Zone1 I've been an atheist for 60 years and have never once been tempted to believe in any god

[Donald H]

Sure it is, in this context it is more than appropriate. I am looking to understand your perspective first, to then try to persuade. For us to not 'talk past each other', you should describe the concept of 'creation' that you are so certain is incompatible with evolution. It may well be, I dunno, it depends on what it is. This is why I had to massage the meaning of 'creation' as I did for myself, to make it make sense from my own perspective, since I am interested in God and Truth, not the Christian faith or The Bible necessarily.

Please! you can't expect me to quote the entire invented story from a bible!

Not for me. Like I said, I've taken a very personal approach to spirituality and religion. Despite this, I follow Jesus and His message, so I consider myself a Christian. I don't take literal interpretations of The Bible, and I see it mostly as a human creation that contains divine inspiration.

As you should! And for the more enlightened Christians, as they must!

This is why interpretation is so important to me, and why I wish to know how you understand creation, because your concept of it may well be incompatible with science, but it isn't the only concept of creation that is possible.

My concept of creation is the same as the bibles' concept of creation. Both are not compatible with science.

I suspect you want to talk about the bibles not being literally true. There's no need to do that with me. I fully understand that's impossible.

Where do we go from here? If you would like to turn to Jonah in the big fish's belly, you could provide your own interpretation.

I've tried to make the popular interpretation work but I can't.

 

[Insaneworld]

Please! you can't expect me to quote the entire invented story from a bible!

I'm asking for how YOU understand things, forget The Bible. You have presumably thought about combining creation and evolution and found that creation doesn't hold water. This would require you to have some understanding of 'creation', right?

That's what I'm interested in knowing, because the REALLY interesting question is not whether evolution is compatible with creation as understood by orthodox Christianity, or told by The Bible, but instead whether evolution is compatible with God, with creation of the Universe and humanity by a truly supreme being.

As you should! And for the more enlightened Christians, as they must!

My concept of creation is the same as the bibles' concept of creation. Both are not compatible with science.

In that case, if you understand creation as 'The Bible' puts it, then I can see why you get to your conclusion, more or less. But I still wish you would try to offer an honest sentence or two on how YOU understand it, when you reason for yourself on what is contradictory or not.

I suspect you want to talk about the bibles not being literally true. There's no need to do that with me. I fully understand that's impossible.

Where do we go from here? If you would like to turn to Jonah in the big fish's belly, you could provide your own interpretation.

I've tried to make the popular interpretation work but I can't.

Well like I said, I'm more interested in God and Truth, not necessarily squaring The Bible and evolution/science. I think the question of God's existence, and of what God means to each of us, how each of us understands the concept, is the most interesting topic. The Bible and most of its stories are secondary to that, in my opinion, but still interesting. Ideally, I want to encourage people to try to find genuine faith, and that involves looking deeply in yourself and defining what exactly concepts mean to you, like 'God', 'creation', and so on. That's why I press the question.

 

[Donald H]

I'm asking for how YOU understand things, forget The Bible. You have presumably thought about combining creation and evolution and found that creation doesn't hold water. This would require you to have some understanding of 'creation', right?

That's what I'm interested in knowing, because the REALLY interesting question is not whether evolution is compatible with creation as understood by orthodox Christianity, or told by The Bible, but instead whether evolution is compatible with God, with creation of the Universe and humanity by a truly supreme being.


In that case, if you understand creation as 'The Bible' puts it, then I can see why you get to your conclusion, more or less. But I still wish you would not dodge the question and try to offer an honest sentence or two on how YOU understand it, when you reason for yourself on what is contradictory or not.



Well like I said, I'm more interested in God and Truth, not necessarily squaring The Bible and evolution/science. I think the question of God's existence, and of what God means to each of us, how each of us understands the concept, is the most interesting topic. The Bible and most of its stories are secondary to that, in my opinion, but still interesting. Ideally,

Alright then, let's throw out all the bibles together. From where and from what do you gather your faith?

I want to encourage people to try to find genuine faith, and that involves looking deeply in yourself and defining what exactly concepts mean to you, like 'God', 'creation', and so on. That's why I press the question.

I'm sorry but the concepts mean nothing to me.

Or rather, if I told you what they mean to me, I would be insulting and crude.

