Jobar

Religion and Christianity are not necessarily the same as God, nor, according to the Bible, are they the only paths to Him.

Do you think so, lwf? It would be nice if you could quote chapter and verse on that one, as I have always understood that Christians do indeed consider Christianity 'the only path to Him'. I would like to have those verses in my files- I'm sure they will come in handy. I know plenty of fundamentalists think that God is the CHRISTIAN God, and none other.

rainbow walking

Hi LWF,
Thank you for your response and welcome to the forums. You say:

It is not logical to assume that humanity is at the peak of its critical thinking ability.


I concur

If God's wants humans to reason, (and according to the Bible He does. Isaiah 1:18) then doesn't it make sense to challenge our reasoning ability with difficulties and seeming contradictions and paradoxes?


Again I would concur if, and only if, this were all god wanted or expected of us. Are you prepared to say that your gods only purpose for us then is to improve our reasoning skills?

In other words, "Come and find me. When you do, you will be what I want you to become."


Ah, so god wants us to become intellectually perfect detectives. Is this stated in scripture or is this your intuitive interpretation? Something you've ascertained along the way while you were searching?


Complaining that it's too hard seems like giving up and being content with the level of reason you've currently attained.


If someone directed you to look for a needle in a haystack how hard would you look for that needle if you could see no good reason to believe such a needle even existed and, in addition, after looking quite extensively thru the haystack you began to notice that the haystack contained alot of crabgrass, bullshit, and milkweed?

How do you know that reason and logic are leading you away from God if you've never met Him?

Well, if I ever met him I would have no further need of searching. Are you saying that, to your god, salvation for humans is nothing more than a game of hide and seek? This doesn't sound like a needle I'd want to even find.

Religion and Christianity are not necessarily the same as God, nor, according to the Bible, are they the only paths to Him.


Perhaps...perhaps not. But that's not really the crucial issue here. It sounds as if humans are not the only ones who are lost. Your god's come up missing too. So is it the case that, in order to save ourselves we have to find your god? Who's lost here and who's seeking who? But even that is only a mildy interesting aside. The real issue is "where's the love?" I don't know how you define love and how you imagine it should be demonstrated but, for me, hiding from the person I love, making it impossible to see, touch or hear me without resorting to some extreme mental acrobatics hardly seems like anything remotely familiar to what I'd understand and recognize as genuine love. Is it the case that your god is trying to teach us a whole new dimension of love? I like to be able to communicate with my lover, to touch her, run my hands over her breasts and thighs, whisper into her ear sweet nothings and stare into her eyes while we're embraced in passion. I like to be close to my sons, to share their joys and heartbreaks, console and laugh with them. These are the ways of love. If I had even a smidget of the power that your god is said to have, these things would be the simplest for me to do to express my love.

Religion and Christianity are just as fallible as anything else.


But why should that be the case if a god such as yours really existed? Don't you see that's the crux of this discussion. Would a real infallible god leave this in the hands of fools?

While true, perfect reason and logic might be difficult or impossible to attain, they are by definition infallible in the same sense that the true laws of physics are unbreakable. Attempting to solve contradiction is more reasonable than assuming all contradictions are unsolvable. Unless of course you think that your current reasoning ability is infallible.

Well, I'm not the one who started this cat and mouse game so it doesn't really matter what I think of my own reasoning skills and abilities. I'm not the one that's missing in action here.

long winded fool

Romans 2:14-15 Gentiles being equivalent to all non-jews or non-christians. This whole chapter is one big slap in the face to most religious fundamentalists. The "Law that is made known to all" is separate from the laws of the prophets and scriptures. You never even need to read a single word of the Bible or have ever even heard of the man called Jesus of Nazareth to be blessed and saved. Jesus is symbolic of Truth. (with a capital T ) He doesn't say, "I represent Truth." He says "I AM Truth." I interpret this to mean, if you have faith in absolute Truth, something that is discovered only through reasoning and wisdom, you are saved. Even though I have strong animal instincts which cloud my ability to reason, (which are represented by Satan in the New Testament,) if I trust that all things are either absolutely right or absolutely wrong, and that with enough objective critical thinking and deduction I'll be able to tell right from wrong in even the most controversial moral cases and ignore my obsolete instincts, I'm saved. Everyone has the ability to reason. Everyone is assailed with fear and lust. Everyone can use reason to control his or her fears and lusts. If I do this, I'm evolving towards humanity instead of "devolving" towards a beast. (The Mark of the Beast in revelation is ultimately praising animal instincts over reason, I think.)

