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Adam, I just finished a study on this, not only looking at the
prophecies themselves, but where they were fulfilled. While going only
through the OT, I found 508 references. After starting to show their
fulfillment, I found out that I had missed some, so needless to say I
cannot post them here. However, the study I did I intend to publish (I
am in the process of organizing and showing the fulfillments, then I
will be ready to write and send it to a publisher). With any luck
(and/or free time) I should have it finally done sometime around
September (I hope). | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
The argument for Luke's genealogy being that of Mary is very weak. According
to Luke 3:23
And when he began his ministry, Jesus himself was about
thirty years of age, being supposedly the son of Joseph,
the son of Eli,
Aside from the fact that Mary is not mentioned, there are two possible
interpretations: either Joseph was her father or he was her brother.
Clearly this is not acceptable. A third would be that Joseph, the son
of Eli, was her Father and just happened to have the name as the man
to whom she was betrothed. But that would seem to be grasping at
straws. The most straightforward interpretation is that Luke had no
intention of tracing Mary's genealogy (in which case he would have
named her) but that he traces her husband's, from David's son Nathan.
The Matthew descendant list most definitely traces down from David's
son, Solomon, to Joseph. Matthew 1:16 reads:
And to Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born
Jesus, who is called Christ.
There are two apparent problems. The first is, how to reconcile the
two paternal genealogies - which diverge with the sons of David,
Solomon and Nathan. The second is, why is any genealogy of Joseph
relavent at all, if Joseph had nothing to do with it. If Joseph was
not Jesus's physical father, then the original poster is quite
correct, that claims for Jesus's messianic heritage are not based on
truth but only on appearances, whatever Jesus's divine nature was.
The second problem is easy, in my mind. We assume that Joseph was not
involved in the conception of Jesus in any way. However, a Holy
Spirit capable of working a physical conception in Mary is also
capable of employing the physical agency of Joseph's seed in this
work. In our materialistic times we interpret viginity and its loss
solely in terms of a physical act, whereas it is really a matter of
purity on a much higher level as well. The important thing is that
neither Mary nor Joseph was conscious of any union between them (they
had not "known"each other). Thus the first gospel's dedication of
half its opening chapter to the genealogy of Joseph is quite relevant
to Jesus, the Virgin birth not- withstanding.
To the first question there is an answer that creates, to begin with, more
problems than it resolves. It is that the two evangelists are relating
the births of two entirely different children of two entirely different
sets of parents. Except for the names of the parents and the child, and
the birthplace in Bethlehem there is no point in common between the two
stories. Matthew and Luke converge in their accounts only thirty years
later with the Baptism of Jesus in Jordan. Rudolf Steiner offered his
explanation of how these accounts begin with two children and then converge
with their accounts of the one Jesus of Nazareth. He did not derive his
resolution from biblical study or speculation, or from other external
documents, and the discussion of "how this could be" might bring us beyond
the limits of appropriateness for this newsgroup. In any case, the
details are described in Steiner's "The Spiritual Guidance of the Human
Being and of Humanity", "The Gospel of St. Luke", and "The Gospel of St.
Matthew".
Whether or not Rudolf Steiner's methods and explanation are accepted
as valid, at least this interpretation resolves the apparent
contradictions of the two genealogies while leaving the text intact.
As for the passing of one's Jewishness through the mother, this was
never an issue with Jesus. No one ever questioned his or Mary's
Jewishness. The issue of the genealogies has to do with his paternal
line of descent from David, the king. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I wish to echo what D. Andrew Kille wrote. I know of no published form
in English of the D-type recension of "Acts". Of course, Bezae is quite bizarre
in the gospels as well. Only D-type texts share Bezae's strange readings.
[By the way, "D" stands for Codex Claromontanus elsewhere.]
Frank D
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I tend to agree. I came here when it first started and watched it grow
from the roots on talk.religion.misc. It seemed to take a while for enough
atheists to come forward to get past the "Let's trash Xians" and such.
Now there's a stable core, and frankly there's a feeling that this is
_our_ group.
If we go mainstream, we're going to be in a lot more places. And every
fucking fundy loonie freshman will be dumping on us to find Jeesus! and
warn us that we're all going to Hell.
Want to see what we'll get? Go real alt.fan.brother-jed and imagine that
those imbecilic tirades will be here. All the time. Every other post.
I'm being selfish. I find I really learn a lot here and the S/N isn't too
bad. The Browns and the Boobys are a distraction, but they are few enough
that they even bring in some of the leavening needed to offset them. But
I greatly fear that mainstreaming would basically put us at the swamping
level of the Conners of the world.
Regards,
Dew | 0 | alt.atheism |
Very interesting, but I also believe that you have presented a
misleading argument. Christianity is not the cause of the massacres
and horrific injustices that you relate, rather they are the fault
of people who misunderstand Jesus Christ's message, and modify
it to suit their own beliefs and aims, rather than alter their
ambitions to be more in line with those presented as desirable in
the New Testament. With every truthful and good message that
carries authority or implied authority, comes the inevitable
fact that some (many?) people will understand it in a distorted
way, with inevitable consequences.
The Bible's message is that we are to love all people, and
that all people are redeemable. It preaches a message of
repentance, and of giving. Unfortunately, all people have
deceitful hearts, and are capable of turning this message
around and contorting it in sometimes unbelievable ways.
This is also a fundamental Christian doctrine.
One of the problems is that you look at the world through
the eyes of Western history. I think that you will find
many, many cases of massacres that were instigated by
people who never claimed they were Christian. I am not saying
this to justify the massacres that were, but I am merely
pointing you to a tendency which is present in humans already.
Consider the world without Christianity. I doubt that we
would have the same freedoms in the countries in which we
live, if it wasn't for the peaceful doctrines of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps we would even be confronted by a very harsh religion
(I won't name any here, though one comes to mind) which
would not even allow us the freedom of speech to debate such
subjects.
Point the blame at inherent human tendencies of thirst for
power, greed and hatred. Please don't point the blame at
a message which preaches fundamental giving and denial, in
love for others.
Yours in Christ,
Andrew McVeigh
p.s. I believe that a line of questioning like you presented
is, strangely enough, compatible with becoming a Christian.
Certainly Christianity encourages one to question the behaviour
of the world, and especially Christians. I praise God for
Jesus Christ, and the fact that we can doubt our beliefs
and still come back to God and be forgiven, time and time
again.
--
*****
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Wow, you're quicker to point out heresy than the Church in the
Middle ages. Seriously though, even the Sheiks at Al-Azhar don't
claim that the Shi'ites are heretics. Most of the accusations
and fabrications about Shi'ites come out of Saudi Arabia from the
Wahabis. For that matter you should read the original works of
the Sunni Imams (Imams of the four madhabs). The teacher of
at least two of them was Imam Jafar Sadiq (the sixth Imam of the
Shi'ites). | 0 | alt.atheism |
I got just this far. What do you mean by "goal"? I hope you
don't mean to imply that evolution has a conscious "goal". | 0 | alt.atheism |
<<Posting deleted. The moderator replies:
That is generally accuate, but contains one serious error. We Catholics
do believe that God's revealed truth that is not explicitly recorded in
the Bible can be and is passed on through the Tradition of the Church.
It should be noted that the Tradition of the Church, otherwise known as
Sacred Tradition, is not the same as ordinary human traditions.
However, we do not believe that additional truth will be revealed to
the Church. Public revelation, which is the basis of Catholic doctrine,
ended with the death of St. John, the last Apostle. Nothing new can
be added. Theologians study this revelation and can draw out implications
that were not recognized previously, so that the Council of Nicea could
define statements about the theology of the Trinity and the Incarnation
that were not explicitly stated in the Bible and had been disputed
before the council, but there was no new revelation at Nicea or at
any subsequent council.
Cardinal Newman's _An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine_,
written while he was still an Anglican, is an excellent discussion of
of this point. It was recently reprinted as a Doubleday Image Books
paperback with some related shorter works under the title _Conscience,
Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine_.
-------
Marty Helgesen
Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm Internet: mnhcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
: The Bible says there is a God; if that is true then our atheism is
: mistaken. What of it? Seems pretty obvious to me. Socrates said
: there were many gods; if that is true then your monotheism (and our
: atheism) is mistaken, even if Socrates never existed.
Jim,
I think you must have come in late. The discussion (on my part at
least) began with Benedikt's questioning of the historical acuuracy of
the NT. I was making the point that, if the same standards are used to
validate secular history that are used here to discredit NT history,
then virtually nothing is known of the first century.
You seem to be saying that the Bible -cannot- be true because it
speaks of the existence of God as it it were a fact. Your objection
has nothing to do with history, it is merely another statement of
atheism. | 0 | alt.atheism |
[ Much deletion. He is trying to explain the Immaculate Conception
and the Assumption of Mary.]
If this is true than why in the Genesis story is God concerned that
Adam and Eve might also eat from the Tree of Life and live forever and
be like gods? Eating of the tree of life would not take away the
effects of eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Is there any reason to
assume that they had already eaten of the Tree of Life and so had
already attained to eternal life? If so, what basis is there for
saying that this was taken away from them? To me the wages of sin are
a spiritual death, not necessarily a physical death. I
can attest to the truth of this interpretation from my own experience.
I suspect that many others could attest to this as well.
Peace
Will
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I appreciate if anyone can point out some good books about the dead sea
scrolls of Qumran. Thanks in advance. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
This brings up an interesting subject that has not been discussed much,
and probably has not been studied much.
As some of you may be aware, I've posted a lot of articles lately on
personality typing (of which the MBTI is a test vehicle). To come up
to speed, just read 'alt.psychology.personality' and/or ask for by
personality type summary file.
One observation is that people have significantly different personalities
(no question on this) which seem to be essentially in-born. With respect
to church attendance and participation, some people thrive on this, while
other people have real difficulty with this because they prefer a more
solitary and contemplative lifestyle - that is, they are de-energized if
confronted with excessive closeness to outside activities and lots of
people. Of course this is measured by extroversion/introversion.
My impression is that many churches are totally blind to this fact, and
create environments that 'scare away' many who are naturally introverted
(there are many introverted characters in the Bible, btw). I know, I am
quite introverted in preference, and find the 'pressure' by many churches
to participate, to meet together in large groups, etc., to be very
uncomfortable. Knowing what I know now, these churches have been overly
influenced by highly extroverted people who thrive on this sort of thing.
(BTW, there's nothing wrong with either extroversion or introversion, both
preferences have their place in the Body).
Maybe I should define extrovert/introvert more carefully since these words
are usually not used correctly in our culture. The extrovert/introvert
scale is a measure of how a person is energized. The following is
excerpted from my summary:
1. Energizing - How a person is energized:
Extroversion (E)- Preference for drawing energy from the outside
world of people, activities or things.
Introversion (I)- Preference for drawing energy from one's internal
world of ideas, emotions, or impressions.
Hopefully this will elicit further discussion as to how churches can
structure themselves to meet the real needs of the people who comprise
the Body of Christ, instead of trying to change people's personalities
to fit them into a particular framework. I'm sure there are other aspects
of how churches have not properly understood personality variances among
their members to the detriment of all.
Jon Noring
--
Charter Member --->>> INFJ Club. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
But you haven't taken into the account of propoganda. Remember, if you
asked Germans before WWII if the Jews shoudl be slaughtered, they would
probably answer no, but, after the propoganda machine rolled through, at
least some were able to tolerate it.
You see, it only takes a small group of fanatics to whip up a general
frenzy.
Well, they haven't managed to outlaw abortion due to the possible objectivity
of the courts. But, they have managed to create quite a few problems for
people that wanted to have an abortion. They could create similar problems
for us. And, it could be worse. They can try to stop abortions by blocking
clinics, etc., but imagine what they'd have to do to stop atheism.
So, you are able to convince them individually, but could you convince a
whole room of them? A whole nation?
Yes, I'd be glad if it were gone to. I've never supported it. However,
I think that it is a minor problem that can be easily ignored, contrasted
with what *could* happen (an what may be likely).
Well, I am not clear on the religious convictions of Francis Scott Key (the
motto can be attributed to him), but it is at least clear that he believed
in a god. And, surely there are a few Christians that think as you say,
but I don't think that most do. Do you think that all Christians actively
despise other religions? Most that I have met haven't and don't do so.
Well, I have asked a Hindu, Moselem, and a few Jews, and all of them think
that it is applicable to them. Of course, I can't say that these people
(just some that I know pretty well) are accurate representations of their
faiths.
Well, I'd really like to, and I've tried, but I really don't know where to
get access to _Congressional Records_ from the 1950's. Can anyone help
out here?
Only in the sense that neither can probably convinced to change their beliefs.
So, are you saying that they redesign the plates each year?
Anyway, your whole argument (conveniently deleted I see) was that the motto
somehow costs us all a lot of money. This is just not correct.
That is to say, the religion of this country, and the non-religion of
the USSR. That was what most of those quotes were about, and some included
all atheists, in general, as well. I don't think that any of the quotes
(although I seem to have lost them) mentioned anything at all about Jesus.
They advocated religion over non-religion. A specific religion was not
mentioned.
So, you are saying that all Christians must believe that all other religions
should be outlawed, just because they think they are wrong? That's silly.
I think the Flat-Earthers are wrong, but I don't advocate their banishment.
I think that any such cost would be insignificant. I mentioned the slight
cost because you said that the motto was costing us a lot of money by
being on our currency.
Well, mottos in general don't really have purposes... I don't think it
should be removed because I think the benefit would be outweighed by the
consequences.
Then you should be concerned with the opinion of the entire congress.
Why not? It is the majority that put it there.
But do they remember the debate surrounding the motto? Do they remember
that some people intended it to be a message against atheists? Why don't
you include this in your little survey that you were conducting?
[...]
What? Should I ask some scientists the probability that something Einstein
said about relativity is worthy? I mean, if Einstein said it, there's a
good chance that it was right (at least at the time).
You need not agree with them all of the time, but you would certainly think
that their decisions would be good evidence in favor of some point.
No, I think that it would be clearly inappropriate for a Supreme Court
Justice to testify before Congress during the consideration of a
Constitutional Amendment.
And, in order for the Court to rule on something, a case usually must be
presented.
Yes, some mushrooms can be planted. And, I don't appreciate mushrooms on
my pizza, either.
Who was forced to put the motto there? What do you mean? | 0 | alt.atheism |
Heres the life of St. MAria Goretti, posted with kind permission of
the editor of the Australian Catholic Magazine "Morning Star".
Hope you like it.
Put up with anything to prevent sin St. Maria Goretti
Maria was born on October 16th 1890 to Luigi and Assunta Goretti,
the eldest daughter in the family of seven. She was a cheerful
girl, always imitating her parents. She had but one disire, but
one wish: to receive our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.
The date was finally set for little Maria to receive our Lord on
the feast of Corpus Christi. For Maria, time seemed like an eter-
nity as she slowly neared the great day. When it finally
arrived, Fr. Jerome( the priest who was to celebrate the Mass and
give the children their First Holy Communion) delivered a sermon
on the immense love of Jesus Christ for them and the great love
we should have in return for Him. He then warmly urged them to
die rather than commit a mortal sin.
Maria humbly approached the Altar of God and received the Holy
Eucharist. Her only sadness was the thought of her father's
absence, who died some time beforehand. As for the rest of the
day, Maria remained under the spell of the divine visit; that is
until
-4-
her thoughts changed to when she could go next to Holy Communion.
Thus ended the happiest day of Maria's life.
Over the next twelve months, Maria had changed from a giggling
little girl into a quiet young lady with responsibilities. As her
mother went out into the fields in place of her husband, Maria
took on the ironing, cooking, washing and other motherly duties.
She was doing this not only for her own family, but also for the
Serenellis, a father and son who lived with the Goretti's, owning
a share in the farm. Although Maria was poorer than all the other
children, she by far surpassed them in virtue. In all thi ngs she
did the Holy Will of God.
During the month of June, Alessandro Serenelli(the son) twice
made advances upon Maria when he chanced to be alone with her. On
both occasions Maria managed to struggle free of Alessandro's
strong grip, but on the second, he threatened to kill her if she
even uttered a word to her mother. From this day on, Maria lived
in terror, fearing lest Alessandro attack again.
