Why moderate christianity/judaism/islam?

[Rye]

A question to all the cool christians, muslims and jews on this board:

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals? What do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work? How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not? Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc? How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly? How do you square this with morality?

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

[18-Till-I-Die]

A question to all the cool christians, muslims and jews on this board:

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals? What do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work? How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not? Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc? How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly? How do you square this with morality?

I dont personally really see it with 'rejecting' anything. I'm not exactly as concerned with the Bible as some Christians. I kind of follow my own beleifs, i think i'm closer to a Deist (i think that's teh word). So i consider most of the Bible to be written by humans, observing events, some by God some not, that they didnt fully grasp.

I also figure Jesus was part human too. I would indeed imagine he had flaws and problems and such. certainly he had human emotions and feelings, a human mind, despite being the 'son' of God he was also still a man in other ways. Men, have problems, we arent perfect. Neither was Jesus. I do beleive however that we can still learn from many things in the Bible and Jesus' teachings. There is no need to discard the truly important teachings with those that are no longer relevent, in my opinion.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

When i was young, i sort of had a vary split view of the afterlife. My mother, who despite being religious, beleived and told me that when we die that's it. My grandma believed in a very harmonious, dreamlike state after death, where people would be happy. She also beleived that certain people--giving the example of murderers--go to a place of darkness and pain, torture, Hell you know.

For reasons to long and boring to go into here, i now beleive in reincarnation. I think when we die, our souls go back to where ever they were 'before' we are born--prelife if you will--until the 'next' time. And i also beleive in hell, i dont think it has anything to do with religion though...i simply refuse to accept ANY fucking reason why some child-raping pedophile should be allowed to die and just fade into oblibion or peacefully sleep in heaven or be reincarnated or anything. I beleive there MUST be a place where people like that, get what they have coming.

Some might find that irrational but i dont. Yes i think hell is eternal. I think Hitler and Stalin and about a billion other murderers and racists and rapists and pedophiles and generally worthless sociopaths are rotting for eternity in black terror. I dont beleive that religion has anything to do with going to hell, or anything like that. And i dont beleive going to heaven depends on religious beleif either. Again i bring up my family--my grandma always told me, and my mom too, God doesnt care about what we worship or if we worship or how, beleive in God or dont, as long as you're a good person you'll be 'saved'. Hell is reserved for the worse of the worse, not 'nonbeleivers'

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

I dont know that God is 'loving' in our sense. God is an engineer, he has to build a universe a keep it running. He has other things to think about. I beleive he set the right chain of events in motion for this world to exist, for humanity to exist. I dont think he 'designed' humanity, but i think he made it possible for us to evolve. Survival, after a certain point, was our repsonsibility. I think that's why God gave us all a mind and drive to create, to develop science and medicine to live and survive, to make our lives better. Science tends to make human lives beter, medicine helps us live longer and happier, this ay not have been exactly a 'plan' but it was his intention that we would be able to, if we had the drive, create these things. The tools were supplied, and the building of a civilization was our job.

I dont think he sits up in the sky and watches over Eartha t all times. I imagine if something huge is happening like WWII or something he'd take notice. But generally, can you imagine how many other races must exist out there. In all those trillions of worlds. He cant simply be focused on just this one, i figure.

Anyway...i think thats about it though, feel free to poke holes in my life!

[The Grim Squeaker]

Well, when I was raised the only religous things we paid attention to was a friday meal with the family that had a prayer and candles light at the start, and in my old jewish school we simply had to wear a kippa/yarmulke and on holidays we had a very short prayer, and a meal prayer and about 1-2 hours of bible a week. (I wan't raised a fundie).