Anyway, this is what I got out of the Bible when a friend asked me to read it with an open mind. Much deeper and more allegorical than I had previously thought. The authors of the books of the Bible were no dummies. It is not hard to apply these symbols to the Bible and come out with a very atheist-friendly book.

God = Love, Happiness, Goodness
Jesus = Truth, Reason, Wisdom (the "son" of goodness and happiness and the only true way to reach them)
Satan = Animal instincts - fear and lust

Jesus leads you to God. Satan gets in the way. Use Jesus to conquer Satan.

Obviously I can't prove that the authors of the Bible had these symbols in mind when they were writing, and I can't explain all of the symbolism it contains. But despite what fundamentalist christians and fundamentalist atheists say, it is blatantly obvious that much of the Bible, if not all of it, was written as a deeply allegorical poem. There is evidence that the Jews of Jesus' time interpreted the Old Testament as being both completely literal and completely symbolic. Jesus often corrected the Pharisee's symbolic interpretations. He also only quoted from the Old Testament when his audience was familiar with it. He didn't admonish people who hadn't read it to read it. He admonished those who had read it and thought they knew what it meant to read it again. If the literal falls away with advancing science, the symbolism remains unaffected. The Jews may have seen Jesus as an incarnate symbol of the Truth, or the way to God. If the Jews of Jesus' time were familiar with deep symbolism, it is likely that they would write their "New Testament" with equal amounts of symbolism and allegory. It is far easier to believe that the highly intelligent men before Jesus' time and after believed that the deep symbolism and allegory of the Bible is what rang true as opposed to the literal and obvious "fairy tales." While modern "christianity" may have widely slipped away from this ancient art of deep symbolic interpretation and thus have splintered out of true Christianity, it seems to me that those who wrote the Bible were far wiser than most people of any religion or brand of atheism think.

Jesus said, "Get thee behind me, Satan," (talking to, ironically, the first pope of the catholic church.) What a great quote to remember when I'm at work and I feel an instinctual desire for a young female student. Keep your instincts behind your reason.

diana

Your cork's bobbing like mad. Let's see if you can land him....

d

David Bowden

Good OP, Rainbow Walking. LWF, some questions for you, which I hope will lead me to a better understanding of your perspective, and spur on the discussion:

But aren't symbols characteristically understood to be representations of the things they symbolize, and not the things themselves? And are you asserting that Jesus actually existed/exists and was/is Truth, or are you asserting that the gospel-writers invented Jesus to serve as a symbol of something else (Truth) and put those words in his mouth simply to further develop their system of symbolism?

Hold on - are you saying that absolute Truth (whatever that is supposed to be) is discovered only through reasoning and wisdom, or are you saying that faith in absolute Truth is only discovered through reasoning and wisdom?

If the latter is the case (reasoning and wisdom lead to the discovery of faith in absolute Truth), then what do you mean by "the discovery of faith," and via what reasoning, building upon what wisdom, is the discovery of faith attained? Could even an atheist well-versed in logic and "wisdom literature" discover faith through reasoning and wisdom?

If the former is the case (reasoning and wisdom lead to the discovery of absolute Truth), then is faith in absolute Truth really needed? Reasoning and wisdom should be enough to make us conclude that it exists - indeed you would seem to be saying that only through reasoning and wisdom can absolute Truth be discovered. It would thus seem that having faith in absolute Truth is different from discovering absolute Truth through reasoning and wisdom. If that's so, then is claiming to know that absolute Truth exists more virtuous if it comes by faith or through reasoning, and why?

I'm sure nobody here disputes the notion that a competent, civilized human being ought to govern his/her actions according to what is commonly termed "good behavior." Faith in absolute moral values for each "thing" isn't a factor in everyone's ethical behavior. But you say that trusting in it results in salvation. What exactly is an absolute-Truth believer supposed to be saved from? And where does your knowledge of that alleged fact come from?

That's not really the case, is it? Some humans (the young, the old and addled, the incompetent of all ages, the severely disadvantaged) do not reason at all. And of the rest of us, very few indeed reason well or consistently. Those who have the ability to reason successfully, right here and now, amount to a small percentage of all humans, I think. Perhaps I'm not interpreting this statement as you meant it to be interpreted.

We might act rationally despite our fears and lusts. Sometimes we act rationally after experiencing the beneficial products of fear and lust. While we typically have some leeway in reacting to fear and lust, I don't think anyone controls those things. If you mean to repress them altogether, you risk losing a great many benefits that derive from their proper functioning.

I'm pretty darn sure they didn't mean to imply that God exists only as a symbol of values or feelings, in order to be nice and atheist-friendly. (BTW, to really be atheist-friendly, it would also have to be proper to disbelieve in Love, Happiness, Goodness, wouldn't it?)

Believing in the existence of absolute Truth or absolute moral values, and believing that they are discernible to everyone through the exercise of reason, doesn't seem to jive at all with the way the world really works. For instance, there's frequent disagreement on ethical issues among extremely reasonable and (by all appearances) good men and women, even among the devoutly religious, among those who believe in absolute Truth and values. Doesn't this imply that absolute moral values don't actually exist, or at least that they're beyond the ken of even the best humans when they need them the most?

Except that there's still no reason to believe that many of these esoteric symbols stand for anything that actually exists, nor that the relationships among those symbols accurately reflect the relationships among real things.

Reasoning and wisdom don't lead me to believe in these things that might be symbolized in scripture; on the contrary, reasoning and wisdom, to such a degree as I am able to make use of them, lead me to doubt their existence and to ask anyone asserting otherwise to provide a solid case for their existence. Only if a compelling case is presented, can my reasoning and wisdom be stretched to encompass this assertion.

If it works for you, then I'm sure the young females in your school are better off thanks to your remembering a line from an ancient document. But the practical value to you of recalling Jesus' words doesn't mean that absolute values or Truth actually exist. It just means you carry out the widely-approved tactic of reminding yourself to "keep your hands, feet and objects to yourself."

I don't deny the benefit of good behavior nor do I deny the efficacy of governing oneself rationally when I am alerted to rising "animal urges." I willingly submit to most of the conventions of civilized society, but for pragmatic, not idealistic, reasons. None of them is immune to potential, deliberate adjustment if it serves the purpose of making things generally better.

As an example: Humans didn't always have domesticated animals. We started off chasing them away from our camps, or hunting them for food. One day somebody got an animal to do what he wanted without killing or antagonizing it, and our ethical consideration of animals has been in constant flux ever since.

There are no permanently or absolutely "true" answers to ethical questions. There's no question that there are numerous extremely longstanding conventions, but the burden is on the person claiming that they're based on something absolute, to support his assertion with evidence. Among other things that would need to be proved is that such-and-such ethical statement really is the absolute value of the thing being discussed, and not just a strongly-held common opinion. The naturalistic explanation of moral conventions seems much more likely in lieu of evidence for absolutes.

Behavioral conventions evolved over many, many generations' time, and one of their functions is to keep civilizations from failing altogether. In a Darwinian sense, they're a survival asset, finely tuned and now almost indispensible for our highly specialized species. Our awareness of such conventions is not grounded in any awareness of "absolutes" but in our evolved capacity for self-reflection, categorization, and shared language.

The fact that we can do so well, for so long, without sure knowledge of absolutes indicates to me either that God really doesn't want us to be concerned with his personal ethical opinions, or that God doesn't exist. Either way, as conscious and especially as self-conscious lifeforms, it's up to us to determine the course of our lives.

-David

rainbow walking

Hi David and LWF,
Let me be the first to congratulate both of your efforts. David, I think you have captured the essence and heart of modern thought in relation to biblical interpretation and its pragmatic value to modern man focused on science in lieu of faith as his guiding light into the future.

In all fairness to LWF, let me say that I appreciate your efforts to bridge the gap between the two. Much of what you say can, indeed, be inferred from an objective reading of many of the books in the bible.

From a purely historical perspective, we all know there was a time in man’s history when his basic choice was to either take up the tools of farming or animal husbandry and eek out his survival one day at a time or take up the tools of war and rob from those who had chosen to live by the hoe rather than the sword. I’m fairly certain that basic choice has not diminished even today, just been dressed up in fancier justifications. Today we call those who make the latter choice criminals or rogue nations. The point is, man has not really mastered the duty of making the right choice on a scale capable of inducing world peace, even today.

From a purely scientific, evolutionary perspective I can see why the Abramic religions survived and still proliferate. In a comparison with most other religions they do stand head and shoulders above them in addressing the problem surrounding the basic choice I’ve articulated above. But every rose has its thorns and so, in being so pragmatically useful to making the right choice they often prove to be just as useful in inspiring men to use the very instinctual drives they were designed to contain, to force themselves on others coersively rather than optionally. Hence we have the modern version of ancient Hebrew struggles against false gods.

