Looking for a good christian church

[Jon]

Have you ever noticed how the Theists never mention what Caused their "God." If all things must be have a cause, then their "God" should have a cause as well. If their "God" is uncaused, then why can't other things be uncauses as well? The Theists never mention why he is the exception to the rule.

 

Let's grant them that God is simply the 1st cause. This hardly seems consistent with the attributes they bestow upon their diety: omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence.

Exactly. Those attributes are all Anthropomorphisms.

 

Of course a mischievous choice of answer would incite a predictable Bun Fight. Namely, that 'The First Cause' caused God, via human agency. 

 

 

@

[Guest Guest]

Exactly. Those attributes are all Anthropomorphisms.

 

Of course a mischievous choice of answer would incite a predictable Bun Fight. Namely, that 'The First Cause' caused God, via human agency. 

 

 

@

 

I think simply mentioning that man created "God" causes some theists heads to explode.

 

 

@

[Jon]

I think simply mentioning that man created "God" causes some theists heads to explode.  

 

Here I have to disagree. It causes all theists heads to explode!  

 

 

@

[Guest Guest]

Jesse Ventura put it best: Religion is the crutch of those who are mentally weak.

[Jon]

 

Jesse Ventura put it best: Religion is the crutch of those who are mentally weak.

I think a lot of it comes down to definitions and traditions. If one were to un-bolt all the religious accessories that have accumulated over centuries like a stifling crust, then what would be left might still resemble a stripped down core 'religion' of sorts ... but more like a rational code of conduct that keeps us working in tune with reality based objectively on testable evidence, not on mythology. 

[Guest Guest]

� If one were to un-bolt all the religious accessories that have accumulated over centuries like a stifling crust, then what would be left might still resemble a stripped down core 'religion' of sorts ...

 

...but the stripped down "core" came from that "stifling crust".....hmmmm.

[Jon]

...but the stripped down "core" came from that "stifling crust".....hmmmm.

AFC, I would have thought that you would be pleased to observe that even your resident 'Heretic/Satanist' (as you never tire of describing me) concedes to at least some underpinning to reality.

 

And no, any 'core' I have in mind would have existed in its own right long before Man came along and decided to encrust it, and would endure autonomously even if Man's encrustments were to be removed (which I advocate).

 

It's as if you believe that nothing coherent existed before Man decided to launch his crust-fest. I disagree.

 

 

I now wait with 'bated breath for you to dissect what I've written, separating sentences from each other so you can attack each completely out of context. Do your stuff, AFC! You owe it to your public.  

[Guest Guest]

Jesse Ventura put it best: Religion is the crutch of those who are mentally weak.

 

Actually, those of us who are religious do not need crutches. We have inner strength to face the trials that come our way. We're not perfect but as long as we are humble, we can have daily inspiration that gives us the strength we need.

 

I'm sure someone will mock this post - it is politically correct to do so. Doesn't matter though - I can handle it.

[Guest KoD]

And no, any 'core' I have in mind would have existed in its own right long before Man came along and decided to encrust it, and would endure autonomously even if Man's encrustments were to be removed (which I advocate).

 

It's as if you believe that nothing coherent existed before Man decided to launch his crust-fest. I disagree.

 

Jon, an interesting statement, you seem to have at least some common ground with Plato, and his notion of forms.

 

In regards to the earlier discussion you had with another guest regarding first cause, and anthropomorphisms applied to God, it raises an interesting point. Joseph Campbell, who apparently did believe in some form of God, said the true nature of God is a mystery that transcends all categories of thought and language. To the unimaginative a concept like that may sound like rubbish, yet, we need look no further than the underpinnings of mathematics in set theory and logic for some very strange fish. Case in point, the Incompleteness Theorem of Godel, and in fact at least one example of his result exists. So, that is something which could well be true, yet we have no way to establish that truth logically from our current set of axioms. And we have the notion of category vs. set, where like a set, a category contains stuff, yet is not a set. So whereas the idea of the set of all sets leads to a paradox, we may logically speak of the category of all sets. So, in a sense, while a useful construct, a category goes beyond the boundaries of a set, yet has set-like behaviour which would appear to be at best illogical.

 

An interesting assertion is mathematics would exist whether or not there was any physical universe. The same cannot be said of space, and not even time. So, if mathematics could conceivably exist even as an abstraction independent of any physical dimension, or for that matter, even an intelligent beholder of mathematics, that it does raise the possibility other such independent abstractions exist as well.

[Guest a convert]

Like it or not - atheism IS a religion.

 

It's for people too proud to admit that there is anything greater than themselves.

Too proud to admit that they are not capable of understanding or explaining "everything".

 

Perhaps their religion can refute the documented eucharistic miracles.

Maybe they can explain why the bodies of the incorruptable saints have not decomposed years after their death.

