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Getbig Misc Discussion Boards => Religious Debates & Threads => Topic started by: columbusdude82 on August 13, 2007, 11:20:49 AM
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In order for the other thread on the Bible not to get too cluttered with tangential remarks, I thought I would make a separate thread discussing the issue of faith vs reason. Rather than start off with abstractions and generalizations, I thought I would first start off with the faith I was in raised in, at home, at school, and at church: Bible, Nicene creed, weird theology and all.
Here is a list of axioms I was taught to accept whole-heartedly and unquestioningly on zero evidence.
1. An imaginary rib-woman in an allegorical story from the creation myth of an Iron Age middle-eastern desert tribe ate from the fruit of an imaginary tree.
2. In that allegorical story, God, creator of the universe, had warned said imaginary rib-woman not to eat from that imaginary tree.
3. Therefore, God decided that all humans are guilty of "original sin." We are born guilty, created sick, through no fault of our own.
(Incidentally, am I the only one who ever wonders what God thought of other species of man? Was neanderthal man also guilty of original sin?
Did homo erectus also have a 'soul' that will stand before God on Judgement day? Was Homo Habilis also created in God's image? Or is it only we Homo Sapiens who have to bear these burdens? What about the millions of Homo Sapiens who lived in the past 100 or so thousand years before Yahweh made his appearance on the stage of human history... In the 6-million year history of the hominids, notions of God, original sin, souls and damnation come in very, very late. At what point in the history of this ape species did its members become inhabited with souls, and become guilty of "original sin"?)
4. God picked that desert tribe to be his "chosen people," to the exclusion of all others.
5. God, creator of a universe with billions of billions of massive planets and stars, is very concerned with the tribal squabbles of Iron Age people over the course of a few centuries in one small desert region of a tiny speck of a planet that is 4.5 billion years old.
6. God also has a very fragile ego, and cares very much that one species, out of millions of species on that tiny speck of a planet, should "believe" in him and "worship" him.
7. God has a change of heart. He goes from being the God of just one tribe, to wanting to save all homo sapiens from the "sin" which he himself had made them guilty of by default.
8. God didn't want to just go ahead and "forgive," so he decided to arrange a little play of a death foretold starring himself as judge and innocent execution victim.
9. We discover that God has a Son who has been there all along since the beginning of time. What on earth does that mean? The notion of "son" is only defined as a male impregnating a female to produce male offspring. Does that mean God is male and had some female there with him at the beginning of time to impregnate? What else can it mean for someone to be someone else's son? If that didn't complicate matters enough, we also learn that God's Son is also God himself, whatever that means.
10. In staging previously-mentioned play of a death foretold, God's son has to take on human form, so God picks a young virgin and impregnates her without the "contribution" of a man. The child is innocent of all sin, but he is to be brutally murdered so that his heavenly father (also himself) will forgive us.
11. Said virgin remains a virgin after delivering the baby, and for her whole natural life. (How, then, does she produce "brothers" for Jesus?) At the end of her natural life, she shoots off into the sky to become the "Queen of Heaven." She is still a virgin to this day. She answers prayers, has intercessory powers, and makes apparitions to impressionable young peasant girls to deliver prophecy.
12. Back to the baby she delivered, he grew up to preach some wonderful things and perform magic. Especially impressive was his ability to bring two people back from the dead.
(Presuming this is true, did they "die" again later? Or are they still alive somewhere? If they did die, perhaps his magical powers weren't all that impressive.)
13. He was betrayed and brutally executed, in the same manner that tens of thousands of others were executed in the Roman world. Unlike the rest of them, his execution was different in that it "washed away" our "sins," both those we actually committed and those that God made us guilty of by default.
14. He rose from the dead and shot off into heaven to sit at the right hand of his father, also himself.
15. He will return one day to see who's been good and who's been naughty. He will throw the naughty ones into the fire and take the good ones to be with him forever.
16. He told us to eat his body and drink his blood every sunday. Saying magic words over wafers and wine transforms them into his body and blood, respectively, making them available for consumption.