On July 5th 1902, Alessandro left work in the fields to "get a
handkerchief," as he claimed. He went to the storeroom beneath
the house where Maria, who was outside on the landing with the
baby, could hear him fumbling about in with tools. She wondered
what he was doing. It was later learned that he was sharpening a
91/2" blade. He went to the house and called for Maria. She told
him she wouldn't go to him unless she knew why she was needed. He
stormed out to the landing and dragged her up to her room. Mar ia
instantly realized what he was up to. "No, No, No! Do not touch
me! It is a sin, you will go to Hell!" At this point Alessandro
held the knife over Maria's chest, who was now on the floor.
"Will you or will you not?" Maria gathered all her energy. "No I
will not, Alessandro, no!" She had chosen her martyrdom over
sin, God over Satan. Overcome with rage, Alessandro plunged the
knife into Maria's breast fourteen times. Finally he came to
his senses and thought Maria was dead. Frantically he threw the
knife behind a closet and locked himself in his room. The crying
of the baby Teresa on the landing brought the attention to
Assunta and the father of Alessandro. As the baby was unattended
and was in danger of falling off, they ran to the house to find
Maria, who, covered in blood, was dragging herself to the door.
When asked what happened she said Alessandro stabbed her. "He
wanted to make me do wrong and I would not."
The ambulance arrived, then the police who took Alessandro away.
As the ambulance carried Maria to the hospital, a large crowd
followed on foot. The doctors at the hospital held no hope for
poor little Maria. The same Fr. Jerome who gave Maria her First
Communion
-5-
came to administer the last rites and to give her Holy Viaticum.
He asked Maria if she would forgive her murderer. "Yes. For the
love of Jesus I forgive him. I wish for him to one day join me
in Paradise. May God forgive him, for I alread y have." Maria
died at about three o'clock.
Alessandro was tried and found guilty of Maria's death but
because of his age he was sentenced to only thirty years in
prison. After eight years of being a violent prisoner and show-
ing no regret for his crime, he saw in a dream, in the midst of
a field of flowers, Maria holding out a bunch of white lilies to
him. Soon later he wrote to the local bishop, begging God's par-
don for the grave sin he had committed. He later gave testimony
in Maria's beatification in 1947. Less than three years later,
on Ju ne 24th 1950, Maria was canonised. Assunta Goretti was the
first mother ever to be present at her daughter's canonisation.
May St. Maria Goretti help us to be pure and grant us the
strength to die rather than commit a mortal sin.
Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.
by Brendan Arthur
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I don't understand who this post is directed towards; who are you
trying to convince? By its subject i would assume you are directing
the argument towards people who do not believe that Christ rose
from the dead, but in your "proof," you use the bible exclusively.
The post is therefore immediately useless to anyone who doesn't
believe that the bible is an unadulterated truth, and to everyone
else, it is just a reaffirmation of a belief already held. As far
as i know, there is no disagreement between christians over
the resurrection of christ.
so my question is: what is the purpose of this post?
tomas
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I seldom see any posts in this group. Is anyone out there in Christendom
listening? If so, why don't we get some dialog going here?
Here's a topic to get things started. My daughter's Christian school sends
home a weekly update on school related topics. This week they sent
something *very* interesting. It was an article written by the leader of a
national (US) Christian school organization about a trip he recently made
to Jerusalem. While there, he was introduced to one of the rabbis who is
working on a project to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. The article
included photos of the many furnishings that have already been made in
preparation for furnishing the rebuilt temple according to the
specifications given in the Bible.
What was even more striking is the fact that the plans for the temple are
complete and the group is only awaiting permission from the Israeli
government before beginning the building. The other startling fact is the
very recent archeological discovery that the original site of the temple is
unoccupied and available for building. Previously it has been thought that
the original site was underneath what is now a mosque, making rebuilding
impossible without sparking a holy war.
Now it appears that nothing stands in the way of rebuilding and resuming
sacrifices, as the Scriptures indicate will happen in the last days.
Although the Israeli government will give the permission to start, I think
it is the hand of God holding the project until He is ready to let it
happen. Brothers and sisters, the time is at hand. Our redemption is
drawing near. Look up! | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Archive-name: atheism/faq
Alt-atheism-archive-name: faq
Last-modified: 5 April 1993
Version: 1.1
Alt.Atheism Frequently-Asked Questions
This file contains responses to articles which occur repeatedly in
alt.atheism. Points covered here are ones which are not covered in the
"Introduction to Atheism"; you are advised to read that article as well
before posting.
These answers are not intended to be exhaustive or definitive. The purpose of
the periodic FAQ postings is not to stifle debate, but to raise its level. If
you have something to say concerning one of these questions and which isn't
covered by the answer given, please feel free to make your point.
Overview of contents:
"What is the purpose of this newsgroup?"
"Hitler was an atheist!"
"The Bible proves it"
"Pascal's Wager"
"What is Occam's Razor?"
"Why it's good to believe in Jesus"
"Why I know that God exists"
"Einstein and "God does not play dice""
"Everyone worships something"
"Why there must be a causeless cause"
"The universe is so complex it must have been designed"
"Independent evidence that the Bible is true"
"Godel's Incompleteness Theorem"
"George Bush on atheism and patriotism"
"I know where hell is!"
"Biblical contradictions wanted"
"The USA is a Christian nation"
"The USA is not a Christian nation"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: What is the purpose of this newsgroup?
Typical posting:
Why have a newsgroup about atheism? Why do atheists organize in groups?
What is there to discuss?
Response:
Many things are discussed here, including:
* Whether it is reasonable to feign theism in order to avoid upsetting one's
family
* Prayer in schools
* Discrimination against atheists
* Sunday trading laws
* The Satanic Child Abuse myth
* Whether one should be an overt atheist or 'stay in the closet'
* How religious societies prey (sic) on new college students
* How to get rid of unwanted proselytizers
* Whether religion is a danger to society and/or the individual
* Why people become atheists
Of course, inevitably alt.atheism tends to attract evangelical Christians
looking for someone to convert. Most readers of the newsgroup don't
want to be preached to, although a few seem to derive perverse pleasure
from tearing apart particularly ill-considered or uninformed postings.
------------------------------
Subject: Hitler was an atheist!
Typical posting:
Hitler was an atheist, and look at what he did!
Response:
Adolf Hitler was emphatically not an atheist. As he said himself:
The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in
his own denomination, of making _people_stop_just_talking_
superficially_of_God's_will,_and_actually_fulfill_God's_will,_and_
not_let_God's_word_be_desecrated._[orig. ital.]
For God's will gave men their form, their essence, and their
abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the
Lord's creation, the divine will. Therefore, let every man be
active, each in his own denomination if you please, and let every
man take it as his first and most sacred duty to oppose anyone who
in his activity by word or deed steps outside the confines of his
religious community and tries to butt into the other.
[...]
Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will
of the Almighty Creator: _by_defending_myself_against_the_Jew,_I_am_
fighting_for_the_work_of_the_Lord._[orig. ital.]
-- Adolf Hitler, from "Mein Kampf", trans. Ralph Mannheim.
Of course, someone bad believing something does not make that belief
wrong. It's also entirely possible that Hitler was lying when he claimed
to believe in God. We certainly can't conclude that he's an atheist,
though.
------------------------------
Subject: The Bible proves it
Typical posting:
In the Bible it says that...
Response:
Most of the readers of alt.atheism feel that the Bible is of questionable
accuracy, as it was written thousands of years ago by many authors who were
recording oral tradition that existed many years before. Thus, any claimed
'truth' in it is of questionable legitimacy. This isn't to say that The
Bible has no truth in it; simply that any truth must be examined before being
accepted.
Many of the readers of this group also feel that because any passage is
subject to "interpretation", any claim that a passage 'means' one thing and
one thing only is not legitimate.
Note that this feeling tends to extend to other books.
It is also remarkable to many atheists that theists tend to ignore other
equally plausible religious books in favour of those of their own religion.
------------------------------
Subject: Pascal's Wager
Typical posting:
If you believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you have lost nothing --
but if you don't believe in God and turn out to be incorrect, you will go to
hell. Therefore it is foolish to be an atheist.
Response:
This argument is known as Pascal's Wager. It has several flaws.
Firstly, it does not indicate which religion to follow. Indeed, there are
many mutually exclusive and contradictory religions out there. This is often
described as the "avoiding the wrong hell" problem. If a person is a
follower of religion X, he may end up in religion Y's version of hell.
Secondly, the statement that "If you believe in God and turn out to be
incorrect, you have lost nothing" is not true. Suppose you're believing in
the wrong God -- the true God might punish you for your foolishness.
Consider also the deaths that have resulted from people rejecting medicine in
favour of prayer.
Another flaw in the argument is that it is based on the assumption that
the two possibilities are equally likely -- or at least, that they are of
comparable likelihood. If, in fact, the possibility of there being a God
is close to zero, the argument becomes much less persuasive. So sadly the
argument is only likely to convince those who believe already.
Also, many feel that for intellectually honest people, belief is based on
evidence, with some amount of intuition. It is not a matter of will or
cost-benefit analysis.
Formally speaking, the argument consists of four statements:
1. One does not know whether God exists.
2. Not believing in God is bad for one's eternal soul if God does
exist.
3. Believing in God is of no consequence if God does not exist.
4. Therefore it is in one's interest to believe in God.
There are two approaches to the argument. The first is to view 1 as an
assumption, and 2 as a consequence of it. One problem with this approach, in
the abstract, is that it creates information from no information. This is
considered invalid in information theory. Statement 1 indicates one has no
information about God -- but statement 2 indicates that beneficial information
can be gained from the absolute lack of information about God. This violates
information entropy -- information has been extracted from no information, at
no "cost".
The alternative approach is to claim that 1 and 2 are both assumptions. The
problem with this is that 2 is then basically an assumption which states the
Christian position, and only a Christian will agree with that assumption. The
argument thus collapses to "If you are a Christian, it is in your interests
to believe in God" -- a rather vacuous tautology, and not the way Pascal
intended the argument to be viewed.
The biggest reason why Pascal's wager is a failure is that if God is
omniscient he will certainly know who really believes and who believes as
a wager. He will spurn the latter... assuming he actually cares at all
whether people believe in him.
------------------------------
Subject: What is Occam's Razor?
Typical posting:
People keep talking about Occam's Razor. What is it?
Response:
William of Occam formulated a principle which has become known as Occam's
Razor. In its original form, it said "Do not multiply entities
unnecessarily." That is, if you can explain something without supposing
the existence of some entity, then do so.
Nowadays when people refer to Occam's Razor, they generally express it
more generally, for example as "Take the simplest solution".
The relevance to atheism is that we can look at two possible explanations
for what we see around us:
1. There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, which
came into being as a result of natural processes.
2. There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, and
there is also a God who created the universe. Clearly this God must be
of non-zero complexity.
Given that both explanations fit the facts, Occam's Razor might suggest
that we should take the simpler of the two -- solution number one.
Unfortunately, some argue that there is a third even more simple solution:
3. There isn't an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there.
We just imagine that there is.
This third option leads us logically towards solipsism, which many people
find unacceptable.
------------------------------
Subject: Why it's good to believe in Jesus
Typical posting:
I want to tell people about the virtues and benefits of my religion.
Response:
Preaching is not appreciated.
Feel free to talk about your religion, but please do not write postings that
are on a "conversion" theme. Such postings do not belong on alt.atheism and
will be rejected from alt.atheism.moderated (try the newsgroup
talk.religion.misc).
You would doubtless not welcome postings from atheists to your favourite
newsgroup in an attempt to convert you; please do unto others as you would
have them do unto you!
Often theists make their basic claims about God in the form of lengthy
analogies or parables. Be aware that atheists have heard of God and know the
basic claims about him; if the sole purpose of your parable is to tell
atheists that God exists and brings salvation, you may as well not post it,
since it tells us nothing we have not been told before.
------------------------------
Subject: Why I know that God exists
Typical posting:
I *know* from personal experience and prayer that God exists.
Response:
Just as many theists have personal evidence that the being they worship
exists, so many atheists have personal evidence that such beings do not
exist. That evidence varies from person to person.
Furthermore, without wishing to dismiss your evidence out of hand, many
people have claimed all kinds of unlikely things -- that they have been
abducted by UFOs, visited by the ghost of Elvis, and so on.
------------------------------
Subject: Einstein and "God does not play dice"
Typical posting:
Albert Einstein believed in God. Do you think you're cleverer than him?
Response:
Einstein did once comment that "God does not play dice [with the universe]".
This quotation is commonly mentioned to show that Einstein believed in the
Christian God. Used this way, it is out of context; it refers to Einstein's
refusal to accept the uncertainties indicated by quantum theory. Furthermore,
Einstein's religious background was Jewish rather than Christian.
A better quotation showing what Einstein thought about God is the following:
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of
what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of
human beings."
Einstein was unable to accept Quantum Theory because of his belief in an
objective, orderly reality; a reality which would not be subject to random
events and which would not be dependent upon the observer. He believed that
QM was incomplete, and that a better theory would have no need for
statistical interpretations. So far no such better theory has been found,
and much evidence suggests that it never will be.
A longer quote from Einstein appears in "Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A
Symposium", published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion
in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941. In
"The more a man is imbued with the ordered regularity of all events
the firmer becomes his conviction that there is no room left by the side
of this ordered regularity for causes of a different nature. For him
neither the rule of human nor the rule of divine will exists as an
independent cause of natural events. To be sure, the doctrine of a
personal God interfering with natural events could never be
*refuted* [italics his], in the real sense, by science, for this
doctrine can always take refuge in those domains in which scientific
knowledge has not yet been able to set foot.
But I am convinced that such behavior on the part of representatives
of religion would not only be unworthy but also fatal. For a doctrine
which is to maintain itself not in clear light but only in the dark,
will of necessity lose its effect on mankind, with incalculable harm
to human progress. In their struggle for the ethical good, teachers
of religion must have the stature to give up the doctrine of a personal
God, that is, give up that source of fear and hope which in the past
placed such vast power in the hands of priests. In their labors they
will have to avail themselves of those forces which are capable
of cultivating the Good, the True, and the Beautiful in humanity
itself. This is, to be sure, a more difficult but an incomparably
more worthy task..."
"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religous convictions,
a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a
personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly.
If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the
unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our
science can reveal it."
The latter quote is from "Albert Einstein: The Human Side", edited by Helen
Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, and published by Princeton University Press.
Also from the same book:
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics
to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind
it."
Of course, the fact that Einstein chose not to believe in Christianity does
not in itself imply that Christianity is false.
------------------------------
Subject: Everyone worships something
Typical posting:
Everyone worships something, whether it's money, power or God.
Response:
If that is true, everyone is a polytheist. Theists care just as much about
those things that atheists care about. If the atheists' reactions to (for
example) their families amount to worship then so do the theists'.
------------------------------
Subject: Why there must be a causeless cause
Typical posting:
Sets of integers that have a lower bound each have a smallest member, so
chains of causes must all have a first element, a causeless cause.
Response:
The set of real numbers greater than zero has a definite lower bound, but has
no smallest member.
Further, even if it is true that there must be a causeless cause, that does
not imply that that cause must be a conscious supernatural entity, and
especially not that any such entity must match the description favoured by
any particular religion.
------------------------------
Subject: The universe is so complex it must have been designed
Typical posting:
The presence of design in the universe proves there is a God. Surely you
don't think all this appeared here just by chance?
Response:
This is known as the Argument From Design.
It is a matter of dispute whether there is any element of design in the
universe. Those who believe that the complexity and diversity of living
creatures on the earth is evidence of a creator are best advised to read the
newsgroup talk.origins for a while.
There is insufficient space to summarize both sides of that debate here.
However, the conclusion is that there is no scientific evidence in favour of
so-called Scientific Creationism. Furthermore, there is much evidence,
observation and theory that can explain many of the complexities of the
universe and life on earth.
The origin of the Argument by Design is a feeling that the existence of
something as incredibly intricate as, say, a human is so improbable that
surely it can't have come about by chance; that surely there must be some
external intelligence directing things so that humans come from the chaos
deliberately.
But if human intelligence is so improbable, surely the existence of a mind
capable of fashioning an entire universe complete with conscious beings must
be immeasurably more unlikely? The approach used to argue in favour of the
existence of a creator can be turned around and applied to the Creationist
position.
This leads us to the familiar theme of "If a creator created the universe,
what created the creator?", but with the addition of spiralling
improbability. The only way out is to declare that the creator was not
created and just "is" (or "was").
From here we might as well ask what is wrong with saying that the universe
just "is" without introducing a creator? Indeed Stephen Hawking, in his book
"A Brief History of Time", explains his theory that the universe is closed
and finite in extent, with no beginning or end.
The Argument From Design is often stated by analogy, in the so-called
Watchmaker Argument. One is asked to imagine that one has found a watch on
the beach. Does one assume that it was created by a watchmaker, or that it
evolved naturally? Of course one assumes a watchmaker. Yet like the
watch, the universe is intricate and complex; so, the argument goes, the
universe too must have a creator.
The Watchmaker analogy suffers from three particular flaws, over and above
those common to all Arguments By Design. Firstly, a watchmaker creates
watches from pre-existing materials, whereas God is claimed to have
created the universe from nothing. These two sorts of creation are
clearly fundamentally different, and the analogy is therefore rather weak.
Secondly, a watchmaker makes watches, but there are many other things in
the world. If we walked further along the beach and found a nuclear
reactor, we wouldn't assume it was created by the watchmaker. The argument
would therefore suggest a multitude of creators, each responsible for a
different part of creation.
Finally, in the first part of the watchmaker argument we conclude that
the watch is not part of nature because it is ordered, and therefore
stands out from the randomness of nature. Yet in the second part of the
argument, we start from the position that the universe is obviously not
random, but shows elements of order. The Watchmaker argument is thus
internally inconsistent.
------------------------------
Subject: Independent evidence that the Bible is true
Typical posting:
The events of the New Testament are confirmed by independent documentary
evidence. For example...
Response:
The writings of Josephus are often mentioned as independent documentary
evidence.
Early versions of Josephus's work are thought not to have mentioned Jesus or
James; the extant version discusses John in a non-Christian context. Many
scholars believe that the original mentioned Jesus and James in passing, but
that this was expanded by Christian copyists. Several "reconstructions" of
the original text have been published to this effect.
Much information appears in the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius (about 320
C.E.). It is worthless as historical material because of the deliberate
falsification of the wily Eusebius who is generally acknowledged as 'the
first thoroughly dishonest historian of antiquity.' It is Eusebius who is
generally given the title of authorship for this material.
Aside from the New Testament, the biographical information about Jesus is
more well-documented. For further information, please consult the Frequently
Asked Questions file for the newsgroup soc.religion.christian.
------------------------------
Subject: Godel's Incompleteness Theorem
Typical posting:
Godel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that it is impossible for the
Bible to be both true and complete.
Response:
Godel's First Incompleteness Theorem says that in any consistent formal
system which is sufficiently expressive that it can model ordinary
arithmetic, one can formulate expressions which can never be proven to be
valid or invalid ('true' or 'false') within that formal system. (Technically
speaking, the system must also be recursive; that is, there must be a decision
procedure for determining whether a given string is an axiom within the formal
system.)
Essentially, all such systems can formulate what is known as a "Liar
Paradox." The classic Liar Paradox sentence in ordinary English is "This
sentence is false." Note that if a proposition is undecidable, the formal
system cannot even deduce that it is undecidable.
The logic used in theological discussions is rarely well defined, so claims
that Godel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates that it is impossible to
prove or disprove) the existence of God are worthless in isolation.
One can trivially define a formal system in which it is possible to prove the
existence of God, simply by having the existence of God stated as an axiom.
This is unlikely to be viewed by atheists as a convincing proof, however.
It may be possible to succeed in producing a formal system built on axioms
that both atheists and theists agree with. It may then be possible to show
that Godel's Incompleteness Theorem holds for that system. However, that
would still not demonstrate that it is impossible to prove that God exists
within the system. Furthermore, it certainly wouldn't tell us anything about
whether it is possible to prove the existence of God generally.
Note also that all of these hypothetical formal systems tell us nothing about
the actual existence of God; the formal systems are just abstractions.
Another frequent claim is that Godel's Incompleteness Theorem demonstrates
that a religious text (the Bible, the Book of Mormon or whatever) cannot be
both consistent and universally applicable. Religious texts are not formal
systems, so such claims are nonsense.
------------------------------
Subject: George Bush on atheism and patriotism
Typical posting:
Did George Bush really say that atheists should not be considered citizens?
Response:
The following exchange took place at the Chicago airport between Robert I.
Sherman of American Atheist Press and George Bush, on August 27 1988. Sherman
is a fully accredited reporter, and was present by invitation as a member of
the press corps. The Republican presidential nominee was there to announce
federal disaster relief for Illinois. The discussion turned to the
presidential primary:
RS: "What will you do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?"
GB: "I guess I'm pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in
God is important to me."
RS: "Surely you recognize the equal citizenship and patriotism of
Americans who are atheists?"
GB: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens,
nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under
God."
RS: "Do you support as a sound constitutional principle the separation
of state and church?"
GB: "Yes, I support the separation of church and state. I'm just not
very high on atheists."
UPI reported on May 8, 1989, that various atheist organizations were
still angry over the remarks.
The exchange appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on Monday February 27,
1989. It can also be found in "Free Enquiry" magazine, Fall 1988 issue,
Volume 8, Number 4, page 16.
On October 29, 1988, Mr. Sherman had a confrontation with Ed Murnane,
cochairman of the Bush-Quayle '88 Illinois campaign. This concerned a
lawsuit Mr. Sherman had filed to stop the Community Consolidated School
District 21 (Chicago, Illinois) from forcing his first-grade Atheist son to
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States as "one nation under God"
(Bush's phrase). The following conversation took place:
RS: "American Atheists filed the Pledge of Allegiance lawsuit yesterday.
Does the Bush campaign have an official response to this filing?"
EM: "It's bullshit."
RS: "What is bullshit?"
EM: "Everything that American Atheists does, Rob, is bullshit."
RS: "Thank you for telling me what the official position of the Bush
campaign is on this issue."
EM: "You're welcome."
After Bush's election, American Atheists wrote to Bush asking him to retract
his statement. On February 21st 1989, C. Boyden Gray, Counsel to the
President, replied on White House stationery that Bush substantively stood by
"As you are aware, the President is a religious man who neither supports
atheism nor believes that atheism should be unnecessarily encouraged or
supported by the government."
For further information, contact American Atheist Veterans at the American
Atheist Press's Cameron Road address.
------------------------------
Subject: I know where hell is!
Typical posting:
I know where Hell is! Hell is in Norway!
Response:
There are several towns called "Hell" in various countries around the
world, including Norway and the USA. Whilst this information is mildly
amusing the first time one hears it, readers of alt.atheism are now
getting pretty fed up with hearing it every week.
------------------------------
Subject: Biblical contradictions wanted
Typical posting:
Does anyone have a list of Biblical contradictions?
Response:
American Atheist Press publish an atheist's handbook detailing Biblical
contradictions. See the accompanying posting on Atheist Resources for
details.
There is a file containing some Biblical contradictions available from the
archive-server@mantis.co.uk. See the contacts file for more information.
------------------------------
Subject: The USA is a Christian nation
Typical posting:
Because of the religious beliefs of the founding fathers, shouldn't the
United States be considered a Christian nation?
Response:
Based upon the writings of several important founding fathers, it is clear
that they never intended the US to be a Christian nation. Here are some
quotes; there are many more.
"What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society?
In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the
ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen
upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been
the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert
the public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient
auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it,
needs them not."
- James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance", 1785
"I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of
the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved--the Cross.
Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!"
- John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
"History I believe furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of
ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will
always avail themselves for their own purpose."
- Thomas Jefferson to Baron von Humboldt, 1813
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or
requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely
above it."
- Benjamin Franklin, from "Articles of Belief and Acts of Religion",
Nov. 20, 1728
------------------------------
Subject: The USA is not a Christian nation
Typical posting:
Is it true that George Washington said that the United States is not in any
sense founded upon the Christian religion?
Response:
No. The quotation often given is in fact from Article XI of the 1797 Treaty
of Tripoli (8 Stat 154, Treaty Series 358):
Article 11
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense
founded on the Christian Religion, -- as it has in itself no character of
enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen, -- and as
the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility
against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no
pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption
of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The text may be found in the Congressional Record or in treaty collections
such as Charles Bevans' "Treaties and Other International Agreements of the
United States of America 1776-1949", vol. 11 (pp. 1070-1080).
The English text of the Treaty of Tripoli was approved by the U.S. Senate on
June 7, 1797 and ratified by President John Adams on June 10, 1797. It was
recently discovered that the Arabic version of the treaty not only lacks the
quotation, it lacks Article XI altogether.
The person who translated the Arabic to English was Joel Barlow, Consul
General at Algiers, a close friend of Thomas Paine -- and an opponent of
Christianity. It is possible that Barlow made up Article XI, but since there
is no Arabic version of that article to be found, it's hard to say.
In 1806 a new Treaty of Tripoli was ratified which no longer contained the
quotation.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
TRH> I hope you're not going to flame him. Please give him the same coutesy you'
TRH> ve given me.
But you have been courteous and therefore received courtesy in return. This
person instead has posted one of the worst arguments I have ever seen
made from the pro-Christian people. I've known several Jesuits who would
laugh in his face if he presented such an argument to them.
Let's ignore the fact that it's not a true trilemma for the moment (nice
word Maddi, original or is it a real word?) and concentrate on the
liar, lunatic part.
The argument claims that no one would follow a liar, let alone thousands
of people. Look at L. Ron Hubbard. Now, he was probably not all there,
but I think he was mostly a liar and a con-artist. But look at how many
thousands of people follow Dianetics and Scientology. I think the
Baker's and Swaggert along with several other televangelists lie all
the time, but look at the number of follower they have.
As for lunatics, the best example is Hitler. He was obviously insane,
his advisors certainly thought so. Yet he had a whole country entralled
and came close to ruling all of Europe. How many Germans gave their lives
for him? To this day he has his followers.
I'm just amazed that people still try to use this argument. It's just
so obviously *wrong*.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
Joe;
Your logic excapes me.
If the Papacy is infallible, and this is a matter of faith, then the
Pope cannot "be wrong!" If, on the other hand, this is not a matter
of faith, but a matter of Church law, then we should still obey as the
Pope is the legal head of the church.
In other words, given the doctrine of infallibility, we have no choice
but to obey.
Bob
--
Bob Van Cleef Peace -0- be revc@garg.Campbell.CA.US
The Land of Garg BBS unto /|\ you BBS (408) 378-5108
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
: >We could start with those posters who annoy us the most, like Bobby or
: >Bill.
: Your wish is my command.
: Bill "Shit-stirrer" Connor
: Bobby "Circular" Mozumder
I'm not sure my new nom d'net is exactly appropriate, but it comes
very close. Considering what I have to wade through before I make one
of my insightful, dead-on-the-money repsonses, I have to agree that
something's getting stirred up. I would like to believe my
characterization of what I respond to would be kinder though, but if
you insist ...
I am also surprised to find that I have offended anyone, but in some
cases it's unavoidable if I am to say anything at all. For those to
whom fairness is important, check out my contributions, haven't I been
most generous and patient, a veritable paragon of gentility?
Oh, BTW, I don't mind being paired with Bobby; I admire his tenacity.
How many of you would do as well in this hostile environment - you
think -I'm- offensive ?! read your own posts ...
Love and kisses,
Bill
P.S. | 0 | alt.atheism |
For the last time, Bobby. Lack of belief in YOUR god does NOT imply
atheism. Just because some moslems aren't moral does not mean they don't
believe in a god named Allah, although their Allah may not do the things
your Allah does. If a moslem says he/she believes that a god exists, he/she
is a theist (though maybe not a TRUE follower of islam).
Jerk.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
Desiree Bradley (Desiree_Bradley@mindlink.bc.ca) asked us whether we
should think of the Serbs as doing God's work in Bosnia. I've
refrained from posting, in hope that someone who is more familiar with
the OT than I would answer. But at this point I feel I have to say
something.
Many things about this posting bother me. I know of not the slightest
suggestion in the NT that Christians should use force to propagate the
Gospel, and the idea that we should not be concerned about the death
of Moslems violates the heart of the Gospel. Christ died to break
down these distinctions. In him there is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. If
Moslems do not know him, we may preach to them, but we don't kill
them. Furthermore, the attack is between states, not religions.
There are Christians being attacked as well. One of the towns under
attack is one of the few places where Christians and Moslems are
living together peacefully.
The precedents being suggested are from the OT. There are in fact two
different things being alluded to. The first is from the entry into
Canaan. For that to be a parallel, we would need for God to have
promised this land through a prophet. And we would need the war to be
a holy war. There were tight constraints on behavior in those
attacks. Any violations were likely to cause the Israelites to be
defeated. Rape would not have been tolerated. While the accounts in
Joshua emphasize towns that were totally destroyed, note that it was
possible for a town to make peace with the Israelites, and that once
that was done -- even when deception was involved -- they were
expected to honor it. In contrast, there have been many violations of
agreement in this incident. I see no evidence that God has granted
Bosnia to the Serbs as a promised land, and if he had, their behavior
would have disqualified this from being a holy war.
The other OT parallel is from later, when Israel was defeated by
Assyria and Babylonia. The prophets saw this as a judgement on Israel
for her sins. Someone asks whether we shouldn't see this as a
judgement on the Bosnians for their sins. This sounds like a replay
of the old claim that we shouldn't have doctors or hospitals because
illness is God's judgement. Yes, even bad things may be used by God
for good. That includes actions of bad people. But that doesn't
justify them. If you read the prophets, you find them very clear that
in attacking Israel, the Assyrians and Babylonians were acting as
*unintentional* agents of God. Their intent was to attack God's
people, and they would be judged for it. The fact that they were
actually carrying out God's plan didn't excuse their action.
Furthermore, we shouldn't conclude from this that all attacks are
judgements from God. God explicitly interpreted that case, through
his prophets. As far as I know, he did not send any prophets to
Bosnia. While I find it hard to see any good in the current fighting,
I am sure God will eventually make good come out of bad. But that
doesn't justify it, and it won't save the people who are doing it from
judgement. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Mark Ashley's account of private revelation does not, as some might
think, contradict my posting in which I said that the Catholic Church
believes that public revelation, on which Catholic doctrine is based,
ended with the death of St. John, the last Apostle. In that posting
I made sure I used the word "public". Public revelation contains
God's truth intended for everyone to believe. The revelation contained
in the Bible is a significant subset of public revelation. Private
revelation is revelation that God gives to an individual. He may speak
directly to the individual, He may send an angel, or He may send the
Virgin Mary or some lesser saint. The only person who is required to
believe a private revelation is the person to whom it is revealed.
Devotional practices may be based on reported private revelations,
but doctrines can not.
When an alleged private revelation attracts sufficient attention, the
Church may investigate it. If the investigation indicates a likelihood
that the alleged private revelation is in fact from God, it will be
approved. That means that it can be preached in the Church. However,
it is still true that no one is required to believe that it came from
God. A Catholic is free to deny the authenticity of even the most
well attested and strongly approved private revelations, such as those
at Fatima and Lourdes. (I suspect that few if any Catholics do reject
Fatima and Lourdes, but if any do their rejection of them does not
mean they are not orthodox Catholics in good standing.)
I do not have at hand a list of the criteria the Church uses in
evaluating an alleged private revelation--it's not something I need
every day--but I know that one of the primary requirements is that
nothing in the alleged private revelation can contradict anything
known through public revelation
-------
Marty Helgesen
Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm Internet: mnhcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I think that domestication will change behavior to a large degree.