I'm sure they have an explanation for the apparitions in Medjugorge (forgive me if I have misspelled)

 

Google any of the above subjects if any of you omniscient among us need additional info.

 

 

[Jon]

Actually, those of us who are religious do not need crutches. We have inner strength to face the trials that come our way. We're not perfect but as long as we are humble, we can have daily inspiration that gives us the strength we need. 

 

I'm sure someone will mock this post - it is politically correct to do so. Doesn't matter though - I can handle it.

You won't find me mocking it. If it gives you inner strength it shouldn't matter too much where it comes from. All I've ever opposed really is people who progress beyond that to become militant and judgmental, brow-beating others to submit to cookie-cutting of the Evangelist's choosing, and sometimes even further to inflict atrocities in the name of religion. If you don't do any of that, then who should begrudge you?  

[Guest Guest]

Actually, those of us who are religious do not need crutches. We have inner strength to face the trials that come our way. We're not perfect but as long as we are humble, we can have daily inspiration that gives us the strength we need.

 

I'm sure someone will mock this post - it is politically correct to do so. Doesn't matter though - I can handle it.

 

I would argue that you do use religion as a crutch. It is a coping mechanism. Similar to the way an alcoholic uses alcohol to deal with reality.

 

Your argument is about as valid as alcoholics having the inner strength to face the trials in their lives.

[Jon]

 

Like it or not - atheism IS a religion.

 

It's for people too proud to admit that there is anything greater than themselves.

Too proud to admit that they are not capable of understanding or explaining "everything".

 

Perhaps their religion can refute the documented eucharistic miracles.

Maybe they can explain why the bodies of the incorruptable saints have not decomposed years after their death.

I'm sure they have an explanation for the apparitions in Medjugorge (forgive me if I have misspelled)

 

Google any of the above subjects if any of you omniscient among us need additional info.

With respect, convert, your assertions seem emotionally driven.

 

If you check back beginning at p15 here, Uncle Geo and I had some thoughtful exchanges about the nature of Atheism. For now I can't improve much on thoughts exchanged there ... not unless you come back with your reactions after browsing those exchanges (that scatter through subsequent pages). 

 

As it stands, you attribute a number of thoughts to Atheists that frankly do not apply. 

[Guest Guest]

Like it or not - atheism IS a religion.

 

It's for people too proud to admit that there is anything greater than themselves.

Too proud to admit that they are not capable of understanding or explaining "everything".

 

Perhaps their religion can refute the documented eucharistic miracles.

Maybe they can explain why the bodies of the incorruptable saints have not decomposed years after their death.

I'm sure they have an explanation for the apparitions in Medjugorge (forgive me if I have misspelled)

 

Google any of the above subjects if any of you omniscient among us need additional info.

 

Atheism by definition, is the absence of theism.

 

Let's look at your logic a little closer and apply it to something similar:

 

If you are a Christian, does your lack of belief in the Hindu God Ganesh make you a Hinduist?

[Guest Guest]

AFC, I would have thought that you would be pleased to observe that even your resident 'Heretic/Satanist' (as you never tire of describing me) concedes to at least some underpinning to reality.

 

I'm happy.

 

And no, any 'core' I have in mind would have existed in its own right long before Man came along and decided to encrust it, and would endure autonomously even if Man's encrustments were to be removed (which I advocate). It's as if you believe that nothing coherent existed before Man decided to launch his crust-fest. I disagree. I now wait with 'bated breath for you to dissect what I've written, separating sentences from each other so you can attack each completely out of context. Do your stuff, AFC! You owe it to your public.

 

Now this is the crux of it all, Jon. Of course, the TRUTH has always existed. In the same token, Jesus Christ has always existed, even BEFORE His Nativity. Likewise, The Virgin Mary, THE Immaculate Conception was chosen 4,000 years BEFORE she was conceived, formed in the womb by the Hand of God, to be the Vessel of the New Covenant. Truth has existed before human interaction with it. Up to this point I think we are in agreement.

 

Jesus Christ was God-Man. Fully God and Fully Human at the same time and without any sin.

God the Father chose Mary, full of Grace - a human, to bring His only begotten Son into the world.

 

Then we have in the Gospels:

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

 

Luke 10:16

 

16"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

_________

 

Those that reject the Apostles reject Christ and the One that sent Christ? How can that be? The Apostles were just average human beings and anybody rejects them rejects God? Yep! You spit on the Apostles, you spit on Christ. But the Apostles are just HUMANS!?!?! Yep. human being represents Christ? YEP. Likewise, the POPE is the VICAR of Christ.

 

Jon, Sacred Tradition, the "stifling crust" you condemn, gave us the written Word of God, the Bible. If it wasn't for that stifling crust, we wouldn't have the written word of God.

