2008-02-23, 10:09 | Link #441 | |||
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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2008-02-23, 14:33 | Link #443 | |||
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God creates free will --(leads to)--> temptation. Quote:
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2008-02-23, 15:07 | Link #445 | |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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Theory == best explanation that fits the observed facts and contains predictions that can be tested to strengthen or invalidate it. There's several "theories" of gravity too, where's the faction that disputes gravity as "only a theory"? Its usually a bad idea to pick up the weakest ideas to use in a discussion. In other news, the VP of General Motors ineptly shows one reason his company is in a technology-deficient tailspin by calling global warming a "crock of s---" (yes, its quoted). Backpedaling by the corporation is now in progress.
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2008-02-23, 15:16 | Link #446 | |
I disagree with you all.
Join Date: Dec 2005
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By the way, I haven't made a point of it before, but could you please stop calling me Anh? Minh or AM both work, if you don't want to type the whole name. |
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2008-02-23, 15:22 | Link #447 |
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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To continue on Vexx's point, in many ways, a well-supported scientific theory is actually more significant than a scientific law, even if such a hierarchy is nonintuitive. A scientific law is just a general observation of how certain events occur. A scientific theory expands on such observations by providing an explanation for why they occur.
In the case of talking about scientific terminology, it just doesn't make any sense to apply lay definitions of those terms.
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2008-02-23, 15:29 | Link #448 | ||
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Considering the particular claims of the NT gospels, though, if it hadn't been a religious and political clamor centered around one person... the absence of people claiming first-hand observation would have been conspicuous. Quote:
Incidentally, the necessity of not exercising omnipotence (well, more specifically, authority as God, period) is part of what the temptation of Christ was about. As for exercising absolute (as opposed to ultimate) benevolence and omniscience including knowing the future and choices, et cetera... That's in direct conflict with free will. Having the big picture and utilizing that knowledge in the process of predicting and influencing things in order to accomplish certain purposes within the progression of humanity is not. You are correct, probabilities, statistics, and randomness don't mean anything to a being capable of knowing and analyzing the data to create predictions. These are concepts applying to physical things, though, and are inapplicable to the soul and spirit (concepts applying to all living things, and sort-of applying to non-living things). technomo12, as for evolution being true or untrue as a general whole... As I've gone into in other threads, evolution and Judaism/Christianity are not at odds. Whether God created various parts at differing times, whether he influenced evolutionary progress, or whether he started it spinning and just watched, the only relevant point of contention is whether man is a product of evolution from apes (which is quite a natural conclusion for any one who doesn't believe that God created man as a separate, unique creation). Anything else relies too much from subjective interpretation to be worth arguing as an "either/or" scenario.
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2008-02-23, 15:59 | Link #449 | |||
I disagree with you all.
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Not so with God. No matter what intermediary he uses, it's really all him. |
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2008-02-23, 16:09 | Link #450 | |
Love Yourself
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Northeast USA
Age: 38
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As everyone is approaching things with an open mind, I'll share some of my own confusion about Christianity here: As I mentioned before (and will repeat, as we seem to be on a new forum page) the relation between Jews and God is that God made an agreement with the Jewish people in the distant past. The Jews would follow God's directives and be God's people, and in exchange God would free them from the enslavement that they were under at the time and He would ensure their prosperity in the world. The Christians seemed to approach God as an all-knowing and benevolent creator of the world and of humanity, and feel that humanity has gone down the path of sin. Jesus Christ, God's son, was sent to Earth to be sacrificed in order to atone for the sins of humanity and to show people that God still cared for them and wanted them to correct their ways. The part where I don't understand Christianity's line of reasoning is in how they interpret Jesus Christ. Under Judaism, the prominent figures who communicated with God were just normal people. The concept of the messiah indicates a spiritual leader sent by God, but this leader is otherwise human. Under Christianity, Jesus is God. When attending church services, I always felt that the focus was more on worshipping and paying attention to Jesus than to God. For Christians, there is no difference - God is made up of three entities (God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost - although nobody could ever tell me where that final concept came from, nor could they really explain it fully. Christians await the second coming of Jesus, but the Jews await the coming of the next messiah. The specific distinction is that the Christians believe that Jesus was the messiah that the Jews are currently waiting for. Yet I just can't understand the idea of worshipping a messiah. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was raised believing that Moses was essentially the first (if not only) messiah - nobody goes around worshipping Moses. Moses is spoken of as a humble man who balked at the idea of leading God's people, but he did it anyway. All credit for what happened goes to God. Let's say that Jesus was the next messiah - why is so much credit granted to Him (capitalized out of respect for the Christians) and not to God? I guess it bothers me. Even if we're not examining religion from the skeptical sense that the entire thing is a story made up to control people, it feels like someone shifted the focus improperly. If Jesus was the messiah, fine - if Jesus was a part of God, that's fine as well! But why is so much focus given to Jesus and not to God? It says in the Bible that we're not to worship angels or other Godly entities, but God alone. Angels are still given brief mention in the Bible, but nobody worships them. Isn't worshipping Jesus like taking away from God? My thoughts like go back to the concept of the agreement made between the Jews and God. If the agreement was with God, then it's with God alone and not other aspects or creations of God. To worship a messiah is almost like worshipping an angel - here is a being with the power of God, yet it's forbidden to worship them. Why does Jesus get so much attention when it should all be going to God? In my mind, what's going on is a fatal error in people's perception of what Jesus was trying to say. I have no problem accepting that Jesus existed, and I'm even open to the idea that Jesus was sent by God, possibly as the messiah. I don't believe that Jesus should be worshipped as Christians do, though. It's almost as if they missed the point - they saw a bit of God's power and immediately felt that Jesus should be the object of worship, rather than God Himself. It was my wondering about this that led me to the Christian study groups. I posed the question to only a few people (didn't care to offend some or make too many question their faith) but I never really received an answer that clarified it in my mind. It likely has to do with our upbringing. If you're brought up to accept the fact that Jesus is the son of God and thus a part of God, then your idea of what God is differs from mine at least slightly. Yet it's a difference that's critical in being able to perceive how God should be interpreted and treated. I'd be interested to hear anyone's thoughts on this, and of course I'm hoping that Kyuusai will magically be able to point out something that makes it all click. Side note: this took me forever to type because one of my external HDs randomly started dismounting and mounting, and my computer began to cut into my upper wrists. Must be Christian components
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2008-02-23, 17:27 | Link #452 | |
from head to heel
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Age: 42
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I may be a bad Roman Catholic by being unsure of this myself, but I'm really not practicing, so anyway... As far as I know (key phrase here), Moses isn't viewed as a messiah at all, not in the same vein as Jesus. Moses is mainly regarded as God's prophet, a leader and a voice of God to his people. All throughout the OT, there are recurring references (or at least, read as such) to the future arrival of a Messiah, who will hail from the line of David, etc., and this covenant becomes fulfilled with the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. With that, you are delving into the very nature of Jesus' existence, in that he is both wholly man and divine. There is no division in-between, nor a bringing together of two halves (like divine vs. human), as God himself simultaneously exists, indivisible into parts, yet distinct as three "entities" as one divine simple being. As "part" of that Trinity, the Son incarnate is Jesus Christ, and with that view Jesus holds much importance in Christian doctrine and faith, and thus why he is worshiped unlike Moses. I think the idea of the Trinity is what makes this confusing. (Heck, I don't really get it myself.) There are theological terms to get into, some contradictions or paradoxes perhaps, but all in all Jesus Christ represents much of the NT which is the main root of Christian doctrine, hence his significance in the practice of Christian faith. It doesn't necessarily mean that God (in a distinct sense) is outside of that faith at all. As for where that concept came from, the Church had all these meetings and councils regarding this, pondering on the various texts mainly from the New Testament. Last edited by kujoe; 2008-02-23 at 19:10. |
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2008-02-23, 18:56 | Link #453 | |
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I said it did lead to it, and now you have me completely lost . Last edited by Thentus; 2008-02-23 at 19:07. |
