From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
Subject: Re: Stop thinking? (Was: Why I am an atheist)
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 03:31:45 GMT


Or, in which Steve Adams demonstrates the bredth of his heresy...;-)

hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:

>In article <adams.716138352@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
>>>In article <adams.716048092@spssig>, adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:

>>Calling me an iron-age nomad?  Should I be insulted? ;-)  I don't see why
>>strict monism is a bad thing.  Of course, it contradicts St. Paul, so that
>>causes problems in itself.

>There was a strain of thought in old-style Judaism that said: God made the
>world, he made us, he made everything, so what he says goes, and it's
>not your place to question it, bub.  See the last few chapters of Job for
>a Jewish writer's vision of what God might say to somebody who asks too
>many questions.  God screws up Job's life on a BET, and when Job
>complains, God essentially says, "I do what I want, and you live with it!"
Or at least, God allows Job's life to be screwed up on a bet.  I haven't
gone this far into monism, though it is a nice, tempting aproach: no
thought required! ;-)


>"Space-age cybernomad..." I like it! Maybe I'll put it in my .sig. Or if you
>want to, you can...or we both can!
Yeah, I like it!  It'll go in my .sig!

>Firstly - Jesus WAS God. See the "Christology 101" thread for details. 
>(I went and looked up the Nicene Creed and the formula of Chalcedon and
>discovered that most of the liberal Christians around here are heretics! :)
Yeah, so?  Haven't I freely admitted it?   I even agreed with "Hartigan's
Law"...begin called a heretic is kind of a badge of honor...;-)

>So we're still left with the problem of: why did God have to pay a price
>to himself? 
To fulfill his own rules of justice.  The price HAD to be paid.  There was
no other way to save humanity that was truly just.  This was the only way.
A God/Man combination.

>Third...in what way is having poor old J.C. pinned to a piece of wood
>a "payment" for sin? (I must say, these conversations are giving me a 
>better grasp of theology than a minister friend of mine...maybe!
Yeah, I have learned a lot here...now, I just have to make logical sense
out of my theology...;-)

JC, as you call him, was, in this version of the passion idea, the 'perfect
sacrifice', the 'sin offering' from the Deuteronomic laws.

>She keeps trying to get me to go to theology school. Oh well.)
Go.  Go!  Get a PhD in Theology...you'll definately shake some people up!

>> Basically, since only God can pay the price, but has no sin, the
>> incarnation allows a man (Jesus, who was fully human) to pay the price.
>> But Jesus was also God, or at least the divine presence was in Jesus.  
>                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
>The Apollinarian heresy!  <gasp>
Catching me in a heresy.  How novel.  Not. ;-)  But note, that I gave that
as an alternative...my belief is that Jesus WAS God, others disagree!

>>The
>>Creeds 'of one being with the father' statement talks about the Logos, not
>>Jesus as man.  The first chapter of John's Gospel pretty much sums this up.

>No, the Creeds don't say this! :)  They say "Jesus Christ" is "true God,"
>"of the same substance as the Father."  The _Logos_ stuff was kept out
>of the Creeds because the Arians used to talk like that...(or so says
>Kenneth Scott Latourette, who wrote the history of Christianity I am
>using)
Jesus is God.  But He is also man.  "Made incarnate by the Holy Spirit,
through the Virgin Mary".  So, the information contained in the Creed DOES
refer to the eternal Logos.

>>>He missed some pain - I did two hard workouts in the past two days and
>>>I think the only part of my carnal form that doesn't hurt is my hair...
>> 
>>Pain in this case is 'moral suffering'...at least as I see it.  Salvation
>>from the eternal pain of sin.

>Still, this kind of language is VERY fuzzy. How did he "take the pain of
>the world onto himself?"  A) Jesus was supposed to be sinless, so HE never
>felt the eternal pain of sin...B) A lot of sin is just good fun! 
>C) is pain some kind of "thing" etc. etc. etc... blah blah...
No, it was through his suffering and death on the cross that Jesus took all
of the 'pain' of sin onto himself...remember the OT sacrificial lamb.

