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28513. anomie - 8/2/2006 11:38:17 PM Interesting that you believe everything fits into God's plan. Does that mean everyone is playing the role God assigned? Should good Christians not be grateful to their Islamic cousins while killing them? 28514. Adam Selene - 8/3/2006 4:38:39 AM I was a christian once. I was raised as a Babtist and as a teenager I even walked the aisle to be babtized - and was.
It is sooo tempting. Just surrender and be taken care of.
What a gift! And so psychologically fitting... don't worry, just have faith (i.e., pretend you understand) and your heavenly father will take care of you. Just do what he says and trust in what he told people to write in some letters and memos a few thousand years ago. Just trust in those people who spread the word verbally for a few dozen years. Just trust those who finally wrote it down. And trust those who translated it. And translated it. And trust the church that cherry-picked which authors to bless as those particular ones to form the gospel...
I found the word and all was good.
But...
Then I read the word.
Yech. God kills people who exercise the free will he gave them! God is jealous! God smites those who don't understand him! God is love! er, ya. God is MALE!!! God created the world a few thousand years ago and made it look like it was billions of years old! God created dinosaur bones and burried them! God created floods to punish people who acted as if they had free will and did stuff he didn't like!
God acted just like a kid's idea of a bad father! Then he sacrificed his son for "us". The son who is now lord our god in heaven... er, who is dead... who gave the ultimate so he coulb be the highest... er, something like that.
I still haven't quite figured that out. So.. if god said to me, "you will pay the ultimate price and reap the ultimate benefit..." ya, I'd sure turn that one down.
"Who are you - what have you sacrificed?" JC Superstar. 28515. iiibbb - 8/3/2006 1:43:06 PM I was raised Presbyterian. I haven't gone to church much in my life, but I am not an atheist. There's a lot about the universe that random chance and evolution can't seem to account for. Specifically, I'm thinking about the capacity for love, the capacity for man to trancend time by history and science. The goal of natural selection is to reproduce the genes. I don't see how these capacities necessarily promote that. There seems to be something more there.
So I'm not an atheist. Life seems especially unfulfilling if I didn't beleive in something.
When I read the Bible... particularly the New Testiment... I am struck by what a difficult task it would be to actually be a perfect person. The New Testiment really sets you up for a fall. For any of us to be 'worthy' we'd have to give away everything we have... we'd have to give up our egos... pride... etc. What human can do that?
So not being an Atheist... and recognizing that everyone is imperfect... I realize that I must depend on God's love for us to redeam us. So Jesus is God's gift to us. So whether you beleive he was real or just a metaphor...
the point is that hopefully you want to live a worthy life... that you recognize that you are a sinner and really have no hope of not being one... that you want redemption.
So I don't know how God's going to work it all out in the end. I know the Bible I read has been translated and re-translated. However, if you go to first principals. God is love. Jesus redeams us. I'll take that gift and I'll go with it... I don't need to understand it much more than that.
I don't see it the same way as you Adam... I don't think it's about letting go of free will and just letting things happen. I think it's all about using your free will to figure out the right path as best you can. What you don't have to worry about is that if you screw up that you're necessarily going to be damned for eternity over it.
Personally... I'm not much into the hell thing anyway. I don't think it makes any sense if God has a "father's" love for us. As long as we don't forsake "him" (best pronoun I can use... sorry... English is limited), I don't think "he's" going to forsake us. 28516. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/3/2006 4:33:09 PM If you have video capabilities this is a very informative piece of insight and awareness . . .
The Power of Nightmares:
The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004)
This documentary offers a remarkable insight into the reality of our current fear induced climate. Adam Curtis chronicles the rise of neo-conservatism and the resulting change in the world's political agenda orchestrated by those who place their trust in the philosophical ideal of the necessity of evil to unite a country. The filmmaker manages to successfully pluck apart the myth of the reality of there being a logistically organized terror network, let alone one that is managing to orchestrate terror attacks from a cave in the remote mountains of Afghanistan. His arguments are backed up by some eye opening interviews with authorities on the field of Islamic fundamentalism, members of the US government and members of the US judicial system. These insights are parred with concrete, startling facts and the result is a program that manages to shake us awake making us aware of a far more realistic terror threat namely that of psychological warfare carried out by the powers that be, accompanied by a sensationalist media frenzy. I cannot recommend this program highly enough." -imdb.com 28517. anomie - 8/3/2006 11:18:50 PM I don't know, iiibbb...you're trying to sound reasonable but in the context of what I was talking about you're damaged goods. You've bought into a world view that says you are unworthy, imperfect, and need redemption from something you can't see, touch, or hear. It's like being caught up in a video game concept. You think you have free will but you're stuck in the console and have to play by the rules, win or lose. There's no personal morality in this scenario. Anything the game designer does, no matter how cruel or absurb is okay. You started playing the game very early in your life and it seems normal now.
True free will would let you opt out of the game, appreciate being human, develop a true sense of morality.
As to your theology, this is when I miss having Kuligin around. It would have been fun to see him jump on your post. 28518. anomie - 8/3/2006 11:28:23 PM Wiz...thanks for the links.
You know it's shame how information is received these days. The repubs have warped the thinking of a large segment of the population.
I say the above as a preface to saying there should be a campaign to inform people of some simple risk assessment principles. People should know there's a better chance they'll win the lottery than being hurt by a terrorist. Especially so if they don't travel much. But then Ann Coulterists would hit that fast as lightening to show how liberals aren't concerned about national defense.
