From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Stop thinking? (Was: Why I am an atheist)
Date: 10 Sep 92 17:39:20 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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:
> 
> Atheists get it from all sides.

Especially if you're a kind of existentialist atheist who denies ultimate
validity to concepts like "human rights." The humanist atheists don't even
like that one.
 
>>Kind of a "might makes right" approach to the universe. Understandable for
>>iron-age nomads to find this attractive - but I thought that somehow
>>we had moved beyond that....maybe not...
> 
> 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!"

I guess I thought you were advocating this kind of approach to evil. Sorry
if I was wrong...you might be a space-age cybernomad, but you're definitely
not an IRON age nomad. :)
 
"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!
 
>>How can one "assume" someone else's sin? 
> 
> 'Assume' is perhaps a poor word.  How about the fact that noone here can
> pay the price to God for their sin, only God can pay the price, but He has
> no sin.  Thus, by creating a man who had the full humanity as Jesus did,
> with the coexistence of God, there was a way to pay the price...

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! :)
So we're still left with the problem of: why did God have to pay a price
to himself? 
 
Second...since an omnipotent God DEFINES consequences, there was no need 
for any price to be paid, anyway. 

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!
She keeps trying to get me to go to theology school. Oh well.)

>>>    2. The above mentioned sacrifice theory, where Jesus offers Himself (as
>>>       God and man) as a sacrifice to the Father on behlaf of humanity;
> 
>>Strikes me as a bit kooky. Since Jesus and the Father are One, con-substantial,
>>etc. etc., that means God is sacrificing himself to himself to appease 
>>himself.  "I'm feeling kind of schizophrenic today. And so am I!"
> 
> 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>
 
> 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)
 
>>>    3. The Passion was a act of pure love, God's choice to share human 
>>>       suffering and to take all the pain of the world onto himself;
> 
>>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...
 
>>> 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. :)  Once you recognize human creativity, it is 
darn tempting to think that maybe humans created.........God? And this
whole cosmology?  Yikes!

Hmmmmm......

Humans assisting with the creation. That means God is not the sole 
creator of the universe. 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!  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.

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. 

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?

>>See Ken Bell's post on this very subject. In my finite life, how could I
>>possibly do anything worthy of infinite punishment? What is so bad about 
>>separating oneself from God? Why is it worthy of infinite punishment?
>>Jeez, if God was as great as all that, you'd think that the self-imposed
>>separation would be punishment enough...
> 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. Of course, there are a lot of people around 
who are happy sinners.  (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.....:)
 
>>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. I start from the non-solipsism
assumption (i.e. Paul was a human being like me).  Then I ask, 
was he inspired or not? Then I look at various factors and come to a 
tentative conclusion: I doubt it.  I have read letters from a guy who
claims that he IS God.  I have no more reason to believe him than I do Paul.
"Two men say they're Jesus, ONE of 'em must be wrong..." (Dire Straits)
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. 
 
> 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!
 
> 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...:)

>>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? 

>>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! :)
 
Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Space-age cybernomad, English student, veteran of 1,000 psychic wars...
..and I STILL can't find my car keys!

"Are you a sceptic, then?"
"Never, my dear. Scepticism is the beginning of Faith."
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc