About that atheism thing…

Evoken

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I already wrote you a message about this, but I will write it here as well. No, the church played no role in my life until I was around 23-24. I wasn't some zealous atheist either, just a typical rather indifferent agnostic, but I did pick up an interest for studying religion around the age of 18. Rather than going from church to theology, I went from theology to the church to put it like that.

I see, rather interesting parallel too :). I didn't go to Church growing up. I mean I was baptised Catholic but the faith was never imposed on me. I was very much indifferent about religion until around that same age as you and it wasn't until around when I was 24-25 that I eventually enrolled in RCIA to join the Catholic Church.

:e4e:


Evo
 

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Rather, the assumption here is that there can be no real and meaningful earthly purpose without there being a cosmic purpose.
No, it's distinguishing between a temporary purpose that can be asserted or invented and the potential for a larger purpose outside of our will and invention that we understand is possible.

As between the two the former is necessarily inferior.

But there is truly no reason to grant such a premise.
There is, of course. If I'm aware that the choice I made isn't necessarily true and that a competing choice, if true, is necessarily superior...

I would actually reject such a dichotomy; rather, we give a point to the process.
We do or we don't. And we must understand that and it should color our choice, at least at the outset.

I‘d say that there is no more real and actually true sum as you seem to see it if God existed than if he did not. If he exists, God could have created a world where there is no afterlife, where humans simply live a finite earthly life and then die.
I think that's an invitation to a much longer argument on what we can know about God and His nature. I don't believe that God could fashion sentient beings under your notion unless He was something less than what we should mean when we say God and certainly less than what the Christian does.

The real and actually true sum that you allude to is not really grounded in the existence of God per se nor even on the idea that he created a world; but rather in the more specific notion that in order for life to have any real meaning and purpose, for it to be good as a whole, it must last forever.
Rather, it asserts that the larger purpose of God is inarguably superior in both aim and impact. If we can think of a greater purpose and understand that it might exist it will then color our own attempts to usurp, at least on the plane of ideas.

But as I said above, there is no reason why one should accept such a premise.
There is, beginning with the purely utilitarian and moving into the notion of that dissonance we've been pushing about.

Indeed, a short life could well be of great value while a long one may be of little value.
Depends on the consideration. It can be true within a given context, but within the context of this argument, no. That is, the eternal is preferable to the finite, which is why you don't have to fight down the urge to kill yourself (one hopes) at the end of a particularly satisfying and complete day.

If there were immortal beings, they could well lead lives of great or of little value.
Not if their immortality was grounded in God. The latter would be logically impossible.

The mere fact that they last forever wouldn’t be a basis by which to determine the value of their life.
And I'm not isolating the eternal in that fashion. It is tied, absolutely, to that larger context and absolute arbiter.

It wouldn’t be indistinguishable in value to the valuer.
Depends on the consideration and rationality of the valuer. In the case of anyone capable of understanding the larger potential it should and I think will, inevitably, to one degree or another, depending on the intransigence of the valuer.

Of course, I didn’t mean “I” as if implying that some form of my consciousness would continue to live. Rather, my offspring, my legacy, the positive impact I have on others, what I contribute to society, in short, the fruit of that earthly purpose which I set out for myself during the course of my life lives on after I die. Our entire civilization as well as social and scientific progress is based around the notion of building upon the legacy left behind by others.
A sunny scene painted over an open grave and with as much potential and meaning, accepting your current premise. And, again, to be rational is to understand that there are other contexts and invite that consideration to hang about a potentially inferior choice, no matter how doggedly held, over time.

But we are living and, in a sense, are a way by which that “machinery” has come to know itself.
Again, poetry, but not a real statement. The universe, the mechanism isn't sentient, won't fight for its existence or value anything. It doesn't exist except as a way we have of looking at that interlocking process.


Herein lies a fundamental difference in our approach to this issue. I disagree that there is an absence of a rational way to distinguish. It looks like you want to frame things so that we evaluate two “contexts” (one of which is not well defined) in an absolute vacuum sans evidence and without consideration as to what context is true; so that we make a choice on a rather fideistic basis by appealing to a subjective feeling of what we may think serves our natures best or what we may consider “psychologically beneficial”.

But I think this approach is misguided. Even if I were to grant the pessimistic conclusion which you believe follows in an universe without God and an afterlife, it doesn’t follows that such a view is necessarily false. We may well regret that something justified by the evidence has pessimistic implications but that in itself is no reason to abandon it.
There's no real reason that can rise to the empirical level of proof, no objective way to decide the issue. So it is a matter of contexts and neither need be at the outset defined by more than the finite as process serving no particular and the infinite in service to the good.

I say that even if a man is mostly convinced the former is true, he owes it to a better hope and nature to give that fatalistic mechanism the middle finger of sorts, to declare against it a will to and for more. I think that life and that death mean more, with or without more undeniably following. And I think that's true as it relates to the demonstrated nature of man past, present and likely to come, as a purely rational proposition.

