luvluv

jj, I agree with Veil. I know plenty of atheists whose disbelief doesn't go any further than that. You assume that most atheists are intelligent, or that their atheism springs from purely empircal grounds. There are many people who are atheists simply because they don't want to be told what to do. There are wanton atheists. This does not make up most of the atheists in the world, but they do exist.

DivineOb

Tercel, et al,

Your reasoning seems a little circular wrt how to judge if one is being led by the spirit. One might ask God for direction because the scripture is unclear on one point (female pastors being ok or not). You say we should judge whether someone is actually being led by the spirit based on whether what they say lines up with scripture. But, if the scripture was clear, then that person wouldn't have had to pray in the first place. If one looks at all the 'hot' issues in the modern day, they are things for which the message of the bible appears contradictory in assessing them (homosexuality etc). For such issues, man has so far failed to correctly discern the meaning, so it seems like an area in which God would have to step in for people to really know what he wants.

Also, in terms of praying for guidance wrt specific decisions in one's life... The scripture simply isn't going to hold answers to those questions... If I really want to do God's will on decision X, how can I be sure that God is telling me what to do and I'm not subtley overriding the message I'm receiving? You seem to indicate that God doesn't care about the day to day behavior of most christians, and we should be concerned only with carrying out the "love your neighbor as yourself" message of the NT. Why is it that God has allowed nearly all the christians I've met to believe that this is not the case, and that the ideal is to allow God to lead you in every decision one makes? If God indeed doesn't care, then why doesn't he just make that point extremely clear whenever people pray, and tell them sod off on the rest of the minutiae they approach him with?

It all comes back to my original question... if knowing what God wants, even when one is open to God's will (or at least believes one is) is so difficult and primarily consists of following your own interpretation of the bible anyway, then what is the difference between having a relationship with God and simply doing your best to live your life according to the values presented in the bible? (other than having confidence about where you go you when die...)

HelenM

How do you know?

I've heard this asserted by Christians but - like I said, how do you know? Have you ever talked to one [current] atheist who says "Oh, I'm an atheist simply because I don't want to be told what to do"? I've sometimes heard former atheists say this about what how they used to be (some say say "I knew God existed but I wasn't willing to submit to Him") - but then, they clearly already believed in God by that point so in what sense were they an atheist? And I've heard Christians assert it about atheists. But I've never heard a current atheist say it.

love
HElen

Tercel

Hi Sighhswolf,

You wrote:
Well put.

A few occaisionally have... the rest of us give them the nice title of "saint" and then go own living our own lives however we please. To answer your question: Because it's a hard thing to do - especially in our modern society that values success in terms of material possessions and financial security; Because the institutionalised Church has completely given up trying to encourage its members to do anything of the sort and concentrates intead on evangelism, arguing over doctrine, and making its members feel good; Because we "Christians" have on the whole completely failed to do any sort of transforming of our natural desires and as a result we are self-absorbed in our own lives, busy in our own little Personal-Relationships-With-Jesus - making ourselves feel good and not interested in others; Because we all want the easy answers and don't want to go outside our own little comfort zones, or be forced to trust in anyone other than ourselves.
Basically, because "Christians" aren't Christian - myself -being a product of the "Christian" Church- included.



That's a little bit of an over-generalisation I think. But again, the answer is that it's because the "Christians" aren't being Christians. I think it was Ghandi who said "I'd become a Christian if I ever saw one"...

The South American ones come to mind. I was watching a TV programme the other week on the destruction of the Incas. It made me feel sick just watching it. The Spanish conquistadors managed to all but destroy the culture and people of a civilisation numbering about 10 million people simply because they were greedy good for nothings who wanted the all the gold they could get from it. And to top it all off they used the pathetic excuse of "for Christianity" as a cover for their atrocities and greed. In between mafia-like plotting against each other, the conquistadors used the excuse that the natives were devil worshippers and needed to be killed to save their souls as an excuse to kill any of the Incas who had any gold, and sack their temples and cities for loot. It makes me feel sick just thinking about it.
Jesus complained "You say to me 'Lord, Lord', but you do not do what I say!" - how right he was!

