This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Live
PTR
10.2.7
PTR
10.2.6
Beta
Organized Religion, the Bible and the Will of God
Post Reply
Return to board index
Post by
asakawa
Yes,
those
people, but they were unlikely to be investigating the subject anyway. It's when the attitude extends into politics and then directs future funding and so on that I have a real problem and feel that it diminishes humanity in a very real way.
Post by
Eccentrica
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
Post by
Eccentrica
Just because something has a natural explanation doesn't mean it wasn't God's doing.
Just because you believe in god doesn't make it real.
Post by
Monday
Just because something has a natural explanation doesn't mean it wasn't God's doing.
And this is the point where I have absolutely no abrasion with religion at all. If we can all agree on core concepts but interpret them differently, then I am just happy with the agreement. Personally I don't feel that a deity is needed behind everything we observe but while we're agreeing on the observation, I won't argue with someone else's interpretation.
I heard a good quote once, something about science being the how and God being the why. It might have been posted on here already, though I heard it a couple years ago.
It's a good phrase and could apply here, imo. Too many religious people take the Bible far too literally, which I feel it shouldn't be. However, if one places it alongside science, it opens up stunning vistas.
Post by
Gone
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
No, he's suggesting that God created people and their conscience is his design, whether they believe in him or not.
Post by
Gone
Just because something has a natural explanation doesn't mean it wasn't God's doing.
Just because you believe in god doesn't make it real.
Obviously?
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Eccentrica
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
No, he's suggesting that God created people and their conscience is his design, whether they believe in him or not.
So your average work-a-day Christian believes that god has imbued all people with morality, whether they believe in him or not, and whether or not they worship other gods?
Post by
Gone
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
No, he's suggesting that God created people and their conscience is his design, whether they believe in him or not.
So your average work-a-day Christian believes that god has imbued all people with morality, whether they believe in him or not, and whether or not they worship other gods?
Everybody believes different things, so I can't attest to that. I'm fairly certain that MyTie believes that our morality was a crafted by God. I personally believe, and have stated before, that everything is more or less a product of God's grand design, so human conscience would obviously be included in that.
Post by
Eccentrica
Well, I'm really not trying to be difficult here, but I'm struggling to see the point of the whole 'Organized' part of Organized Religion. If we are all imbued with the grace of god, regardless of who we are and what we believe, and he loves us all and so on and so on, then why all the physical stuff, the buildings, the iconography etc, and why the need for all the staff?
Post by
Gone
Well, I'm really not trying to be difficult here, but I'm struggling to see the point of the whole 'Organized' part of Organized Religion. If we are all imbued with the grace of god, regardless of who we are and what we believe, and he loves us all and so on and so on, then why all the physical stuff, the buildings, the iconography etc, and why the need for all the staff?
It gives people a sense of community and a place to congregate. Some people believe there's something to be said for paying tribute to the creator. I guess I would say, why not the physical stuff, the buildings, the iconography, etc? There is also a lot of good done by organized religious institutions. They feed the hungry, they cloth the homeless, etc.
Post by
Eccentrica
There is also a lot of good done by organized religious institutions. They feed the hungry, they cloth the homeless, etc.
And an awful lot of evil, so lets just call that even. I will concede the good works done, but I can't turn a blind eye to the other stuff either.
Post by
134377
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
There is also a lot of good done by organized religious institutions. They feed the hungry, they cloth the homeless, etc.
And an awful lot of evil, so lets just call that even. I will concede the good works done, but I can't turn a blind eye to the other stuff either.
I wouldn't say it's even at all. There's much more good done by organized religion on a day to day basis than evil. The crusades, and the Inquisition and the like were centuries ago. The atrocities committed in the Middle East are only permitted because of the vulture of some countries, it's not condoned by any mainstream Islamic churches. You can't compare the day to day actions of millions, maybe billions of people with the actions of a few extremists.
I feed the hungry, and clothe the homeless, often at the same time, but as an organization of one.
