If God Is Real

the reason for that is actually simple and explained various times in the Bible, it is because of OUR understanding, comprehension and the hard wiring we all have that tells us "you have to work and earn it".
the concept of grace and unconditional love/forgiveness is a very foreign concept to our reptilian brains and is something most humans actually have a very hard time with, whether they realize it or not.
it is also one of the major denominational contentions, grace vs works.

"The Law" was actually given not to condemn mankind, but rather to illustrate to mankind that despite all our best efforts and achievements, we're simply do not have the capacity to be as "righteous" as would be required to progress spiritually, it can't be done by an effort of our will.
essentially, it was given due to the "hardness of our hearts" or as I view it, our entrapment in the vestiges of evolutionary instincts that no longer need be employed, yet are still hardwired.
that is what "free will" is, being able to act in a manner that goes opposite of what all our instincts tell us.
knowledge of good and evil reared it's head as our frontal cortex's evolved and afforded us the capacity for self -awareness, "now you see you are naked" .
Interesting thing is that because of the increase in size of the frontal cortex where a lot of uniquely "human" functions reside outpaced the evolution of the female anatomy humans experience such difficulties in childbirth.."in pain shall you bring forth children".
it also afforded us the ability to project into the future to a degree not seen in other animals, and with that comes stress and concern over our current and future condition, "by the sweat of your brow you will toil to get food" or some crap like that.
etc., etc.


in short, God did it that way because humans have the tendency to not learn shit when it's just handed to them.

now Mr. Writer please do not insult me with another juvenile retort.
I'm not trying to convert you, just trying to get you to understand the perspective of those who do believe it.


ps, did you ever look at that article concerning EKG's and speaking in tongues? it is REAL science with machines that light up and go "BEEP"...LOL.
seriously, I think you find the differences in brain activity during different "meditative" practices intriguing.

 

By way of answering what has never been answered. What if people believed they were without god or good graces based on the evident meanness of their lives? What if the god man were a response to a communal existential crisis? A people who believe they are cut off from their source or power in life are operating on a case of mistaken identity being themselves actually alive. Now this man comes and says that you have judged inaccurately and to restore clear vision give up your vanity and learn from nature. Consider the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin. Man is not made imperfect and the idea of a godless man is a human vanity just as the idea of a godly man is a human vanity. The lesson given is there is as the world is created there is nothing to forgive but this fact is made obscure by the power or your own judgments to influence your perception and these give rise to mans inhumanity to man.

These two fulfill the whole law, that you find precious the world in which you live and like it love one another. No sacrifice or special ritual is required to realize the precious beauty of our inheritance but total investment is. Any blessing you withhold from the world can only be your own.

 

The idea that "God came down to earth to die for our sins" may be a theological mistake. That notion of substitutionary atonement, often attributed to Saint Paul and to Saint Augustine, was formulated as a doctrine by Saint Anselm his1097 work Cur Deus Homo? and reaffirmed by Mel Gibson and, more recently, theologian Richard Dawkins. But this idea has serious problems. Hapgood explains: "The reason for questioning this theory is that it raises profound moral problems. Where is the justice in substituting a sinless victim for a sinful on, as the means of dealing with the latter's sin? And what are we to make of the depiction of God as fundamentally wrathful and determined to exact punishment?" Borg and Crossan agree: "The problem is that it is not what Paul meant when he made 'Christ crucified' central to the Gospel" Substitutionary sacrifice was foreign to his thought. Indeed, seeing the cross of Jesus as a substitutionary sacrifice is bad history, bad anthropology, and bad theology." Fortunately there are other explanations. I prefer Abelard's explanation, rooted in the Gospel of Luke: Christ saves us by bringing home to us in his horrific death the results of human evil in inflicting such cruelty on an innocent man, and to inspire us to live according to His example.

 

You have to bear in mind that Plato is using Socrates as a kind of literary device. It's not likely that Plato's works represent actual records of what Socrates said, but more they are more like re-constructions. What Socrates would have said in such a situation.
Plato is using a kind of dramatic form to get his ideas across. Often what other people say in the conversations is only said so that Socrates can refute it.

I'd better clarify what I meant in previous post anyway.