You can assume that my 'purpose' is in preventing child abuse, even though it's much more.

BTW, thank you for you sincere efforts. I've learned something from it that was never going to come from Ding.

 

[Arlette]

To paraphrase Nietzsche, there isn't enough love going around to waste any on an imaginary being.

 

[ding]

all contradicted by the fact that Darwinian evolution makes all religious beliefs out of manuscripts or the bibles, impossible.

Only if you read them like you belong to the Westboro Baptist church. Why do you do that?

 

[ding]

I think that the human experiment brought about by evolution is due to end soon.

What is soon?

I think you greatly underestimate life. You do realize it has been a continuous chain, right?

 

[ding]

Maybe one out of our audience can answer to what is impossible to understand. That is the contradiction.

That doesn't make any sense. You asked, "Were humans created or did we evolve?"

What part of my post which described cosmic evolution, stellar evolution, chemical evolution, biological evolution and the evolution of consciousness did you not understand?

So what contradiction are you talking about? Because I literally explained why God and evolution are not mutually exclusive. So if you think there was a contradiction in what I wrote, it would be helpful if you actually referenced what I SPECIFICALLY wrote when you explained the contradiction in what I SPECIFICALLY wrote. Now do you understand?

 

[ding]

To paraphrase Nietzsche, there isn't enough love going around to waste any on an imaginary being.

But what if that is what produces more love?

 

[Arlette]

But what if that is what produces more love?

There is no evidence for that

 

[ding]

There is no evidence for that

And yet the question still stands as equally valid as your paraphrase of Nietzsche.

What if loving an imaginary being actually produces more love than was given away?

 

[Arlette]

And yet the question still stands as equally valid as your paraphrase of Nietzsche.

What if loving an imaginary being actually produces more love than was given away?

History is evidence to the contrary.

 

[Insaneworld]

Alright then, let's throw out all the bibles together. From where and from what do you gather your faith?

This is a great question, and I'm still trying to understand it honestly, and to fully understand my own answer for myself. In short though, it comes from my own personal search for what is 'good', from trying to determine if the Universe has a purpose, a 'good' purpose, despite the excess suffering (that I believe) is embedded within in it. I don't have a complete answer, but below I'll try to summarize more of this personal process as it has happened for me. It's gonna be a long one lol, but I want to share the parts I believe are important, and writing all this down helps me too. If you do decide to read it, I appreciate it. I'll put the conclusion here, in case anyone is a little interested but would rather not invest much time reading.

Conclusion tldr: If you take away one thing from all this, I think it should be that a person's path towards finding GENUINE faith is very personal, and it may require us to really contend with the limits of what we CAN know, to really open up humbly (even slowly) to ideas that we may be skeptical of, like Christs divinity or God's existence. Importantly, I think it also helps to not be motivated by a need for personal salvation, by a fear of death, but instead by a desire to content with the world's suffering.

Whole thing: I've always been interested in Truth as it is, which is why I've tried to learn a lot about science. I really value clear and logical reasoning, with definitions for what is discussed, and I think these traits give science (and especially math) success. Independently of this, I've always been an empathetic person, and I love animals, I feel a connection to them because we are both aware beings.

Learning about the world, and evolution specifically, I realized evolution and natural selection thrive on the brutal competition that creates so much suffering. Pain, and eventually suffering, ensures that each conscious being gives their ultimate effort to survive, even innovate; it commits us to this life. To add to this, it was predation that led to the Cambrian explosion that gave us new complexity in life, and that eventually allowed for highly intelligent animals (like humans) to evolve and even leave the planet, marking what I consider as another 'step' in the natural evolution of the Universe.

Seeing things this way, it causes me pain, because it shows me that not only is suffering here on Earth enormous (millions of years in the making), but it seems to be baked into the blueprints of the Universe. If life, even in another chemical form (or otherwise) were to naturally emerge in the Universe, say in Galaxy far far away (lol), it would follow the same natural pattern of brutal competition, meaning the scale of suffering matches the scale of Universe (space x time, in this case).

This is not a worry that is alleviated by a promise or even genuine belief of personal salvation either, instead, it requires some answer to question of the character of the Universe, whether it is good in some sense, despite these observations. So, the question of the 'character' of the Universe, to me, is extremely important, more so than the question of whether Heaven or hell exist, whether The Bible is true. Even if I were to die and go to Heaven, the idea of (what I see as) innocent beings suffering endlessly hurts.