Domesticated animals exhibit behaviors not found in the wild. I
don't think that they can be viewed as good representatives of the
wild animal kingdom, since they have been bred for thousands of years
to produce certain behaviors, etc. | 0 | alt.atheism |
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I've always taken Murphy's Law to be an exhortation to prudence, and
an observation about the behavior of complex systems, rather than a
denial of divine benevolence. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
The above is probably not the most representative paragraph, but I
thought I'd hop on, anyway...
What strikes me as self-contradicting in the fable of Lucifer's
fall - which, by the way, I seem to recall to be more speculation
than based on biblical text, but my ex RCism may be showing - is
that, as Benedikt pointed out, Lucifer had perfect nature, yet he
had the free will to "choose" evil. But where did that choice come
from?
We know from Genesis that Eve was offered an opportunity to sin by a
tempter which many assume was Satan, but how did Lucifer discover,
invent, create, call the action what you will, something that God
had not given origin to?
Also, where in the Bible is there mention of Lucifer's free will?
We make a big fuss about mankind having free will, but it strikes me
as being an after-the-fact rationalisation, and in fact, like
salvation, not one that all Christians believe in identically.
At least in my mind, salvation and free will are very tightly
coupled, but then my theology was Roman Catholic...
Still, how do theologian explain Lucifer's fall? If Lucifer had
perfect nature (did man?) how could he fall? How could he execute an
act that (a) contradicted his nature and (b) in effect cause evil to
exist for the first time? | 0 | alt.atheism |
I think you are vastly oversimplifying things. We know that early Christians
suffered totures because of their witness to Christ. For example:
ACT 5:40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had
them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of
Jesus, and let them go.
ACT 5:41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been
counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.
It appears that the Jewish rulers of that time had a particular aversion
to even hearing Jesus's name.
ACT 5:28 "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said.
"Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are
determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."
Finally, the first apostle's death, James of Zebedee was certainly
not by Rome's hand any more than the first martyr Stephen.
The problem was that if one believed in the Resurrection, then one
must believe in Jesus as truly being the Son of God and what He
stood for and preached during His ministry on Earth. That would
have been extremely difficult for some people, especially those
that had plotted to kill Him.
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Nope, Germany has extremely restrictive citizenship laws. The
ethnic Germans who have lived in Russia for over 100 years
automatically become citizens if they move to Germany, but the
Turks who are now in their third generation in Germany can't.
It's not a very good example to show citizenship without descent.
Karl
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 0 | alt.atheism |
:P>My atheism is incidental, and the question of "God" is trivial.
:P
:P>But........
:P
:P>It matters a great deal to me when idiots try to force their belief on me,
:P>when they try to enforce their creation myths to be taught as scientific
:P>fact in school, when they tell me I can have no morals because morals are
:P>from "God", when a successful presidential candidate says that an atheist
:P>shouldn't be considered a citizen and couldn't be patriotic because "after
:P>all this is one nation under God", when the fundies try to take over the
:P>party that may well provide the next President of The United States of
:P>America so that they can force their beliefs on the rest of the country,
:P>et cetera..........
:P
:P>That's why I subscribe to alt.atheism.
:P
:P>And in the middle of this, people who aren't mind readers pop up on
:P>alt.atheism to tell me what I do or don't believe, or to concoct some
:P>straw-man reason why I don't share their particular belief.
:P
:P>You think I should just accept this?
:P
:P>This isn't particularly a dig at fundamentalist christians. I have been
:P>told on alt.atheism that I reject Allah because I am too proud to embrace
:P>islam, and that I reject Krishna because my eyes are closed. But most of
:P>the religious nuts who post on alt.atheism are some kind of militant
:P>christian who can't accept that others don't share their beliefs. This
:P>kind of stuff should be kept on talk.religion.misc, where it belongs.
:P
:P>ATHEISM ISN'T A BELIEF, IT'S THE ABSENCE OF BELIEF IN ANY GODS.
:P> -------
:P
:P>Do you have a problem with this?
:P
:P>>
:P>>Bill
:PFirst, I would like to say that atheism is in fact a belief. It is a beilief
:Pbecause a belief in something you hold to with ador and faith. An atheist says there are no gods. This cannot be proven. therefore you are excepting this on
:Pfaith alone. That is a belief. Secondly, you complain so much about how the
:Pfundamental christians are trying to force their beliefs on you, but you don't
:Pmention anything about how the atheists, such as; Madamme Murry O'hare(founder
:Pof the Atheists Association in Austin Texas), and Robert Sherman(from the Chicago area) have been trying to force their beliefs on everyone by trying to get rid of God from our society by banning religious paintings from parks during Chistmas, forcing cities to change their town seals if there is any mention of God in it (like Sherman has done), or trying to get the slogan "In God We Trust" off of the American currency? You also talk about creation "myths" as if they are in fact myths and tha
:P
:P
:P
:Phave concrete evidece of this. You probably
:Pdon't and that just enforces my point that your atheism is just as much belief as my christianity. If this is not so please do show me why it isn't.
:PMark Covalt
The only real problem I have with the argument of christianity is that they seem to ignore their origin that being Asiatic in origin. As soon as christians become the
good non ego-centric Buddhists they are supposed to be, then I might listen. | 0 | alt.atheism |
[text deleted]
I wish that you had followed this thread before jumping to conclusions.
I haven't seen anybody write that AIDS was a *punishment* for certain
types of sin (this includes Mark Ashley who you were responding to
here). I myself wrote that when you don't do things God's way that
curses will come on you and others. Although one definition of 'curse'
is 'retribution', I only meant 'harm or misfortune' when I used the
word. Because God loves us he has told us the best way to live in his
Bible. God doesn't cause curses, he warns us of them.
Kevin Davis wrote (a while ago):
The Bible makes it clear that we all equally deserve death (which is
much worse than AIDS) -- we have all hurt God with our sin.
Paul Conditt reveals his feelings:
The first issue you bring up is your anger. It is "obvious"ly wrong to
be angry (Gal 5:19-20) for any reason, especially *extremely* angry
which is on par with hatred. Jesus has every reason to be angry at us
for putting him on the cross with our sin, yet his prayer was "forgive
them Father, they know not what they do." Knowing how forgiving Jesus
has been with me calls me to be more forgiving with everyone out of
love for Him. Please don't give in to anger, it will only cause
foolish quarrels and more bad feelings.
It's okay if you read something that bothers you, but you need to
address it in a loving way. If right now, I felt like someone out
there was saying that God punishes gay or sexually immoral people with
AIDS because they deserve punishment that others don't then I would
frame a response something like this:
"It makes me feel very sad for someone to believe that AIDS, which is
simply a harmful disease not so unlike any other, is God's punishment
for people who have committed certain sins. God loves all of his
children equally and rejoices when a single one comes back to him. We
will all be judged after we die, but until then we all have the
opportunity to accept God's grace by earnestly seeking after him with
all of our hearts, believing the gospel's testimony, repenting of our
sin, confessing that Jesus is Lord at baptism, and living a new life
for him.
Let us not judge someone to be eternally condemned. God's arm is not
to short to save. He will do anything he can to move a hardened heart
or a misled person. He works for the good of all men. Even through
the worst of situations, he has set the times and places for all men
that they may perhaps reach out and find him."
The second issue you bring up is seeing people rationalize their fears
of people with AIDS. Fortunately, what you describe as seeing is
actually misperceiving. You have been missing the points made in the
earlier posts and reacting in anger to attitudes that haven't been
expressed. I know that its sometimes hard to discount your
perceptions, but please try to be open-minded.
You are quite correct in saying that we should reach out to all people
because they all need Jesus. This is what my brothers and sisters and
I do on a daily basis. If you would like to send me the name of the
city and state you live in, I will find and get you in touch with some
brothers who have AIDS or know people with AIDS and live nearby you so
that you can see the loving attitudes for yourself.
The third issue you bring up is the importance of how some individual
contracted AIDS. How someone gets AIDS is only relevant to their
salvation in that there may be repetence involved.
The important point to be made, however, is that not listening to God's
commands (or advice or warnings), i.e. sinning, causes harm or
misfortune to yourself and others. For this reason, a good way to
prevent the misfortune of AIDS, which can be transmitted in sinful ways,
is to listen to God's advice and have sex only with your wife or
husband.
I hope that you are feeling better now, Paul.
Love, | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
The only info I have is my area is not having a large march. They are leaving
it up to each congragation. IMO this means organizers found it too difficult
to manage or no one feels the need to be involved.
I'm not casting stones, my involvement with the Lord does not include the March
this year. Maybe He is giving a message by the lack of one?? JLS | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
First of all, "ceremonial law" is an extraScriptural term. It is sometimes
used as a framework to view Scripture. But if you look at Collosions,
without going into it with the assumption that the Sabbath cannot be
a ceremonial law, you will see that it does refer to the sabbath.
against us to His cross, and therefore we should not be judged in what
what food we eat, what we drink, the keeping of new moons and holy days,
or the keeping of the sabbath.
The word for sabbath in this verse is "sabbaton" and is used throughout the
New Testament to refer to the 7th day. If there is any Scripture from
which we get the idea of the ceremonial law, this is one of them, and the
sabbath is listed among the ceremonial laws.
If one goes into this with the fundamental assumption "the sabbath cannot
be a ceremonial law" then he will have to find some way around it, like
saying that this can only refer to the other sabbath holy days besides the
7tH day, Because "the sabbath cannot be a ceremonial law." But
Paul is very careful in his letters to add some kind of parenthetcal
statement if there is anything that can be seen as a liscence to sin
in his writings.
Also, why is the sabbath absent from the epistles (except for Hebrews 4, which
talks about the rest that comes through faith?) Surely it would have
been a big problem for first century Christians living in a society
that did not rest on the 7th day. Especially slaves. Many new converst were
slaves. It would have been difficult for slaves to rest on the sabbath
if it had been mandatory. Why is there no mention of this in the epistles? | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
But then, on the other hand, if you really loved that King more
than you did yourself, and He loved you to the point of assuring
you that the eternal time spent with him would be eternal ecstasy,
would you really opt for that choice?
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Sorry. Wrong. This is how banks got started in the first place.
Sooner or later your father and his pals will lend money to someone
who eventually goes broke, and then they will realise that they
havn't been managing risk very well. Then they will ask themselves
what it is that they need to quantify risk, and to persuade borrowers
not to take on greater loans than they can carry. And since they
don't all want the worry of doing the calculations and handling the
money, some of them will specialise in that.
Then they'll reinvent interest, but like good Muslims, they'll call
it something else.
Riiiight. That's why John Major opened a new government department
a couple of months ago to help to promote minority business. Because
they can do it all themselves by lending one another cups of sugar. | 0 | alt.atheism |
And yet, Jayne, as we read the Gospels and in particular the topics that Jesus
himself spoke on, Hell figures in a large % of the time -certainly more than
heaven itself. Paul, as we learn in I Thess, taught new believers and new
churches eschatology and did not hesitate to teach hell and damnation. Rev,
chapter 20:11-15 is very specific and cannot be allegorized. I think the word
"throne" is used 45 times in Rev and that the unbelieving come to receive the
assignment of the severity of judgement, for in John 3 we read that they are
already judged. Rom 3 speaks that every mouth will be shut. There is no
recourse, excuse or defense.
Yes I agree with you. Life is often like a pendulum where it swings to
extremes before stopping at "moderation." I think we have seen the extreme of
the "hell fire & brimstone" preacher, but also we have seen the other extreme
where hell not talked about at all for fear of offending someones
sensibilities.
I forget who founded the Word of Life Ministries, but I remember him telling a
story. He was in a small town hardware store and some how a man got to the
point of telling him that he didn't believe in Satan or hell. He believed
everybody was going to heaven. It was at this point that the man was asked to
pray to God that He would send his children to hell! Of course the man
wouldn't do it. But the point was made. Many people say they don't believe in
hell but they are not willing to really place their faith in that it doesn't
exist. If this man had, he would of prayed the prayer because hell didn't
exist and there would have been no fear in having his prayer answered. And
yet, they walk as if they believe they will never be sent there.
I'd use a different illustration however. I have to include myself in it.
When I watch, say a Basketball (go Bulls!) game, and I see a blatant foul that
isn't called, oi vey!. What's with that ref that he didn't make that call.
It's unfair. And just so in life, righteousness demands payment. As the
surgeon takes knife in hand to cut the cancer away, so God cuts off that which
is still of the old creation. We must preach the Gospel in all its richness
which includes the fact that if you reject The Way and The Truth and The Life,
then broad is the way to distruction.
I think I would fall in there somewhere. Actually it was both. After all,
repentance isn't only a turning towards, but also a turning away from!
No, again, if Jesus used it in His ministry then I can surely see that we
should do it also. In love, of course, but in truth most assuredly.
I have thought about writing something on this topic, but not now and here. I
would say that there are some good reasons for its existence and its
eternality.
1) God is Light. Yes He is love, but His love has the boundary of Holiness.
2) Dignity of Man. Either a man is a robot or he is a responsible creature.
If responsible, then he is also accountable.
3) The awfulness of sin. Today we have a poor, poor concept of sin & God.
4) Christ. He was willing to die and go there Himself to offer an avenue to
the "whosoever will." | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
In a cell church, the fundamental building block is the "cell group" -- a
small group of no more than 15 believers. The small groups are responsible
for the ministry of the church: evangelism and discipleship. The emphasis
is on relationships, not on programs, and both the evangelism and the
discipling are relationship-based.
This will probably raise more questions than it answered, but that's it in
a nutshell. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Damn right you can't provide any evidence for it.
Rarely are any widespread social phenomenon reducible to such a
simple premise. If they were, psychology would be a hard science
with roughly the same mathematical soundness as physics.
Your premise may well be right. It is much more likely, however,
that it reflects your socialization and religious background, as
well as your need to validate your religious beliefs. Were I to
pretend to have all the answers (and I don't), I would say that the
xenophobia, guilt, and intolerance brought about by adherence to
fundamentalist religions play just as large a role in depressing
the members of our society.
Your mileage obviously varies.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away,
and sank Manhattan out at sea. | 0 | alt.atheism |
Being a parent in need of some help, I ask that you bear with me while I
describe the situation which plagues me...
I am a divorced father. Chance would have it that "my weekend" with my
daughter has fallen upon Easter Weekend this year.
Although I am Presbyterian, I had married a Catholic woman. We decided
that the Catholic moray of indoctrination of the spouse into the faith
was too confining (and restrictive due to time as we had already set a
date), and we were married in a Christian Church which was non-denominational.
During the years of our marriage, we did not often attend church.
When our daughter was born, some years later, my wife insisted that she
be baptised as Catholic. This wasn't a problem with me.
During a separation of five years, my ex-wife was taken ill with a disease
that affected her mental capacities. She was confined to a mental ward for
two months before it was diagnosed. It has since been treated "effectively".
In other words, professionals have deemed her a functioning member of society.
During the recuperation, my ex-wife has embraced Buddism. Her influence over
my daughter has been substantial, and has primarily allowed me only Saturday
visitation for a number of years. During this period I have read Bible study
books to my daughter, and tried to keep her aware of her Christian heritage.
Last fall, our divorce was finalized after a year of viscious divorce hearings.
At that time I was awarded visitation rights every other weekend. At that time,
I started taking my daughter to church quite often, although not every weekend.
I did this to attempt to strengthen the Christian ethic and expose her to a
religious community.
Today, Easter Sunday, I took my daughter to church. When it came time for
Communion, my daughter took the bread (The body of Christ) but left the wine
(The blood of Christ) professing that she was too young for wine. She then
balled the bread up in her hand and tried to descretely throw it under the
pew in front of us.
I feel this was a slap in the face to me, my religion, and an afront to her
religious heritage. It can be construed as breaking several of the commandments
if you try. I really felt dishonored by the action.
My daughter is only nine years old, but I think she should have been old and
mature enough to realize her actions. I have difficulty blaming her directly
for religious teachings her mother swears to, but when I discussed this with
my daughter she made it clear she believed in Buddhism and not Christianity.
My initial response of anger (moderated) was to suggest if there is no faith
in Christ then why does she celebrate Easter, or Christmas? I suggested I
would never force her to practice my religious beliefs by celebrating holidays
with her again.