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2008-02-23, 19:21 | Link #455 | |||
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Frequently it seems like the organization (or just many in it?) try to convert Jews instead of simply bring them news of the Messiah... which doesn't make sense. If you do end up going, please let me know what you think. I'm really not sure how they operate in general (they aren't in my area), and I'm on the fence about the appropriateness of prosletysing to Jewish people, as it is. Quote:
Actually... I think you're mostly spot on. The best way I could summarize it is "They're wrong because they don't understand their own religion." (A truth that applies to this issue and many others.) But to expand on that, and cover the points where I slightly differ: Christians (properly, if not generally) see Jesus as a human animated by the Spirit of God, who did all his work (miracles included) as a man, and not with the power of God. In this sense, he's called both God as well as the "begotten son of God", but to hear a lot of Christians tell it, it would sound like God stepped down from heaven or actually had a kid. That and the idea of God being "split" is pretty much an inbreeding of ideas as the result of the linguistic inadequacy and ignorance. (The point of God animating human flesh with his own Spirit, as you probably well know, was to pay the ultimate penalty of sin so that no man would have to.) Jesus claimed to be God ("one with", "son of", however we want to put it in words), but in only indirect manners. Likewise, while making that claim, he pointed to the God, the "Father", as the only object of worship. Jesus instructed his followers to pray "in his name", but they were to pray to the Father, not him. That didn't seem to stop any one from worshipping or praying to him. Considering that he's understood to be alive rather than dead, I can see the argument for addressing (as a leader and friend, which he was to his disciples) or reverencing (as a king), but the line doesn't exist for a lot of Christians. *gigglesnort*
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2008-02-23, 22:35 | Link #458 |
Wise Otaku Seeker
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Philippines
Age: 34
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READING SO MANY PHRASES WITH SUCH UNDERSTANDING HAS GIVEN ME A NEW VISIONS IN LIFE
well thnaks hehe also miss Minh ty for any good comment you gave also hmm now that is almost about settled i keep on wondering on if we are able to unlock deep space travel what course would we take???? i mean i think there is life outside our solar system but when that heppens we are aold or dead soo man man i have soooooo many question but soo little time i just hope im alive if mankind is were able to meet alien life form |
2008-02-24, 01:40 | Link #459 |
It's the year 3030...
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Spaceport Colony Sicilia
Age: 39
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For the sake of saving time, I'm going to tackle only one aspect of which you spoke, while not specifically looking up the paragraphs in which you mentioned it.
One of your questions was (and I'm paraphrasing): Why do Christians spend so much time worshiping Jesus? That seems to be taking away from God. I believe you might have answered yourself in another of the paragraphs, when you mentioned this (paraphrasing again): God, in Christianity, is a representative of three beings; The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In a sense then, Christians give worship and praise to Jesus, because he represents the "Son" portion of the greater "God." It's not taking away from God, because Jesus is simply the portion of God sent to Earth to pay the ultimate price for man's sin. I'm with you in the point that I don't fully understand the Holy Trinity idea (especially the "Holy Ghost" bit), but I'm of the belief that the above reason is why people worship Jesus. Despite him being, for all intents and purposes, a human man, he is considered more than man, in the eyes of Christianity, because he was born of God. In that sense, worshiping Jesus and worshiping God are considered one in the same. If someone has greater knowledge of this idea, please feel free to elaborate, or correct me if I'm wrong.
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2008-02-24, 02:00 | Link #460 |
Obey the Darkly Cute ...
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: On the whole, I'd rather be in Kyoto ...
Age: 66
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No, after you cut out all the chaff -- that's about as clear as it gets. The three are one and each is separate yet a seamless part of the three. The best you can tag Trinity discussions with is that its "one of the mysteries" kind of like quantum mechanics -- if you think you grok it... you haven't grokked it. The best I've ever come up with is my diamond analogy for religion in general applied to the Trinity. You can see some of the facets and the sparkles but its impossible for mortals to see the whole diamond at once.
(caveat: I don't 'believe' in the Trinity, though I still use the diamond analogy for a model of many people finding "truths"/facets of the Truth -- kind of a Universalism armwave). I'll refrain from opining on the Trinity other than it was one of the many research moments in my life that started leading me on other paths.
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not a debate, philosophy, religion |
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