>>>>I still maintain free-will exists, and as such, although God is
>>>>responsible for creating, I am responsible for separating myself from Him.
>>>        
>>>Well, maybe you're right and you ARE a miniature "first cause," capable of
>>>creating decisions _ex nihilo_, but I remain skeptical... :)  I still
>>>think GOD created everything. Call me a heretic if you wish...:)
>> 
>>Well, if you followed Paul Harvey's and my discussion on Genesis, this
>>might just be possible...creation continues, and man, in God's image,
>>assists in it...

>Well, this is so wildly heretical that I won't even bother calling you
>a heretic any more. :)  
Hey, I thought we had pretty much agreed that I was a heretic...so what's
new?

>Once you recognize human creativity, it is 
>darn tempting to think that maybe humans created.........God? And this
>whole cosmology?  Yikes!
"Let us make God in our image and likeness"...or somesuch thing.  I don't
buy this...God does exist.  Can I 'prove' it?  No.  Leap of faith.  Of
course, in that discussion, I never said that God didn't exist, or that God
didn't create the universe, just that we can affect it more and in different 
ways than most Christians would say.

>Hmmmmm......
Uh, Sean is thinking, look out...flash flood in his stream of
consciousness!

>Humans assisting with the creation. 
Assisting AFTER God created <<ex-nihilo>>.

>That means God is not the sole creator of the universe. 
Not the conclusion I drew, but a possible conclusion, nonetheless.

>He only created part of it...hmmmm....so 
>he is NOT the source of all goodness, then...just SOME of it. And if
>we can create independently, maybe we can do better than God! Maybe
>we can create a heaven on earth - maybe...maybe <gasp> we...don't...
>NEED...God!  
Hmm.  I don't think we can create independantly, but can shape our world to
make it better.

>Maybe our creations will be inherently BETTER than God's
>once we get our act together.  Hurray!  Steve, old buddy, you've moved out
>of the middle ages and into the Renaissance!  The next step, of course,
>is that if we are independent sources of value, than a God-centered
>ethic is not the only one possible. There are OTHER ways to judge good
>and bad besides the whims of that stodgy old Yahweh...
>..and the only reason to obey Yahweh, now, is FEAR.
This sounds about right...at least as AN explanation.  I don't think that
it is THE explanation.  You can't get me that easy!

>Hurray! We've just invented Fundamentalism! We've reached the modern
>age at last.  Fundamentalism, of course, is Christianity for the
>19th and 20th centuries. 

Or at least you've brought the conversation down the path...is there some
method to your madness? ;-)

>Looking back on that little odyssey, it is fascinating how inevitably
>one step leads to the next. I was just free-associating, to see what
>the ramifications of the free will doctrine you espouse are...and one
>step after another the conclusions followed the pattern of Western
>Christianity since the Renaissance.  I see why, now, St. Augustine 
>and Luther and those guys insisted on predestination.  The other way
>leads inevitably to the anti-intellectualism (believe or burn, baby!)
>of Fundamentalism.

>Comments?
You hit it pretty much on the head.  That's why I'm having a (pardon the
pun) devil of a time working out my theology...

>>Ah, but what do you think Hell is?  It is eternal separation from God.
>>That is the thing which most torments the soul.  "Fire" and "worms that
>>don't die" are metaphorical ways of describing intense torment.  Hell is
>>more of a state than a place. (Ack, I'm a heretic again!)
> 
>Well, we're getting used to it. 
We who?  You don't actually think that any mortal would actually wade through 
all this dreck, do you?

>Of course, there are a lot of people around who are happy sinners.  
Hmm, I suppose if Christie Brinkley were to magically appear in my bed
while my wife was away, I'd be a pretty happy sinner, too.  At least until
judgement...(appeal to fear!)

>(God, I'm a pain in the neck, aren't I?  Sorry -
>I'm just interested to see if a logical, consistent metaphysic is indeed
>extractable from your basic assumptions of "God exists" and "I have free
>will." So far.....:)
Yeah, I know.  I want to know if it is possible, too.  Otherwise I'd just
close my set of ideas and not discuss it at this level.  I'm treading on
dangerous ground, but I have to go over it, or I'll never be satisfied.
And, as with any dangerous groumd, I could fall into a pit, step on a
land-mine, run into an obsticle (named Sean!) or whatever.