Science, despite its success and reliance on reasoning and logic, does not help here. Science tells us an enormous amount about HOW the Universe behaves, how it changes, and how within all the chaos even life can emerge. But it is incapable of answering questions on the purpose or character of the Universe, on 'why'. More generally too, reasoning and logic have a fundamental limit, in that we need axioms or assumptions to reason about any conclusions, so these tools are unable to reach the answer on their own. I think recognizing this limit is part of opening up.

For a while I took the position that there might be no purpose, that it all could just 'be as is' and we should make the best of it. But I began to learn more about history, and I became convinced that even if Jesus is not divine in any sense, His influence is still enormously positive and powerful, because he helped to spread a humanist message during brutal times, and that influence is felt politically throughout Europe for 2000 years, impacting the development of ideas and guiding humanity to be more humanist. I opened myself up to the idea of following Jesus, since I believe His message is a powerful force for good, for bettering what we have. I began to wear a cross despite not believing every little thing a traditional Christian would.

I think this was crucial, opening myself up to the idea of Christ. Opening myself up to the possibility that God could exist, and that Jesus could indeed be divine, and His message divinely inspired, I think allowed me to find faith eventually. One day, I believe God led me to try to imagine a symbol that could represent the overall character of the physical Universe. After some thinking, I felt that a being eating itself and growing anew, was a good 'summary', since the physical Universe is constantly recycling itself on multiple levels.

Googling a bit about this, I found the Ouroboros, and eventually what is known as 'Gnosticism', a loose 'group' largely misunderstood in my opinion, with a diverse set of beliefs, but an overall emphasis on a personal understanding and personal spiritual experience, and a distrust for orthodox authority. These groups were inspired by Jesus and His message, but in the period of 150 AD - 400 AD they were persecuted, they were the original heretics I believe.

Some of these groups believed the physical Universe was evil, that it was created by an evil and lesser God, while others believed that the physical Universe was imperfect (not evil), and that the intention behind for creation of the physical Universe was good, but the creator (a kind of lesser God) was also imperfect and flawed. Regardless, and very important for my story, all of these Gnostic groups emphasized other nonphysical creations by a truly supreme being.

Having found all this, I read more and thought a lot more about it, but for a while I was not convinced. Despite feeling a strong personal connection to these ideas, especially in the manner I found them, the claim of many Gnostic groups that the physical Universe was evil really gave me a lot of pause on Gnosticism as a whole. That said, the general emphasis on 'nonphysical' creations really stuck with me, and I began to think about what the nature of these 'nonphysical' creations could be, to see if we could experience something like this despite being physical beings.

I realized that we COULD, and that my own field of math is full of examples. The most famous is probably the Pythagorean theorem. For context, a theorem is a statement linking some 'mathematical' assumptions to some conclusions. The Pythagorean theorem in particular, links the axioms of Euclidean geometry (like the parallel postulate) to a conclusion about ALL right triangles, namely a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Importantly, the IMPLICATION itself, (Euclidean geometry axioms) => (All right triangles satisfy a^2 + b^2 = c^2) is a tautology, meaning that as a logical statement, the truth of this implications depends ONLY on the meaning of the terms alone, like the meaning of 'triangle'.

That is, as a logical statement, the Pythagorean theorem is true here on Earth, during Pythagoras's time, when the dinosaurs were around, inside a black hole. It is a pattern that exists within meaning itself. Pure math is filled with these examples, all timeless and completely independent of the physical Universe, and yet they are observable and discoverable by physical beings which can somehow comprehend that meaning, they are features within meaning itself, akin to mountains or rivers in the physical world. I realized that, more fundamental than the creation of the physical Universe, was the creation of what I consider to be a 'structure within meaning', which allows for the existence of consistent axiomatic systems, like Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory - Wikipedia, which allow for so many rich and infinite logical patterns we find in math, and which inform what is consistent in physics.

Seeing it this way, I am still in awe of the sheer Awesomeness of it all. It is humbling, to realize that the question of 'what preceded God' is nonsensical, since God is responsible for the creation of much MORE than time itself, God created a structure in meaning from which everything hangs, on which physics itself depends, we are incapable of even comprehending the question of what 'preceded' the physical Universe, much less what 'preceded' God.