17. He, his father, his mother, and their minions (the Saints) listen to our prayers, and sometimes intervene in the world in our favor, even to the point of suspending the physical laws of the universe.
18. Even though they don't seem to answer the prayers of starving children in Africa, I should keep cluttering their airwaves with mundane requests for help with homework, tests, and soccer games...
(As a ten year old boy, I realized I would be terribly embarrassed if God were to answer my prayers for winning soccer games, but ignore the pleas for food from some starving child in the Congo. He should help all of them first, I thought, before concerning himself with helping me on the soccer field.)
Here, in a nutshell, is the faith in which I was raised: a series of unsubstantiated claims, with no evidence whatsoever, that I am demanded to accept unconditionally, on pain of eternal damnation.
One bizarre non sequitur after another, I was taught that accepting these unquestioningly is the highest conceivable virtue.
And the only reason I could think of that I was told to accept this set of claims and not another, is that my parents believed these ones.
After years of struggle, I arrived at a simple response: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
(PS: Sorry for the very long post.)
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I am saying the SUSPENSION OF REASON is bad. How many times do I have to say that over and over?
I agree. The suspension of reason is bad. However, you said
Here's my problem with "faith." "Faith" demands the suspension of reason. You are told to accept, with no evidence whatsoever, some Iron Age texts (contradictory and bizarre as they may be) as axioms not to be questioned. Reason and common sense are to be suspended.
I disagree. Faith is not the suspension of reason. Faith does not demand the suspension of reason. That, my friend, is nothing but your personal opinion. And that is just fine. You are entitled to your opinion. Let me just point out a few others who disagree with you:
"And the beginning of every logical chain is an act of faith: some unproven axiom, some set of postulates that were chosen because they simply felt true. There’s no getting around this, because logical inference can only draw on what is previously given, either as an axiom or a theorem already proved. To demand that every step in a logical chain depends on an earlier logical proof leads, of course, to an infinite regress." - Malcolm Pollack
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." - Albert Einstein
"The most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion on an intelligent and powerful Being." - Isaac Newton
"Take, for example, molecules. Many grade-school children are able to tell me that a water molecule consists of H2O. Most of these children have not actually seen a molecule broken apart. So, having never seen it, can they truly say it exists and confidently assert what it is made of? I personally cannot. I am forced to admit that I have put my faith in the textbook, and I believe what it tells me about the composition of a water molecule. That, dear reader, is faith in its simplest form. The evidence of things not seen." - Josh Hefner
"if a person can believe in black holes and multiple universes, then it would be no big deal to believe in God" - Dr. Michael Guillen
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After years of struggle, I arrived at a simple response: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Tell me, what would qualify as extraordinary evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?
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Faith does demand the suspension of reason. How else was I expected to believe points 1-16 above? Fantastic propositions about rib-women, talking serpents, and practitioners of the lost art of resurrection run counter to reason. Believing them requires a suspension of reason.
As for your argument from famous scientists, that matter is addressed at depth in Dawkins' book The God Delusion, and I won't delve too deeply into it, except to say a few things. First off, many scientists use the word God not in reference to a personal god like Yahweh, but to try and describe the great mysteries of the universe in a poetic way (e.g., Stephen Hawking: "... for then we shall know the mind of God.")
Einstein reiterated over and over that he did not believe in a personal God,
I don't try to imagine a personal God; it suffices to stand in awe at the structure of the world, insofar as it allows our adequate senses to appreciate it.
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious 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.
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.
The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naive.
... and other quotations along these lines. Carl Sagan said it best:
if by "God" one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God...
As for Newton, he was simply, plainly wrong. Mathematics and physics in his time were still far too primitive for him to understand the solar system (in spite of his monumental contributions), and his exasperation drove him to see God in that gap in his knowledge. Then along came Laplace, who wrote his monumental work on planetary motion explaining why the planets really behave as they do.