>>>It sure cheers ME up to think that Paul's nutbar theology has no source
>>>other than his own happy, fanatical, epileptic little brain. However,
>>>I have to take this on faith! :)
>> 
>>And unless we find some common understanding of Paul, we're going to be
>>talking about this from now to the end of the net... (constantly predicted,
>>just like the end of the world...but noone knows the day or the hour!)

>This is exactly right. (about Paul, that is.)   If you accept Paul
>purely as an "existential choice" (i.e. I believe it because I WANT to)
>then there is no common ground. 
Appeal to authority?  Hmm.  That's a violation of logical thought isn't it.
Well, uhm, <squirm>, yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at right now.
Actually closer to "lots of people have accepted Paul, so I start there
too because of my basic religious upbringing."

It's a starting point.

>I start from the non-solipsism assumption (i.e. Paul was a human being like 
>me).  
No.  If Paul were like you, the theology would be easier...it might even be
logically consistant.  Shows what happens when someone falls off their
donkey in Syria.

>Then I ask, was he inspired or not? Then I look at various factors and come 
>to a tentative conclusion: I doubt it.  
I'd like to know why...granted, I appeal to 2000 years or so of tradition.
Why do you discard it?

>People have experiences near-identical to Paul's EVERY DAY.  I am inclined
>to think that Paul was just another Temporal Lobe Epileptic. There are lots
>of them around, lots of them think they're on a mission from God. 
Not knowing much about epilepsy, I can't comment on this beyond saying 'oh,
really?'

>>Yeah?  What if you're in MY dream!  Then it's you who's in real trouble.  I
>>liked you better as Elvis...;-)  [For those who didn't follow Sean's and my
>>last thread, never mind!]

>If this is YOUR dream, then you are the Creator of all I see....Yikes!
>That makes you.....God! Holy mackerel, sir, this is indeed an honour!

Well, on three occasions I have created life out of nothing...;-)  Does
that qualify?  (I seem to remember some heavy breathing in there too...hmm
the soul, my own Genesis story...ack, this is sounding like Paul Harvey's
birth analogy for Genesis!  Geesh, see what you do to me.)

>>Where does this get us?  Only back to the question of God's nature.  If the
>>Genesis story is simply allegorical, we can still learn about God's
>>revealed nature from it...back to the other thread with Paul Harvey on
>>Genesis 3.

>I have my own thoughts about Genesis 3 - English student thoughts. Big,
>important, SECRET, English student thoughts...:)

Oh yeah?  I bet that this big ol' secret it that Gen3 is, <gasp> POETRY!
Ahhhhhggghhh!!!...Run...hide the kids!  I've let his secret out of the bag!


>>>Seriously, though, this is a big one for Christianity. The easy way is
>>>of course to call everyone else's religious experiences "Satanic."

>>Easy but dishonest...for it could be Christians who are deceived...just ask
>>the average Muslim man on the street. ;-)

>The best comment I've seen on this subject yet. Short and to the point.
>Mind if I quote you? 

Not at all.  Go ahead.

>>>Thank you for taking the time, Mr. First Cause. :)  I found your
>>>answers both entertaining and informative. <bow>
>> 
>> You're welcome....anything to add, he asks, knowing Sean won't be able to
>> resist...;-)

>>>Thank you for taking the time, Mr. First Cause. :)  I found your
>>>answers both entertaining and informative. <bow>
>> 
>> You're welcome....anything to add, he asks, knowing Sean won't be able to
>> resist...;-)

>Come on, tell me AGAIN that there's such thing as free will! Even YOU don't
>believe it! :)

Keep it up.  Some day you might even get me to say it exactly that way...

>Space-age cybernomad, English student, veteran of 1,000 psychic wars...
>..and I STILL can't find my car keys!
You too?  Damn.  That problem is more widespread than I thought!

 -Steve
--
 The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                        -------------------
     adams@spss.com                           Phone: (312) 329-3522
     Steve Adams   "Space-age cybernomad"     Fax:   (312) 329-3558