From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Christians as human beings [WAS: Why I am an atheis/Christian...]
Date: 3 Sep 92 11:22:02 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <sbuckley.715472495@sfu.ca>, sbuckley@fraser.sfu.ca (Stephen Buckley) writes:
> 
> hartigan@ac.dal.ca writes:
> 
>>Stephen Buckley writes:
>>> 
>>>   well.  good question.  god in me is the conviction and the wisdom and 
>>> guidance in my heart that is the spirit [trinity v.3] while in prayer,
>>> listening to my minister's sermon or the words of a friend in
>>> conversation, reading the bible, reading another book, looking at
>>> canada geese flying past my apartment window, during these times
>>> and many others, something goes "ding" inside my heart. 
> 
>>Could you elaborate on this "ding?" :)
> 
>   i feel god talking to me.  that's the ding.  it is a spiritual
> experience of intense proportions where what was once cluttered and
> confusing gets shaken up and straightened out and concluded and it
> feel better that i am free from the perplexity of an issue.  i met a woman
> once with whom i fell i in love in roughly 2 hours.  the first moment
> i saw her i felt like the hand of god came from out yonder, grabbed my
> head and pointed to this woman entering my living room with my roomate.
> i was in love by the end of dinner.  at that time i wasn't a christian
> and i desparately seeking god.  at that time i was in quantum physics
[text deleted]

Hmmm!  Here's what I think. The life of the Christian is much the same as
anybody else's life, only the Christian interprets things differently. This
gives him/her a background of "confirming" experiences on which to base
further interpretations. You will no doubt disagree.


>>This happens to me all the time, not with sermons, but rather with books
>>and poems etc.  Yet the insights often have nothing to do with Christianity,
>>and indeed may in fact undermine belief in Christianity. I don't think this
>>phenomenon has anything supernatural about it, really. 
> 
>   neither did i until i came to understand god's nature and how he works in
> my life.  that root cosmic harmony that jungians and fizzicists seek in
> synchronicity and natural laws in the universe is created by god.  i used
> to call it synchronicity, but i know better now.  it's god's intervention.

This is exactly what I mean. You interpreted your first "experiences" with
God according to your background. This helped build a bigger, self-confirming
background that just keeps on getting stronger and stronger as you 
interpret more and more of your life according to it. Since your doctrine
is unfalsifiable, there is little danger of running into any difficulties.
You should have a long and happy life.

Of course, maybe God really does exist, is doing all this, etc. Maybe...
Very difficult for me to tell!

>>Maybe...although since the same phenomenon occurs to me in a non-christian
>>context I am a bit skeptical that this is God at work. :)  Seems to me like
>>ordinary intelligence and coincidence. We do not notice the thousand 
>>sentences we read that do not address the issue in our minds at the
>>moment - but the one that does strikes us as fortunate. If my brain
>>is wrestling with Christian problems, it is pretty likely that I will
>>hear things that relate to my problem in a sermon...
> 
>   and the phenomena occured when i wasn't a christian too.  except now
> it happens along with a spiritual peace, soothing, love, forgiveness,
> empowerment, and polite kick in the bum incentive to act--all of which
> were absent before when the synchronicities were merely intellectual
> phenomena.  the rest comes from being with god.  and it doesn't affect
> my christian problems.  in fact most of the things in which god inspires
> and intervenes in my life with wisdom have to do with how i'm living
> my life, not christian dogma or religious issues.  it's 90% practical life
> and the rest christian issues.

Well, your practical life is a "Christian problem," I would guess. 
Are you living right, etc, etc.   Well - it makes sense to me that when
an internal difficulty in your conceptual world comes unravelled you feel
better and ready to act. Again, this is pretty normal stuff. You just
look at it through "God-coloured glasses." And maybe you're right!

Re: Christian jargon

>>This is extremely interesting, and it explains a lot. Thanks for the
>>look into another's mind. :)  It is a kind of self-reinforcing cycle, isn't
>>it?   If a Christian comes on saying "God told me this, God did that..."
>>it raises the hackles of every non-Christian in earshot. Here's why: 
>>it sounds like self-serving bullshit. And in a sense it is..because 
>>usually what they mean is "I had a feeling that this was really right, and
>>Christian doctrine tells me that when I get this feeling, it's God." 
> 
>   no.  it's not christian doctrine.  it is the dependable experience
> of christians who have a track record of a relationship with god.

In other words, a personal experience built up out of repeated interpretations
of experience in Christian terms. I'm starting to see what you mean - for
the Christian, it seems TRUE to say "God did this, God did that..." because
they have a wealth of personal experience that apparently confirms that
hypothesis. 

I'm saying: Why don't they admit it's a hypothesis? You're saying: They no
longer think it's a hypothesis, they think it's true, based on perhaps
years of personal experience. Am I on the right track?

>> Christians often come across as intolerably smug. Not all - 
>>but often. Every time they find their car keys or figure out a problem
>>it's "God did this, God told me, I just followed God..."   See why this
>>might irritate?  There's nothing persecutory about it.
> 
>   intolerable, or even tolerable smugness is rude and should be avoided
> by christians and non-christians alike.  lovingly help christians by
> telling them supportively that what you hear as smugness hurts, and they
> ought to stop.  but if they're not being smug or bothersome in any way,
> what makes you begrudge their relationship with god?  

I guess I'm just starting to understand the mechanism of certainty. I did
not "begrudge" it - rather I found what appeared to me to be such blatant
arrogance (their certainty) revolting.  It is starting to become clear that
Christians come to such positions in the same way that anybody else does,
and that they feel as justified in making such statements as a Marxist
does in saying that history is the record of class struggles, and that 
all of history now makes sense to him. It may sound arrogant, but the
believer has REASON to believe, you might say. 