But there’s a new game in town and it’s called science. Where faith was useful in maintaining the status quo, science has proven to be far more useful in extending the status quo in such a way as to make it beneficial to everyone who can afford it. Yet the struggle for control over the status quo continues. I guess that is why the question of a god’s literal existence is still important to many people. It may be that the basic choice between fighting or farming will never be entirely resolved, just better contained. It’s no different today, just played out in different settings. For instance, it’s highly visible in the boardrooms of modern business. The choice is reworded to be either assemble the capital to start a new business venture or make a bid for a hostile takeover of an already established venture. Common sense tells us that the man who has amassed a fortune thru hostile takeovers will be less inclined to fight for the survival of those businesses he controls but did not start, and more inclined, when they are struggling, to part them out and sell them off piecemeal to the highest bidder. Of course, even an open market as rich as ours, in America, will begin to feel the effects of this trend, as we now are. But I digress.

Like LWF, there was once a time when I sought a symbiosis between faith and reason, but then I concluded it an impossible task and chose reason and, like a good soldier, set out on a bid for a hostile takeover of faith. But now I’m not so sure that reason alone can entirely resolve the age old conflict between fighting or farming that rages in the minds of every man. Perhaps it will be discovered that we need something greater than ourselves to believe in to give us that extra edge when we need it most. I choose to believe in science, which is just another way of saying reason because, even if there is a god, it is quite apparent that he, she or it has no intention of intervening in man’s affairs and has left it up to man to use the tools he has to aid him in his daily choice between farming or fighting. Like so many others I do my fighting in cyber-space and my farming in real time. It works for me. Without science and reason cyber-space would be a concept never formed.

But I’ve traveled the middle of this road long enough. The problem for LWF is to provide a meaningful relationship between the symbolism of his faith and the reality of modern reason. I remain highly skeptical that this can be accomplished without a radical departure from the outlandish assertions that accompany every one of these attempts. A meaningful bridge between faith and reason will require a radical departure from orthodox consensus religion and will have to be encapsulated in language and concepts that justify the symbolism, not as an alternate epistemology, but as an extension of the epistemology of reason and science. I wish him luck.
:banghead:

xoc

Hi rainbow,

As I see it...
There are two things you've assumed for the sake of argument. Explicitly, 1. God exists, "as portrayed in the Christian bible"
Implicitly, 2. Man's unique tendancy to investigate, dissect, dis-mantle and critique everything is inherently good
The question is of course how the two can co-exist. Because your position is (apparently*) that 2 is valid, which violates 1, which leads 1 into dispute. Can 1 and 2 peacefully co-exist as propositions? Instead of showing "how they could", I agree with you that they don't. The problem then is whether 1, 2, or neither is true.

To simplify, I've made a crude substition for 1 as "faith" and 2 as "doubt." While not a direct translation I think that it reaches an actual answer to your question in the end.

Some could argue "doubt" as the reason in itself to deny the existence of something, and others could argue for "faith" as the reason to accept the existence of something. This assumes our natural inclination to one or the other is based on some inner compass that seeks "truth", and intuits it.

The first problem, how could God let "doubt" even exist as it is logically contradictory to His existence? It seems to make sense that "faith" would be the natural inclination of man if God exists. Actually faith is the natural inclination of children in terms of their acceptance of the world, pre-skepticism. It's the parent's job to teach "doubt" and mistrust, for the safety of the children. "Don't get in a car with strangers." Here the faith that comes from innocence is contradicted by the skepticism that comes from experience. We seem to be taught by these experiences that a faith must be framed and contained by skepticism; and after learning about contradicitons, we know we can't believe all we hear or read because many of these things are either contrary to each other or contrary to experience.

Of course all of this makes sense in a world of "fallen man". We need to teach children to have skepticism in the goodness of strangers because there are real evil people out there. We need to teach skepticism of ideas because there are many lies, and many liars. Cruelty and deceit would not exist in a perfect world; nor would ignorance or misunderstanding. Imperfection is described on the one side as "sin", on the other side as ignorance- this is demarked by "man's finitude." Since we can't know everything, we can't understand everything. All our logical reasoning fails if we merely miss a factor in the equation- our reasoning can be perfect, but proved to produce garbage if we're not aware of all that's going on first. The Bible portrays the "sin" imperfection of man to be man's fault, but the "finite" imperfection of man to be God's design. The reason being that man would seek his perfection in God.

