There is hardly a more hotly contested, more difficult to resolve debate than this one, so why don't we just jump right in with it? Do you think that there is a Creator, a man with a plan behind this whole mess that is our planet? Is life just a random set of occurrences, or is there something more to it? If there is, what form does He/She/It/They take? Why doesn't He/She/It/They make themselves known more obviously to humanity? Are we born simply through biology, and when we die, are we simply just going to rot in the ground? Or is there something beyond it all?
I'd love to see this splinter off into lots of small debates about evolution/creation, the nature of God, the afterlife, anything. Take it and run with it.
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13 comments:
I think so.
In all seriousness, I'm Catholic, have been my whole life, and I believe in God...but I'm not going to stand here and argue with anyone who doesn't believe in God because that's a perfectly logical argument as well. If I hadn't been brought up Catholic would I believe? I honestly didn't know...so as someone who's had the belief instilled in him from Day One, I'm in no position to disagree with anyone who thinks otherwise.
I believe that God exists. I also believe that this is based greatly upon my faith in Him. Many things have happened in my life that have allowed my to have, keep, and grow in this faith. I believe that He created me for a purpose and knows what is best for me. I believe that He is a just God and that the only way to spend eternity with Him is thru His son Jesus. I also believe that I am a sinner and completely unworthy of His love. Though I am completely thankful and humbled each and every day for that amazing grace He has blessed me with!
I believe in God. There is no way that life as we know it is random, because it's just too complex and thought out. Everything down to the way the laws of physics work had to come from somewhere. The way everything works so beautifully together leads me to believe that there is a God.
As far as a Christian God, many things have happened in my life that have lead me to believe that this is the real God. Plus, theology has been consistent with my beliefs and observations about the world, 100% of the time. It just all makes sense to me, although I wish it was clearer to express in writing.
Okay well here's the problem I see with God. so far everybody has talked about the love of God, the divine mercy of God, a just God...I don't buy it. Why do good people get sick and die young? Why do Christians get massacred around the world? How are things like forced prostitution allowed to continue? All I see on earth are people doing things to people, what evidence is there of God in our works, the good or the bad?
Another thing: No matter how secure you feel in your faith, I guarantee you that somewhere in the world, there are people who believe just as strongly as you do in something that isn't Christianity. Both of you are legitimate in your faith, but one (or both) of you is necessarily wrong. Remember back in the day when the God of Israel would supposedly come out and wreck false prophets and other gods? like in 1 Kings 18:24-40, when God proved he was better than Ba'al, and then had Elijah kill them mofos? Why doesn't God come down and torch some Muslims, or Hindus, prove who's the boss? He was all about that back in the day.
Vamping off of that, why are there no miracles anymore? It seems like God was active in old-testament life, setting bushes ablaze, parting seas, raining down fire and whatnot. Jesus was active in new-testament life, turning water to wine, raising the dead and such. Why doesn't God make himself known to us nowadays?
Just some thoughts, trying to get debate rolling.
The "proof" of God is in life. The only alternative to believing in God would be believing in the Big Bang theory - creating something from nothing - and isn't that a leap of faith just as large as believing in a higher power? I personally find it a much larger leap of faith to believe that there wasn't a higher power behind creation than that all of a sudden, atoms appeared.
As for multiple, and conflicting, religions, what are the chances that ANY of them are correct? We are, after all, human beings. Our traditions - even religious traditions - are passed on by humans. Humans, by nature, err. We are not perfect, and we are not uninfluenced, even when it comes to the word of God - or Allah, or Zeus.
As for the Bible - again, we are looking at a work created by man. It may carry God's message, but that message has been carried and changed and redacted by people. It's been proven that the Bible has been changed for political purposes in the past, and in the days of hand-written books, there were very few copies without errors. I think to take the Bible literally is to put your trust in generations of men - not just men of religion, but men with political agendas. Also writers and artists, two groups who love to play with words. The Bible contains some of the best written poetry found anywhere. To take that poetry literally would be to forget that it is poetry, and that it was written by poets. (Poets, by nature, are less concerned with historical accuracy and more concerned with the message - hence, the Creation story.) The message of the Bible is what counts - not its literal translation. Hence, to look at it and say, "Why doesn't God act like that now?" doesn't make sense - because for all we know, those miracles might have been created by men to create fear of God.
Isn't it just as much of a leap of faith to believe that God is a being that came from nowhere and always existed as it is to believe that existence is something that came from nowhere and always existed?
The problem of evil is one of the most interesting ones. Why does bad stuff happen if God exists?
But to ask this question, we must be aware of context. If we are talking about the Judeo-Christian God, we should be looking at the problem of evil in the Judeo-Christian context. The Bible, in this case, shows that the world was originally created without sin, without evil, etc., and it was man's choice to allow the evil into the world. But the choice is critical- without the freedom to choose whether or not to worship God, man would not have the defining thing that makes him man.
I completely agree with you mike, when you say that "Both of you are legitimate in your faith, but one (or both) of you is necessarily wrong." That is why I believe (still in the context of Christianity) that perhaps the most important question ever asked was "Who do you say that I am?" by Christ in mark 8. He said some crazy stuff- stuff that either makes him the living Son of God, or a complete idiot. If he was wrong, who gives a fart? But if He was right, then it has serious implications. And for that reason, I would urge anyone to seriously take a look at it, and compare it with other religions, explore your faith, etc.