The ancient Greeks developed a rich culture, including the arts, philosophy mathematics. No doubt their religion had many aspects from quite primitive to more developed.
They had the Eleusinian mysteries, of which Plato was an initiate, and about which Hoffman and Wasson wrote that the initiation probably included some kind of psychedelic substance.
There were cults of different gods and goddesses, and they varied from city state to city state. In Athens for example was a big cult of Pallas Athene Whilst no doubt much superstition was involved, there was no one overarching hierarchy or dogma. The state of Athens was acting more from a political than a religious motive in killing Socrates.

When the Romans conquered Greece, they very soon became totally infatuated with Greek culture, and a lot of Roman culture is pretty much a continuation of that.
In Rome at the time of Jesus there was a pagan state religion. There were also numerous cults, mysteries etc. Neo-platonism and Stoicism were the principle philosophies of the intelligentsia. But even ordinary Romans could pick and choose when it came to religion provided they paid lip service to the state cult.
At this period, philosophy was taught in academies situated in places such as Athens and Alexandria.

Enter Christianity. I would argue strongly that at that point development pretty well stops in terms of the things the Greeks had invented and the Romans pursued. At least in the west. In the eastern empire which would become the Byzantine empire, art flourished, although in a vitiated form.
Instead of a spirit of enquiry and inventiveness, dogma and darkness seem to have set in deeply. In the west High art disappears. Development of mathematics ditto.The destruction of the Roman empire obviously hastened the process, but it's important I think to remember that the Christians closed the old academies and burned many books . Teaching of all forms of what was now regarded as 'pagan' philosophy was banned on pain of death by Imperial edict.

With the collapse of the empire the dark ages set in. It wasn't until the 13th c. that any serious philosophy began again in the west, and that was only due to the re-emergence of texts by Plato and Aristotle that had been lost, and the scholastic philosophy that was produced is really not pure philosophy because they begin by believing in the Bible and it's revelations. They only wanted to build a philosophical framework around that.
Not until the time of the renaissance did western culture begin to continue the forward direction begun by the Greeks.

This is a huge subject and I have only scratched the surface.

 

Nothing with what I said was veiled.

Exactly!

This is a vague question--can we trust the prophecies; can we trust that Jesus was God in the flesh; can we trust the historical claims—there is no evident variable to your question. Let’s discuss the relevant facts to the discussion—I believe you’re ignorant of the parameter set forth in 2Peter 1:20. I applied this rule in my dialogues and so did NoxiousGas. If you cannot acquiesce to this parameter, then the discussion is illogical, and to continue would be irrational and futile. With that said, it is okay that you did not know, because most Christians do not even know this, which is why they are in a state of constant delusion and cannot realize simple truths, like understanding that the bible was compiled by slavers, that there is no extra-biblical evidence of Jesus Christ being god in the flesh, and that all prophecies are so vague that they can be manipulated into fulfilling almost any important event.

 

What you say certainly may elucidate what I said and I appreciate it in regards to the general discussion but it doesn't change my view in the slightest.

I wrote that paragraph a bit sloppy, my 'apology' but I am being specific in saying many of the people Socrates has dialogues with seem borderline automated, not all of them. Even if Plato is expressing a caricature of Socrates, I think he is expressing how much more advanced his philosophy and ideas are in contrast to those he is speaking with. However there a few throughout the dialogues who maintain their own with Socrates, for instance one can tell Meno kind of gets to Socrates at times and formulates an interesting paradox:

The rest of your post was very informative, interested in hearing more.

 

I didn't mean to imply that Plato's Socrates is a caricature. He comes across as very real in the works. It's been a long time since I read Plato - maybe one day I'll revisit some his writings.

As for the rest of it - Greco-Roman history and it's influence and the rise of Christianity, hard to know what to add. All I can do really is give my opinion based on what I know of the period and it's consequences for later history.

 

Then, in your opinion, what does it mean to be a christian? If I understand you right, we have no proof of jesus' divinity, the bible was written by cruel and ignorant men, and the actual writings in the bible are so vague as to allow the 80,000 different christian demoninations to each point to scripture to conclussively prove that they are the ones who really get it.

 

I have no opinion, because I am not a Christian. I can define a Christian as a follower of the biblical Jesus Christ and his teachings.