I do not want to "drive her from the fold", and would be willing to allow her
to continue practicing Buddhism (as though I had a choice seeing her only
for two days out of fourteen) but I want her to want to embrace Christianity.
Any suggestions?
If you have a response, please e-mail me a copy. (I'm not a regular reader
of this newsgroup.) (Naturally, feel free to post too!)
Thanks, and I hope you've had a happy Easter.
Drew
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
m> The latest news seems to be that Koresh will give himself up once he's
m> finished writing a sequel to the Bible.
Also, it's the 16th now. Can the Feds get him on tax evasion? I don't
remember hearing about him running to the Post Office last night.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
I simply wish to thank Dave Mielke (dave@bnr.ca) for sharing the
tract concerning God's love. It was most welcome to me and a great
source of comfort. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Exactly.
C. S. Lewis has taken a couple of pretty severe hits in this group lately.
First somebody was accusing him of being self-righteous and unconvincing.
Now we are told that we Christians should be embarrassed by him. (As well
as by Josh McDowell, about whom I have no comment, having never read his
work.)
Anyone who thinks that C. S. Lewis was self-righteous ought to read his
introduction to The Problem of Pain, which is his theodicy. In it, he
explains that he wanted to publish the book anonymously. Why? Although he
believed in the argument he was presenting, he did not want to seem to
presume to tell others how brave they should be in the face of their own
suffering. He did not want people to think that he was presenting himself
as some kind of model of fortitude, or that he was anything other than what
he considered himself to be -- "a great coward."
OFM has adequately handled the question of whether we ought to be
embarrassed by Lewis' liar/lunatic/lord argument (which, by the way, is
part of a *much* bigger discourse.) I would just like to add that, far from
being embarrassed by Lewis, I am in a state of continual amazement at the
soundness and clarity of the arguments he presents.
- Phil - | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
)
)That's your mistake. It would be better for the children if the mother
)raised the child.
)
)One thing that relates is among Navy men that get tatoos that say "Mom",
)because of the love of their mom. It makes for more virile men.
)Compare that with how homos are raised. Do a study and you will get my
)point.
)
)But in no way do you have a claim that it would be better if the men
)stayed home and raised the child. That is something false made up by
)feminists that seek a status above men. You do not recognize the fact
)that men and women have natural differences. Not just physically, but
)mentally also.
) [...]
)Your logic. I didn't say americans were the cause of worlds problems, I
)said atheists.
) [...]
)Becuase they have no code of ethics to follow, which means that atheists
)can do whatever they want which they feel is right. Something totally
)based on their feelings and those feelings cloud their rational
)thinking.
) [...]
)Yeah. I didn't say that all atheists are bad, but that they could be
)bad or good, with nothing to define bad or good.
)
Awright! Bobby's back, in all of his shit-for-brains glory. Just
when I thought he'd turned the corner of progress, his Thorazine
prescription runs out.
I'd put him in my kill file, but man, this is good stuff. I wish
I had his staying power.
Fortunately, I learned not to take him too seriously long,long,long
ago.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
Bob Beauchaine bobbe@vice.ICO.TEK.COM
They said that Queens could stay, they blew the Bronx away,
and sank Manhattan out at sea. | 0 | alt.atheism |
In the Bible, there are a lot of instances where God speaks
to people, where a person just "came to know" some piece
of information, where a person walks off into the desert
for "40 days", etc. With all of God's power He certainly can
do whatever He wants when He wants it. The Bible "ends"
with the book of Revelations. But does God's reign end there ? No.
So who can say for sure that God's messages are either no longer
happening or still happening ?
I can now hear the clamor for proof. 8-)
With the cold response I've gotten from the past from this
group, it's very hard to get the point across. I'll only
go over the physical stuff so that skeptics can look
at documents stored somewhere. I've cited the uncorrupted
bodies of saints before. They're still there. 8-)
The apparitions at Fatima, Portugal culminated in a miracle
specifically granted to show God's existence. That was
the spinning/descending of the sun. It was seen in several
countries. That event is "approved" by the Pope. Currently,
images of Mary in Japan, Korea, Yugoslavia, Philippines, Africa
are showing tears (natural or blood). These are still under
investigation by the Church. But realize that investigations
take decades to finish. And if the message is Christ will come
in ten days, that's a bit too late, isn't it 8-).
Other events under investigation are inner locutions ("coming
to know"), stigmata (the person exhibits Christ's wounds. And
they don't heal. And doctor's don't know why).
Non-believers are welcome to pore through documents, I'm sure.
This stuff is not like Koresh. Or Oral Roberts (give me $5M
or God will call me home). It's free. Find out why they're
happening (as we ourselves are studying why). If anybody
can figure this out, tell us ! You can be of any religion.
If you have the resources, go to one of the countries I mentioned.
These are not "members only" events. God and Mary invites
everybody.
So in conclusion (finally) ...
We RC's believe in the modern day manifestations of God and Mary.
We are scared to death sometimes although we're told not to.
There are more proofs and events. And that is why "not everything
is in the Bible". Although in a lot of the apparitions, we are told
to read the Bible.
As far as the Protestant vs. Catholics issue is concerned...
In the end, God's churches will unite. I'm not sure how.
I have some idea. But the point is we shouldn't worry
about the "versus" part. Just do God's work. That's all
that matters. Unity will come.
BTW, I'm just a plain person. I'm not the Pope's spokesperson.
But I am RC.
-- | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Oops, sorry, my words, not the words of the Qur'an.
Note that "(the celestial bodies)" in the above verse is an
interpolation (which is why it is in brackets) -- it is the translator's
(incorrect, IMHO) interpretation.
Here is Maurice Bucaille's translation (he studied Arabic for his
research into the Qur'an and science) of this verse:
"(God is) the One Who created the night, the day, the sun and the moon.
Each is travelling in an orbit with its own motion." (Qur'an :33)
The positive aspect of this verse noted by Dr. Maurice Bucaille is that
while geocentrism was the commonly accepted notion at the time (and for
a long time afterwards), there is no notion of geocentrism in this verse
(or anywhere in the Qur'an). | 0 | alt.atheism |
I have also heard it called an expression of mercy, because Heaven would be
far more agonizing for those who had rejected God.
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
In <Apr.10.05.30.16.1993.14313@athos.rutgers.edu>
[ . . . ]
Having lived through the kicking and screaming in the 60s and 70s as the
Catholics were invited to participate in the liturgy instead of counting
their rosary beads during Mass, I find this comment interesting. There
is a _massively_ longer tradition for proclaiming the Passion accounts
without active participation. If you know the Latin, one really
beautiful way to hear the Passion is it's being chanted by three
deacons: the Narrator chants in the middle baritone range, Jesus chants
in the bass, and others directly quoted are handled by a high tenor.
This is actually the basis for the common proclamation of the Passion
that John would prefer.
But there is always a judgement call based on pastoral considerations.
Each pastor makes his own decisions (it isn't a church-wide conspiracy
against participation). The Palm Sunday liturgy, with its initial
blessing and distribution of the palms and procession, is already
getting long before you get to the Passion; some pastors feel that they
should not make the people stand through that long narrative. Also, the
orchestrated proclamation with multiple readers and public participation
in the crowd quotations runs longer than the single-reader proclamation
--- in churches with multiple Masses for the Sunday, it might be
necessary to go with the briefer options just to "get 'em in and get 'em
out".
Each parish is different. Catholics are no longer canonically tied to
their geographic parishes. It is possible that another Catholic parish
in the Columbus area (based on the Ohio State address) has a liturgy
closer to your preferences. Or talk to some of your fellow
parishioners and see how common your preferences are --- pastors
generally ARE willing to listen to non-confrontational requests. Though
you probably should bring along a paramedic in case he reacts too strongly
to the shock of people asked for a _longer_ Sunday Mass.
Perhaps the problem is that recent liturgical development hasn't follow
the continuous evolution model (the accumulation of small changes, no
single one of which is too hard to take) but rather the punctuated
equilibrium model (things stay the same and we get accustomed to them,
then the marked mutation hits). {My apologies if I am mis-remembering
the names of the evolutionary theories.} | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Here's how I talk to non-Christians who are complaining about Hell.
ME: "Do you believe you're going to Heaven?"
HIM: "I don't believe in Heaven."
ME: "So are you going there?"
HIM: "If there was a heaven, I would."
ME: "But since there isn't a Heaven, you're not going there, are you?"
HIM: "No."
The point is that Heaven is based on faith--if you don't believe in heaven,
there's no way you're going to be in it.
Of course, the next step is, "I don't believe in Hell either, so why will I
be there?" It seems to me that Hell is eternal death and seperation from God.
Most atheists do believe that when they die they will die forever, and never
see God--so they do, in fact, believe that they're going to Hell.
Hell doesn't have to be worse than earth to be Hell--because it's eternal,
and it's a lot worse than Heaven. That's the only comparison that matters. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
In soc.religion.christian you write:
Note that the above type of prediction does not require a God to be made.
An expert in a field can also predict things based on experience.
Beware of predictions like "The volcano will erupt tomorrow!" Don't
follow the preacher because of such statements that come true.
Note also, that if I'm describing a (hypothetical) death of a friend as
a result of his passion for fast motorcycles, I might say "his mother
predicted he would die." Of course, his father may have said "he 'll
make good money because of his hobby" and depending upon the final
outcome of the situation I end up mentioning the one that's
relevant. A reader down the road will get the impression that the
mother or father had predicted accurately the event, when it was just
a casual statement.
Finally, on prophesies, note that there are many prophesies that can be
fulfilled my people, often to fool believers. If I say, "Beware, the
terminal will unexpectedly be shut off!" and then after 2 secs I turn
it off (or have someone come out from another room and do it) there was
no prediction. A similar situation arises with the establishment of
the Jewish state. While pressing for it, prominent Jews argued that it
was predicted that they'd have a state again, and that the time has
come. (I've read this somewhere, but can't think of the source - if
you can, please let me know.) In this case, the establishment of the
state does not really fulfill the prophesy since the prophesy was used
in order to push for the establishment of the state.
Deciding what was truely a fulfillment of prophesy is very tricky.
-leo
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
[deletia]
In the deletions somewhere, it mentioned something about chopping
off of hands being a punishment for theft in Saudi Arabia. Assuming this
is so (I wouldn't know), and assuming it is done by people fitting your
requirement for "muslim" (which I find highly likely), then would you
please try to convince Bobby Mozumder that muslims chop people's hands
off?
Come back when you've succeeded.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
: [first post I've seen from the ol' Bug-Zoo (BGSU)]
: > There is no means that i can possibly think of to prove beyond doubt
: >that a god does not exist (but if anyone has one, by all means, tell me
: >what it is). Therefore, lacking this ability of absolute proof, being an
: >atheist becomes an act of faith in and of itself, and this I cannot accept.
: > I accept nothing on blind faith.
: Invisible Pink Flying Unicorns! Need I say more?
There is also the question of what is meant by "atheist". A familiar
example of the importance of the meaning of the word is as follows.
The two statements following ARE consistent:
(1) I do not believe that you are wearing lilac socks
(2) I do not believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks
The two statements following are NOT consistent:
(3) I do believe that you are wearing lilac socks
(4) I do believe that you are are not wearing lilac socks
Statements (1) and (2) require no faith, they make no presumptions about
the nature of reality. Statements (3) and (4) require belief. Many
atheists (myself included) take the following position:
(5) I do not believe that there is a god.
(6) I do not believe that there is not a god. | 0 | alt.atheism |
I'd like to share my thoughts on this topic of "arrogance of
Christians" and look forward to any responses. In my
encounters with Christians, I find myself dismayed by their
belief that their faith is total truth. According to them,
their beliefs come from the Bible and the bible is the word of
God and God is truth - thus they know the truth. This stance
makes it difficult to discuss other faiths with them and my own
hesitations about Christianity because they see no other way.
Their way is the 'truth.'
But I see their faith arising from a willful choice to believe
a particular way. That choice is part faith and part reason,
but it seems to me a choice.
My discussions with some Christians remind me of schoolyard
discussions when I was in grade school:
A kid would say, "All policemen are jerks!" I'd ask, "How do
you know?" "Because my daddy told me so!" "How do you know
you're daddy is right?" "He says he's always right!"
Well the argument usually stops right there. In the end,
aren't we all just kids, groping for the truth? If so, do we have
the authority to declare all other beliefs besides our own as
false?
-------------
This is only my third time browsing through this newsgroup. I
apologize if I'm covering tired old ground. Some of the
discussions on this topic have piqued my interest and I welcome
any comments.
--
[I'm sort of mystified about how a Christian might respond to this. I
can understand criticisms of Christianity that say there's not enough
evidence to believe it, or that there's just as good evidence for
other religions. I don't agree, but clearly there are plenty of
intelligent people who don't find the evidence convincing. But that
doesn't seem to be your point. Rather, you seem upset that people who
believe Christianity is true also believe that things which contradict
it are false.
This suggests a model of spiritual things that's rather different than
the Christian one. It sounds more like an existentialist view, where
people choose what value to follow, but there's no actual independent
spiritual reality, and so no way to say that a specific choice is in
some unique sense right. This sort of model -- with modifications of
one sort or another -- may be appropriate for some religions. But
Christianity is in its essense a "historical" religion. That is, it's
based on the concept that there are actual spiritual entities out
there, that one of them has intervened in history in specific ways,
and that we see evidence of that in history. In the "mundane" world,
we are not free to choose how things work. When we drop something, it
falls (aside from well-defined situations where it doesn't). The
Christian concept is that spiritual matters, there is also an actual
external reality. I hope we're all honest enough not to claim that we
have perfect understanding. But while we may not think we know
everything, we are confident that we know some things. And that
implies that we think things that contradict them are false. I don't
see how else we could proceed.
This needn't result in arrogance. I'm certainly interested in talking
with people of other religions. They may have things to teach me, and
even if they don't, I respect them as fellow human beings. But it's
got to be possible to respect people and also think that on some
matters they are wrong. Maybe even disasterously wrong. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I agree. God makes the husband the head of the house. But he surely
can't do it alone. He needs the help of his beloved wife whom the
Lord gave him.
At least that's how it is in my house. I thank God for the beautiful
woman He has brought into my life. I couldn't lead without the help
of my wonderful wife.
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Well, if everything wouldn't be okay, then tell us what it is that
wouldn't be okay. That is, if religions were no longer tax-exempt, then
what would be wrong with their lobbying or otherwise attempting to
influence politics? | 0 | alt.atheism |
[deletia wrt pathetic Jee-zus posting by Bissel]
NO. He hasn't extended to US the courtesy you've shown us, so he don't get no
pie. Tammy, I respect your beliefs because you don't try to stamp them into
my being. I have scorn for posters whose sole purpose appears to be to
evangelize. | 0 | alt.atheism |
believeing blindly or not. I'm not sure how blindness comes into it. I do > not
deny reason, indeed I insist upon it, but reason only draws conclusions > from
evidence. If you decide in advance that your reason will act only on > the
evidence of the five physical senses, then you cut reason off from any >
possibility of reaching a conclusion outside the physical sphere (beyond the >
rather provocative, if inconclusive, conclusion that the physical sphere > is
not self explanatory).
So your are saying to rely on our feelings and experiences (since
this is the only other source of information left to us).
How can you then convince somebody that your "feelings and experiences"
are the correct ones then if you can't show somebody visible and
measurable effects? If my experiences say that "there exists no god"
and yours says there does, where does that leave us? Since we are only
going on experiences, then both of us are correct within our own personal
realities.
Furthermore, the trouble with "feelings and experiences" is that they
can lead you astray, as the tragic outcome of Waco illustrates. I
am sure that many of Koresh's followers really believed in him but
I think that you and I will agree that they were being misled.
Finally, how on earth do you come to the conclusion that the physical
sphere is not self-explanatory when you only rely on the five senses?
You must be using a definition of "evidence" that I am not familiar with.
To me, evidence is something you can show others -unambiguously- that
what you are saying is true.
However, I agree with you that belief in a diety is a matter of faith.