If we assume 1, we can't assume 2. Why? While our experience in this "evil world" suggests 2(skepticism is good), it is the recipricol truth that 2 would be evil in a perfect world. To doubt the truth is to believe instead the lie; to believe that we should doubt the truth is to believe a worse lie. Of course the story of Genesis 3 teaches this story; the serpent teaches man to doubt when he ought not to doubt. And man choses to have "faith" in the serpent's word where he should have doubted.

Faced with contradiction, man is at a cross-roads where he must doubt. If it is a matter of a true/false question where one answer must ultimately be the right one, he must doubt one thing and believe the other. Though never knowing doubt before, not even as a concept, once contradiction or the concept of contradiciton is introduced to the world doubt/skepticism is a necesary product. The question of what to doubt is then the ultimate question. The moral could be that skepticism is the appropriate response to evil/untruth, while faith is the appropriate response to good/truth.

How is the maxim of evil derived? Simply put: unreserved service or honor to the "selfish desire." The maxim of good is duty to the Good, or the "True Other(s)". The first maxim is founded on a lie; the superior status of the "self" over the "other." "What I feel matters, what other people feel does not matter so much. " That this would at least "seem" true to us is a necesary result of a self-consciousness (having an "ego" as we all do); however a logic and a "faith in the Other" can't ultimately accept this. For Adam, the moral maxim is based on faith in God; and maxim of evil is found in the desire to "please the woman", which is to please himself by proxy. Her "maxim of evil" is the desire for wisdom(intellectual self-fulfillment), "food for the belly(physical self-fulfillment) and beauty(ethsthetic self-fulfillment), unreserverdly. The moral maxim of duty is violated; hence the "sin." From this standpoint the foundation of sin is based on the notion that there is anything "good", apart from God.

Has this solved the first problem I mentioned? (that God could let "doubt" exist?). The answer is found again in the notion of "free will"; more importantly, the concept of "moral perfection." A forced moral perfection is nothing. "Moral perfection" is only possible in terms of contradiction; if all that is, is "Good" in the beginning it is seemless in it's goodness, but can fall under one criticism: "of course it is good! It could be nothing else, so what?" Free will(of some kind) is needed to allow for a greater kind of "good"; the good that is good because it choses be, rather than has to be. For this to exist, the contrary must exist; and for this we inherit a world of lies and contradictions, inevitable doubt and skepticism, and greed and neglect besides.

There is no message that can not be repudiated by doubt and skepticism. We don't merely "doubt God", we even doubt our own existence(Descartes) or the existence of the external world. How can such skepticism possibly be satisfied? The answer of "I think therefore I am" is still unsatisfactory fo many; if this is the case, could God have even theoretically produced a "Book" (If we claim the Bible is God's product) that would not be doubted by skepticism? Such problems must be relative in nature; if God must allow doubt to allow the possibility of a higher good, "moral perfection", then how much doubt or skepticism is reasonable or good is left to the eye of the beholder. "standards" of acceptability are cotingent on the same imperfect people, merely an agreement is made by some on how to "determine Reality."

to sum: 1 and 2 cannot both be true; assuming 1 precludes accepting 2 as ultimate. The relative question of how God could let apparently "reasonable doubt" exist is incredibly difficult since it puts the relative(our doubts) on equal footing with the Absolute(God's existence in this case).

rainbow walking

Hi rainbow,

Hi xoc,
Thank you for that well thought out reply. You have helped clarify some of the main points I was reaching for so I’m going to take it from where your observations were most succinct and expand further.

As I see it...
There are two things you've assumed for the sake of argument. Explicitly, 1. God exists, "as portrayed in the Christian bible"
Implicitly, 2. Man's unique tendancy to investigate, dissect, dis-mantle and critique everything is inherently good
The question is of course how the two can co-exist. Because your position is (apparently*) that 2 is valid, which violates 1, which leads 1 into dispute. Can 1 and 2 peacefully co-exist as propositions? Instead of showing "how they could", I agree with you that they don't. The problem then is whether 1, 2, or neither is true.

To simplify, I've made a crude substition for 1 as "faith" and 2 as "doubt." While not a direct translation I think that it reaches an actual answer to your question in the end.