My main beef with "real" judaism is the amount of extrapolation and lack of updation and relevancy of tradition, my main example is the law against cooking meat and milk in the same kitchen and using permanently seperated plates (I have a friend from London who's dad practices this. although in the same kitchen).
The original law was only not to boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk (probably for humane reasons), from this we have no milk of any
sort with any meat of any sort, the bible didn't say that and there are more extreme examples.
Finally I just became a real non-believer over time and the lack of rationality to the orthodox practices (In Israel the line between religious and non is very black and white unlike england where it's easy to be a moderate).[/b]

[Molyneux]

Well, when I was raised the only religous things we paid attention to was a friday meal with the family that had a prayer and candles light at the start, and in my old jewish school we simply had to wear a kippa/yarmulke and on holidays we had a very short prayer, and a meal prayer and about 1-2 hours of bible a week. (I wan't raised a fundie).

My main beef with "real" judaism is the amount of extrapolation and lack of updation and relevancy of tradition, my main example is the law against cooking meat and milk in the same kitchen and using permanently seperated plates (I have a friend from London who's dad practices this. although in the same kitchen).
The original law was only not to boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk (probably for humane reasons), from this we have no milk of any
sort with any meat of any sort, the bible didn't say that and there are more extreme examples.
Finally I just became a real non-believer over time and the lack of rationality to the orthodox practices (In Israel the line between religious and non is very black and white unlike england where it's easy to be a moderate).[/b]

"Thou shalt not boil a calf in the milk of its mother."
Not goat, calf...just a nitpick.

And I don't know of any Jewish families that have two separate kitchens set up - my family does have two sets of plates and silverware, though.

[Lord Revan]

Well main reason I'm christian at all is tradition, but for Bible and such I think that God's word is there somewere, but you got to filter out all the BS writen by humans to furter their own agendas.

[wolveraptor]

...Yes i think hell is eternal. I think Hitler and Stalin and about a billion other murderers and racists and rapists and pedophiles and generally worthless sociopaths are rotting for eternity in black terror....

So you think people with psychological afflictions deserve hell? Sociopathia isn't something you can help, iirc. Is it really fair for these people to suffer eternally? Is it fair for ANYONE other than God himself to suffer eternally (for his repeated lack of intervention)? Hell, even he hasn't created an eternal torture chamber, as the universe will "die" after a point. So really, no one deserves that kind of punishment, as no one has committed that kind of crime.

...I dont think he sits up in the sky and watches over Eartha t all times. I imagine if something huge is happening like WWII or something he'd take notice. But generally, can you imagine how many other races must exist out there. In all those trillions of worlds. He cant simply be focused on just this one, i figure.

Strange. Do you believe God did intervene in WWII? I sure didn't see any.
On the other hand, this view might be pretty consistant with your beliefs. Since you feel God cannot focus on every single being in the universe, he is not omnipotent. Maybe he couldn't do anything about WWII?

Not trying to shitsling your beliefs here, just some questions.

[18-Till-I-Die]

...Yes i think hell is eternal. I think Hitler and Stalin and about a billion other murderers and racists and rapists and pedophiles and generally worthless sociopaths are rotting for eternity in black terror....

So you think people with psychological afflictions deserve hell? Sociopathia isn't something you can help, iirc. Is it really fair for these people to suffer eternally? Is it fair for ANYONE other than God himself to suffer eternally (for his repeated lack of intervention)? Hell, even he hasn't created an eternal torture chamber, as the universe will "die" after a point. So really, no one deserves that kind of punishment, as no one has committed that kind of crime.

...I dont think he sits up in the sky and watches over Eartha t all times. I imagine if something huge is happening like WWII or something he'd take notice. But generally, can you imagine how many other races must exist out there. In all those trillions of worlds. He cant simply be focused on just this one, i figure.

Strange. Do you believe God did intervene in WWII? I sure didn't see any.
On the other hand, this view might be pretty consistant with your beliefs. Since you feel God cannot focus on every single being in the universe, he is not omnipotent. Maybe he couldn't do anything about WWII?

Not trying to shitsling your beliefs here, just some questions.

Well for one, i believe that anyone who brutalizes and purposefully harms another person should get some kind of punishment. If they kill millions (like Hitler, Stalin, insert-other-dickless-dictator) or they rape children, or anyone, or something that is generally just unforgivably by HUMAN standards i see no reason that the Universe should forgive them either. Of course this is just my personal belief.