Christen also has a very good point in saying that we need to be careful about what we place our trust in, especially as far as the Bible or holy texts. The Bible must be read honestly, in its literary and cultural context, for us to actually know what it was saying. One thing to be aware of, however, is the accuracy of our current bible (in its original languages, that is.) The sheer number of manuscripts, parchments, codexes, and other materials we have is unparalleled in any other ancient text, and the agreement between them is similarly outstanding. If we were to doubt the accuracy of the Hebrew and Greek texts we have of the Bible, we would have to by default even more seriously doubt any text of similar age.
First off, many of the world's religions can easily be compared to each other, and some differ on things as trivial as what they do during their services. There's no reason why all of the world's religions can't be founded on the same stories and same God simply appearing to different people. Something that fantastic is clearly going to be up to interpretation.
Frankly, I'm undecided. I could understand it either way, and would be comfortable with it either way. I think that whether you have faith in a particular religion or not, simply being the best person you can be is enough for you to be accepted as a good person in whatever religion might be correct. It just wouldn't make sense to me for millions of people to be sent to a religion's version of Hell simply because they weren't exposed to that religion.
And on what I think is a perfectly reasonable explanation, which we simply can't deny being just as likely as a supreme being, there is the possibility that religion was a creation of man, not from experiences with God, but from necessity. It is possible that sometime in the distant past there was some set of events that lead to horrible fear in the hearts of the people of that day. And if you were the leaders in that day, you would need to find a way to control the people, and what better way then creating an idea, and idea of a higher power, that will permeate the minds of the people. One like the Old Testament God, instilling fear and promising retribution for actions that are not good, or one more like the New Testament God, a caretaker, who wants the best for his people and simply asks for love, and even then is forgiving when you lapse in your love. Whether it was originally intended to do so or not, religion has been used as a way to control the general population, and in some cases has been the best way of governing the people.
Jake,
I take issue with your reasoning of: "If he was wrong, who gives a fart? But if He was right, then it has serious implications."
There are serious implications if He was wrong, too. If He was wrong, and has lead so many millions astray, then He has taken them away from the real "truth", which may be the Hindu's reincarnation, or hey, even Islam's Jihad. If He was wrong, millions of people have just been blindly damned to the equivalent of hell, albeit the hell of another religion. Isn't that how Christians look at other religions? Don't Christians consider men damned if they don't accept Jesus? It works both ways, unfortunately. And if they are equally as legitimate in their faith, then they are equally legitimized in considering Christians damned.
Do I necessarily agree with that? Of course not, I'm a Christian too. I'm just trying to look at it as framed from another standpoint.
Mike, you are right. I should have phrased it better. All I meant by saying 'who gives a fart' is that if Christ was wrong, he should be ignored and noone should bother with him because He was probably mad. If you believed that to be the case, and another religion were true, then certainly it would have implications as pertains to what was in fact true.
Jake is correct about the accuracy of the bible...as far as the actual words. There are hundreds of second-generation copies(hand-copied from the original) of the new testament still in existence, and among them, only 40 lines are disputed. However, that doesn't mean that we should read the bible completely literally. Of course it was written in the context of those times, not ours. There are a ton of correct ways to interpret the details (hence denominations), although you still have to get the main point correct. It has to be taken literally though. If, thousands of years ago, when God conveyed to humans how he created the world, if he said, "well, first I created the laws of physics. Next, I caused the subatomic particles to be so close that their wavefunctions overlapped, and so the strong nuclear force pushed the particles away with incredible force, etc..."(hence, the big bang), well I don't think Moses would have written much down.
"Let there be light" was much more effective.
As far as the issue of the Christian faith versus other faiths, here's how I look at it. Oh, and by no means do I have it figured out. But, there are a few things to keep in mind. First of all, if you're a christian, the bible tells us to expect a whole bunch of other religions that are ever-so-close to ours, but still incorrect because of one reason or another. It says that a lot of people who initially mean well will be corrupted by evil, and therefore come up with a take on what was originally Christianity, but was off a little bit, in a crucial way. So the fact that we have Islam and Judaism and Hinduism and everything else fits right in with biblical predictions. But that doesn't mean that they're right. The fact that each of these religions says that it is the only true religion means that only one of them can be correct 100%.
But, I can't explain people like the Native Americans. Were they exposed to the word of God, and if not, what happened to them? Christianity says that there is one way to not be damned, but there weren't any prophets in North America before the 15th century.
There are some passages which seem to come up around this time of the year which actually say the opposite to what many of you are assuming to be what is stated as truth in the bible.
It's clear that Old Testament God says that if you follow false gods you will be damned. That's about as specific as the bible gets in most places. However, in the New Testament, I don't know exact passage numbers, or even which book it's in, but this (paraphrased) story is in there:
Basically, Jesus is with a group of men, some on his right, and some on his left. He speaks all of them there and says that they saw him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, sick, or in jail. The group on the right, unlike the group on the left, gave Jesus food, drink, welcome, or a visit in sickness or prison.
Those on the left are told they did not do anything for Jesus when they saw him this way, and he says that whenever they did not do anything for the least of people(or anyone in any of these conditions) they turned their back on him.
He tells those on the right, with no qualification of religion, that they are blessed, for they helped the least of all people, and so are good in the eyes of Jesus, without qualification.
I think that this story illustrates that the New Testament does allow for all people to be saved in the name of Jesus.
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Another story, which I can't imagine is in the bible, but I have heard in Pastoral messages of both the RC church and the UMC, is of a banquet in the Great Hall of the heavens, and all of the angels and the saved are there. Jesus simply paces around the windows at the front of the hall. Peter notices His paces, and after some time, gets up and shouts to Jesus, "You're waiting, aren't you?" No reply. "You're waiting for Judas!"
So Jesus waits for Judas, who is arguably the one who sinned against Him in the worst way, showing that even the worst of sinners are welcome with penitence...
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