He presented his work to Napoleon who asked where God was in this scheme, and Laplace's response is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sentences ever uttered by man:
"Sir, I have no need for this hypothesis."
Concerning the water molecule, your lazy friend Mr Hefner need not put his faith in any textbook. Instead, he may well take a few courses in college chemistry and test the water molecule for himself in a laboratory. There is no element of faith at all in here. There is plenty of evidence that he (and you) are welcome to verify at your leisure in a lab. Perhaps he has never heard of the electrolysis of water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water)
Finally, as for black holes and multiple universes, I never claimed to "believe" in them, nor does anyone go out and kill people who don't believe in them. They are scientific hypotheses, to be affirmed if the evidence supports them, and rejected if the evidence goes against them. Physicists don't "believe in" black holes because a book says so, but because theoretical physics up to this point in time seems to support their existence. If the evidence were to negate them, physicists would throw them out in a heartbeat.
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Tell me, what would qualify as extraordinary evidence for the resurrection of Jesus?
I am tempted to say that the burden of proof is not on me, but I gave the matter some thought, and I think at least two kinds of evidence may be admissible.
First, proof that it is possible for a dead human being, or any dead mammal, to return to life. This would not, on its own, prove that Jesus was resurrected, merely that it was possible.
Second, evidence from Jesus's time. Admittedly that is very hard to come by, and if it existed then I am sure the faithful would have found it and stuck it in everyone's faces many centuries ago. At the simplest level, how come there are no independent, reliable, verified sightings of Jesus after his resurrection? (Not the Gospels, which have been heavily edited and tampered with, but actual historical records? Joesphus? Anyone else)
Until such evidence is produced, then in my mind it is far more likely that the bones of the Nazarene are still in some grave or ossuary in Israel or the West Bank.
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great thread and post. I had this discussion with someone at my work, They threw the "prove he dosent exist'' thing at me. I will show him this link great read
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Thanks, Scooter.
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1. (I got this from Colossus): From goo to you, compliments of the zoo. :)
2. The appearance of a perfectly shaped planet earth in perfect rotation with the sun and moon, providing ideal climates, and equal amounts of light and darkness. The earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the sun in perfect elements of time. There is no scientific explanation for how this process started. However you believe it all got here (God or some big bang, etc.), faith is required.
3. The sudden or gradual appearance of a single celled organism that appeared from nowhere on our perfect planet and started magically mutating into life forms that eventually became all life that we see on planet earth. Sounds like science fiction to me.
4. The evolvement of man from lesser forms, despite the complete absence of transitional fossils. Need faith to believe in this aspect of Darwinism.
5. The irreducible complex organisms that could not have functioned without all of its parts, poking a gaping hole in Darwinism.
That's a start . . .
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Beach Bum, points 3 -5 have been addressed by numerous biologists, most notably Richard Dawkins in several books. Number 5, especially, is ridiculously silly. Irreducible complexity has been "poked" over and over. As for "gaps" in the fossil record, they may still be filled, but the mere presence of the fossils we have pokes gaping holes in the Biblical narrative.
For one thing, I am hoping someone will address the point I made in the first post:
Incidentally, am I the only one who ever wonders what God thought of other species of man? Was neanderthal man also guilty of original sin?
Did homo erectus also have a 'soul' that will stand before God on Judgement day? Was Homo Habilis also created in God's image? Or is it only we Homo Sapiens who have to bear these burdens? What about the millions of Homo Sapiens who lived in the past 100 or so thousand years before Yahweh made his appearance on the stage of human history... In the 6-million year history of the hominids, notions of God, original sin, souls and damnation come in very, very late. At what point in the history of this ape species did its members become inhabited with souls, and become guilty of "original sin"?
As for 3, there are billions of billions of planets in the universe. So even if life had a slim, 1 in a billion chance of occurring on any given planet, you'd still expect it to occur on a billion planets.
2. puts the cart before the horse and isn't worth addressing.