I figure God would notice WWII like he would notice WWI and stuff like that. When millions, tens of millions, of people, mostly women and children, up and die for no reason...he's going to wonder why. It disrupts the working of the universe like a wrench in the gears, he'd want to know who thre it in. I presume he did interveine to some degree. I dont think he's omnipotent, however i do think that, within the laws of physics, he has a vast degree of power. But i think mostly he is like an engineer or a maintenance man, to put it into a more straightforward context, i think he keeps the mechanics of the universe going--lightspeed is this, gravity does that, the planet spins like so, stars go out here and flare up there--and so he literally does have other things on his mind.

I figure God is more like...light or gravity or magnetism, a force in the universe that exists along side it, flowing through it. But i think he has an intelligence there. Not one, however, that we would fully understand. I also think God may not totally understand us either, with our emotional minds and frail psyches, just as God's mind and personality surely seems bizarre and at sometimes violently single-minded to us. There is a gap there, not a generation gap or language barrier but a literal 'species' gap between what we understand, and what he understands, and the middle ground is difficult to come to. Kind of nihilistic i guess.

I also really shouldnt use the word 'him' or 'his', when i think about it. I try to use the word 'it' more because, it always struck me as kind of odd God would be a male or female, i mean i imagin ehe exists on a level where such distinctions are largely unimportant. Magnetism isnt male or female, gravity isnt male or female, so why should God--i view God as a force in the universe--be male or female?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Oh i should add, just to be clear. I dont think God is 'good' or 'evil'.

I think God is amoral, i beleive that is the word. I mean like gravity is amoral or the wind or light or any other force of nature. But at the same time he has an intellect, it thinks abstractly and vastly forward. Like evolution, to make it all work 'just right' you'd have to have a level of intelligence beyond a normal human, and the ability to plan for eventualities far in advance, but perhaps not very much in the way of emotion or, i guess we could call it sentimentality.

[The Guid]

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals?

One makes sense to me and the other does not is the short answer.

What do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work?

Teachings of the "Holy Spirit" and various teachers I have had.

How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not?

To be honest I stopped thinking about the Bible a long time ago. There are passages I like but there are entire sections that just do nothing for me.

Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc?

Its linked to the greatest game of chinese whispers ever in the world in my opinion. I can't trust what was written down.

How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly?

I make a sandwhich.

How do you square this with morality?

I eat the sandwhich. i.e. I ignore it.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

Death to me is a spireitual union with God. I have no idea why I believe this, its just what I think the only true heaven could be. I don't believe in Hell because I do not believe that anyone deserves it.

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet?What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

I believe in a form of Intelligent Design. I believe that the world is Intelligently designed, not a fluke. That doesn't mean its a scientific theory or that it couldn't be a fluke which is why I am only a distant cousin to those who would be debunked and flamed on this board. God meant to create the world, and he meant to create it to have intelligent life. I would guess that evolution is neccessary to disguise his own influence. We can't just all appear here one day without looking to see what created us.

[Surlethe]

A question to all the cool christians, muslims and jews on this board:

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals?

Because those large portions contradict my faith in a loving God.

What do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work?

I base my faith in a loving God; thus, I discard all portions of the Bible which disagree with that loving God as added by sinful men.

How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not? Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc? How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly? How do you square this with morality?

Again, the foundation of my faith is a God of love. The portions of the Bible I accept, and the portions I discard, are determined by whether or not they agree with a loving God.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

I believe in heaven and hell and purgatory, but I also believe in reincarnation; a person who dies unable to get into heaven or purgatory will be reborn until he actually can get to heaven, unless he chooses to go to hell after he's dead. Now, nobody would do that, given the option to be reborn; I simply can't accept a loving God could condemn somebody to an eternity of torment.

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

I think God instated the laws of nature, evolution, etc., and then let the universe run until sentient beings arose whom he could give souls. And I don't see how evolution requires general evil; maybe this is just my misunderstanding of evolution.

