RJS

I need some help then. I feel that one can have free will - even if it is within a set of rules/restrictions/potential ramifications. If we all have the same info, why aren't we free to choose?

In other words, you are free to kill me, steal from the grocery store, rape, pillage and plunder, but you do so within a set of rules and potential ramifications. Are we arguing the degree of freedom?

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]</p>

Hobbs

But Catholics are sure others (including you) are the offenders. The problem is that they do all read the NT, they just read different pages, and focus on one or another of all the different, contradictory things it says. Is salvation through faith alone, as Paul says, or is it true that faith alone cannot save you, as James says? If you are supposed to read and interpret one in light of the other to try to pretend they don't disagree, how do you decide which to read in light of which? Are you saved by believing and being baptised? By repenting and being baptised? Or any of the other <a href="http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=192" target="_blank">means of salvation</a> mentioned in the NT? All these denominations have their different theologies, and they can all back them up by focusing on their preferred scriptures and ignoring those scriptures that disagree with their favorites.

Now, I'm not really interested here in what your particular take on the subject is. Whatever your view of the means of salvation, I'm sure you have scriptures to back it up, but others will be able to counter your scriptures with their favorite scriptures. My problem with all this is not wondering which is the right interpretation, but that there really are in fact all these different possible interpretations in the first place.

I cannot see how anyone who knows the Bible well can honestly conclude that the Bible is the inerrant word of a perfect god. If it were, then these discrepancies would not be there. And if the Bible is not the inerrant word of a perfect god, which it obviously isn't (but which I used to believe, back when I was young and naive and didn't know the Bible well), then it is not an authoritative source, and we have to treat it as any other possible source of information and test it out, question it, examine it, etc.

I once thought I was found, but now I realize that I was never really lost in the first place. I was right here all along, I just didn't realize it.

RJS

Inerrancy? I have not commented on this - and can't at this time. I spend more time on researching whether the NT is historically reliable, and generally correct. If I believe that (which I do) then I can read the words of Christ and live by them (which I try to do). Having spent 20 years in the RC church (granted in my first 20 years) I can honestly say I got very little out of it. I look back and scratch my head wondering what they are doing with the Holy Father (Pope), praying to Mary, etc. Its all about Jesus. But I know you know all of this. I just dont disqualify the whole thing because of some man-made power struggles.

PS - Good Night to all.

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: RJS ]</p>

Hobbs

Actually, I've found that what I feel is a humble and honest approach to existence has led me in a very different direction, and to wonder just how humble I really was when I was a Christian (of the born-again, bible-believing Evangelical variety, for some 15 years).

Consider this: You have found happiness and meaning in your life. You found it in a certain way. Now, you have concluded that this is the one, true, only way for everyone to find meaning and happiness.

I used to think that what worked for me must therefore work for everyone. But I realize now that I am not the measure of all things. Others experience the world differently from how I do. Others have found happiness, real happiness, and meaning in other ways. True, many aren't very happy and don't find their lives meaningful, but it doesn't follow that your way would necessarily work for them, nor that it is the only thing that could work for them.

It was when I realized that others who disagreed with me were as sure of their beliefs as I was of mine, that these others found as much meaning in their lives as I found in mine, that I had to question just how humble I really was. When I visited churches that did not move me, I concluded that the Spirit of God was not in those churches, that the so-called Christians warming the pews of these "spiritually dead" churches were themselves spiritually dead and missing out on the deep, meaningful life I was leading. When some of them visited my church but were not moved by it, I was convinced that the Spirit of God was so far from them and their experience that they could not even recognize it. I felt sorry for what I assumed must be their miserable, shallow, meaning-lacking existences.

But, as I realized later, they felt about their churches the way I felt about mine. And they felt about mine as I felt about theirs. Their churches moved them the way mine moved me. Their lives and experiences were as real to them as mine were to me. Just because their stuff didn't move me didn't justify my conclusion that they therefore were not moved by it. Just because their experiences didn't resonate with me, just because they didn't experience things the way I did, didn't justify my conclusion that their lives, their experiences, their love, wasn't as real to them as mine was to me. It was a humbling experience to realize that.

When I was worshipping God as a born-again Christian, and believing that I was humbling myself before God, I was really putting myself and my own experiences at the center of the picture, saying that this was the true and unquestionable interpretation and understanding of reality, and the measure of what is meaningful and the source of meaning for everyone, not just myself. (Besides, how humble is it to think of yourself as someone for whom the God Of The Universe takes a special interest in even the minutest details of your life? What is humbling is to realize that the universe doesn't give a rat's ass about your existence.)

When you stated a few pages ago "If I could be so bold, I would suggest that people that don't know God are in fact not happy in the most joyous sense," I had to wonder just how humble an attitude you really have toward reality, or whether you take yourself, your experiences, and your interpretations thereof to be the measure of all things. Do you really think my experiences are not to me what yours are to you?