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Okay, our perfectly placed planet, etc. is putting the cart before the horse and not worth addressing. Translation: there is no scientific explanation for this. You don't have one. No one does. This doesn't prove that intelligent design is behind our planet. It just goes to show that belief in a theory full of holes requires faith.
My view is both the God-based and evolutionary based theories on the origin of life sound like science fiction.
I'm not trying to morph this into some creation vs. evolution debate. Just highlighting that regardless of your beliefs, unless you believe in absolutely nothing, there is an element of faith involved.
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Yes, I do have a scientific explanation. You said yourself: "our perfectly placed planet"... If it weren't "perfectly placed," it wouldn't be "our" planet, would it? Too close or too far from the sun, and it would never have been able to sustain our form of life. The mistake is to claim that our planet was placed in this Goldilocks region in order to sustain life. Rather, the opposite is true: it can sustain life because it is in the Goldilocks region, not too close to the sun, and not too far.
Also, if you believe "evolutionary based theories" are "science fiction," you need to consult the fossil record, and all of biology and genetics in the past 150 years or so.
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That's not science. That's pure guesswork. How did our perfectly placed planet get here?
And I said theories on the "origin of life" sound like science fiction. A being somewhere in the sky speaks a world into existence and creates man out of dirt. Or, a planet suddenly appears, there is a spark (or something) that creates a single celled organism that serves as the beginning of life on planet earth. We cannot prove either one of those theories of the origin of life. Takes faith to believe in either one.
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Luckily, the answers proposed by science are not the ones you mention :)
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By the way, Beach Bum, let me say a thing or two about our "perfectly placed" planet... Sure, it is close enough to its star (the sun) to have liquid water, but not too close, but it is also "placed" in the path of asteroids and comets that could wipe us out at whim. Just ask the dinosaurs! Sure, these collisions don't happen very often in our scale of time, but they do occur often enough in geological time.
Plus, not too long ago, the earth wasn't hospitable to humans. The atmosphere, the climate, the vegetation and animals were very different from what they are now.
It's not that the earth was made nice and comfy for us, it's that we are one of many species that evolved in the current conditions of the earth. If evolutionary time were a VHS tape and you hit the rewind button all the way back, say, 20 million years, then hit play again, things might play out very differently.
As if all that weren't enough, there will come a time when our sun will die, and the solar system will be violently destroyed. We will almost surely be extinct by then though.
You mustn't think that our planet was made all nice and beautiful and "perfectly placed" for our benefit. Rather, the universe is indifferent, our planet is just a tiny speck of dust in a universe of billions of billions of planets, our sun is one small star among billions of billions of stars, yet life did occur on our planet, and life forms evolved, and we alone among all the species of life forms to have inhabited the planet have grown the consciousness to realize all this and ask the big questions.
To my mind, that is the greatest miracle of them all, and surely it is far more wonderful than all the banal miracles of religion combined.
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Faith does demand the suspension of reason. How else was I expected to believe points 1-16 above? Fantastic propositions about rib-women, talking serpents, and practitioners of the lost art of resurrection run counter to reason. Believing them requires a suspension of reason.
As for your argument from famous scientists, that matter is addressed at depth in Dawkins' book The God Delusion, and I won't delve too deeply into it, except to say a few things. First off, many scientists use the word God not in reference to a personal god like Yahweh, but to try and describe the great mysteries of the universe in a poetic way ( e.g., Stephen Hawking: "... for then we shall know the mind of God.")
Einstein reiterated over and over that he did not believe in a personal God,
... and other quotations along these lines. Carl Sagan said it best:
As for Newton, he was simply, plainly wrong. Mathematics and physics in his time were still far too primitive for him to understand the solar system (in spite of his monumental contributions), and his exasperation drove him to see God in that gap in his knowledge. Then along came Laplace, who wrote his monumental work on planetary motion explaining why the planets really behave as they do.
He presented his work to Napoleon who asked where God was in this scheme, and Laplace's response is, in my opinion, one of the greatest sentences ever uttered by man:
"Sir, I have no need for this hypothesis."