It is not something you can share around - others must experience it
independantly. Unfortunately, as I have explained above, this puts
belief down to a matter of experience. My impression is that Christians
do not have the monopoly on reason, evidence and faith as far as any of
these things can go.
At the risk of repeating my argument : As I have explained previously,
the trouble is that Moslems, Buddhists, Jews, etc will ALL say that THEY
claim, with good reason, to be a valid system, possessed of the best
evidence, for explaining Gods revelations to man (for Buddhists it
should read "for explaining the non-existence of God"). So not only
must you "prove" your own case, you have to "disprove" theirs.
(alt.messianic is a good place to see people strong in the belief
of their own faiths ... and with their own good reasons)
I know that ALL people can use reason ... I never claimed that they don't.
I just wish to make sure that their arguments are well-founded. It goes
without saying that if I make a blunder that I expect people to correct
me. Once we have all gone through this process of removing the
non-essential and contradictory bits, we should (hopefully) have made
some progress towards the truth.
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Excerpts from netnews.alt.atheism: 15-Apr-93 Re: thoughts on christians
by Dave Fuller@portal.hq.vi
I think it'd help if we got a couple good atheists (or even some good,
steadfast agnostics) in some high political offices. When was the last
time we had an (openly) atheist president? Have we ever? (I don't
actually know; these aren't rhetorical questions.) How 'bout some
Supreme court justices?
One thing that really ticked me off a while ago was an ad for a news
program on a local station...The promo said something like "Who are
these cults, and why do they prey on the young?" Ahem. EVER HEAR OF
BAPTISM AT BIRTH? If that isn't preying on the young, I don't know what
is...
I used to be (ack, barf) a Catholic, and was even confirmed...Shortly
thereafter I decided it was a load of BS. My mom, who really insisted
that I continue to go to church, felt it was her duty (!) to bring me up
as a believer! That was one of the more presumptuous things I've heard
in my life. I suggested we go talk to the priest, and she agreed. The
priest was amazingly cool about it...He basically said that if I didn't
believe it, there was no good in forcing it on me. Actually, I guess he
wasn't amazingly cool about it--His response is what you'd hope for
(indeed, expect) from a human being. I s'pose I just _didn't_ expect
it...
I find it absurd that religion exists; Yet, I can also see its
usefulness to people. Facing up to the fact that you're just going to
be worm food in a few decades, and that there isn't some cosmic purpose
to humanity and the universe, can be pretty difficult for some people.
Having a readily-available, pre-digested solution to this is pretty
attractive, if you're either a) gullible enough, b) willing to suspend
your reasoning abilities for the piece of mind, or c) have had the stuff
rammed down your throat for as long as you can remember. Religion in
general provides a nice patch for some human weaknesses; Organized
religion provides a nice way to keep a population under control.
Blech.
Chris
| 0 | alt.atheism |
That's right. Humans have gone somewhat beyond this though. Perhaps
our goal is one of self-actualization.
Now you are letting an omniscient being give information to me. This
was not part of the original premise.
Which type of morality are you talking about? In a natural sense, it
is not at all immoral to harm another species (as long as it doesn't
adversely affect your own, I guess). | 0 | alt.atheism |
Phew! That takes a load off. I don't want to live forever. I wish
most Christians held this view. You can't walk across campus in
spring without being assailed by fire-and-brimstone preachers. I
really think the metaphor should be limited, at least with respect to
teaching our children. It's criminal to put these ideas into a young
and trusting mind. Besides, why not rely on the positive aspects of
your religion to win their faith?
-Tim | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Did you miss my post on this topic with the quote from The Indonesian
Handbook and Fred Rice's comments about temporary marriages? If so,
I will be glad to repost them. Will you accept that it just may be
a practice among some Muslims, if I do? Or will you continue to claim
that we are all lying and that it is "not practised at all amongst Muslims".
I don't think F. Karner has to tell everyone anything. Least of all that
he is lying. | 0 | alt.atheism |
Woah...The context is about God's calling out a special people (the Jews) to
carry the "promise." To read the meaning as literal people is to miss Paul's
entire point. I'd be glad to send anyone more detailed explanations of this
passage if interested. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Archive-name: atheism/resources
Alt-atheism-archive-name: resources
Last-modified: 11 December 1992
Version: 1.0
Atheist Resources
Addresses of Atheist Organizations
USA
FREEDOM FROM RELIGION FOUNDATION
Darwin fish bumper stickers and assorted other atheist paraphernalia are
available from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the US.
Write to: FFRF, P.O. Box 750, Madison, WI 53701.
Telephone: (608) 256-8900
EVOLUTION DESIGNS
Evolution Designs sell the "Darwin fish". It's a fish symbol, like the ones
Christians stick on their cars, but with feet and the word "Darwin" written
inside. The deluxe moulded 3D plastic fish is $4.95 postpaid in the US.
Write to: Evolution Designs, 7119 Laurel Canyon #4, North Hollywood,
CA 91605.
People in the San Francisco Bay area can get Darwin Fish from Lynn Gold --
try mailing <figmo@netcom.com>. For net people who go to Lynn directly, the
price is $4.95 per fish.
AMERICAN ATHEIST PRESS
AAP publish various atheist books -- critiques of the Bible, lists of
Biblical contradictions, and so on. One such book is:
"The Bible Handbook" by W.P. Ball and G.W. Foote. American Atheist Press.
372 pp. ISBN 0-910309-26-4, 2nd edition, 1986. Bible contradictions,
absurdities, atrocities, immoralities... contains Ball, Foote: "The Bible
Contradicts Itself", AAP. Based on the King James version of the Bible.
Write to: American Atheist Press, P.O. Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.
or: 7215 Cameron Road, Austin, TX 78752-2973.
Telephone: (512) 458-1244
Fax: (512) 467-9525
PROMETHEUS BOOKS
Sell books including Haught's "Holy Horrors" (see below).
Write to: 700 East Amherst Street, Buffalo, New York 14215.
Telephone: (716) 837-2475.
An alternate address (which may be newer or older) is:
Prometheus Books, 59 Glenn Drive, Buffalo, NY 14228-2197.
AFRICAN-AMERICANS FOR HUMANISM
An organization promoting black secular humanism and uncovering the history of
black freethought. They publish a quarterly newsletter, AAH EXAMINER.
Write to: Norm R. Allen, Jr., African Americans for Humanism, P.O. Box 664,
Buffalo, NY 14226.
United Kingdom
Rationalist Press Association National Secular Society
88 Islington High Street 702 Holloway Road
London N1 8EW London N19 3NL
071 226 7251 071 272 1266
British Humanist Association South Place Ethical Society
14 Lamb's Conduit Passage Conway Hall
London WC1R 4RH Red Lion Square
071 430 0908 London WC1R 4RL
fax 071 430 1271 071 831 7723
The National Secular Society publish "The Freethinker", a monthly magazine
founded in 1881.
Germany
IBKA e.V.
Internationaler Bund der Konfessionslosen und Atheisten
Postfach 880, D-1000 Berlin 41. Germany.
IBKA publish a journal:
MIZ. (Materialien und Informationen zur Zeit. Politisches
Journal der Konfessionslosesn und Atheisten. Hrsg. IBKA e.V.)
MIZ-Vertrieb, Postfach 880, D-1000 Berlin 41. Germany.
For atheist books, write to:
IBDK, Internationaler B"ucherdienst der Konfessionslosen
Postfach 3005, D-3000 Hannover 1. Germany.
Telephone: 0511/211216
Books -- Fiction
THOMAS M. DISCH
"The Santa Claus Compromise"
Short story. The ultimate proof that Santa exists. All characters and
events are fictitious. Any similarity to living or dead gods -- uh, well...
WALTER M. MILLER, JR
"A Canticle for Leibowitz"
One gem in this post atomic doomsday novel is the monks who spent their lives
copying blueprints from "Saint Leibowitz", filling the sheets of paper with
ink and leaving white lines and letters.
EDGAR PANGBORN
"Davy"
Post atomic doomsday novel set in clerical states. The church, for example,
forbids that anyone "produce, describe or use any substance containing...
atoms".
PHILIP K. DICK
Philip K. Dick Dick wrote many philosophical and thought-provoking short
stories and novels. His stories are bizarre at times, but very approachable.
He wrote mainly SF, but he wrote about people, truth and religion rather than
technology. Although he often believed that he had met some sort of God, he
remained sceptical. Amongst his novels, the following are of some relevance:
"Galactic Pot-Healer"
A fallible alien deity summons a group of Earth craftsmen and women to a
remote planet to raise a giant cathedral from beneath the oceans. When the
deity begins to demand faith from the earthers, pot-healer Joe Fernwright is
unable to comply. A polished, ironic and amusing novel.
"A Maze of Death"
Noteworthy for its description of a technology-based religion.
"VALIS"
The schizophrenic hero searches for the hidden mysteries of Gnostic
Christianity after reality is fired into his brain by a pink laser beam of
unknown but possibly divine origin. He is accompanied by his dogmatic and
dismissively atheist friend and assorted other odd characters.
"The Divine Invasion"
God invades Earth by making a young woman pregnant as she returns from
another star system. Unfortunately she is terminally ill, and must be
assisted by a dead man whose brain is wired to 24-hour easy listening music.
MARGARET ATWOOD
"The Handmaid's Tale"
A story based on the premise that the US Congress is mysteriously
assassinated, and fundamentalists quickly take charge of the nation to set it
"right" again. The book is the diary of a woman's life as she tries to live
under the new Christian theocracy. Women's right to own property is revoked,
and their bank accounts are closed; sinful luxuries are outlawed, and the
radio is only used for readings from the Bible. Crimes are punished
retroactively: doctors who performed legal abortions in the "old world" are
hunted down and hanged. Atwood's writing style is difficult to get used to
at first, but the tale grows more and more chilling as it goes on.
VARIOUS AUTHORS
"The Bible"
This somewhat dull and rambling work has often been criticized. However, it
is probably worth reading, if only so that you'll know what all the fuss is
about. It exists in many different versions, so make sure you get the one
true version.
Books -- Non-fiction
PETER DE ROSA
"Vicars of Christ", Bantam Press, 1988
Although de Rosa seems to be Christian or even Catholic this is a very
enlighting history of papal immoralities, adulteries, fallacies etc.
(German translation: "Gottes erste Diener. Die dunkle Seite des Papsttums",
Droemer-Knaur, 1989)
MICHAEL MARTIN
"Atheism: A Philosophical Justification", Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, USA.
A detailed and scholarly justification of atheism. Contains an outstanding
appendix defining terminology and usage in this (necessarily) tendentious
area. Argues both for "negative atheism" (i.e. the "non-belief in the
existence of god(s)") and also for "positive atheism" ("the belief in the
non-existence of god(s)"). Includes great refutations of the most
challenging arguments for god; particular attention is paid to refuting
contempory theists such as Platinga and Swinburne.
541 pages. ISBN 0-87722-642-3 (hardcover; paperback also available)
"The Case Against Christianity", Temple University Press
A comprehensive critique of Christianity, in which he considers
the best contemporary defences of Christianity and (ultimately)
demonstrates that they are unsupportable and/or incoherent.
273 pages. ISBN 0-87722-767-5
JAMES TURNER
"Without God, Without Creed", The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
MD, USA
Subtitled "The Origins of Unbelief in America". Examines the way in which
unbelief (whether agnostic or atheistic) became a mainstream alternative
world-view. Focusses on the period 1770-1900, and while considering France
and Britain the emphasis is on American, and particularly New England
developments. "Neither a religious history of secularization or atheism,
Without God, Without Creed is, rather, the intellectual history of the fate
of a single idea, the belief that God exists."
316 pages. ISBN (hardcover) 0-8018-2494-X (paper) 0-8018-3407-4
GEORGE SELDES (Editor)
"The great thoughts", Ballantine Books, New York, USA
A "dictionary of quotations" of a different kind, concentrating on statements
and writings which, explicitly or implicitly, present the person's philosophy
and world-view. Includes obscure (and often suppressed) opinions from many
people. For some popular observations, traces the way in which various
people expressed and twisted the idea over the centuries. Quite a number of
the quotations are derived from Cardiff's "What Great Men Think of Religion"
and Noyes' "Views of Religion".
490 pages. ISBN (paper) 0-345-29887-X.
RICHARD SWINBURNE
"The Existence of God (Revised Edition)", Clarendon Paperbacks, Oxford
This book is the second volume in a trilogy that began with "The Coherence of
Theism" (1977) and was concluded with "Faith and Reason" (1981). In this
work, Swinburne attempts to construct a series of inductive arguments for the
existence of God. His arguments, which are somewhat tendentious and rely
upon the imputation of late 20th century western Christian values and
aesthetics to a God which is supposedly as simple as can be conceived, were
decisively rejected in Mackie's "The Miracle of Theism". In the revised
edition of "The Existence of God", Swinburne includes an Appendix in which he
makes a somewhat incoherent attempt to rebut Mackie.
J. L. MACKIE
"The Miracle of Theism", Oxford
This (posthumous) volume contains a comprehensive review of the principal
arguments for and against the existence of God. It ranges from the classical
philosophical positions of Descartes, Anselm, Berkeley, Hume et al, through
the moral arguments of Newman, Kant and Sidgwick, to the recent restatements
of the classical theses by Plantinga and Swinburne. It also addresses those
positions which push the concept of God beyond the realm of the rational,
such as those of Kierkegaard, Kung and Philips, as well as "replacements for
God" such as Lelie's axiarchism. The book is a delight to read - less
formalistic and better written than Martin's works, and refreshingly direct
when compared with the hand-waving of Swinburne.
JAMES A. HAUGHT
"Holy Horrors: An Illustrated History of Religious Murder and Madness",
Prometheus Books
Looks at religious persecution from ancient times to the present day -- and
not only by Christians.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 89-64079. 1990.
NORM R. ALLEN, JR.
"African American Humanism: an Anthology"
See the listing for African Americans for Humanism above.
GORDON STEIN
"An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism", Prometheus Books
An anthology covering a wide range of subjects, including 'The Devil, Evil
and Morality' and 'The History of Freethought'. Comprehensive bibliography.
EDMUND D. COHEN
"The Mind of The Bible-Believer", Prometheus Books
A study of why people become Christian fundamentalists, and what effect it
has on them.
Net Resources
There's a small mail-based archive server at mantis.co.uk which carries
archives of old alt.atheism.moderated articles and assorted other files. For
more information, send mail to archive-server@mantis.co.uk saying
help
send atheism/index
and it will mail back a reply.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
If I am not mistaken, the Jewish family names Cohen, Kahn, etc.
are considered to be legitimate indicators of descent from Aaron.
The family names Levi, Levene, etc. are considered to be legitimate
indicators of descent from Levi. The main legal issue is the purification
of the priesthood, which is supposed to involve finding the ashes of
of the red heifer last used for this purpose 2000 years ago.
_______________________________________________________________________________ | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
How about:
The Holocaust
The Spanish Inquisition
Jonestown
(just to name a few) ?
Authorities sometimes tell people to do evil things. People who "just
follow orders" have tortured and killed others in very large numbers,
and protest their innocence afterwards.
When your authority starts telling you to do things, you should ask
questions. Except for situations of pressing need ("I said shut the
hatch because the submarine is filling with water!"), any reasonable
authority should be able to give at least some justification that you
can understand.
Just be sure to listen when authority answers.
(If anybody is interested in questions of psychological pressure and
following orders, you might want to read about a study done by Solomon Ashe
in 1951 on conformity, and another done by Stanley Milgram in 1963 on
obedience. Both should be in any good book on psychology/sociology. The
results are both fascinating and terrifying.)
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
A new alternative to Scouting for those "unacceptable to BSA" for reasons
of religious or sexual preference:
From: "BOYD R. CRITZ, III" <71611.365@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: EnviroLeague
"Birth Announcement" on March 7, 1993, from EARTH Forum, CompuServe
Information Service
===================================================================
FORMAL ANNOUNCEMENT
-------------------
(SM)
EnviroLeague
A new youth movement,"EnviroLeague," was recently born, according to its
founder, Boyd R. Critz, III (CIS ID# 71611,365), of Peoria, Illinois.