How would that show me that I need anything other than food? And how would it show me that I need that food from anything other than nature (or a local grocery store or restaurant, whichever is more convenient)?

Hobbs

Ditto.

I hope I have time to get back to this tomorrow ...

free12thinker

I think we are in disagreement over the word 'free' in general, and how it pertains to free will and freedom. As you stated, anyone is free to do whatever they want, which really just means no one has anyone on "life lockdown". Even if you're in prison, you are free to raise anarchy and fight the guards. But when people claim that god gave us free will to live life as we wish (and state that god is great for doing so), it begs the question, what is so great about letting us pick a path, if one of the paths we choose will lead to hell. Especially since a lot of paths we take (not believing in a deity, homosexuality, failing to pray and be saved) have no negative impacts on anyone else.

Would you mind answering this question: If I live my life practicing random kindness and senseless acts of beauty, respecting others, living honest and all that jazz, and my only setback (in gods eyes), is that I don't believe in a deity, is it really fair that I will go to hell? If you answer by one again stating that we get free will to believe in god, can you also answer this question: If god created us in our entirety, why did he create some of us to be inquisitive and scientifically reasonable and logical to the degree that we have to question everything? This is a valid question since it is this train of thought that atheists have, that lead to our disbelief in a deity, yet we are going to be punished for it, even though, god made us this way. Same with making women smart, yet asking them to be submissive to their husbands (what a personal inner torture that must've been for them) and stay within certain (read:non-competitive) job fields.

RJS

I do realize this, and I do think about it frequently.

I spend more time thinking about how a Mormon, Muslim, Hindu, etc. can be so convinced in their beliefs. Not necessarily the differences between Christian churches (other than questioning some of the Roman Catholic practices).

I understand your comment, and appreciate your gentle tone. I can say that I am much happier than I was one year ago (prior to accepting Christ). I also think I am comfortable stating generally that I feel (almost by definition), that someone who believes that he/she will live in eternal happiness with God is more joyous than someone who believes that we are all random accidents destined for the grave.

As a third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last
words to a friend: "It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I
have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have
learned a great secret. They have found a joy which is a thousand times
better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and
persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They
have overcome the world. These people are Christians -- and I am one of
them."

Joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22). It is one of God's
attributes. Humanly speaking, it is that which encompasses and
transcends both happiness and sadness. Once endowed with joy, a person
is not likely to lose it and, in fact, it grows with awareness of it.
Joy is like the sun, always shining even when night falls or clouds
cover it. Happiness is like the moon, waxing and waning. Happiness is
born in the mind, joy in the heart. Happiness comes from humans, joy
from God.

ex-preacher

As one who was a Christian for 36 years and has been an atheist for about 3 years, I beg to differ. I have found much greater joy in life as a nonbeliever. Certainly, I went through a period of grief and sadness as I let go of the fantasy of eternal life. But after that period, I found that life had more meaning for me. For one, I found a new commonality with all people. I had no longer felt compelled to divide everyone into two groups - the saved and the lost. You might say that my life went from black-and-white to brilliant living color.

Even if my life had not become more joyful, I would still rather live with the truth than a comfortable illusion. As George Bernard Shaw put it: "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."

<strong> All of this, except for the last sentence, could also be said of many humanists, as well as devout followers of religions besides Christianity - such as Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Taoism, Mormonism, etc.

BTW, could you give us a reference for that quote? It sounds suspiciously modern.

<strong> Except for the first two sentences and the last sentence, this could be spoken by a humanist also. I must point out that the distinction between "joy" and "happiness" is an invention of Christian apologists. In common usage, the two terms are interchangeable. Check your dictionary.

Somehow, this last paragraph does not sound like your writing. Are you borrowing it from someone? Whom?

RJS

Ok - the old Ghandi is going to Hell and David Berkowitz is going to Heaven dilemma. We are all sinners (you, me, Mother Theresa, the Pope, David Berkowitz, etc). We all fall way short of the glory of God. We cannot live with Him unless we have repented from our sin.

Your question (and the question about the exclusivity of Jesus being the Way) are likely the two biggest stumbling blocks to Christianity. It is hard to argue with you because you can't see that the most egregious sin of all is rejecting God. Doing the whole, well I'm better than that guy, and he is better than that woman, and she is better than Osama Bin Laden is meaningless. We are all sinners.

RJS

Moody Bible Institute's, Today In The Word, June, 1988, p. 18

<a href="http://www.pastor2youth.com/Illustrations/J/joy.html" target="_blank">http://www.pastor2youth.com/Illustrations/J/joy.html</a>

you can choose to believe or not.