Things is, we can’t know with certainty that the event in question was an encounter with a God, let alone that all these people are referring to the same God. The Hindu, the Buddhist, the Christian, the Pagan, the Muslim and the members of any other religion; all claim to have an experience related to and in accord with the tenets of their religion.
Where I'd say all claim the experience of God and do their best to describe that by the light they walk in...understanding that as with Lewis and company, I hold there to be more light at the foot of the cross.

In the same way that conflicting eyewitness reports can invalidate and undermine each other; so too the diverse and contradictory nature of these experiences.
They can invalidate the particular impressions, while underpinning the reality of the larger moment.

Taken collectively, they give no good grounds for believing anything about what is said to have happened to the person who has not had such an experience.
Piffle, Evo. They speak to something fundamentally important to our being. Understanding that we are imperfect mediums for expressing anything shouldn't undermine that.

I’ve pointed out in some previous posts of this thread several ways by which such could actually be met.
I defy you to set the standard. I've never read you or anyone meet that simple challenge. Invariably people speak to their own desires and God becomes less a thing tested and more a genie who failed.

It is rather interesting that as our scientific knowledge and understanding about the world has increased, we have moved from an age where miracles were common place, where God personally made himself and his will known on a regular basis and where people spoke to God as one speaks to another person; to an age where God is basically hidden and miracles are very much nonexistent.
Where I think your former church would disagree on the point and the secular context that dominates Western culture tends to look upon what may well be miraculous and simply assume we'll figure it out eventually. Science has then, to some extent, become a god of the gap. So a spontaneous remission is just a biological event whose process hasn't been figured out yet. And it may very well be...and it may not.

:cheers:
 

Evoken

New member
Have you never ever had any encounter with God, or seen any evidence in your life for His presence?

Hey Angel4Truth :),

Depends on what exactly you have in mind; if you mean some supernatural experience like a sign, miracle or something along those lines then no, I never experienced something like that. If you rather mean what is referred to as a "consolation", that strong conviction and "feeling" of being in God's favour then yeah, I experienced it sometimes. Like when I was going through RCIA to join the Church, when I was considering becoming a priest, many times when I prayed the rosary, other times when I went to confession, etc. But in Catholicism not much importance is given to such feelings (unlike with some forms of Protestantism where a lot of importance is given to them). I also think that these type of feelings are no different than the ones one may experience outside of religion.


Do you believe that there is a thing called sin and that it exists in this world?

Well, sin is normally understood as an offense against a deity; as I don't believe in God I don't think there is such. Which is not to say that I think there exists no evil in the world or that there is no such thing as a wrong action.


Evo
 

Repentance

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Hello and a random question:

Do you think gratitude has a place in this world? If so to whom and to what are you grateful?
 

Evoken

New member
Maybe you missed my response earlier.

Sorry elohiym missed it the first time :)


Did tens of thousands of Israelites conspire to fabricate the history of the Exodus? If those events did not occur, and those recorded miracles were not experienced by tens of thousands of Israelites, why would they subject themselves to such a burdensome legal code and hard life?

Well, it wasn't tens of thousands of Israelites who wrote the account :) I think in this particular it may be a case of the author embellishing the account after the fact. The numbers as recorded in the Bible seem to be questioned by modern scholars and there seems to be a lack of evidence outside the Bible for the event. Some believers, even Jews, recognise this and don't see it as a literal account of history but more as presenting a theological message.


Evo
 

PureX

Well-known member
Don't listen much this style of music but it was a soothing song, thanks for sharing :)
It's the spirit that comes through music, like this, that helps me 'believe in God'. The song, itself, is about a rather simplistic religious idea of God, I think, but the spirit being conveyed by the song is pretty universal: the desire/need to see death as "resting easy".

It would be a shame to deny this universal spirit just because you've outgrown the simplistic religious paradigm that some people use to express it.

It's a human thing, not a religious thing, for me.

 

elohiym

Well-known member
elohiym said:
Did tens of thousands of Israelites conspire to fabricate the history of the Exodus? If those events did not occur, and those recorded miracles were not experienced by tens of thousands of Israelites, why would they subject themselves to such a burdensome legal code and hard life?

Well, it wasn't tens of thousands of Israelites who wrote the account :) I think in this particular it may be a case of the author embellishing the account after the fact.

Exodus 14:29-31 But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left. Thus the LORD saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. When Israel saw the great power which the LORD had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD, and they believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses.

If you witnessed that with your own eyes, then all the accompanying miracles that followed, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you didn't witness all that with your own eyes, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you wouldn't, why would they? We know they did because they had children and passed on the law, and claimed what their fathers before them claimed was true.