Some could argue "doubt" as the reason in itself to deny the existence of something, and others could argue for "faith" as the reason to accept the existence of something. This assumes our natural inclination to one or the other is based on some inner compass that seeks "truth", and intuits it.

The first problem, how could God let "doubt" even exist as it is logically contradictory to His existence? It seems to make sense that "faith" would be the natural inclination of man if God exists. Actually faith is the natural inclination of children in terms of their acceptance of the world, pre-skepticism. It's the parent's job to teach "doubt" and mistrust, for the safety of the children. "Don't get in a car with strangers." Here the faith that comes from innocence is contradicted by the skepticism that comes from experience. We seem to be taught by these experiences that a faith must be framed and contained by skepticism; and after learning about contradicitons, we know we can't believe all we hear or read because many of these things are either contrary to each other or contrary to experience.

Of course all of this makes sense in a world of "fallen man". We need to teach children to have skepticism in the goodness of strangers because there are real evil people out there. We need to teach skepticism of ideas because there are many lies, and many liars. Cruelty and deceit would not exist in a perfect world; nor would ignorance or misunderstanding. Imperfection is described on the one side as "sin", on the other side as ignorance- this is demarked by "man's finitude." Since we can't know everything, we can't understand everything. All our logical reasoning fails if we merely miss a factor in the equation- our reasoning can be perfect, but proved to produce garbage if we're not aware of all that's going on first. The Bible portrays the "sin" imperfection of man to be man's fault, but the "finite" imperfection of man to be God's design. The reason being that man would seek his perfection in God.

If we assume 1, we can't assume 2. Why? While our experience in this "evil world" suggests 2(skepticism is good), it is the recipricol truth that 2 would be evil in a perfect world. To doubt the truth is to believe instead the lie; to believe that we should doubt the truth is to believe a worse lie. Of course the story of Genesis 3 teaches this story; the serpent teaches man to doubt when he ought not to doubt. And man choses to have "faith" in the serpent's word where he should have doubted.

And herein lies one of the inherent problems with the Genesis account of man’s “fallen” nature. As you’ve so eloquently pointed out, I did infer that doubt was a good thing. All of the examples you gave were good but I would like to add that, from an evolutionary perspective, doubt would have developed as a value due to environmental issues more complicated than just the dangers inherent in “evil men”. For instance, doubt would have arisen over the dangers of certain mammals and reptiles, insects and poisonous flora. Without the pragmatic value of doubt humanity would likely have not survived a hostile environment, so it runs considerably deeper than just human relationships.

Now the apologist is likely to point out specific text like:

[quote] 29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. [quote/]

But I would have to counter this argument by reminding them that, aside from running counter-intuitive to what we’ve learned about the evolution of our ecosystem, it was also actually God who introduced a species of flora into their environment, (the tree of knowledge of good and evil), that inculcated the element and necessity of doubt into their worldview. So, even from a religious POV, the concept of doubt which led to “fallen man” cannot be attributed to the man and woman, but to the god who mired their perfect environment by introducing flora whose consumption would be detrimental to their existence.

Again, the apologist is likely to counter any claim of pre-fallen doubt being attributed to the dangers inherent in the nature of some animals with this:

[quote] 26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. [quote/]

To which I would have to counter with this:

[quote] Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? [quote/]

Clearly the bible specifically declares the existence of a species of reptile with characteristics capable of marring A & E’s peaceful, doubt-free existence, a species that the bible attributes to gods creative attributes, thus, again, we find the concept of doubt being introduced and reinforced by acts, not of man, but of god.



Faced with contradiction, man is at a cross-roads where he must doubt. If it is a matter of a true/false question where one answer must ultimately be the right one, he must doubt one thing and believe the other. Though never knowing doubt before, not even as a concept, once contradiction or the concept of contradicton is introduced to the world doubt/skepticism is a necessary product. The question of what to doubt is then the ultimate question. The moral could be that skepticism is the appropriate response to evil/untruth, while faith is the appropriate response to good/truth.

To which I re-iterate what I said above; that any moral imperfection inherent in or caused by doubt must lay entirely with god for introducing the elements of this doubt into A & E’s environment. If I were to step out of my skeptical, pragmatic skin and adopt faith as my ultimate compass, the only way I could reconcile myself with this obvious flaw in the “fallen man” doctrine would be to interpret this god’s claim of making man in his image as an ongoing process rather than a finished work with A & E. I would have to assume that the “man” he was referring to was not Adam specifically but humanity in general and that A & E were only the beginning of a long running experiment or process that would ultimately conclude in a humanity made in his image.