EnviroLeague exists for the education of youth, both male and female, in
matters concerning their values related to and responsibility for our
environment.
Incorporated as an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, its Articles and
initial applications for a service mark have now been filed. According to
Critz, its draft Bylaws contain the following statement of Mission and
Objectives:
MISSION
It is the Mission of EnviroLeague and its adult members
to foster and implement the improved education of young
people in the need to conduct their lives as Stewards
of The Earth, to leave The Earth in a better condition
than they found it, and to otherwise act as responsible,
moral and ethical users of their environment. To pursue
the accomplishment of this Mission, EnviroLeague shall
seek to serve as a catalyst, focusing in common cause the
separate efforts of all groups desiring the preservation,
improvement, and responsible use of the environment in
which we must all live.
OBJECTIVES
In pursuit of the Mission of EnviroLeague, its primary
objectives shall be:
(1) To establish a Movement involving as many
environmentally concerned organizations as
possible, said Movement having as its primary
focus the education and participatory
involvement of young people in appropriate areas
of environmental concern;
(2) To develop and provide to such organizations and
their branches a full complement of program
materials for their use, including suitable
uniforms, insignia and other badges, written
ideas, syllabi and information, literature and
other items as shall seem appropriate and
desirable;
(3) To serve as a "clearing house" for the exchange
of program ideas, materials and information
among said organizations; and
(4) To assist environmentally concerned
organizations to recruit and train the necessary
adult leadership for their youth programs.
EnviroLeague will operate through three "Program Divisions" serving youth in
the elementary, middle and high school grades, respectively. Service shall be
through formation of "EnviroLeague Teams," either by EnviroLeague itself or by
environmentally conscious organizations (or their local branches) wishing a
charter to use programs developed by EnviroLeague.
EnviroLeague, as it develops, will be controlled by the actual adult leaders
of each local Team, and will have no nationally imposed obstacles to
membership or adult leadership status not based upon relevant improper
conduct. Organizations accepting a charter may, however, impose certain
additional standards for their own use of the program material. Should such
organizations do so, EnviroLeague will commit itself to forming, as soon as
possible, new nearby Teams having no such restrictions, particularly as to
youth membership.
EnviroLeague will operate on the principle that youth will have much to
contribute to developing its programs. Thus, the top youth leaders of its
Teams for middle and high school youth may become involved in governing any
local administrative groups, and those for its high school youth may be
involved in similar functions at the national level.
Program materials are in development at this time. Copies of the "draft"
portions of the Mentor's Manual (manual for adult leadership) will be in the
EARTH Forum, Library 17. These files will be updated as development takes
place.
CompuServe is particularly proud that EnviroLeague's founder chose this
electronic medium to make the first public announcement of its formation.
This announcement is being made simultaneously in both the OUTDOOR and EARTH
Forums.
The electronic home of EnviroLeague is in CompuServe's Earth Forum - GO
EARTH - message and library areas 17, both named "EnviroLeague."
============================================================================
Subsequently, EnviroLeague's Initial Governance Council has held its first
meeting. Boyd Critz was elected as the first EnviroLeague Chief Guardian
(equivalent to Chairman of the Board or CEO). He can be reached at home
(309) 675-4483 in case of real need. Also, mail can be addressed to:
EnviroLeague
P.O. Box 418
Peoria, IL 61651-0418
Those interested in starting an EnviroLeague Team might just establish
contact, to receive a diskette (IBM DOS, ASCII) with initial information.
-- | 0 | alt.atheism |
{rest deleted}
Can the Father possibly not hear the words of His children.
Of course He hears all your prayers.
Whether you are a sinner or a saint, no questions.
The real question you should be asking is: "Does sin block OUR hearing His
answer?" And the answer to that question is a resounding YES.
To paraphrase the gospel "Many are called but few choose to listen"
and so it is with prayer.
In Christ,
James
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
James Hale Lincoln School of Health Sciences
Computing Unit La Trobe University,Bundoora, AUSTRALIA
James.Hale@Latrobe.Edu.Au | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I am asking you to believe in things not visible. I don't know if this is
believeing blindly or not. I'm not sure how blindness comes into it. I do
not deny reason, indeed I insist upon it, but reason only draws conclusions
from evidence. If you decide in advance that your reason will act only on
the evidence of the five physical senses, then you cut reason off from any
possibility of reaching a conclusion outside the physical sphere (beyond the
rather provocative, if inconclusive, conclusion that the physical sphere
is not self explanatory).
Christians claim that they have received a different kind of evidence,
which they call faith, and which is a gift of God. That is, this evidence
is the evidence of a thing which chooses to reveal or hide itself. The
evidence of the senses cannot tell you is such a ting exists. Reasoning
on the evidence of the senses won't help either. But Christians do reason
of the evidence of faith, and do claim that this evidence is wholly
consistent with the evidence of the other senses, and indeed, that the
evidence of these other senses is part of God's revelation of himself
to us.
It is not necessarilly the case however that knowledge of a God must come
through this route. There may be other senses than the physical ones
providing evidence of non-physical realities. (There may, of course, be
physical realities of a type for which we have no corresponding senses, for
all we know.) These senses, if they exist, may provide valid evidence for
reason to work on. And, as with all senses, these senses may be impaired
in some people, that is, they may be spiritually blind. In this sense,
belief in God becomes an act of sight, and it is disbelief which is blind.
Faith, as I have said, is not opposed to reason, it is simply a new source
of evidence on which reason may operate. It is clear that human beings
have many systems for explaining the evidence of the physical senses, and
similarly there are many systems for explaining the evidence provided by
faith. Religious believers in general, and Christians in particular, use
reason to help sift through the evidence to come to a clearer understanding
of the evidence provided by faith. Science claims, with good reason, to be
the most valid system for explaining the physical universe, and Christianity
claims, also with good reason, to be the most valid system, possessed of the
best evidence, for explaining Gods revelations of himself to man.
If you doubt that Christians use reason, read this newsgroup for a while
and you will see rational debate aplenty. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
In a word, yes.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
Dishonest money dwindles away, but he who gathers money little by little makes
it grow.
Proverbs 13:11
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
A friend of mine managed to get a copy of a computerised Greek and Hebrew
Lexicon called "The Word Perfect" (That is not the word processing
package WordPerfect). However, some one wiped out the EXE file, and she
has not been able to restore it. There are no distributors of the package in
South Africa. I would appreciate it, if some one could email me the file, or
at least tell me where I could get it from.
My email address is
fortmann@superbowl.und.ac.za or
fortmann@shrike.und.ac.za
Many thanks. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Probably because it IS rape.
So nothing. It may work for some, but not for others: it doesn't give any
insight into an overall God or overall truth of a religion- it would seem to be
dependent solely on the individual, as well as individually-created. And since
Christians have failed to show us how there way of life is in any wy better
than ours, I do not see why the attempt to try it is necessary, or even
particularly attractive.
Well, we will nerver know for sure if we were told the truth or not, but at the
very least there is a bit more evidence pointing to the fact that, say, there
was a military conflict in Vietnam 25 years ago, then there is a supernatural
diety who wants us to live a certain way. The fact that Jesus warned against
it means nothing. *I* warn against it too. Big deal.
This is not true. The first two choices here (life and death) are scantily
documented, and the last one is total malarky unless one uses the Bible, and
that is totally circular. Perhaps it be better to use the imagination, or
one's ignorance. Someone else will address this I'm sure, and refer you to
plenty of documentation...
How is this? There is nothing more disgusting than Christian attempts to
manipulate/interpret the Old Testament as being filled with signs for the
coming of Christ. Every little reference to a stick or bit of wood is
autmoatically interpreted as the Cross. What a miscarriage of philology.
Well, since we have skeptical hearts (thank goodness,) there is no way to get
into us. Here we have the irreconcilable difference: Christians glorify
exactly what we tend to despise or snub: trust/belief/faith without knowledge.
If I am lucky one day and I happen to be thinking of God at the same time my
enkephalins go up, then I may associate this as a sign of God (it will "feel"
right, and I will trust without knowing). Maybe. Religosity does not seem to
be anything that is conclusively arrived at, but rather it seems to be more of
a sudden affliction...
I believe many of us were willing to die for what we believed, many of us were
not. The question is, is suchg an attitude reflective of a _correct_ or
healthy morality. IT would seem not to be. The same thing could reflect
fanaticism, for example, and is any case an expression of simple selfishness.
--
--Adam | 0 | alt.atheism |
The CLIPPER initiative is an announcement by Clinton that all the
"secure" voice phones will use the same crypto chip, as a de-facto
government standard. Problem is, the government is admitting that
they hold the keys to break the code easily, and the Justice department
will be using the keys to listen in on "illegal activities." Many
people are really scared about such an initiative because it is
a major step towards outlawing real crypto protection on things
like email if you read the press release. The project was developed
by NSA and given to NIST. It uses two keys S1 and S2 that the
government claims are needed to break the code. They claim that
these keys will be handed to two different companies, and when they
get a warrant to do a wiretap (the chip is nicknamed the wiretap chip),
they have to get the keys from both companies. People have poked holes
through and through the press release official version and shown how
it is nowhere near as nice as it sounds, and I have given the simplified
version. People over on sci.crypt are really scared about this
proposal it seems. | 0 | alt.atheism |
Then Einstein should have had lunch with me at the Tien Fu
on Castro Street yesterday, when they handed me a fortune
cookie that said "He who has imagination but not knowledge
has wings, but no feet". | 0 | alt.atheism |
How about Acts 11: 15-18, 22-23
or, I John 4:1-8
which says to *try* the spirits to see if they be of God.
How do you know? When have you tried to learn anything about me?
--
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Not by any standard of history I've seen. Care to back this up, sans the
lies apologists are so fond of?
Not really. Most of the prophesies aren't even prophesies. They're prayers
and comments taken from the Torah quite out of context. Seems Xians started
lying right from the beginning.
My we're an arrogant ass, aren't we?
You're wrong to think we haven't. The trust was in something that doesn't
exist.
I'm still willing to die for what I believe and don't believe. So were the
loonies in Waco. So what?
Besides, the point's not to die for what one believes in. The point's to
make that other sorry son-of-a-bitch to die for what *he* believes in! :)
Doesn't anyone else here get tired of these cretins' tirades?
Peter the Damed, and damned proud of it! | 0 | alt.atheism |
Recently an e-mail to me mentioned:
(Technically, the messengers aren't even human so
it *can't* be a case of "homosexuality" -- even of rape.) [...]
The Jude reference to Sodom is also meaningful only in the context of
the Sodomites' "lust" for the "other flesh" of angels. Again,
application to homosexual behavior in general, or to the position of
gay Christians is largeely specious.
***
Are angels "flesh"? No. I feel that this is saying that it was because
of their lust after other men, who are flesh( or of this world).
what are other opinons on this? I haven't heard much about this verse
at all.
In Christ's Love,
Bryan | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
dps@nasa.kodak.com Pontificated:
Can you cite an example of this. Please post an answer as I
don't want to receive e-mail.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
And as someone mentioned earlier, from the apocryphal Book of Enoch,
satan was apparently kicked out for three times asserting his own will,
"I will". Hmmm...pro-choice looks kinda creepy here. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
That's fascinating. I take it that you're expressing skepticism
at the idea that those ignorant savages could have influenced
the Constitution of the people who stole their continent. You
could be right, but it sounds plausible to me. Is there any
reason that you dismiss it out-of-hand? Here's some more:
Recent scholarship has shown that in the mid-1700s Indians were not
only invited to participate in the deliberations of our "founding
fathers," but that the Great Binding Law of the Iroquois Confederacy
arguably became the single most important model for the 1754 Albany
Plan of Union, and later the Articles of Confederation and the
Constitution. That this would be absent from our school texts,
and from history, and from media is not surprising given the devotion
Americans feel to our founding myth: Great men gathered to express
a new vision that has withstood the test of time. If it were
revealed that Indians had a role in it, imagine the blow to the
American psyche.
...
By 1754, when most of these men and others gathered to creat the
Albany Plan of Union, the first try at confederation, they invited
forty-two members of the Iroquois Grand Council to serve as advisors
on confederate structures. Benjamin Franklin freely acknowledged
his interest in the Iroquois achievement in a famous speech at
Albany Congress: "It would be a strange thing...if six nations
of ignorant savages[sic] should be capable of forming such a union
and be able to execute it in such a manner that it has subsisted
for ages and appears indissoluble, and yet that a like union should
be impractical for ten or a dozen English colonies."
According to Grinde, Franklin convened meetings of Iroquois chiefs
and congressional delegates in order to "hammer out a plan that he
acknowedged to be similar to the Iroquois Confederacy."
Grinde is Professor Donald Grinde,Jr., of the University of California
at Riverside whose book _The Iroquois and the Founding Fathers of the
American Nation_ addresses this issue. | 0 | alt.atheism |
It is still incestuous.... :)
| 0 | alt.atheism |
: At the risk of beginning a cascade, I'll start with a possibly cheesy
: good 'ol Uhmericun:
: "Our shield is freedom"
Or, considering what our government has been doing for the past 50 years,
perhaps this would be more appropriate:
"100% Debt"
-- | 0 | alt.atheism |
I am going to stop reading the homosexuality posts, at least for a
while, because of the repeated seemingly personal attacks on me via
post/e-mail(mainly e-mail). If anyone has a specific comment,
suggestion, and/or note that does not contain any name calling, etc.
that they would like for me to read, send it to me via e-mail. I
would like a copy of file mentioned by the moderator ragarding the
exergetical issue of it. I attempted to get it via ftp but was
unable. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Although simplistic I have always liked the fact that "a Christian is one
who not only believes in God, but believes God." After all the name was
first given externally to identify those who "preached Christ and Him
crucified" to pay the price of their rebeliion and shortcomings before
God. God said this was His son -- I belive Him.
--
Scott Dittman email: sdittman@wlu.edu
University Registrar talk: (703)463-8455 fax: (703)463-8024
Washington and Lee University snail mail: Lexington Virginia 24450 | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Enclosed is an advertisement for the Defending the Faith IV
conference to be held at Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio)
June 25-27. I attended DTF III last year, and plan to go again this
year. I would recommend it highly to Catholic interested in
apologetics. There will be lots of music, well-known Catholic speakers,
fellowship, as well as Eucharistic Liturgies Friday and Sunday.
Registration is $85 per person, but I believe financial aid is
available if you need it. Housing in residence halls (each of which has
its own Blessed Sacrament chapel), if desired, is $30/person for double
occupancy for two nights ($30 total). Reservations can also be made for
you at the very nearby Holiday Inn. I think it was $47 a night there
for my single room. Meals are available at the cafeteria (Friday dinner
through Sunday lunch) for $38 or $32, with or without breakfast,
respectively.
Franciscan University of Steubenville is located in eastern Ohio on
US Route 22, 1/2 mile west of the Ohio River and Ohio Route 7. Greater
Pittsburgh International Airport is less than one hour (35 miles) from
campus.
Feel free to e-mail me if you have any question I can answer.
Here is the agenda, as typed in by a friend of mine:
Friday afternoon special:
Reflections on C.S. Lewis, a preliminary session with Walter Hooper.
Walter Hooper is one of the foremost international experts on the
writings of C.S. Lewis. In 1963, he served as secretary to C.S. Lewis,
and he has since edited 18 of Lewis' literary works for publication.
Walter was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1965, serving
in Oxford, England, until he entered the Catholic Church in 1988.
----------------
Friday evening, opening session:
In Search of the Truth: Finding the Fullness of Faith
Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz.
Know Your Rites
Kimberly Hahn.
-------------------
Saturday Morning
Apologetics Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry
Karl Keating
C.S. Lewis: My Signpost to the Catholic Church
Walter Hooper
Mass
Bishop Bruskewitz, celebrant
Fr. Ray Ryland, homilist
---------------------------
Saturday afternoon:
The Mystery of Femininity: Why It Excludes the Priesthood
Dr. Alice von Hildebrand
Men Make Better Fathers: Masculinity and the Male Priesthood
Dr. Peter Kreeft
----------------------------
Saturday evening:
When Do Catholics Hear the Gospel?