Well, good for them certainly, insofar as their heart is clearly in the right place and I wish them all the best in their efforts. However, it seems to me that the philosophical foundations of Humanism are extremely shakey - aka non-existant. When it comes down to it "good without god" just doesn't seem to be a coherent or sound philosophy: I have yet to see a even a remotely sound philosophical justification of the principles of Humanism. And it seems to me that the 20th Century demonstrated pretty clearly that Humanism in practice is unstable and inevitably dissolves into an unacceptable relativism.
So I, at least, conclude that I simply can't see Humanism as a plausible system. However, I can appreciate Humanism for its ideals and what it's trying to achieve, so best of luck to it.

Hmmm... is it possible to acheive this sort of standard by your own efforts without the help of God I wonder? Or perhaps God helps everyone who tries to acheive this goal, whether or not they are Christians?

I believe there will be an opportunity after death, when all is known, for people who have not already done so to accept Christ as Lord. Of course, ultimately, the opportunity is still there for them to reject if they wish, however I cannot see how such a person you describe would reject the truth once they knew it.

"Christians" bicker over a lot of things, I agree.

Unless, of course, spelling it out is not necessary because it will be made clear later...

Well, they are "Christian traits" insofar as all Christians are supposed to have them... and Christians are supposed to have almost a monopoly on those characteristics and be shining them as an example to others: Jesus compared it to a city on a hill.

Of course not. God works in all the cultures of the world revealing truth. If Christian moral teachings differed utterly from anything to be found anywhere else, then I for one would be very worried.

Just to be pedantic, but that statement is self-contradictory: It is itself an absolute statement and thus, by its own reasoning, non-existant.

Doesn't the meaning in life go deeper than mere materialism? Do you think sub-atomic particles moved unthinkingly on their way by some basic mathematical formula can account for self-awareness, meaning, purpose, and love? Isn't truth irreducible to material reality? Aren't ideas and ideals something real in themselves and not reducible? Isn't logic the basic necessity in the universe? Indeed must not we assume "reason" as superior to "matter" or stand in danger of being irrational and invalidating our own reasoning: Are we not pragmatically forced to accept Rationalism over Empiricism? Doesn't the consistent failures of the Empiricist philosophies (eg Logical Positivism) to even derive a non self-defeating statement of its own tenants tell us something? And if reasoning is superior to matter as such, doesn't that imply that the basic necessity must in fact be something to do with reason - a reasoner perhaps? And mustn't matter be dependant on reason - a reasoner being responsible for it's creation perhaps?

When I stop and look at the world and really ask myself these sorts of questions, the consistent answer I get is that reductionist materialism cannot account for all there is, that there is something more to the universe, a world of the mind, a purpose behind it all giving everything meaning, something that makes me who's doing the thinking fundamentally different from the desk in front of me.
And then I consider the specific evidence for the Christian religion. I think of all the testimonies I've heard from believers. I think about the miracles I've heard them describe: They said they experienced it, and who am I to say they didn't? I think about how they were sensible and sane people and how sure I could be that they weren't lying or misinterpreting their experiences. I consider the number of impressive quality experiences I have heard personally as well as read about, and I wonder -considering that I am in a tiny corner of the globe in a specific period of time- just how many thousands of people there are in history whos lives have been changed so dramatically by their religious experiences and I stand amazed. And then I think of bodies like Lourdes, who scientifically investigate some of these miracle claims to the full rigour of specialist medically ability and who have found many of these claims over the years to indeed be completely inexplicable to science.
And I turn to the Bible, I see Paul and the disciples absolutely convinced of the resurrection of Christ, and as I read their writings I am drawn inevitably in to accept their truth. And I look at Biblical Scholarship, how the New Testament texts are evidenced by 24 000 manuscripts, how new manuscript finds have torpedoed the liberal theories and pushed the gospels back into the 1st century, how Archeology has comfirmed the accuracy of the Gospel accounts on numerous issues: Demonstrating clearly that the writer of John had knowledge of Jerusalem before it's destruction in 70AD, confirming Mark's accuracy on several points, confirming as accurate Luke's exquisite attention to details on many -a hundred even- different points.
I do see a few mysteries and questions yet unsolved, but I am satisfied that there are many possible answers, and I can accept that we don't know, and don't need to know, everything.
I could go on: But for me it is clear - as I see it all the evidence points in the same direction, and for me to deny that would be dishonest indeed.