28519. anomie - 8/3/2006 11:37:20 PM Adam,
You remind me... MSN Slate is running a feature called "Blogging the Bible". The entries are clever, funny and thought-provoking in the mode of your last post. They're up to Numbers now. 28520. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/4/2006 1:14:31 AM Thank YOU for responding, anomie and it's nice to have you around here again. 28521. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 2:43:40 AM Message # 28517
All I'm saying is that in the context of a non-atheist, it is easy to fool yourself into thinking you've done enough. However, I feel a certain duty to God and duty to other people... but I know that I am selfish. I do frivolous things, I own frivolous thinsgs. So all I'm saying is that it would be a mistake for me to think I've got it covered.
I thought that I might be an atheist for a while, but it really seems unfulfilling to me. I'm not sure how you can characterize me as damaged goods. I could easily say the same for you because atheism seems like such a dead end. You live... you eat and have sex... you die. Big whoop.
I don't know how that isn't at least as damaged as my perspective. 28522. anomie - 8/4/2006 11:44:11 AM iiibbb,
I meant no insult with the "damaged goods" bit. Sorry if it came across that way. I used the phrase "in context" because I had been talking about childhood indoctrination and Islam.
Despite what I think, you may be totally correct about everything you say. I give you that.
As to me being damaged goods...this has long been suspected. 28523. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 1:01:28 PM I may have it wrong too. I've decided I'm not really in the business of telling people what relationship they should have with God (or whatever).
The closest thing to a known that I have to work with is that I think there's something more to life than just what I can prove and I think there is something more to my life than my deeds... but that's why they call it faith after all.
As far as indoctrination. I can speek as someone who was raised in a Protestant church, drifted, and have been coming back. As a child I didn't know why Protestants were Protestants. Now that I have started examining it in depth, I find that I'm very much in line with the Protestant way of thinking about Chistianity.
I don't know what God has planned for Moslems or Jews etc. I've more or less decided that if (the if is for your benefit) God exists and he is our father (again for lack of a better pronoun), then he will not forsake us if we do not forsake him. So I don't really buy into the Hell thing. I don't claim to know what the real plan is.
All I do know is that I'm not an Atheist.
Back to indoctrination. There are many perspectives.
There are
- Believers who have always been (I would lump in athiests in this group - they believe there is nothing beyond this life).
- There are those who eventually reject their upbringing.
- There are those who have become agnostic and returned to a faith.
- There are those who were never raised anything and find a belief.
- There are those who switch beliefs with some jumps being more dramatic than others.
I don't think there's a perfect formula for indoctrination... or childhood indoctrination. I certainly can't say much about it except that as my life has progressed, the things that I was exposed to as a kid make more sense now... at least to me. 28524. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/4/2006 4:16:09 PM The word "indoctrination" [Teach (a person or group) to accept a set of beliefs uncritically] carries the seeds of its own failing.
I suspect that it's all a fear-based motivation, regardless of the belief system that initiates it.
True love and goodness isn't based on fear, it's based on tolerance and letting go with self-surrender. Fear implies a clinging to one's beliefs for security. Faith, on the other hand, is more about letting go and trust. We don't learn to ride a bike or swim by clinging to a secure place--we push off, away from what we know to a new awareness.
That's why I lose respect for religious zealots--they ignore the spirit of The Sermon on the Mount and head right for the dogmatic literalness of the Old Testament. It's the same in Judaism and Islam, imo. 28525. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 4:57:58 PM Not that I think you're directing the comment to me WoW.
I certainly don't think my beliefs are based in fear. Does a child behave a certain way to their parent because they fear them... or because they love them.
Do most parents use carrots or sticks?
I think those that are hard on religion generalizing the motives of religious people a bit to much.
All the fire and brimstone... the threat of "eternal damnation" just seems like a human construct to me. I think they illustrate a point to anyone who might need a little humility. However, it doesn't make sense when you think about what God is about. Of course I may be absolutely wrong... but I'm certainly trying to figure it out for myself. 28526. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 4:58:06 PM One of my collegues has a rather cynical take on life... I like the irony in his thesis. People are motivated by either fear... or greed. Just about anything you offer he can twist into one of those two categories. In reality I try to be a little more hopeful than he is... but that's just greed according to him. 28527. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 5:01:54 PM My favorite part of the whole Bible is I Corinthians 13. If God loves us... if you love anything... this is what it should entail.
Words to live by. 28528. Trillium - 8/4/2006 5:31:05 PM Nice link, iiibbb.
I also like the verse on "perfect love casts out fear" (couldn't tell you where to find it, though)
Always remember though that some people actually enjoy fear, that's what horror movies are about, and they have huge audiences. If it isn't one thing it will be another. Are we going to ban horror movies as child abuse? (actually, I kind of like that idea...) 28529. PelleNilsson - 8/4/2006 6:29:10 PM 1 John 4:18 (KJV)
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
I suppose you haven't noticed, Trillium (hello by the way!), but at the top of the right-hand column there are a number of links to internet resoures, among them the Bible Gateway, where I found the above. Your quote, in modern English is from the New American Standard Bible. The KJV is always to be preferred. 28530. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 8/4/2006 6:42:55 PM Not that I think you're directing the comment to me WoW.
I wasn't; it was just my two cents about "indoctrination" – fear & belief vs. love & faith. 28531. anomie - 8/4/2006 6:50:33 PM iiibbb,
If you think God is not to be feared, then what do you need redemption from? What's your state of being before and after redemption? 28532. iiibbb - 8/4/2006 6:59:51 PM Why should I fear God? God loves me.
When you've wronged a loved-one. Do you make ammends out of fear, or out of love and respect for them?
I don't know what my state of being is going to be. I hope it's good. I hope it's good for everyone.
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