Concerning the water molecule, your lazy friend Mr Hefner need not put his faith in any textbook. Instead, he may well take a few courses in college chemistry and test the water molecule for himself in a laboratory. There is no element of faith at all in here. There is plenty of evidence that he (and you) are welcome to verify at your leisure in a lab. Perhaps he has never heard of the electrolysis of water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water[/url ]
Finally, as for black holes and multiple universes, I never claimed to "believe" in them, nor does anyone go out and kill people who don't believe in them. They are scientific hypotheses, to be affirmed if the evidence supports them, and rejected if the evidence goes against them. Physicists don't "believe in" black holes because a book says so, but because theoretical physics up to this point in time seems to support their existence. If the evidence were to negate them, physicists would throw them out in a heartbeat.
(http:// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water)
Faith does not demand the suspension of reason. That is just your opinion and some might agree with you, while many will disagree.
"And the beginning of every logical chain is an act of faith: some unproven axiom, some set of postulates that were chosen because they simply felt true. There's no getting around this, because logical inference can only draw on what is previously given, either as an axiom or a theorem already proved. To demand that every step in a logical chain depends on an earlier logical proof leads, of course, to an infinite regress." - Malcolm Pollack
Albert Einstein would have disagreed with you. I am aware that Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal God, but nevertheless, he believed in God, a higher power, a deity. This requires faith.
Here is another person who would disagree with you:
Christopher Michael Langan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Michael_Langan
"Christopher Michael Langan (born c. 1957) is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at around 195. [1] Billed as possibly "the smartest man in America",
He began talking at six months, taught himself to read before he was four, and was repeatedly skipped ahead in school.
Langan says he spent the last years of high school mostly in independent study, teaching himself "advanced math, physics, philosophy, Latin and Greek, all that". [9] After earning a perfect score on the SAT [7] he tried college (Reed College and later Montana State University), but faced with finance and transportation problems, and believing that he "could literally teach [his professors] more than they could teach [him]", dropped out. [9]
Dr. Robert Novelly tested Langan's IQ for 20/20, which reported that Langan broke the ceiling of the test, scoring "off the charts". Novelly was said to be astounded, saying: "Chris is the highest individual that I have ever measured in 25 years of doing this." [7]
Langan has claimed that "you can prove the existence of God, the soul and an afterlife, using mathematics." [7]
Langan is a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design (ISCID),[19] a professional society which promotes intelligent design, [20] and has published a paper on his CTMU in the society's online journal Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design in 2002. [21] Later that year, he presented a lecture on his CTMU at ISCID's Research and Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference. [22] In 2004, Langan contributed a chapter to Uncommon Dissent, an essay collection of works that question Darwinian evolution edited by ISCID cofounder and leading intelligent design proponent William Dembski. [23]
Asked about creationism, Langan has said:
"I believe in the theory of evolution, but I believe as well in the allegorical truth of creation theory. In other words, I believe that evolution, including the principle of natural selection, is one of the tools used by God to create mankind. Mankind is then a participant in the creation of the universe itself, so that we have a closed loop. I believe that there is a level on which science and religious metaphor are mutually compatible." [14]
Langan has said he does not belong to any religious denomination, explaining that he "can't afford to let [his] logical approach to theology be prejudiced by religious dogma." [14] He calls himself "a respecter of all faiths, among peoples everywhere." [14]
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Faith does demand the suspension of reason. How else was I supposed to believe, on faith, with no evidence whatsoever, points 1 - 16 above?
Why am I supposed to accept responsibility for the imaginary offenses of the allegorical rib-woman?
Reason tells us it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY (to put it mildly) for dead mammals to return to life. Yet I am expected to believe that people were doing it all the time as recently as 2000 years ago. There is no reason-based explanation for this lost art of resurrection, only blind faith.
Faith tells you to swallow some far-fetched, even ridiculous propositions, and says: Here are some ideas you are supposed to accept wholeheartedly, and you are not allowed to question them. Why not? Because you're not. You're not.