I beg to differ. Several times Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as directly contradicting material from the Torah. He teaches that nothing a person makes them unclean but rather it is what they do that can make them unclean. This is a fairly blatent and deliberate contradiction to a huge proportion of Levitical law.
Jesus also clearly felt he had authority to improve on the laws of the Torah: In his sermon on the mount he said several times "It was once said [follow quote from Torah]... But now I say to you".
Jesus is recorded braking the rules for the Sabbath day at leisure, and when the Jewish authorities complain about this, his response is that "the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath".
Clearly Jesus saw himself as something more than a leader to bring the Jews back to the Torah.

God Bless,
Tercel

philechat

I beg to differ here. How do you know it's God (in the Christian religion), and not the other dieties? How do you know it is One God instead of many gods or an impersonal Life Force? How do you know it must be practiced the Christian way, and not those invented by other cultures?
Fallacy of composition. Is a blue balloon made out of blue atoms? Is the "meaning of life" made out of small "micro-meanings"? No. Though holistic interpretation should be used, God is not necessarily required to explain the blueness of the balloon, or the meaning of life.
Ah...In Taiwan there are thousands of people who said they experienced Buddha or Ma-Zu. And just a month ago several thousand Chinese people at Shan-xi claimed they saw Buddha sitting on clouds shaped like water lily. I also heard people who claimed possession from their ancestors' spirits...are they also correct? What about the Romans in Progamon who said their blindness/cripples/sleep disorders were cured by the Roman gods...are they also correct? Oh and by the way many people got their lives "changed dramatically" by participating in Falun Gong...they too are completely sane, I suppose?

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: philechat ]</p>

Philosoft

Good grief, man. This is God directly telling you to do something. If I actually believed (with foreknowledge of his omnibenevolence and all-encompassing intelligence) my creator was telling me to swim to Europe, I'd be sipping cafe au lait in Paris by now. I'm curious; the only reasons I can think of for not immediately obeying a mental command that I truly believed to be from God are:

1) I didn't truly believe it was a command from God
2) I doubted his benevolence
3) I doubted his intelligence

Any of these apply to you when he asks you to fast?

&lt;aside&gt;
The whole fasting thing really tickles me. God creates me with a single method of nourishing myself and then asks that I refrain from some or all of that nourishment for an arbitrary period of time?
&lt;/aside&gt;

<strong> Human nature is so powerful that we can choose to ignore God when he communicates with us the only possible way he can? If we can choose to obey or ignore personal commands from God, just as we choose to ignore our own 'consciences' or 'inner voices,' how can we possibly know the difference between them?

[ April 27, 2002: Message edited by: Philosoft ]</p>

G B Mayes

not brain-washed:

Anyone can claim anything, we cannot know his heart. He may believe in God or not. He may regret and hate his sin or he may sin without remorse. Do not base your faith on others, all men have feet of clay. Look to Christ.

Same answer with the addition that Allah does not exist.

Vorkosigan to Tercel:
I am not familiar with anyone dying at the hands of Christians. If you are referring to Ananias and his wife, I believe they died at the hand of God, not Peter. Their offense was apparently lying to the Holy Spirit and was not to be tolerated in the early days while the Way was being established. The good news is there is no reason to suspect they lost salvation.