Just because it can be done on a singular or secular level, doesn't erase the good that the church does. And the fact is, as a community people are capable of doing more good than a single individual. One man can buy a homeless person a meal, a whole community can built him a house, that kind of thing.
Post by
MyTie
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
If my objective measure of morality is corret (The Bible), then yes. To believe in the objective measure of morality as The Bible is to be a Christian. You are, in a sense, asking me if I am a Christian. One cannot subscribe to both the idea that God made the one code of morality, and fashioned Christ after it, and that it is also a moral thing to find your own definitions of right and wrong. Although, that wasn't the point of what I was saying earlier, you aren't going to find me regurgitating the same old lines about "we all find right for ourselves, and that's cool", nor will I be intimidated into saying such.
God's moral code is not only superior to man's moral code, but man has no authority, nor ability to create reliable moral code. History has shown us that repeatedly.
Post by
Eccentrica
It is thanks to morality, which
is
God, that we have a society that allows me to sit with my family in peace. Direct or not, God made it possible. I'm thankful to Him for that.
Are you suggesting that only people who believe in your god are capable of being moral?
If my objective measure of morality is corret (The Bible), then yes. To believe in the objective measure of morality as The Bible is to be a Christian. You are, in a sense, asking me if I am a Christian. One cannot subscribe to both the idea that God made the one code of morality, and fashioned Christ after it, and that it is also a moral thing to find your own definitions of right and wrong.
So, then in your opinion Mahatma Ghandi and the Dalai Lama were/are incapable of moral behaviour / immoral?
Post by
MyTie
So, then in your opinion Mahatma Ghandi and the Dalai Lama were/are incapable of moral behaviour / immoral?
Reductio ad absurdum
. But, yes, it holds true. I believe in The Bible. Not sometimes. Not when popular. I believe God set down a moral code, and to reject it is to arrive at a place of unrighteousness. This is what Christianity is. Is this news to you? Perhaps you are just used to having people soften it to appear nicer, or something. Although, some people who don't follow God, act in ways that God has prescribed, whether intentionally following God or not, and so their actions are righteous. For example, Ghandi's selflessness, and love for neighbor.
Post by
Gone
So, then in your opinion Mahatma Ghandi and the Dalai Lama were/are incapable of moral behaviour / immoral?
Reductio ad absurdum
. But, yes, it holds true. I believe in The Bible. Not sometimes. Not when popular. I believe God set down a moral code, and to reject it is to arrive at a place of unrighteousness. This is what Christianity is. Is this news to you? Perhaps you are just used to having people soften it to appear nicer, or something. Although, some people who don't follow God, act in ways that God has prescribed, whether intentionally following God or not, and so their actions are righteous. For example, Ghandi's selflessness, and love for neighbor.
What about people who have never been exposed to Christianity? What about the hundreds of generations of Native Americans that never heard a word of scripture before four hundred years ago?
Post by
MyTie
What about people who have never been exposed to Christianity? What about the hundreds of generations of Native Americans that never heard a word of scripture before four hundred years ago?
Now, see that's a tough question. I know what the Bible says. In order to go to Heaven, one must do X. The native Americans (and others) didn't know X, so did they automatically get denied Heaven?
My answer is kind of two part. First, I never say whether someone else is going to go to Heaven or Hell. It simply isn't my judgment to make. Second, God is a God of grace, and forgiveness, and understanding. At the same time, He is a God of righteousness. When Jesus came to Earth, He was mainly pissed off, not at those who didn't believe in God, but at those who said they did, who knew better, but used the faith like a business. He was uber angry at them, and talked about that all the time. So, I'm really less worried about Native Americans than I am Catholics, but, again, none of them have my approval nor disapproval. All I can say, is that the Bible says you must do X to go to Heaven, so do X, and I'll do my best to set a good example. As a Christian, I really have enough to worry about keeping my own soul safe, and I don't have time to pass judgment on entire populations.
Post by
Hyperspacerebel
So, I'm really less worried about Native Americans than I am Catholics...
lol
Post Reply
You are not logged in. Please
log in
to post a reply or
register
if you don't already have an account.