There exists much more than just the physical Universe for us to discover, and I believe I was guided to this realization (and to these Gnostic ideas) so I could find true faith in a supreme Being. I feel confident to trust my intuition on this and conclude that Jesus was sent to Earth to guide our evolution as a species for the better. Beyond that, I believe the physical Universe is imperfect or 'limited', but not evil, and that it was made with a good 'overall' purpose, by a lesser and limited, but good God. This limited God is different from the Supreme God that created the 'structures in meaning' I try to allude to.

Now, if you take away one thing from all this, I think it should be that a person's path towards finding GENUINE faith is very personal, and it may require us to really contend with the limits of what we CAN know, to really open up humbly to ideas that we may be skeptical of, like Christs divinity or God's existence. Importantly, I think it also helps to not be motivated by a need for personal salvation, by a fear of death, but instead by a desire to content with the world's suffering.

I'm sorry but the concepts mean nothing to me.

Or rather, if I told you what they mean to me, I would be insulting and crude.

You can assume that my 'purpose' is in preventing child abuse, even though it's much more.

BTW, thank you for you sincere efforts. I've learned something from it that was never going to come from Ding.

Thanks, I appreciate knowing something positive did come of this. One of my goals (besides better understanding of this in general) is to cross boundaries dividing people, try to understand them and reach a balance somehow, I think it's part of the purpose of all life being here.

 

[Mashmont]

To paraphrase Nietzsche, there isn't enough love going around to waste any on an imaginary being.

That's nonsensical.

 

[Donald H]

This is a great question, and I'm still trying to understand it honestly, and to fully understand my own answer for myself. In short though, it comes from my own personal search for what is 'good', from trying to determine if the Universe has a purpose, a 'good' purpose, despite the excess suffering (that I believe) is embedded within in it. I don't have a complete answer, but below I'll try to summarize more of this personal process as it has happened for me. It's gonna be a long one lol, but I want to share the parts I believe are important, and writing all this down helps me too. If you do decide to read it, I appreciate it. I'll put the conclusion here, in case anyone is a little interested but would rather not invest much time reading.

It's lengthy so I'll comment as I go along.

Personally, I don't think the universe (the earth) has a good purpose. I believe it's an experiment of nature with no purpose.

Conclusion tldr: If you take away one thing from all this, I think it should be that a person's path towards finding GENUINE faith is very personal, and it may require us to really contend with the limits of what we CAN know, to really open up humbly (even slowly) to ideas that we may be skeptical of, like Christs divinity or God's existence. Importantly, I think it also helps to not be motivated by a need for personal salvation, by a fear of death, but instead by a desire to content with the world's suffering.

Whole thing: I've always been interested in Truth as it is, which is why I've tried to learn a lot about science. I really value clear and logical reasoning, with definitions for what is discussed, and I think these traits give science (and especially math) success. Independently of this, I've always been an empathetic person, and I love animals, I feel a connection to them because we are both aware beings.

Learning about the world, and evolution specifically, I realized evolution and natural selection thrive on the brutal competition that creates so much suffering. Pain, and eventually suffering, ensures that each conscious being gives their ultimate effort to survive, even innovate; it commits us to this life. To add to this, it was predation that led to the Cambrian explosion that gave us new complexity in life, and that eventually allowed for highly intelligent animals (like humans) to evolve and even leave the planet, marking what I consider as another 'step' in the natural evolution of the Universe.

Seeing things this way, it causes me pain, because it shows me that not only is suffering here on Earth enormous (millions of years in the making), but it seems to be baked into the blueprints of the Universe. If life, even in another chemical form (or otherwise) were to naturally emerge in the Universe, say in Galaxy far far away (lol), it would follow the same natural pattern of brutal competition, meaning the scale of suffering matches the scale of Universe (space x time, in this case).

Life has been pain through the ages and only in the last 50 years or so, that pain has been managed and erased in nearly all cases. I believe that's the reason why heaven was invented and perhaps being of less interest today, due to far less physical and mental suffering.

