Ronin

I would add that faith is also a strong conviction in the "unknowable".

We all have claims we hold based on limited knowledge of the universe and existence.

We all decide on which makes our lives more meaningful and significant.

We all argue over the details at times, but we really need to try to be good to one another despite the small technical differences.

Mageth

Fantastic.

I'm a bit puzzled, and so must ask a question. How do you reconcile your belief that "We will all be judged fairly based on our beliefs" with this statement you made earlier?....

"Who is to judge that one of us is right and the other wrong if our choices work for us? Neither of us can know for certain that ours is the "right" choice, we can only believe."

If none of us can know for certain if we've made the right choice, but can only "believe", on what basis is God going to judge us "fairly" on our beliefs?

Ordovician

Of course many call themselves Christians, especially in the UK, who do not accept the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, or an actual resurrection from the dead. They try to follow the moral teachings of Jesus but dismiss the virgin birth and resurrection myths for good reason. Fundamentalists would not call them Christians. Some of them would not call Catholics and Fundamentalists Christians. Perhaps the true Christians are those who started it all in the first century.

Unlike modern so-called Christians, the true Christians were monotheists, pacifists (refusing to fight in the Roman Army), and followers of a charismatic preacher named Jesus. Some thought he was a messiah, others a prophet. There were Ebionites, Nazarites, Marcianites, and Gnostics. They put great emphasis on the sayings of Jesus in the Gospels of Thomas and Mary.

But the dominant religion around them was the Cult of Mithra. This cult was militant and militaristic. It was based on a Persian named Mithra (once a minor god) who was born from a rock in the old version, and born from a human virgin in the other. He was fathered by the High God, Ahura Mazda (Ormuzd). Mithra was god and man. He was a worker of miracles, and called the Lamb of God. He was born in a cave laid in a manger, attended by shepherds, and visited by three Magi (Zoroastrian Priests.) Later Mithra was slain but arose from the dead to live again, and brought "saving Grace". His cult practiced Baptism (not Judaic), had 7 sacraments (Catholics still do.)

Two later off-shoot of Original Christianity, Arianism and Trinitarian (or Athanasianism) absorbed much of the Mithraic religion. In fact they became so similar; the disappearance of Mithraists may simply have been a name change from Mithraism to Christianity. Arians believed Jesus was a god, a created god. Athanasians believed that Jesus was a full God, and added Tertullian's reconstruction of the old Egyptian trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The Athanasians converted Helena the mother of Constantine. Constantine was the shrewd politician. The Empire was in a shambles. He wanted to restore unity. His Cult of Sol Invictus (Aten) was similar in some ways to Mithraism. Christianity was looking so much like Mithraism as to be nearly indistinguishable. Constantine formalised it at the Council of Nicaea in 324 AD. He bullied the bishops and priests into a merger. Christianity quickly took advantage of legal status and began eliminating the early (REAL) Christians by coercion, torture, or extermination as heretics. They attacked the Arians who survived only in the Teutonic Kingdoms to the north.

Then they attacked the residual Pagans, burned or confiscated their temples and the Mithraic Catacombs. So the Athanasian Religion after 400 AD has been a Pagan Religion with a sprinkling of Jewish names and a selectively edited Old Testament. Their New Testament (possibly several editions) gospels are essentially three parts: The Mithra virgin birth myth of a god-human, the middle section of moral teachings of Jesus' ministry, and the Mithraic (Apollonian, Osirian, Aten, Horus) death-3 day resurrection.

So the short answer is that the True Christians were exterminated in the first 3 centuries. And Roman pagans incorporate Jesus as a "nicer" god-man redeemer than Mithra, Osiris, Apollonius, etc.) Jesus didn't found what we call Christianity. It abducted him.

Ordovician

Faith

I apologize for any confusion I created. I was referring to God's judgment in the first statement, the notion that He will judge us fairly based on our beliefs and His knowledge of what is in our hearts. That judgement goes beyond the mere statement of faith and requires righteous living as a demonstration of that faith. Someone who professes belief in Jesus as his savior but doesn't live righteously will be judged accordingly. Someone who lives a righteous life but has never heard of Jesus (or perhaps questions His existence) will also be judged accordingly. By what standards? I'm not sure, but I have faith that they will be fair.

I was referring to human judgment in the second statement. As faith (or lack of faith) is a very personal thing, we are unable to judge each other "right" or "wrong". Each of us believes we have made the "right" choice, and we have based it upon what makes life most meaningful for us as individuals. We can choose whether or not to believe in that which can't be proven, and we can hope we are right. The fact remains that neither of us knows for sure that we are.