 

i'd strongly argue against the implication that Christianity was largely responsible for the demise of classical civilization and the "spirit of inquiry and inventiveness". This is Gibbon's thesis, brought up to date by Charles Freeman in his The Closing of the Western Mind,, but it is wrong, for at least three reasons: (1) the "spirit of inquiry and inventiveness" was dead in the roman Empire by the end of the third century, long before the Empire went Christian; inflation was rampant, twenty-two emperors came and went, and the size of the army greatly exceeded the empire's tax base. Such conditions were not conducive to cultural or intellectual achievement (2) the relocation of the capital to Constantinople in the fourth century and the consequent brain drain and shift of secular administrative talent hastened the process; and (3) the barbarian invasions of the fifth century delivered the coup de grace. Dogmatism of the church, while real, was not the principal source of the problem. In fact it is arguable that the Church played a constructive role in transcribing classical manuscripts, including Euclid, Plato, Ptolemy, Galen and Simplicitus. Saint Clement, Justin Martyr, and Saint Augustine were learned in the Greek classics, and neo-Platonism heavily influenced Christian theology of the early church.

 

I'll accept Astral Bear's definition of a Christian "as a follower of the biblical Jesus Christ and his teachings." I consider myself to be a Christian. And yes, we have no "proof" of Jesus' divinity, that being largely a matter of faith. And yes, the bible was written by men, although the "cruel and ignorant" part is an over-generalization. And certainly the actual writings in the bible are so vague as to allow the 80,000 different Christian denominations to each point to scripture to conclusively prove that they ar the ones who really get it. I believe that religion, like other elements of culture, develops through evolution by process of natural selection. Competing memes struggle for survival in a challenging environment. Those that are unable to adapt, like the Millerites and the Pietists of Harmony, Pennsylvania, did not survive. Others have survived in various niches. I think Jesus gave us a good test for telling the true ones from the false ones.:By their fruits will ye know them. I see nothing strange about this. It's just the operation of natural law.

 

Good post!

 

And now you've created another denomination since you have your own ideas about what the bible teaches.

How about this

Christian: A subject of the bible's inspirations.

 

Everyone has his/her own ideas about reality, although most are willing to accept canned versions to avoid the effort of thinking much. Human: A subject of society's inspirations.

 

hmmmm.... You know, the devil also mixes lies with the truth....or is that just a thing the old women in my family made up?

It's just the plain and simple truth that there is plenty of variation in how people choose to structure their lives. Whether that means going to church every now and then or even just doing no more than thinking something spiritual and wonder if the feeling you feel is actually Jesus trying to tell you something.

I understand the predicament, but it's not my fault there are so many people wearing shoes that don't fit them....lotus feet.

It's Not my fault when a definition breaks down under observation.

If you want to think about how people view other humans it would be better if you made your own examples.

The word Christian seeks to define something that already has a name. And yes you are very right, it is human.

"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature."

It is my experience that most people seem to think calling themselves Christians is preaching, and that is the extent of their practice.

Listen, Okie.

We are evolving. We are realizing our true selves.

Christianity and all terms associated philosophically are obsolete.

 

If there is a god--he needs to get his ass down here NOW and square shit away. Or at least apologize for not being able to do so.

 

He came and we beat him, hung him, and stabbed him with a spear.

It's not our fault though, we thought he was human.

 

It was Obamas fault!!!!!!!!

 

With a military budget like ours, a time machine to go back and protect Jesus should be our next initiative.

This is the final frontier of the American dream.

 

Well put. I don't pretend to know anything, although certain atheists I've encountered seem to do that quite dogmatically. I follow my best judgment, as an educated bet based on reason, intuition, personal experience and lots of reading. The God I believe in is neither omnipotent nor omniscient (the Hebrew word translates to "almighty", which is different). Suffering happens in the world partly because of human actions or inaction, but also because of the impersonal operation of natural law. To complain about it strikes me as tantamount to complaining about the weather or blaming God for making a universe with the natural laws we have instead of a different one in which all is sunshine and lollipops. When asked on dating sites if I believe in a personal god who answers prayer, I answer "No". But I believe in the felt presence of a Higher Power that is an expression of the integrated complexity of the universe, the ultimate meaning of human idealism, and the beauty and mystery of existence. The source of this feeling may be external, internal or simply an ideal or metaphor. It provides a positive posture for encountering an ambiguous reality. I don't accept all the doctrines associated with Christianity, but I do think "the Way" identified by Jesus and other great teachers and prophets offers a solution to human conflict and a means of coping with human misery. And I've found a church that suits me, even though I don't agree with all its teachings and doctrines. This church doesn't require that. I fail to understand why this should bother anyone or how it is doing harm.