This is not a worry that is alleviated by a promise or even genuine belief of personal salvation either, instead, it requires some answer to question of the character of the Universe, whether it is good in some sense, despite these observations. So, the question of the 'character' of the Universe, to me, is extremely important, more so than the question of whether Heaven or hell exist, whether The Bible is true. Even if I were to die and go to Heaven, the idea of (what I see as) innocent beings suffering endlessly hurts.

For the purpose of this discussion between us, I will think of only our earth being applicable. I don't understand why you refer to the universe.

Science, despite its success and reliance on reasoning and logic, does not help here. Science tells us an enormous amount about HOW the Universe behaves, how it changes, and how within all the chaos even life can emerge. But it is incapable of answering questions on the purpose or character of the Universe, on 'why'. More generally too, reasoning and logic have a fundamental limit, in that we need axioms or assumptions to reason about any conclusions, so these tools are unable to reach the answer on their own. I think recognizing this limit is part of opening up.

Once again, the earth, with due respects to your thinking. Life isn't known to exist elsewhere. And fwiw, I've commented on the lack of purpose of life on earth. This is my answer to the reason there is no 'why' existing.

For a while I took the position that there might be no purpose, that it all could just 'be as is' and we should make the best of it. But I began to learn more about history, and I became convinced that even if Jesus is not divine in any sense, His influence is still enormously positive and powerful, because he helped to spread a humanist message during brutal times, and that influence is felt politically throughout Europe for 2000 years, impacting the development of ideas and guiding humanity to be more humanist. I opened myself up to the idea of following Jesus, since I believe His message is a powerful force for good, for bettering what we have. I began to wear a cross despite not believing every little thing a traditional Christian would.

I wouldn't credit Jesus but I can understand why his followers through the centuries have given him the credit. To me it's the same as the primitive tribe in Africa crediting the stone idol or the medicine man.

I think this was crucial, opening myself up to the idea of Christ. Opening myself up to the possibility that God could exist, and that Jesus could indeed be divine, and His message divinely inspired, I think allowed me to find faith eventually. One day, I believe God led me to try to imagine a symbol that could represent the overall character of the physical Universe. After some thinking, I felt that a being eating itself and growing anew, was a good 'summary', since the physical Universe is constantly recycling itself on multiple levels.

What caused you to start thinking in those terms? Did you encounter life that created a need?

Googling a bit about this, I found the Ouroboros, and eventually what is known as 'Gnosticism', a loose 'group' largely misunderstood in my opinion, with a diverse set of beliefs, but an overall emphasis on a personal understanding and personal spiritual experience, and a distrust for orthodox authority. These groups were inspired by Jesus and His message, but in the period of 150 AD - 400 AD they were persecuted, they were the original heretics I believe.

That's Greek to me. I'm sorry.

Some of these groups believed the physical Universe was evil, that it was created by an evil and lesser God, while others believed that the physical Universe was imperfect (not evil), and that the intention behind for creation of the physical Universe was good, but the creator (a kind of lesser God) was also imperfect and flawed. Regardless, and very important for my story, all of these Gnostic groups emphasized other nonphysical creations by a truly supreme being.

I consider our earth as being neither perfect or imperfect. It simply 'is' our earth for the duration of the experiment.

Having found all this, I read more and thought a lot more about it, but for a while I was not convinced. Despite feeling a strong personal connection to these ideas, especially in the manner I found them, the claim of many Gnostic groups that the physical Universe was evil really gave me a lot of pause on Gnosticism as a whole. That said, the general emphasis on 'nonphysical' creations really stuck with me, and I began to think about what the nature of these 'nonphysical' creations could be, to see if we could experience something like this despite being physical beings.

I can't relate to our physical universe be either evil or good. I can't even relate to our earth being evil or good, as that portends to human values.

I realized that we COULD, and that my own field of math is full of examples. The most famous is probably the Pythagorean theorem. For context, a theorem is a statement linking some 'mathematical' assumptions to some conclusions. The Pythagorean theorem in particular, links the axioms of Euclidean geometry (like the parallel postulate) to a conclusion about ALL right triangles, namely a^2 + b^2 = c^2. Importantly, the IMPLICATION itself, (Euclidean geometry axioms) => (All right triangles satisfy a^2 + b^2 = c^2) is a tautology,

No need to explain. I'm fully aware of the Pythagorean theorum.

meaning that as a logical statement, the truth of this implications depends ONLY on the meaning of the terms alone, like the meaning of 'triangle'.