In spite of the Einstein quotations I provided above, you persist in your delusion that he believed in a "deity"... please scroll up and re-read them.
As for Langan, I will get to him later. But don't just copy-paste out of Wikipedia at me :) At least try to answer some of the questions I pose :)
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In spite of the Einstein quotations I provided above, you persist in your delusion that he believed in a "deity"... please scroll up and re-read them.
Please, do plainly tell me what Einstein believed and do tell me how that is not faith?
Faith tells you to swallow some far-fetched, even ridiculous propositions, and says: Here are some ideas you are supposed to accept wholeheartedly, and you are not allowed to question them. Why not? Because you're not. You're not.
Good grief, who taught you this? Your parents or the Roman Catholic Church?
From childhood my parents and my pastors told me to question everything that they(my parents) and pastors tell me about God and the Bible and to question everything I read about God and the Bible. They taught me to read and study the Bible on my own and to know it well so that nobody will use it to deceive me, control me or take money from me.
don't just copy-paste out of Wikipedia at me
Perhaps he has never heard of the electrolysis of water: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water)
;D
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Fine, I will allow myself the same privilege of yours to "question everything." Let's keep it short and sweet.
As a Catholic schoolboy, I was taught to accept as a BINDING MATTER OF DOCTRINE the assumption of Mary, that she didn't die, but at the end of her natural life, she shot off into Heaven where she still is today (and still a virgin!).
I question that. Am I allowed to question it? Not if I don't want to incur the wrath of that nasty, ill-tempered old man Almighty God. Here's the conclusion to Pope Pius XII's "Defining the Dogma of the Assumption":
[We] define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.
46. In order that this, our definition of the bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven may be brought to the attention of the universal Church, we desire that this, our Apostolic Letter, should stand for perpetual remembrance, commanding that written copies of it, or even printed copies, signed by the hand of any public notary and bearing the seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, should be accorded by all men the same reception they would give to this present letter, were it tendered or shown.
47. It is forbidden to any man to change this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul.
48. Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, in the year of the great Jubilee, 1950, on the first day of the month of November, on the Feast of All Saints, in the twelfth year of our pontificate.
Source: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html)
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See previous post. "Faith" demanded that I suspend my reason and not question this rather far-fetched "divinely revealed dogma."
If I question it ("call into doubt"), I will have "fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith."
If I oppose it, I will "incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul."
This is JUST ONE example of how faith DEMANDS the SUSPENSION OF REASON.
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What's the matter, loco? Have you been thwarted by Holy Mother Church? :)
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What's the matter, loco? Have you been thwarted by Holy Mother Church? :)
Not at all. Been busy at work. Sorry! ;D
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Fine, I will allow myself the same privilege of yours to "question everything." Let's keep it short and sweet.
As a Catholic schoolboy, I was taught to accept as a BINDING MATTER OF DOCTRINE the assumption of Mary, that she didn't die, but at the end of her natural life, she shot off into Heaven where she still is today (and still a virgin!).
I question that. Am I allowed to question it? Not if I don't want to incur the wrath of that nasty, ill-tempered old man Almighty God. Here's the conclusion to Pope Pius XII's "Defining the Dogma of the Assumption":
Source: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-xii_apc_19501101_munificentissimus-deus_en.html)
Mary is dead, and she did not die a virgin. The Roman Catholic Church is wrong. Throughout history, they have done more harm to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than good.
Yours is a good example of how the Roman Catholic church demands the suspension of reason. They also demand faith. They can't demand faith from anyone.
Faith comes from God.
The Mormons do the same. When a Mormon questions the leadership, they get threatened by the leaders.
This is not the case with the true Christian church.
Even the apostle Paul encouraged Christians to question even Paul's teachings and to search the scriptures to verify that what he was preaching was true.
But again, your example is just about people demanding the suspension of reason. Faith itself does not demand such a thing.