 

The bible is a product of the Catholic Church and the "stifling crust"

 

 

 

 

 

 

�

[Guest Guest]

Now this is the crux of it all, Jon. Of course, the TRUTH has always existed. In the same token, Jesus Christ has always existed, even BEFORE His Nativity. Likewise, The Virgin Mary, THE Immaculate Conception was chosen 4,000 years BEFORE she was conceived, formed in the womb by the Hand of God, to be the Vessel of the New Covenant. Truth has existed before human interaction with it. Up to this point I think we are in agreement.

 

Jesus Christ was God-Man. Fully God and Fully Human at the same time and without any sin.

God the Father chose Mary, full of Grace - a human, to bring His only begotten Son into the world.

 

Then we have in the Gospels:

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

 

Luke 10:16

 

16"He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."

_________

 

Those that reject the Apostles reject Christ and the One that sent Christ? How can that be? The Apostles were just average human beings and anybody rejects them rejects God? Yep! You spit on the Apostles, you spit on Christ. But the Apostles are just HUMANS!?!?! Yep. human being represents Christ? YEP. Likewise, the POPE is the VICAR of Christ.

 

Jon, Sacred Tradition, the "stifling crust" you condemn, gave us the written Word of God, the Bible. If it wasn't for that stifling crust, we wouldn't have the written word of God.

 

The bible is a product of the Catholic Church and the "stifling crust"

 

I doubt Jon (or any realist) will be persuaded by your circular logic.

[Uncle Geo]

Wow ... I go away for a few days and come back to this ... basically finding a lot of people missing the whole point of "First Cause" and caught up in a debate about spelling. First Cause = Supreme Being = Creator = God = XYZ ... etc

 

Let me submit the following ... giving credit to Fr. Jarrett, a Dominican priest who died in 1934 ... (So, he was a priest, that doesn't mean that you should automatically close your mind to what he said.)

 

"When we say God is everywhere, we mean that He is in all things ... By Him things have come into existence, and so wholly is that existence of theirs His gift, that were He to withdraw His support, they would sink back into nothingness.

 

God ... is within all creation because He is its cause. He is within every stone and leaf and child. Nothing, with life or without, evil or good, can fail to contain Him as the source of its energy, its power, its existence, He is the soul's soul."

 

Additionally ... I've read the postings supporting Atheism ... can't say that I understand all of them ... but I can say that I don't think any of them have met the level needed to prove their contention.

[Guest Guest]

I doubt Jon (or any realist) will be persuaded by your circular logic.

 

I'm not about persuasion. You either accept or reject what I put down.

[Jon]

Jon, an interesting statement, you seem to have at least some common ground with Plato, and his notion of forms.

 

In regards to the earlier discussion you had with another guest regarding first cause, and anthropomorphisms applied to God, it raises an interesting point. Joseph Campbell, who apparently did believe in some form of God, said the true nature of God is a mystery that transcends all categories of thought and language. To the unimaginative a concept like that may sound like rubbish, yet, we need look no further than the underpinnings of mathematics in set theory and logic for some very strange fish. Case in point, the Incompleteness Theorem of Godel, and in fact at least one example of his result exists. So, that is something which could well be true, yet we have no way to establish that truth logically from our current set of axioms. And we have the notion of category vs. set, where like a set, a category contains stuff, yet is not a set. So whereas the idea of the set of all sets leads to a paradox, we may logically speak of the category of all sets. So, in a sense, while a useful construct, a category goes beyond the boundaries of a set, yet has set-like behaviour which would appear to be at best illogical.

 

An interesting assertion is mathematics would exist whether or not there was any physical universe. The same cannot be said of space, and not even time. So, if mathematics could conceivably exist even as an abstraction independent of any physical dimension, or for that matter, even an intelligent beholder of mathematics, that it does raise the possibility other such independent abstractions exist as well.

 

KoD, it's also interesting to note that Mathematics embodies truths that become Tautologies when distilled down to their simplest forms ... self-evident and inviolate. Yet the Universe knows nothing at all of Mathematics ... that is a logical framework, an overlay that Man has developed to superimpose upon reality to make it comprehensible and predictable. As such it has served us potently if not always 'well'. If Man becomes extinct Mathematics may perish with him, but the Universe will not notice even slightly.

 

As you seem to say, Mathematics is an abstraction that (in our presence) seems not only intrinsically self-sustaining but also may not be the only such abstraction. Although less tractable to proof, Religion could well be another, such that what the Universe knows of Mathematics it also knows of God. 

 

What I find absorbing is that in the hands of some, religious discussions so easily veer toward impartial Philosophy. Historically that should come as little surprise, because long before Plato or any other renowned thinkers, Religion actually constituted Man's first faltering attempt at Philosophy. As such, religion served a useful purpose to 'get the ball rolling'. Since then Philosophy itself has matured in its own right and become sophisticated. Along the way it and religion have diverged somewhat, inasmuch as religion has remained preoccupied with 'what' to think whereas Philosophy strives to refine 'how' to think. So ironically for Religion and Philosophy to re-encounter now suggests that at least one of the two may be returning 'home'.