Dr. Thomas Howard
The Catholic Gospel: Not Just Saving Sinners
Scott Hahn
-----------------------------
Sunday morning:
There's No Place Like Rome: The Pilgrimage of Two Protestant Pastors
Panel.
Mass
Fr. Ray Ryland, celebrant
Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, homilist
- - - - - - - - - -
Here is the ad that appeared in _The Catholic Answer_:
DEFENDING THE FAITH IV CONFERENCE
CATHOLIC CHURCH TEACHING:
KNOW WHY YOU BELIEVE June 25-27, 1993
Times have changed. Major Catholic doctrines are misunderstood and
attacked. Like never before, believers need to know the reasons behind
the Catholic Church's teaching. As our first pope urged: "Always be
ready to give a defense for the hope that is within you" (I Peter 3:15).
Grab your notebooks and get ready for an unforgettable spiritual and
intellectual weekend. This year's conference will candidly confront the
hardest questions and objections about the Catholic faith. Deepen your
understanding of Church teaching with _Scott_ and _Kimberly Hahn, Dr.
Thomas Howard, Karl Keating, Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, Dr. Peter
Kreeft,_ and _Fr. Ray Ryland_.
Cut throught the confusion and doubt, and be better equipped to give
a defense for the hope that is within you.
Join us at _Defending the Faith IV_, the fourth in a series of annual
conferences designed to strengthen the life of Catholics and others
interested in the Catholic faith. It can help _you_ know why you
believe.
Call toll free today: Franciscan University
800/437-TENT of Steubenville
or 614/283-6314 Steubenville, Ohio 43952-6701 | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet
from fear of evil. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
0 | alt.atheism |
|
[...stuff deleted...]
As many posters have said in as many posts lately, this is just
not true. For to show no interest in the existence of god takes no
faith at all. You make the presumption that the _knowledge_ of the
_possibility_ of something is enough to require faith to render
that possibilty of no interest. It is a very different thing to say
that you don't believe something than it is to say that you don't
have sufficent reason to believe something is even interesting to
think about. It's not either or. Sometimes is just something else
more interesting that occupies your mind.
I agree that faith and dogma are inevitable, but not necessarily
applied to god and religion. It takes both faith and dogma to
expect the sun to come up every morning, but there is overwhelming
reason every single day, day in and day out, for _everyone_ to put
his faith and dogma there. Not so with the christian religion.
| 0 | alt.atheism |
Early in Church history, the catechumens were dismissed prior to the celebration
of the Eucharist. It WAS secret, giving rise to the rumors that Christians
were cannibals and all sorts of perverse claims. The actions were considered
too holy to be observed by non-Christians, as well as potentially dangerous
for the individual Christian who might be identified.
Larry Overacker (llo@shell.com)
-- | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
no
I'd recommend reading _Mormonism and Early Christianity_ by Hugh Nibley,
particularly the articles on Christ's forty-day (post-resurrection) mission,
baptism for the dead, early Christian prayer circles, and temples (2 articles).
..bruce..
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bruce F. Webster | A religion that does not require the sacrifice
CTO, Pages Software Inc | of all things never has power sufficient to
bwebster@pages.com | produce the faith necessary unto life and
#import <pages/disclaimer.h> | salvation. -- Joseph Smith | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Diplomatic :-)
I realize I'm fighting Occam's razor in this argument, so I'll try to
explain why I feel a mind is necessary.
Firstly, I'm not impressed with the ability of algorithms. They're
great at solving problems once the method has been worked out, but not
at working out the method itself.
As a specific example, I like to solve numerical crosswords (not the
simple do-the-sums-and-insert-the-answers type, the hard ones.) To do
these with any efficiency, you need to figure out a variety of tricks.
Now, I know that you can program a computer to do these puzzles, but
in doing so you have to work out the tricks _yourself_, and program
them into the computer. You can, of course, 'obfuscate' the trick, and
write the program so that it is uncovered, but as far as I can see,
the trick still has to be there in some form to be discovered. Does
this mean that all the ideas we will ever have are already
pre-programmed into our brains? This is somewhat unlikely, given that
our brains ultimately are encoded in 46 chromosomes worth of genetic
material, much of which isn't used.
One way around this is to bring the environment into the equation, but
(again, as far as I can see) this still has an air of 'if you see
object X, then perform action Y,' and we don't seem to get anywhere.
The algorithm has to anticipate what it might see, and what
conclusions to draw from it's experience.
The other problem with algorithms is their instability. Not many
algorithms survive if you take out a large portion of their code, yet
people survive strokes without going completely haywire (there are
side-effects, but patients still seem remarkably stable.) Also,
neurons in perfectly healthy people are dying at an alarming rate -
can an algorithm survive if I randomly corrupt various bits of it's
code?
The next problem is the sticky question of "What is colour?" (replace
'colour' with the sensation of your choice.) Presumably, the
materialist viewpoint is that it's the product of some kind of
chemical reaction. The usual products of such a reaction are energy +
different chemicals. Is colour a mixture of these? If this is so, a
computer won't see colour, because the chemistry is different. Does an
algorithm that sees colour have a selective advantage over an
equivalent that doesn't? It shouldn't, because the outputs of each
algorithm ought to be the same in equivalent circumstances. So why do
we see colour?
A bit of idle speculation...
If I remember correctly, quantum mechanics consists of a wavefunction,
with two processes acting on it. The first process has been called
'Unitary Evolution' (or 'U'), is governed by Schroedinger's equation
and is well known. The second process, called various things such as
'collapse of the wavefunction' or 'state vector reduction' (or 'R'),
and is more mysterious. It is usually said to occur when a
'measurement' takes place, although nobody seems to know precisely
when that occurs. When it does occur, the effect of R is to abruptly
change the wavefunction.
I envisage R as an interaction between the wavefunction and 'something
else,' which I shall imaginitively call 'part X.' It seems reasonable
to assume that _something_ causes R, although that something might be
the wavefunction itself (in which case, part X is simply the
wavefunction. Note, though, that we'd need more than U to explain R.)
Anyway, I'm speculating that minds would be in part X. There seems to
be some link between consciousness and R, in that we never see linear
superpositions of anything, although there are alternative
explainations for this. I've no idea how a brain is supposed to access
part X, but since this is only speculation, that won't matter too
much :-) My main point is that there might be a place for minds in
physics.
I'll go back to my nice padded cell now, if that's OK with you :-)
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Anthoney kax@cs.nott.ac.uk
Don't believe anything you read in .sig files. | 0 | alt.atheism |
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one
another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with
gratitude in your hearts to God.
Colossians 3:16
A reminder: These verses are from the New International Version. As with any
translation, faithfulness to the original Hebrew and Greek may vary from time
to time. If a verse sounds a little off occasionally, compare it with another
translation or with the original texts, if you are able to do so. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Maybe before Babel,everyone including angels spoke the same language,so at
Babel, God punished us by giving us languages different from the original one.
So if that's the case,then angels now would be speaking in the tongue mankind
spoke before Babel. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
The problem with this view is that the topic under discussion in this
passage *is* marriages that were performed on earth. Jesus' words
seem to me to indicate that He regards His response as the answer to their
question about which earthly marriage would be valid after the resurrection.
This being the case, the most straightforward interpretation, in my
opinion, is that marriage does not exist in the next life because those
who are raised are of a different nature than what we are now. Other-
wise, why would Jesus offer "but are like the angels in heaven" as a
contrast to the idea of the resurrected marrying and being given in
marriage? We do not have angel-like natures now, but someday we shall,
and when we do, our earthly marriages will be irrelevant. Or at least,
that's what I think Jesus is saying about the post-resurrection validity of
marriages performed on earth. Your mileage may vary. :) | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
Like we have never heard of, or read these verses before?
How about you read them in context, taking into consideration the times and
places in which they were written; the local customs and pagan rituals;
what the surrounding verses are talking about and how they interact with
the rest of the Bible.
There are many issues in the Bible that are argued, and can be argued
successfullly from both sides of an issue. Some examples that come to mind
are
Gifts of the Spirit
when the Rapture will occur(pre or post tribulation)
how people should be baptized
to name a few.
I have found nothing in scripture that condemns me, or anyone else, for having
a monogamous relationship with the person whom I love, even if we are the
same sex.
I'm sorry if I am coming across as heated. It's just that the Lord has been
so dear to me the last several years and I'm tired of hearing this same old
thing from people who believe what their told rather than finding out for
themselves.
Check it out for yourself. Invite the Holy Spirit to guide you. If I weren't
confident of this I wouldn't invite you to do this. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
For those who pray in tongues,
When is it appropriate for you to pray/speak in tongues
and why? I just would like to gain more knowledge about this subject. | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
but theology is full of reason even if it is, as we believe, based on false
premises etc etc.
hold on there: no meaning to "consciousness" or "mind" or "self"?!
what illogicality?
since when is, for instance, (non-behaviourist) psychology a pipe dream?
Surely the major purpose of the science of psychology is to understand the
workings of the mind.
"manifestations of the mundane" sounds rather transcendental to me. In fact
"matter", "energy", "space" and "time" are well measured but mysterious
concepts.
Does an atheist really have to believe in your reductionism or be cast out as
not following the true faith?! | 0 | alt.atheism |
hey folks,
I'm fairly new to these groups, tho' some have heard from me before.
I'd like to get your comments on a question that has been on my mind a
lot: What morals/ethics apply to dreams and out-of-body incidents?
In normal dreams, you can't control anything, so obviously
you aren't morally responsible for your actions. But if you can contrive
to control the action in dreams or do an OOBE, it seems like a morality applies.
Now, there seem to be 3 alternatives:
1) Dreams and OOBEs are totally mental phenomena. In this case no morality
applies beyond what might be called 'mental hygiene', that is, not trying
to think about anything evil, or indulgining in overly sexy or violent
thoughts.
2) Dreams and OOBEs have a reality of their own (i.e. are 'another plane')
Evidence for this is that often dreams and OOBEs are sometimes done in
common by more than one person. A
mark of objective fact is that >1 people report the same objective experience.
In this case, the same interpersonal morality/ethics applies in dreams and
OOBEs as does in waking life.
3) Like (2), but here we assume that though the dreeam and OOBE environs have a
real existence, a different moral/ethics apply there, and no (or maybe
different) moral laws apply there.
So... There it is. Is one of these cases the truth, or does anyone know
of another alternative? respond by post or email.
thanks very much
*dt*
======================================================== | 15 | soc.religion.christian |
I looked back at this, and asked some questions of various people and
got the following information which I had claimed and you pooh-poohed.
The US has not sold Iraq any arms. Their navy is entirely made of
F-USSR vessels. Their airforce (not including stuff captured from Kuwait
which I am not as sure about), doesn't include any US equipment. Their
missiles are all non-US. Their tanks are almost all soviet, with about
100 French tanks (older ones). The only US stuff in the Iraqi arsenal
is a few M113s. Those were not sold to Iraq. Iraq captured them from
other countries (like Kuwait). Information is hard to prove. You are
claiming that the US sold information? Prove it.
Now, how did the US build up Iraq again? I just gave some fairly
conclusive evidence that the US didn't sell arms to Iraq. Information
is hard to prove, almost certainly if the US did sell information, then that
fact is classified, and you can't prove it. If you can provide some
useful evidence that the US sold arms or valuable intelligence to Iraq,
I am very interested, but not if you just make claims based on what
"everyone knows".
| 0 | alt.atheism |
15 | soc.religion.christian |
|
(deletion)
Bogus. I just said that theism is not the only factor for fanatism.
The point is that theism is *a* factor.
That's a claim you have to support. Please note that especially in the
field of theism, the leaders believe what they say.
That's a straw man. And as usually in discussions with you one has to
repeat it: Read what I have written above: not every theism leads to
fanatism, and not all fanatism is caused by theism. The point is,
there is a correlation, and it comes from innate features of theism.
Gullibility, by the way, is one of them.
And to say that I am going to forbid religion is another of your straw
men. Interesting that you have nothing better to offer.
That's bogus. Self reference is not circular. And since the evaluation of
usefulness is possible within rational systems, it is allowed.
Your argument is as silly as proving mathematical statements needs mathematics
and mathematics are therfore circular.
I've been speaking of religious systems with contradictory definitions
of god here.
An axiomatic datum lends itself to rational analysis, what you say here
is a an often refuted fallacy. Have a look at the discussion of the
axiom of choice. And further, one can evaluate axioms in larger systems
out of which they are usually derived. "I exist" is derived, if you want
it that way.
Further, one can test the consistency and so on of a set of axioms.
what is it you are trying to say?
Using the traditonal definition of gods. Personal, supernatural entities
with objective effects on this world. Usually connected to morals and/or
the way the world works.
Person A believes system B becuase it sounds so nice. That does not make
B true, it is at best a work hypothesis. However, the content of B is that
it is true AND that it is more than a work hypothesis. Testing or evaluating
evidence for or against it therefore dismissed because B (already believed)
says it is wronG/ a waste of time/ not possible. Depending on the further
contents of B Amalekites/Idolaters/Protestants are to be killed, this can
have interesting effects. | 0 | alt.atheism |
This week, many of you have asked about my earlier postings on OT, NT and
Intertestiment exegesis on the homosexual issue. I have refered you to the FAQ
files, which I find out, no longer contains them. They are too long for me to
mail to each of you, each article, but will try to get them back on the FAQ
file.
Because of the renewed interest on this subject, I will type, with permission,
an article by James DeYoung. I think it is one of the best articles that I've
read todate from the conservative position. I can't post it all at once, so it
will come piece meal and not daily. After I'm done retyping the entire
article, I will make it available for the FAQ file. Talk to clh.
Also, for those who can't get through to me, you may try one of these:
REXLEX@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
LEXREX@ALMOND.FNAL.GOV
Loren Senders@ADMAIL.FNAL.GOV
THE SOURCE AND NT MEANING
OF ARSENOKOITAI, WITH IMPLICATIONS
FOR CHRISTIAN ETHICS AND MINISTRY
James B. DeYoung
Professor of New Testament
Western Conservative Baptist Seminary
Portland, Oregon
Traditional interpretation of arsenokoitai ("homosexuals") in 1 Cor 6:9
and 1 Tim 1:10 refers to sexual vice between people of the same sex,
specifically homosexualitiy. Some restrict the term's meaning to "active male
prostititute," but stronger evidence supports a more general translation,
namely "homosexuals." More recently the definition "homosexual" has been
opposed on clutural and linguistic grounds, the claim being that the term
"homosexuals" is anachronistic. In addition, criticism of the traditional
rendering says the term today includes celibate homophiles, excludes
heterosexuals who engage in homosexual acts, and includes female homosexuals.
A concern for acts instead of the modern attention to desires was the only
factor in the ancient world. The foregoing oppositition to the translation of
arsenokoitai by "homosexuals" has a number of debilitating weaknesses.
Finally, this study argues that Paul coined the term arsenokoitai, deriving it
from the LXX of Lev 20:12 (cf. 18:22) and using it for homosexual orientation
and behavior, the latter of which should be an occasion for church discipline
(I Cor 5-6) and legislation in society (1 Tim 1:8-11).
*************************************
INTRODUCTION
Coincident with the rise of the gay rights movement in recent years has
been an increasing focus on the biblical statements regarding homosexuality or
sodomy. As part of this focus, the meaning of the term arsenokoitai, used
twice by the apostle Paul (1 Cor 6:9, I Tim 1:10), has received vigorous
scrutiny. This issue is particularly crucial to contemporary society since
so much of modern ethics is shaped by biblical statements. More particularly,
the concern over gay rights and the place of gays or homosexuals in the church
and in society require the resolution of biblical interpretation.
This study of historical, linguistic, and literary matters will survey and
evalutate recent proposals for the meaning of arsenokoitai and present evidence
to point to a resolution. Several writers and their positions represent the
modern debate on this word. Three authors, Bailey, Boswell, and Scroggs, have
provoked considerable discussion and significantly encouraged the wider
acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle in society, in the church, and in the
ministry.
| 15 | soc.religion.christian |