How is the maxim of evil derived? Simply put: unreserved service or honor to the "selfish desire." The maxim of good is duty to the Good, or the "True Other(s)". The first maxim is founded on a lie; the superior status of the "self" over the "other." "What I feel matters, what other people feel does not matter so much. " That this would at least "seem" true to us is a necessary result of a self-consciousness (having an "ego" as we all do); however a logic and a "faith in the Other" can't ultimately accept this. For Adam, the moral maxim is based on faith in God; and maxim of evil is found in the desire to "please the woman", which is to please himself by proxy. Her "maxim of evil" is the desire for wisdom(intellectual self-fulfillment), "food for the belly(physical self-fulfillment) and beauty(esthetic self-fulfillment), unreserverdly. The moral maxim of duty is violated; hence the "sin." From this standpoint the foundation of sin is based on the notion that there is anything "good", apart from God.

Has this solved the first problem I mentioned? (that God could let "doubt" exist?). The answer is found again in the notion of "free will"; more importantly, the concept of "moral perfection."


Again, very well spoken, and brings to light more points of contention between faith and doubt. For instance, what exactly constitutes “moral perfection”? Seeing how good and evil are ultimately internalized and re-enacted subjectively by each individual, and this internalization is accomplished via “doubt” rather than faith, it leads one to wonder if a person could actually achieve this moral perfection and would it lead them to god or inspire god to reveal himself to them? Simply inserting “freewill” here as a justification doesn’t respond to why an omnimax god, capable of creating such a species as humanity, would rely on “doubt” and then damn the man who follows his lead. Surely he would know this would lead humanity in the opposite direction…especially if he makes no effort to verify his existence or reason for having created such as that which does exist.


A forced moral perfection is nothing. "Moral perfection" is only possible in terms of contradiction; if all that is, is "Good" in the beginning it is seamless in it's goodness, but can fall under one criticism: "of course it is good! It could be nothing else, so what?" Free will(of some kind) is needed to allow for a greater kind of "good"; the good that is good because it chooses to be, rather than has to be. For this to exist, the contrary must exist; and for this we inherit a world of lies and contradictions, inevitable doubt and skepticism, and greed and neglect besides.

While I agree in principle, this still doesn’t exonerate such a being from his culpability in the aftermath. Unless he, too, is struggling vicariously, thru us, to over-come the tragedies inherent in attaining moral perfection, I cannot fathom anyone acquiring “pleasure” from the suffering of an entire species and promising them further eternal suffering if they fail to achieve this “moral perfection”, whatever the hell that may ultimately be.

There is no message that can not be repudiated by doubt and skepticism. We don't merely "doubt God", we even doubt our own existence(Descartes) or the existence of the external world. How can such skepticism possibly be satisfied?

Well, extreme skepticism is self refuting and I think we, as a species, have compensated for that by acquiring a large body of knowledge that is both pragmatic in value and self sufficient in degree, but by no means exhaustive, or likely ever will be.

The answer of "I think therefore I am" is still unsatisfactory fo many; if this is the case, could God have even theoretically produced a "Book" (If we claim the Bible is God's product) that would not be doubted by skepticism?


I would say no, but also have to wonder why an omnimax being would be so limited in methodologies for guiding his creation to a knowledge of his existence and will. Do we assume, or take for granted, that a “book” is the only way to achieve an introduction and instruction for “likeness”?

Such problems must be relative in nature; if God must allow doubt to allow the possibility of a higher good, "moral perfection", then how much doubt or skepticism is reasonable or good is left to the eye of the beholder. "standards" of acceptability are cotingent on the same imperfect people, merely an agreement is made by some on how to "determine Reality."

Perhaps on how to define reality, yes, but how to determine what is real has become much more a point of contention between the advocates of faith and the advocates of reason. Do we make these determinations by revelation or inspiration or investigation? The fact that we’ve made the greatest inroads in such determinations by scientific investigation is the reason I was able to conclude that this methodology is most consistent with man’s nature and counterintuitive to a god relying on a “book”, accepted on blind faith, for our determination of his value in the scheme of things.

to sum: 1 and 2 cannot both be true; assuming 1 precludes accepting 2 as ultimate. The relative question of how God could let apparently "reasonable doubt" exist is incredibly difficult since it puts the relative(our doubts) on equal footing with the Absolute(God's existence in this case).

And I agree. For me the greater burden still resides with 1 to demonstrate its truth value in a way commensurate with our nature as depicted in 2. Though I failed to explicitly assign a value to 2, I would think it self evident to any reasoning mind that without doubt, skepticism, inquisitiveness and the like, man would still, if he even survived, be grunting around in caves.

Again, I thank you xoc for your thought provoking contribution to this thread.

long winded fool

I see no reason why science can't coexist with faith if faith is only wisdom. My definition of faith is merely the understanding of the golden rule. Know who you are and know that you are equal to others and vice versa. As Jesus said, "Know thyself." In this respect, faith is reason. Faith in the reality of imaginary things is not reasonable; therefore I think that this is less faith than it is ignorance of science. If you know yourself and you know that reason conquers instinct, then you have faith in God, as Jesus had faith in his Father. This, I believe, is the unwritten law on everyone's hearts that is spoken of in Romans. The "divine plan" is evolution. Specifically, evolution away from instincts and into reason. With reason, man can be aware of his environment and can control his destiny. With reason conquering instinct, there would be no poverty or war. Men would live in harmony because absolute reason, like mathematics and physics, is the same for all, and differing opinions (in respect to the proper application of reason) come from selfish instincts. Is this idealistic view impossible? Or is it possible that in the future that all men will worship reason and that instinct will be forgotten?

Science, of course, is an ongoing quest to understand the universe, however "faith" is merely a quest to understand oneself. The presence of differing opinions in science is constructive, however when it comes to morality, differences are usually destructive. I believe that applying reason can show the black and white nature of morality and eliminate the "gray areas" which only exist because of instinct.

As for whether Jesus was symbolic of Truth or was invented to represent Truth, I think it is possible that the man called Jesus of Nazareth actually lived and was executed for claiming himself to be King of the Jews. It is possible that he concluded this farfetched idea from reading the scriptures of the day and the prophecies contained therein. Since his wisdom is clear in his allegorically profound sermons that few even today fully comprehend, he may have had quite a convincing argument as to why he was the prophesied King if the Jews, and may have convinced the four evangelists that he actually was. After enduring torture and a slow death without retracting his royal claim, and after the apostle's visions and His fulfilled prophecies, the four evangelists probably determined that he was telling the truth and that instead of reading and interpreting all the old stories of their current scriptures, that all anyone really needed to do was to follow Jesus' advice and everyone would become as wise as He was and do all the things He did and greater. Indeed, we can move mountains today by simply using our reason to figure out how to do it. (Or praying to God to do it for us; same thing.) So perhaps they used a real man to symbolize Truth. Perhaps the man Jesus was even wise enough to foresee that his words and deeds would be recorded and so called himself "the Truth" to help future readers perceive the allegory, whether his evangelists did or not. Faith in God, according to my interpretation of the Bible, is faith in properly applied science and in your own reasoning ability. Prayer is critical reflection and actually using your reason. Doubt in your ability to reason is Satan, or instinctual fear. Be honest and rational, and you will evolve (be saved.) Be irrational, afraid, and lustful, and you will devolve (be damned.)

I don't know what will happen to me when I die, but I do know that as long as I am trying to be an honest and rational person while I live, I am doing God's will, having faith in and taking Jesus' advice, and avoiding Satan. Or I could say I am contributing to the goodness of the world, having faith in and using my own reasoning ability, and controlling my instincts, if atheism is more comfortable than Christianity. I think these are one and the same and, from reading the words of Jesus, I think he saw them as one and the same also. And I know that my actions affect others around me and contribute to their "baptism" in reason, their recognition of their own selfish and obsolete instincts, and the realization that these instincts are incompatible with the golden rule. I don't think it's so farfetched that the ancient writers saw this and put it into allegory. If I could think of it, surely ancient philosophers and deep thinkers could come up with it and much more. I'm only at the tip of the iceberg in figuring out all the symbolism of the books and applying them to reality. But I think that an objective mind can reveal the hidden things contained in the Bible, and in doing so, become wise like Jesus was.

"He who has ears let him hear..." For those who think critically and objectively, see if they can figure this one out...

And people say the Bible is a lot of worthless bunk.

rainbow walking

LWF, all I can say is...:notworthy :notworthy :notworthy

You, my friend, have come closer than anyone I've ever encountered to defining a middleground in this ongoing saga. Now if you could only get all of christendom to adopt your interpretational perspective, what a difference that would make in the world to come.