmful. I'm just waiting for the fanatics that start killing other people who eat meat...
Sok:
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How does this relates. You like Pharoah are asking for signs from God. the Bible, the oldest written text know in existence with a continuous flow has not convince you."
Umm, there is a "book" about the legend of
Gilgamesh written in 1900BC. Genesis was written in (as near as I can tell) 1445BC...
500 years later. And the many other books of the bible weren't finished until considerably later than that. So if you are trying to say Christianity is the right religion because it's book is older, you should be worshipping the sky God Anu instead.
example. 3rd generation, everything has a consequence. If my family was an alcoholic, i have a greater disproposition to become one. If my father was a murder, who gets locked up in jail for life, I grow up in a single parent home. If my Grandfather beat the hell out of my father, my father believing that is the way you raise your kids will the beat hell out of me.OK. You're point? All you're saying is that people will cling to the same behaviors their parents did even if they are wrong or bad behaviors. This is exactly how Christianity is passed on...
<i>la times u requested:
Reference to Jesus Is Dated A.D. 63
Archaeology: Prominent researcher says it is "very probable" the find is an authentic reference to Jesus and he dates it to just three decades after the crucifixion</i>
Did you read the entire article? The part where "All three names were commonplace, but he estimates that only 20 Jameses in Jerusalem during that era would have had a father named Joseph and a brother named Jesus." In other words, of course there was a Jesus. There were 20 of them. The question is whether or not any of them were the son of God. It's like waiting 2000 years from now and claiming that Michael was the son of God, and showing that Michael's existed in 2002. Of course they did, it's one of the most common names out there...
I understand it was not conclusive, but it did mention that the existence of Jesus was not doubted by scholars. Christianity would not be what it is without Jesus. He is foundational. Break Jesus down and you would have broken down Christianity. To break Jesus down you would need to research him. Primary sources about Jesus is found in the Bible. In the Bible Jesus claim to be God. note, i wondered why he didn't just say i am god. but after reading thought all of John without the commentaries, you can see that he did and he constantly try to point out that he is god to the phariseHerakles, Hercules, Gilgamesh, Couchalain(sp?) and Pharoas all claimed to be eiter Gods or children of Gods. It's not so uncommon a thing in the ancient world, or in Mythology. Honestly, the most likely thing is that Jesus was just some guy who thought he could help out his neighbors and eventually started a religion out of his personal beliefs. Maybe some of those beliefs and behaviors caught on and others started emulating him... then other, more powerful, people started making legends about him and adding their own beliefs on to his. So what we have now is a mix of good beliefs of Jesus (a normal, kindhearted sort of guy) and other beliefs of random powerful leaders, filtered down to us through a corrupt church. Sign me up!
Gromi i would be cautious in denouning the Catholic faith. Within the Catholic faith is the message of Christ. They are still our brother in Christ. I sometimes wonder myself. I had a friend who's wife work as the youth minister within a Catholic church, who had kids that grow up within the Catholic church and not know who was Jesus. However the Catholic is more unified world presence than the Protestant church. We, christians, can claim they worship Mary, but Catholics can also argue Christians worship the bible.The Catholic church just decided that it's priests shouldn't be punished for molesting children. Enough said.
Moving onto the issue of the tainted Christians history. I understand why you are upset that the leader of the church during the times of Crusades, Inquisition, Witch hunts, etc did not demonstrate the teachings of the bible. I can also understand the association of the act of the church as being the teaching of Jesus, but if you study Jesus, you will see Jesus did not advocate violate towards their enemies.I can't tell what Jesus advocated. I never knew him, nor do I have any way of knowing him except through what a corrupt church tells me about him.
With that being said, you did not live through that time, you are not being hunted by christians for being a witch, you are not being force to convert or be killed, you are given the message of the Gospel, which is: 1) you have sin, 2) Only forgiveness of sin is sacrifice of a innocent lamb, 3) God send his son, the innocent lamb, to die on the cross for your sin, was buried and resurrected on the third day 4) you must accept Christ as your savior and Lord, 5) you must continue to grow in your knowledge of Him. if you still feel like God still owes you sometime then you are mistaken.Right. Except that I don't believe any of that is true. Nor can I. Does God owe me anything? Perhaps not, but if God _does_ exist he no longer seems to care at all what happens to humanity.
Murder, rape, etc. I guess the question is, do you believe that you can go ahead and raid someone's village, kill them and take their wife? If you dont think this is acceptable behavior how can you use it to make your point. Sarvis may say "i'm trying to show morality is relative, that there is no such thing as definite good and evil". of course Sarvis didnt say those exact words but i think that's where he was going with it. Did the people of that viking community believe it was okay for viking in their community to go around within their owe village killing and raping the wives of their neighbor? I do not know the viking but I would assume the answer would be no. I would bet the viking would look down upon another viking who backstab another viking during a time of war with another village just to take his fallen comrade's wife.We aren't talking about Vikings, we are taking about the Yanomami. This is exactly their lifestyle... and no, they do not think it is wrong. Nor do they use axes or backstab people... and they only steal wives from _other_ villages, not their own.
Nuran:
<i>If you have a religion,you are still an infidel. The defintion of the greek root word for religion, means "return to bondage."
Accepting Jesus Christ as your savior isn't it all either. I wish it were that easy. You must read his word. Only way to spend time with Jesus,is to read his word.
Sarvis,the reason Jesus won't take away your free will,is because he loves us so much,he wants a personal relationship with all of us.
It wouldn't mean anything if you were forced to love Jesus.</i>
I never said he had to force us, or take away our free will. In fact, I've pointed this out 3 times already...
Let's put it this way: As Sok pointed out earlier, God gave Pharoa signs that He existed. Pharoa then _knew_ God existed and chose to keep his slaves anyway. Thus Pharoa exercised
free will despite knowing for a fact that God existed.
The problem is, that without some certainty of God's existence and the correctness of information passed on by the Church I'm much, much more likely to sin. I'm not sinning out of a desire to be evil, or to slight God, but simply out of ignorance to what the rules are. Whereas if I _knew_ what the rules were, and broke them anyway I would be evil without question.
For instance, let's give a non-religious example. It is against the law to kill people. Everyone knows this, it is a fact that is easily provable just by going to your courthouse and looking at the laws or whatever. Yet people still continue to commit murder. Their free will allows them to ignore a rule they know exists. However, with religion I am ignoring rules that I don't know exist.
Again a late reply. Had trouble finding a book written before the Bible... heh.
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Every problem in the universe can be solved by finding the right long-haired prettyboy and beating the crap out of him.
Only do that when you consent me ingame.