 

Little wonder also that the Religious 'have more answers', whereas Philosophers have more questions. Answers without questions can be wrong. Questions without answers can be right.

 

Bumper Sticker time! 

 

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." ~ Bertrand Russell.

 

"A wise man sometimes changes his mind. A fool never does". ~ Anon.

 

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." ~ Anon     

 

 

 

 

@

[Jon]

 

Wow ... I go away for a few days and come back to this ... basically finding a lot of people missing the whole point of "First Cause" and caught up in a debate about spelling. First Cause = Supreme Being = Creator = God = XYZ ... etc

 

Let me submit the following ... giving credit to Fr. Jarrett, a Dominican priest who died in 1934 ... (So, he was a priest, that doesn't mean that you should automatically close your mind to what he said.)

 

"When we say God is everywhere, we mean that He is in all things ... By Him things have come into existence, and so wholly is that existence of theirs His gift, that were He to withdraw His support, they would sink back into nothingness.

 

God ... is within all creation because He is its cause. He is within every stone and leaf and child. Nothing, with life or without, evil or good, can fail to contain Him as the source of its energy, its power, its existence, He is the soul's soul."

 

Additionally ... I've read the postings supporting Atheism ... can't say that I understand all of them ... but I can say that I don't think any of them have met the level needed to prove their contention.

Whether we call it 'God' or any other name, it would permeate every particle of the Universe. Anyone can accept that, including Atheists. Whether it invisibly 'tut-tuts' over our shoulder when we open to the centerfold of a raunchy magazine is where Atheists might disagree.

 

... but I can say that I don't think any of them have met the level needed to prove their contention.

Any Logician will tell us that we can't prove/disprove a negative in the same way that we can prove/disprove a positive. That's Logic 101. It's also a blessed refuge for those intent on selling False Positives. 

[Guest Guest]

I'm not about persuasion. You either accept or reject what I put down.

 

Don't you find it somewhat curious that we know so much about the birth and his adult years of this God-Man... but so little about his childhood? Don't you think if people knew at the time he was born that he was this God-Man, they would have chronicled his ENTIRE life better?

 

It seems his early life is briefly mentioned (or fabricated?) by later writers to "confirm" that he fulfilled prophecies about the Messiah and to establish the background for his ministry.

 

 

@

[Uncle Geo]

Whether we call it 'God' or any other name, it would permeate every particle of the Universe. Anyone can accept that, including Atheists. Whether it invisibly 'tut-tuts' over our shoulder when we open to the centerfold of a raunchy magazine is where Atheists might disagree.

 

If anyone can believe in "God" who permeates every particle of the universe ... A Creator who made everything ... A Supreme Being beyond our imagination, capable of anything, then why do Atheists insist in limiting the power of that Being?

 

So Atheists actually do believe in God ... First Cause ... The Creator ... XYZ ... yes?

 

[Jon]

 

The bible is a product of the Catholic Church and the "stifling crust"

Whether it was The Catholic Church or the World Order Of Decayed Gentlewomen who produced the 'crust' makes no difference ... a crust it remains, ignorant of underlying essence of all existence. Such a crust does nothing to honor that essence ... but rather misrepresents it and even trivializes it. You have just spent numerous words to both miss my point and simultaneously reinforce it. That takes talent. 

[Guest Guest]

If anyone can believe in "God" who permeates every particle of the universe ... A Creator who made everything ... A Supreme Being beyond our imagination, capable of anything, then why do Atheists insist in limiting the power of that Being?

 

So Atheists actually do believe in God ... First Cause ... The Creator ... XYZ ... yes?

 

No. Whereas you think the universe was created by some intelligent force... many athiests happen to believe the universe happened without some intelligent force driving it.

[Jon]

If anyone can believe in "God" who permeates every particle of the universe ... A Creator who made everything ... A Supreme Being beyond our imagination, capable of anything, then why do Atheists insist in limiting the power of that Being?

Rather than a 'God' ... instead the one source without which nothing else could exist. Earlier I debated in exhaustive detail the merits or otherwise of prejudicial terms like 'God' and 'Supreme Being'.

 

... why do Atheists insist in limiting the power of that Being?

Exactly the opposite in all respects, Uncle Geo! Atheists more than anyone else refuse to limit the power of 'that Being'. By stark contrast Religions do limit its power by their very attempts to define it. That which is defined becomes finite. Even applying the word 'infinite' fails to free it from confinement of definition itself. 

 

So Atheists actually do believe in God ... First Cause ... The Creator ... XYZ ... yes?

Atheists do not rule out a 'First Cause'... and they don't elaborate.