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A great definition of faith, by Martin Luther:
"Faith is not what some people think it is. Their human dream
is a delusion. Because they observe that faith is not followed by
good works or a better life, they fall into error, even though they
speak and hear much about faith. ``Faith is not enough,'' they
say, ``You must do good works, you must be pious to be saved.''
They think that, when you hear the gospel, you start working,
creating by your own strength a thankful heart which says, ``I
believe.'' That is what they think true faith is. But, because
this is a human idea, a dream, the heart never learns anything
from it, so it does nothing and reform doesn't come from this
`faith,' either.
Instead, faith is God's work in us, that changes us and gives
new birth from God. (John 1:13). It kills the Old Adam and makes us
completely different people. It changes our hearts, our spirits,
our thoughts and all our powers. It brings the Holy Spirit with
it. Yes, it is a living, creative, active and powerful thing, this
faith. Faith cannot help doing good works constantly. It doesn't
stop to ask if good works ought to be done, but before anyone
asks, it already has done them and continues to do them without
ceasing. Anyone who does not do good works in this manner is an
unbeliever. He stumbles around and looks for faith and good
works, even though he does not know what faith or good works are.
Yet he gossips and chatters about faith and good works with many
words.
Faith is a living, bold trust in God's grace, so certain of
God's favor that it would risk death a thousand times trusting in it.
Such confidence and knowledge of God's grace makes you happy,
joyful and bold in your relationship to God and all creatures. The
Holy Spirit makes this happen through faith. Because of it, you
freely, willingly and joyfully do good to everyone, serve
everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love and praise the God who
has shown you such grace. Thus, it is just as impossible to
separate faith and works as it is to separate heat and light from
fire! Therefore, watch out for your own false ideas and guard
against good-for-nothing gossips, who think they're smart enough
to define faith and works, but really are the greatest of fools.
Ask God to work faith in you, or you will remain forever without
faith, no matter what you wish, say or can do."
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Mary is dead, and she did not die a virgin. The Roman Catholic Church is wrong.
Will you tell them, or shall I? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Will you tell them, or shall I? ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
We can both tell them. ;D
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Mary is dead, and she did not die a virgin. The Roman Catholic Church is wrong.
Oh yeah, how do you know that? Why should I take your word over the divinely revealed dogma of Holy Mother Church?
What about the millions of pilgrims to Fatima, Medugorje (sp), Lourdes, etc... What about the 70,000 people who saw Our Lady's apparition at Fatima? Presumably they were all delusional?
Throughout history, they have done more harm to the Gospel of Jesus Christ than good.
How do you know what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? How do you know that the New Testament consists only of divinely revealed writings, and that no divinely revealed writings were left out?
These books you call the Gospel of Jesus were in the possession of the Catholic Church for centuries and centuries before the Protestant reformation. How do you know they didn't add to them? or change them? or take stuff out? How did you know they compiled all the right books in the first place?
How do you know the Book of Mormon is not part of the "Gospel of Jesus Christ"?
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BUMP for the Bible-thumpers :)
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BUMP for the Bible-thumpers :)
Thanks, columbusdude82! I had forgotten about you. Sorry! ;D
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Oh yeah, how do you know that? Why should I take your word over the divinely revealed dogma of Holy Mother Church?
What about the millions of pilgrims to Fatima, Medugorje (sp), Lourdes, etc... What about the 70,000 people who saw Our Lady's apparition at Fatima? Presumably they were all delusional?
How do you know what is the Gospel of Jesus Christ? How do you know that the New Testament consists only of divinely revealed writings, and that no divinely revealed writings were left out?
These books you call the Gospel of Jesus were in the possession of the Catholic Church for centuries and centuries before the Protestant reformation. How do you know they didn't add to them? or change them? or take stuff out? How did you know they compiled all the right books in the first place?
How do you know the Book of Mormon is not part of the "Gospel of Jesus Christ"?
Excellent question!
You are correct! The Roman Catholic Church, for centuries, had in their possession the Gospels of Jesus, along with the rest of the New Testament. You are correct also in that they had the power to re-write them or at least change those parts that contradict the Catholic church dogma, such as the perpetual virginity of Mary, the dogma about her sinless nature, the dogma that church leaders shouldn't marry, eternal life through rituals, purgatory, and many many more.