The conclusion with the fewest assumptions is what?
 

voltaire

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Fantastic reasoning Elohiym. We know why modern Jews subject themselves to the law......tradition and family. Why would someone just freed from slavery subject themselves to such a burdensome code to some God they never saw or felt?
 

voltaire

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Hey Angel4Truth :),

Depends on what exactly you have in mind; if you mean some supernatural experience like a sign, miracle or something along those lines then no, I never experienced something like that. If you rather mean what is referred to as a "consolation", that strong conviction and "feeling" of being in God's favour then yeah, I experienced it sometimes. Like when I was going through RCIA to join the Church, when I was considering becoming a priest, many times when I prayed the rosary, other times when I went to confession, etc. But in Catholicism not much importance is given to such feelings (unlike with some forms of Protestantism where a lot of importance is given to them). I also think that these type of feelings are no different than the ones one may experience outside of religion.




Well, sin is normally understood as an offense against a deity; as I don't believe in God I don't think there is such. Which is not to say that I think there exists no evil in the world or that there is no such thing as a wrong action.


Evo
Stay clear from her deity evo. Her deity excuses hatred in the disguise of rebuke. Her deity also closely resembles Gloria Steinem.
 

kmoney

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Well, how do you personally know that God does in fact answers prayers? From what I see, whatever the case, no matter who prays, to which god they pray, or what they pray for, there is no statistically different outcome from those who do not pray. Even when it’s efficacy is put to the test via scientific studies, prayer seems to have no real effect. Which is not to say that I don’t recognize the possible emotional and psychological benefits that some people may personally derive from prayer.

I think that would depend on what type of Cessationism you are referring to; many don’t deny that God performs miracles or signs today; they simply do not see those as apostolic gifts. But if God showing obvious signs actually pushes people away then it raises the question of why he didn’t realize this from the start and refrained from performing such obvious signs in the first place. There is also the fact that God would actually know which people would believe if signs were performed for them, as Christ indicated of Sodom (Matthew 11:23).

The studies I've seen on prayer are about healings which I've been leaving out under a cessationist model. However, I'm influenced by the cessationism that's talked about on TOL, which may not be representative of traditional cessationism. If cessationism is normally only about apostolic gifts and not all healings then there would be still be things you could ask for.

I wouldn’t think so, no. It could just mean that many people find meaning and comfort in religion; not necessarily that there is something supernatural behind that relationship. Here we also run into the same issue of the personal testimony of people who had a religious experience in all the numerous and mutually contradictory religions that exist.
Yes, it could mean that. I didn't say it was proof of anything and I wasn't talking about a particular religion or god. You and TH are already discussing this some so I think I'll leave it at that.

For one thing, some form of tangible evidence that they actually effect the change in our nature which they are said to do. Like, for example, in baptism where a person by the grace which is literally “infused” in her by the sacrament is said to change from a state of sin, for which she is worthy of eternal suffering, to a state of grace. An actual tangible difference between a person in a state of mortal sin and that same person in a state of grace after coming out of the confessional.
Tangible difference such as? Like they don't sin anymore?

Thanks for your message :cheers:


Evo

:e4e:
 

Rusha

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Stay clear from her deity evo. Her deity excuses hatred in the disguise of rebuke. Her deity also closely resembles Gloria Steinem.

:plain: Still haven't worked through your obsession issues, I see.
 

Evoken

New member
As between the two the former is necessarily inferior.

I am personally more concerned with which, given the evidence, best approximates the truth; not with a wager.


...which is why you don't have to fight down the urge to kill yourself (one hopes) at the end of a particularly satisfying and complete day.

I don’t because I don’t have a pessimistic outlook about life. I recognize that this is the one life I have and I look forward to the next day to try and continue making the most out of the brief time I have on this earth.


A sunny scene painted over an open grave and with as much potential and meaning, accepting your current premise.

An interpretation which would be missing the point. I get that Christians are usually unable to imagine a happy and fulfilled life without their God and an afterlife, it doesn't mean, of course, that everyone shares this sad view.


And, again, to be rational is to understand that there are other contexts and invite that consideration to hang about a potentially inferior choice, no matter how doggedly held, over time.

And such I have done, I just don’t happen agree with the approach you seem to take to decide the matter.


Again, poetry, but not a real statement. The universe, the mechanism isn't sentient, won't fight for its existence or value anything.

I wasn’t claiming that the universe as a whole is sentient or that it fights for it’s existence or that it values things. We are and we do; as I said, we give a point to the process.


I say that even if a man is mostly convinced the former is true, he owes it to a better hope and nature to give that fatalistic mechanism the middle finger of sorts, to declare against it a will to and for more.

Doing something like that would be to sacrifice personal integrity and honesty. I can’t make myself believe anything in that manner. What you are proposing is basically a form of Pascal’s Wager; where I should ignore what I believe to be true and embrace what I believe to be false, on the hope that some allegedly better life awaits me after my time on this earth ends.