[ April 27, 2002: Message edited by: G B Mayes ]</p>

Tercel

DivineOb,
I'm sorry, I realise I sort of brushed aside your question before on the subject. Okay, some thoughts on the subject:
I think it's clear that we can never have absolute surety when dealing with promptings from the spirit as to whether they really are such promptings. I have heard preachers say that "experience" is the best way to learn what is from God and what is not and that with experience you can recognise God's voice. Of course, these are the same people who think God will talk to you every day, but I suppose they have a point, certainly experience would seem to be a helpful guide.
Although a lot of this would seem to boil down to how often, if ever, God does actually communicate in any clear way. Since, I tend towards a minimalist viewpoint on that front, the question of what do with spiritual promptings is to me not a particularly big one. If it's something like "go and say hi to that person over there", then that's fine, we can go and do it and if it wasn't a prompting of God then no big loss. In most cases I'd say: Assess it like it was your own thought. Paul said to put everything to the test and hold on to what is good. The most basic test is, of course, the one I alluded to before: Is it scriptural? I did not so much mean "does scripture specifically address the issue?' but rather "does it fit in with the basic ideas behind scripture?" ie. Does it promote love of God or love of your neighbour? If so, good, if not, red light.

For big issues like this, I'd say forget spiritual promptings complete. Okay, fast and pray and whatnot about it, but more importantly think yourself how it fits in with the ideas behind everything as revealed in scripture. Hopefully God will guide you in your thoughts, and if he does then good, but most important of all is discussion between the Church members who should all be willing to admit they might be wrong if it's necessary for unity. Again, I think, if people actually paid attention to Paul's lesson in Romans 14 that unity is far more important that minor doctrine then the Church wouldn't be in the mess it is today. If the Church's first aim was unity and doctrinal accuracy was secondary to that, I am inclined to think God would be more willing to help out on the revealing of the truth front. As it stands now, if God was to reveal the truth about a certain mis-practice in a Chruch to someone, the person just goes out and starts their own denomination...

Well I wouldn't say "doesn't care about the day to day behavior of most christians". God always cares and is interested in what we do, especially our behaviour as it relates to others.
But, yes, I am inclined to think that for the most part as long as we live within the guidelines God has given, our day to day choices, even major ones, are our own to make. Jesus said he came so that we could have life in all its fullness, he didn't say he came to dictate answers about our every decision.
If you really want God's will on decision X, pray about it and then decide yourself as well as you can.
I'd agree with them it's good to pray about it. I've merely think that rather than trying to "listen for" or "feel" God's response, we should simply be deciding ourselves as best we can and if God does want to bring us to one decision as opposed to another he's perfectly capable of producing a rational reason as to why.
Of course he cares: Talk to God about all the minutiae you want, with my blessing. Whether he actually decides for you in any way, shape, or form is something I'm extremely inclined to doubt, and if he did want to decide... well he has better methods at his disposal than extremely vague promptings.
If by "simply doing your best to live your life according to the values presented in the bible" you mean being non-religious, then I'd say not only is it impossible (since one of those values is love of God), but that there's a huge difference. Believing the truth of Christianity puts the whole world in a completely different perspective and inevitably alters your view of numerous significant values. The soverignty and love of God, the eternity of the soul etc cannot but help significantly influencing decisions and actions.

On the other hand if by "simply doing your best to live your life according to the values presented in the bible" you mean being a believing Christian, then my answer is: none. After all, Jesus said: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me."

God Bless,
Tercel

-DM-

There are probably as many or more people in the world who are theists because they are afraid to think for themselves that they DO want to be told what to do.

--Don--

-DM-

This is one of the big reasons that I started down the path to REALLY study the Bible and Christian theology as well, a path which led to my rejection of Christianity as untrue and unworthy of my faith.

Some background: I was, at the time that this began, a devout Christian, on the Board of Elders of my church, Chairman of the Christian Education Committee. I had attended numerous Bible studies. Now I was being personally discipled by my pastor. At the beginning and end of every discipling session, the two of us prayed together for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Either the "Holy Spirit" had gone on an extended vacation or else "He" was playing a joke on us inasmuch as we much too often came up with mutually exclusive interpretations of the biblical passages we were studying. The fact that there are 20,000+ "Christian" denominations is further evidence that the Holy Spirit is still on vacation or playing jokes on people--or nonexistent.

--Don--

P.S. See <a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192" target="_blank">Christian Salvation?</a> by Thomas Doubting.

[ April 28, 2002: Message edited by: Don Morgan ]</p>