Well, they did not change a thing. They had the texts in their possession, they had the power to change them, they knew the texts contradict their dogma, yet they did not change them.
In fact, it was because of those things in the Bible that contradict the Catholic Church that the Protestant reformation was started by Martin Luther.
Here is a question for you, columbusdude82. Why did the Roman Catholic Church not change the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament while they had the chance?
I'll tell you why. Because God is active in the preservation, compilation, translation and distribution of His inspired word, the Holy Bible. That's why.
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I'll tell you why. Because God is active in the preservation, compilation, translation and distribution of His inspired word, the Holy Bible. That's why.
Non Sequitur.
they did not change them
We know some texts have been tampered with, particularly, early on in Christianity, before the Catholic Church as such.
For instance, a lot of scholars note that the Gospel of Mark initially ended with the discovery by Mary Magdalene of the empty tomb. The part about the risen Jesus was added later.
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First you say
These books you call the Gospel of Jesus were in the possession of the Catholic Church for centuries and centuries before the Protestant reformation. How do you know they didn't add to them? or change them? or take stuff out?
I ask you a question and instead of an answer you give me.
We know some texts have been tampered with, particularly, early on in Christianity, before the Catholic Church as such.
::)
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That's part of the answer. :)
The Gospels were messed around with as soon as they were written, and that's why there are discrepant early copies of them. I gave one example of that.
Then the Church of Rome took over, and they might have messed around with the translations of some texts, but they mostly propagated the sick theology of Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.
Point is, you can't know for sure what the Gospel of Jesus (if there ever was such a thing at first) really was.
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That's part of the answer. :)
The Gospels were messed around with as soon as they were written, and that's why there are discrepant early copies of them. I gave one example of that.
Every Bible that I have ever read has a note at the end of Mark 16:8 that says
((The most reliable early manuscripts and other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20.))
Mark 16:9-20 simply talks about Jesus appearing to some of his followers. I am aware of this and I do not claim that Mark 16:9-20 is the word of God, neither do I deny it because I really don't know. Like you said, this happened way before the Roman Catholic church took over.
Some Bible scholars, even secular scholars believe that Mark wrote two Gospels, an early, very short version and a later, slightly longer and more detailed version. But we don't know.
This is the only such case in the Bible, and the note shows the honesty of Bible scholars and translators in sharing with us the truth.
Then the Church of Rome took over, and they might have messed around with the translations of some texts, but they mostly propagated the sick theology of Paul, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.
Point is, you can't know for sure what the Gospel of Jesus (if there ever was such a thing at first) really was.
The Roman Catholic church did not change a thing in the New Testament, and that in itself is a mystery because the New Testament, in many many places contradicts Roman Catholic Dogma.
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The Roman Catholic church did not change a thing in the New Testament
Didn't they (in the early days) get to choose which books made it into the New Testament and which were thrown out?
I rather like the Protoevangelion of James and the Gospel of Thomas (NOT the Infancy Gospel of Thomas).
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OK I decided to dig up this thread about the "faith of my fathers," i.e. Christianity, specifically Catholicism.
I was staying with friends a few weeks back, and on Sunday I offered to go to mass with them so I wouldn't stay at home by myself. (They are devout Catholics.)
During mass, I recalled one thing that bugged me about Roman Catholicism. Praying to God and Jesus is good. Praying for the intercession of Our Lady (in all her different apparitions) is fine as well.
Praying for the intercession of two dozen saints is pushing it for me. Surely, God heard me the first two dozen times, and doesn't need to hear my whining from his mom, from St. Francis Xavier, St Francis of Assisi, St Martin, St Theresa, St Rita, St Michael, ...?
I also questioned the basis of sainthood, which is performing miracles. From St Peter to Mother Teresa, I am not convinced of the miracle-working powers of any of them... I did not have faith...