"It is impossible to understand, and not forgive...." :-)
 
>>How easy it is to forget that Christians are just people like anyone else!
>>They would be more popular (dogmatic Christians, that is) if they would
>>acknowledge the limitations of their knowledge and faith. The "I'm certain!
>>I'm absolutely certain!! It's all been proved!!!" crap does NOT aid
>>the cause at all.  
> 
>   i don't say it's been proved because proof in the empirical sense isn't
> available, but i'm always surprised at how hateful people come when 
> confronted with absolute truth.  it's so widespread to believe no one
> can know the absolute truth that people get really bugged when some offer
> it.  it's a twisted rationale.

Well, as I'm sure you've noticed, there are a lot of "absolute relativists"
around, people who hold relativism as an absolute doctrine. In fact,
John Muehlhausen, in another thread, is accusing me of just that! :-)
Such people get hateful because your absolute doctrine contradicts their
absolute doctrine, and they don't want to change. Often the Christian is far
more prepared to defend thir position than the poor shmoe absolute
relativist, and so the a.r. feels like his or her world view is being 
smucked. Not fun.           

>>>   thanks for the compliment.  it means a lot.  the lord works in mysterious
>>> ways, only in one context.  the normal ways that meaning is conveyed in
>>> our world [logical, linear thot, art] are what we see as normal and 
>>> intelligible.  but divine spiritual intervention often look like coincidences
>>> that happen to have god's fingerprints on them, fingerprints that are 
>>> recognizable if god's spirit is in us to help us see them. 
>>               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  
>>Maybe! Here is an example of the annoying use of Christian cliche. 
>>What you mean is, these apparent coincidences no longer look random 
>>when interpreted according to Christian teaching.  Why not say that???
>>Just conclude by saying, "and I feel this teaching is true."  
>>This makes the whole thing a dialogue between human beings, not one 
>>human being and one prophet with a direct feed to heaven.edu. :)
> 
>   well, lighten up and don't get so emotional over cliches.  ask yourself
> why the words get you so angry?  i won't speculate an answer for you, but
> i'd like to hear your answer.  and it's not christian teaching that inter-
> prets my experience.  my experience is sound and dependable.

Not angry - but annoyed. I guess it's always struck me as blatant intellectual
dishonesty. I'm coming to see that this is not an entirely accurate 
understanding of the phenomenon of Christian belief. 
Re: your experience. The organizing ideology of your experience is Christian
doctrine, which is unfalsifiable. Thus your experience will naturally
tend to support a belief in that doctrine. This is why Xians are always
telling people to believe first - then they will see.  
Once you accept an unfalsifiable doctrine, everything makes sense. 

>> 
>>> the wisdom
>>> i get from god is no longer mysterious because i now expect it in certain
>>> places, but in comparison to this world, it'll always be mysterious.
>>                               ^^^^^^^^^^
>>This is probably a hell of a habit to break! Why don't you just say
>>"non-Christian interpretaions of life?"   The kind of talk you use
>>here looks very supercilious. "This world..."  Come off it, guys!
>>We might listen to you more if you didn't put us down (and yourselves up) 
>>implicitly every time you open your mouths! 
> 
>   i thot you were already listening to me.  i guess i'm losing my credibility.
> it goes so fast.  :(  i say this world because i believe in the reality 
> of the physical and the metaphysical world.  i'm not going to constantly
> translate all my ideas into non-spiritual, materialist, relativist lingo
> to suit everyone. 

Fair enough. You have a good point here, and I apologize for my strong
language. These conversations are certainly worth while...

> 
>>Belief in God seems to me both beautiful, in a weird way, and valid. However,
>>the whole Pauline salvation/damnation business stinks to high heaven (you
>>might say :). It rots from a logical point of view, and it rots from 
>>the point of view of anyone who loves (for whatever paradoxical reason)
>>their fellow human beings.  Jesus has always been a magnetic figure for me,
>>and I love the gospels. I have never been able to reconcile my own
>>profound attraction for the gospels with my uncontrollable repugnance
>>for the Christian orthodoxy which I (now) know came into being long
>>after Jesus and his disciples passed from the earth.  I don't know what to 
>>do about this at all, I'm afraid. However this is my problem, not yours! :)
> 
>   i truly cannot understand how you see christianity as rotten in the 
> perspective of love when jesus preaches love everyone.  the contradiction
> doesn't make sense to me.

The doctrine of Hell contradicts the notion of an all-loving God. Too 
many wonderful people are going to go to Hell (according to your doctrine).
People who are gentle and thoughtful and kind, but who were raised in such
a way that they have no interest in Christian ideology. Too many
loud-mouths, bigots, and mental midgets are going to Heaven (according to
your doctrine) simply because they were raised in such a way that they
were hopelessly maladjusted and needed an ironclad ideology to hold them down. 
Not all Christians (by a long shot) fit the above description, but enough do
to make the doctrine of salvation/damnation extremely repugnant. I
couldn't bear the thought of ANYONE going to Hell...and I'm not 
"all-loving..." supposedly.  But we are supposed to believe that a loving
God could do this to his own children? Yuck. 

> 
>   and if you want to know about jesus, don't look to social-organized
> church doctrine.  read the bible.  

Fair enough! I'll do just that. And to be fair, I'll include in that category
the texts of the other Christian sects that were suppressed by the 
Pauline orthodoxy based in Rome, whose particular teachings became
the basis of the R.C., Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Churches.  

Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Xref: sparky talk.religion.misc:14967 alt.atheism:15982