That is, as a logical statement, the Pythagorean theorem is true here on Earth, during Pythagoras's time, when the dinosaurs were around, inside a black hole. It is a pattern that exists within meaning itself.

Tiangles have existed for hundreds of millions of years and that theorum would apply. Maybe I don't understand your meaning there.

Pure math is filled with these examples, all timeless and completely independent of the physical Universe, and yet they are observable and discoverable by physical beings which can somehow comprehend that meaning, they are features within meaning itself, akin to mountains or rivers in the physical world. I realized that, more fundamental than the creation of the physical Universe, was the creation of what I consider to be a 'structure within meaning', which allows for the existence of consistent axiomatic systems, like Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory - Wikipedia, which allow for so many rich and infinite logical patterns we find in math, and which inform what is consistent in physics.

I'll have to look it up and then comment if I consider it applicable to this discussion.

Seeing it this way, I am still in awe of the sheer Awesomeness of it all. It is humbling, to realize that the question of 'what preceded God' is nonsensical, since God is responsible for the creation of much MORE than time itself,

Please! In your view. I'm a non-believer.

God created a structure in meaning from which everything hangs, on which physics itself depends, we are incapable of even comprehending the question of what 'preceded' the physical Universe, much less what 'preceded' God.

I'll just say that our brains aren't capable of understanding everything, but very bright scientists are making discoveries that only a handful of humans will ever be capable of understanding.

There exists much more than just the physical Universe for us to discover, and I believe I was guided to this realization (and to these Gnostic ideas) so I could find true faith in a supreme Being. I feel confident to trust my intuition on this and conclude that Jesus was sent to Earth to guide our evolution as a species for the better.

I believe there is more than the physical universe to understand, but I don't connect any of it to a supreme being.
Creatures from another planet? Possibly?

Beyond that, I believe the physical Universe is imperfect or 'limited', but not evil, and that it was made with a good 'overall' purpose, by a lesser and limited, but good God. This limited God is different from the Supreme God that created the 'structures in meaning' I try to allude to.

I've commented above on this.

Now, if you take away one thing from all this, I think it should be that a person's path towards finding GENUINE faith is very personal, and it may require us to really contend with the limits of what we CAN know,

Our human brains define the limits on what we can know.

to really open up humbly to ideas that we may be skeptical of, like Christs divinity or God's existence. Importantly, I think it also helps to not be motivated by a need for personal salvation, by a fear of death, but instead by a desire to content with the world's suffering.

We humans fear death and I've suggested that gave us an understanding that there is a heaven.
Incidentally, you do understand that dogs don't fear death. I admire them from a human perspective.

Thanks, I appreciate knowing something positive did come of this. One of my goals (besides better understanding of this in general) is to cross boundaries dividing people, try to understand them and reach a balance somehow, I think it's part of the purpose of all life being here.

The 'positive' that came to me is that you're genuine, sincere, and searching for answers!

Sadly though, I didn't find that you addressed the question of evolution and creation being true at the same time.
Was that addressed in one of the paragraphs, but my decidedly closed mind on the topic of religion has caused me to miss it?

 

[Insaneworld]

Sadly though, I didn't find that you addressed the question of evolution and creation being true at the same time.
Was that addressed in one of the paragraphs, but my decidedly closed mind on the topic of religion has caused me to miss it?

First, thanks for reading it and replying. Not sure where exactly I spoke about it, but I would say I did, even though I set out to explain (as best I could) the source of my faith, not creationism (in any Biblical sense). The issue is again what constitutes 'creationism' in your view, I think. I identify God (the supreme God) as the creator of structures within meaning itself, from which the physical Universe derives in a strong sense. In my view, humans are like a higher order effect of physics, with physics itself (time and space) as a creation too and entirely dependent on a structure within meaning.

Still though, I'll read the longer post you made and try to understand your reply in general, but as you said it is lengthy lol (thanks for the post), I will try that later.

 

[ninja007]

So because I am not sure I should just believe in the god you believe in.

Sorry that's not a good enough reason for me.

Romans 1:20
King James Version
​

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

 

[zaangalewa]

Is not the god Christians believe in a very specific god described in the Iron Age mythology of the Old Testament?