Ordovician

Yes, faith is a believe that cannot be proven. There are thousands of faiths in the world. They believe different ideologies. That means either one is right and all of the others are wrong, or every bloody one of them is wrong. Then what is there to give credence to one faith over another? Why are you Christian but Abdul in Mecca is a Muslim? Most likely you were born and indoctrinated in a Western or American culture, while Abdul was similarly raised and indoctrinated in a Muslim culture.

The major determinant of Faith is place of birth, parents, and resident culture. I know you think that grace brought you to your faith, and fine if that makes you feel well. But if one reads the scriptures of the Bible, Qur'an, Torah, Avesta, and Rig Vedas it is not possible to find any one more credible than the others. What matters in faith is who and where you are.

BTW: I am militant on separation of Church and State to protect your freedom to believe what you wish and worship as you choose.

I hope you didn't perceive my analysis of Faith as an attack on your beliefs, and certainly not on you. I was trying to explain faith generically not refuting any beliefs.

Ordovician

Jinto

So, you know your conclusions are not related to fact and yet you strongly believe in them anyway. I have... absolutely no idea how people do that. I find it impossible to knowingly believe anything on faith or any other method not specifically designed to maximize the correlation between its results and reality.

Edit: added the word knowingly.

Starboy

Um, deliberate attempts designed to minimize the correlation between results and reality has various names such as lying, fraud, deceit, bamboozle, fool, con, trick, hoodwink, swindle, dupe, scam, hoax, scheme, oh and then there is faith, but that is something that others get you to do to fool your self.

Starboy

miata

Einstein said, "Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."
I have read Einstein was a Deist but he never claimed to have any organized religious ties.

If we can share ideas and understand each other we can learn from each person who shares. There are people on earth who hate us all and consider us all infidels and want to kill us. I do not think our opinion on if God exist is the real issue. No one was born with a label, our values are learned. Christians become atheist and atheist can become Christians. I have been on both sides and never did I enjoy or desire rejection from the other team.

My hope is that I can learn to understand individual beliefs and respect all peaceful people no matter what their spiritual doctrine is.

I cannot and do not want people to follow me as only I can only answer for my life. I am not going to condemn anyone who joins us as I have no belief system to defend. I have no idea why we are here on Earth but since we are I will not allow people to control my emotions or allow myself to hate anyone.

I am not evil or demomic because I am an atheist but if I am hostile to religious people I may give them the impression that I am evil because I am not saved.
My point is I am willing to listen and share as long as I am welcome here. If I was insecure about my lack of religion I may be more defensive but I am secure with me and open to all of you.

GermanHeretic

I have an explanation: It takes a great interlectual effort to learn Hebrew and Greek. In order to do that, one needs a certain interlectual capacity, which most christians simply lack. Otherwise they would see all the obvious and not so obsivious absurdities of their belief.

Mageth

Yes, I understood that you were referring to God in the first statement.

To me, it sounds like you're leaning towards everyone being judged by how "righteous" their life was and, perhaps, what's in their heart. So I guess it depends on what "righteousness" includes. If "righteousness" requires "belief in Jesus as your savior" (as the NT seems to imply), then all that don't believe are, well, doomed, no matter how good they are otherwise. If it doesn't, if you can live a righteous life that God will "judge fairly" without believing in Jesus as your savior or perhaps even "questioning his exisstence" (as you seem to imply), then, well, "Jesus as savior" would appear to be superfluous, unnecessary.

OK. But, honestly, that still leaves my question open - how can God judge us "fairly" based on our beliefs? When you say we will be "judged fairly based on our beliefs", that (along with other things you've said) implies that some will be rewarded and some will be "punished" (for lack of a better word) based on their choice of beliefs. How can God judge us "fairly" based on our beliefs in light of so much uncertainty about what beliefs are "right", if the best we can do is hope we are right? Specifically, how could God penalize someone for "choosing the wrong beliefs" if there is insufficient information in this life for us to determine which beliefs are right and which beliefs are wrong?

Honestly, that makes life sound like a game where God expects us to make a "best guess" at a belief, and then rewards or punishes us based upon our best guess. "BZZZT! You guessed wrong! No Heavenly Soup for you!" A roulette wheel; place your bet and hope the ball lands on your number. What is "fair" about that?

More or less reiterating, if my "lack of faith" is a "very personal thing", and if I believe I have made the "right" choice, and have based it upon what makes life most meaningful for me as an individual, and if the best I can do in this life is "hope that I am right", how could even God judge me "fairly" for my belief?