They can invalidate the particular impressions, while underpinning the reality of the larger moment.

Or the reality of the larger moment is the specific religion of the person. Which is very much what seems to determine what experience is had, the experience itself not being the evidence of the religion but rather the result of it.


They speak to something fundamentally important to our being.

They speak to certain psychological desires that emerge from our evolved faculties, doesn’t necessarily means there is anything supernatural about them. The same type of experiences can be had outside religion and can be intentionally induced on individuals by different means.


Understanding that we are imperfect mediums for expressing anything shouldn't undermine that.

Understanding that we are imperfect mediums is precisely why the ability to test and verify such extraordinary claims is so important.


I defy you to set the standard. I've never read you or anyone meet that simple challenge. Invariably people speak to their own desires and God becomes less a thing tested and more a genie who failed.

If what I said would count as evidence in my previous posts doesn’t satisfies. Then I doubt I could meet such a challenge when you seem to have set things up for it to be untestable and unfalsifiable; where any demand for demonstrable evidence would just be seen as speaking to one’s own desires.


...Western culture tends to look upon what may well be miraculous and simply assume we'll figure it out eventually.

It is assumed because figuring it out is precisely what we have done in science across history. That prospect is what drives further research and investigation.


Evo
 

Evoken

New member
Do you think gratitude has a place in this world? If so to whom and to what are you grateful?

Hey Repentance, good question :)

I do think there is a place for gratitude in this world. With your second question I would qualify it as: to whom and for what. As I think that when it comes to this an appropriate distinction to make is that of feeling grateful and of feeling fortunate; otherwise one runs the risk of anthropomorphizing the universe. So I would say that while I feel grateful to people, I feel fortunate for good luck. For example, I feel grateful to my family for the love they have for me; I feel fortunate for being born with a reasonably good health.


Evo
 

Evoken

New member
Sorry Evo, this is off topic too - but do you kinda look like Keanu?

You mean Keanu Reeves? Not really :p
I’m a tall, white, blonde type; have a rather marked european look, even more so than my father from whom that particular lineage comes.


Evo
 

Ktoyou

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You'll likely be getting a lot of that evo. Folks telling you what you did or didn't really believe, discounting you and your own experiences. There are a lot of ways folks write it off. But also, some folks really step up.

Brace yourself... From my experience starting a thread like this, you're in for a wild ride.

My sea change

For me, it's become increasingly illuminating observing religion. Particularly at TOL. TOL played a big role in my "conversion," and has played an even bigger role in my becoming settled with it.
I think Knight may have insight on this, as for me, I understand the dilemma, yet do not comprehend the sequence of events.

I think Knight would have insight
 

Evoken

New member
The studies I've seen on prayer are about healings which I've been leaving out under a cessationist model. However, I'm influenced by the cessationism that's talked about on TOL, which may not be representative of traditional cessationism. If cessationism is normally only about apostolic gifts and not all healings then there would be still be things you could ask for.

From what I gather, cessationists claim that the ability to perform healings, miracles and speaking in tongues enduring in a person is no longer going on today but that it ended with the apostles. Yet they do affirm that God can and does performs signs, miracles and healings on his own today. But in any case, such assumes that cessationism in any form is true to begin with; something a vast number of Christians disagree with and many of these Christians claim to receive the apostolic gifts such as healing, speaking in tongues and the like. I am not too concerned with such internal disputes among Christians of course, just pointing out that particular.


Tangible difference such as? Like they don't sin anymore?

Such as something verifiable and objective affecting the individual in a state of original or mortal sin compared to a state of grace. Not necessarily involving their action but the state of their nature.

Take care :cheers:


Evo
 

Evoken

New member
If you witnessed that with your own eyes, then all the accompanying miracles that followed, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you didn't witness all that with your own eyes, would you willingly be subject to the Mosaic law?

If you wouldn't, why would they? We know they did because they had children and passed on the law, and claimed what their fathers before them claimed was true.

As I said in my previous post, the numbers of the Exodus as recorded in the Bible seem to be questioned by modern scholars and there seems to be a lack of evidence outside the Bible for the event.

Using that same reasoning you are using here one could ask the same questions for any given social contract with religious undertones across history. All such accounts of people experiencing and subjecting themselves to the Egyptian, Norse and Pagan Gods; the Muslims to Allah, the Mormons to Joseph Smith, etc.

Tradition can transmit on equal manner both true and false beliefs. Just because it is passed down it doesn't means it is true nor does it prevents it from being embellished along the way; which is what seems to have been the case with the oral tradition from which the text of the Exodus emerged.

:e4e:


Evo
 

Repentance

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Thanks for answering NY previous questions. One more - do you believe that it takes the entire universe to create an apple? [emoji14]
 
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