You know nothing about the rebound in god - so why do you try to speak with me or other beliefers about god and religions? Nearly nothing is more boring than to speak with atheists about their "ideas", their spiritual belief, in not-god - specially in Christmas tide.

Is this not the god you are telling I must believe in ?

You must do nothing except to die today, tomorrow or a later day. And you have somehow a chance to be reborn in Christ again.

 

[zaangalewa]

What song do you refer to?

"Es kommt ein Schiff geladen"

The main issue (for me) is with what is included and what isn't, and who made those decisions.

You make your decisions - no one else is doing so.

I think the process is corruptible, so I look at The Bible with some pause.

Everything is corruptible. So you habve to look at "everything" with some pause - except you love your wife. By the way: I was able to give this answer without a conrete idea about what you say when you say "corruptible" and "look with some pause".

Putting that aside though, there is also the question of how to interpret the words.

What you read is always only what you understand. If you understand more you read more. And if you don't understand anything - although you tried to do so - then there is sometimes ¿currently? perhaps nothing to understand. Step by step.

I've thought for a long time that literal interpretations of The Bible (for example when it comes to creation) are not compatible with science, from evolution to cosmology.

Hmmm - as well physics and the bible say there is a beginning for example. The bible speaks about creation - and physics speaks about that a universe with a constant amount of energy started to expand. The physicists of the 21st century speak about a much more detailed natural history. But would they sit around the campfire of Cern if not thousands of years ago on a campfire someone had spoken: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. ..."

So: What do you really compare?

So, when The Bible is quoted, the text and the interpretation are both 'in question' for me. This is especially true when I consider how ungodly many Christians can be,

To be honest: The worst criminals always said so and I am tired about such statements. Concrete example: When you don't see that the patriarch of Moscow is a former KGB agent and an oligarch from Putins grace who got more than 2 billions private property from him and when you really should believe now he is a Christian then let me call you just simple an idiot.

how giddy and ready they seem to be to tell others they will burn in hell, how this has been repeatedly twisted to control and extract profits from people. A super important example involves Martin Luther and the question of indulgences.

Martin Luther was a theological genius - but also a choleric person who spoke a lot of absurde and hateful nonsense about Catholics and Jews. Constantinople had been fallen - the Hagia Sofia was lost - Rome needed a new central church for the Christendom and financed this also with money from rich people who believed they can buy an entrance card to heaven with money. Why not? Anyone could also go to confession for free.

I think the main trait

trait = "Charakterzug" ... got it

of a Christian is a love for Jesus and His message,

Is love because of the love of Jesus and his message of love.

which I have always thought to be one centered on empathy

I do not like this word. Also a torturer has empathy - he knows what hurts. And also a Christian without "empathy" - for example an autistic person - is able to love in the Christian sense of this word - for example as a "social convention that must not be changed."

and love for others, 'love thy neighbor as thyself', so I call myself a Christian.

The strange thing is that many seem to forget "thyself" sometimes. Only who is doing so is also able to help others.

Before finding genuine faith in God, I thought a lot about (I still do) the role and purpose of animal and human suffering in the world, and it was in this line of thinking that I eventually managed to find genuine faith that God exists.

?

In this thread I feel I can relate to both sides a lot, and I think ideally the believers should try to encourage and be understanding of a respectful critique or question from a nonbeliever, since it often stems from a good place. But we are all so ready to get defensive, I think we end up talking past each other most of the time.

You are top-heavy. Speak with your dog about all this "problems" and perhaps you will find a new perspective. Dogs are damned good shepards.

 

[Blues Man]

Romans 1:20​

King James Version​

​

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

So a book that was assembled by a religion in order to spread its own propaganda is the book I should use as a reference?

Of course a book filled with religious myth and propaganda is going to tell people to believe in a god because that's the entire purpose of the book.

 

[Blues Man]

You know nothing about the rebound in god - so why do you try to speak with me or other beliefers about god and religions? Nearly nothing is more boring than to speak with atheists about their "ideas", their spiritual belief, in not-god - specially in Christmas tide.




You must do nothing except to die today, tomorrow or a later day. And you have somehow a chance to be reborn in Christ again.

Yeah when we die we die.

Until you can show me someone who has been "reborn" as themselves I have no reason to believe it can or will happen.