I think that answers your questions.

[Rye]

Why do you believe in a loving god at all? Given that you believe in a loving god, why do you even bother to relate it to christian mythology? It's not like anything Jesus said was spectacularly original, and it's not like his supposed sacrifice helped proliferate love and minimise pain. It didn't give christians power over death, they still feel pain and die in their droves just like everyone else.

"Natural evil" i.e. unfair pain and death are rife in evolution, it's the driving force. Natural selection is all about children dying so they don't reproduce, and those that do reproduce have children that die, and so on. The whole process revolves around the death of innocents. In order to survive, you must have to kill thousands of sentient, pain-feeling beings, and it has been this way for millions of years. Imagine how many animals this past year fell off cliffs, or got infections, or were savagely beaten, or whatever, just died in a horrible manner. Imagine that suffering multiplied by millions of years.

That suffering is not really compatible with a loving creator god, now is it?

[Magnetic]

As you all know, my thoughts on this subject have been in continual flux these past few months, so at this point, I still don't have any assurance as to what my faith has become.

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals? What do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work? How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not? Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc? How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly? How do you square this with morality?

Some have theorized that the god of the old testiment isn't the same god of the new. Now, I'm not sure where that comes from, but there are some discrepencies in theology between the two, and some similarities as well, such as the judgements of the OT and Revelations.

Having said that, I believe that a large portion of the bible was written down my some jewish authors, documenting their (sometimes strange) culture and belief systems. Sometimes those beliefs found their way into the NT as well, mostly having to do with vengence upon those who are against the jewish people. It's a concept that a non-conditional god wouldn't hold. God has been given the idea of a 'heavenly father'. There are even verses about "if you ask your earthly father for some bread, will he give you a stone........how much more will your father in heaven give you good things . . . ."

Therefore, I believe that a God of true non-conditional love wouldn't send anyone into eternal punishment, no matter how much wrong they did. The verses in the OT and NT that speak of this judgment, I believe, are just Jewish whining about wanting their enemies destroyed.

My thoughts on this subject are still 'evolving'.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

I feel the afterlife will be different for each person. I don't want to embrase the idea of reincarnation, but if a soul has lead an immoral life, they may find themselves back on this earth again. Hell may be what we make of our lives here, and in the afterlife. This existance may be more of a hell to some than others. It is clear that those who make wrong decisions often find themselves in 'bad places' eventually. I don't think that any wrong should go without correction. Though I don't think any wrong is worthy of eternal fire and sulphur burning. That teaches no lessons. Even a good person may experience 'bad things' from time to time, but we will never know (on this side) what that person learned from the experience. Perhaps a vision to help others who find themselves in a similar situation.

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

I believe that the earth, galaxy, universe, and what other worlds are out there were 'created'. Any entity that would have the abilities of a god would know that certain characteristics must be present for life to take ahold on a planet. But this is another area where I'm still in an evolving mindset.

I think it is possible that this God could have begun life, not just from one initial molecule, but from many initial molecule types, ones that would eventually evolve into the different species on our planet. Sea, land, aviary life, both animal and plant. The earth, with the necessary 'building blocks' took these essentials and "ran with them", so to speak.

Now, I personally still have a problem with the idea that we evolved from the lower primates. Probably comes from my dislike of primates. Well, except for Marmocets and other diminutive primates. They're very cute.

Time for lunch.

[Quadlok]

I use the magic of cognitive dissonance.

I know there's no reason God should exist, I know there's little evidence Jesus existed, and I know the Bible is highly self contradictory and rife with evil deeds and words supposedly done or inspired by God. But I was raised Christian, I like the idea of a higher being and an eternal reward, and most other religions seem to be more concerned with my dietary habits or meditation than I really care for.

[Rahvin]

Honestly, the message I get out of the Bible at its core is "be good to each other, try to make the world a better place for others, and you'll be forgiven for the bad stuff you do if you genuinely try to love everyone as you love yourself." The Bible has a lot of good stuff in with all the bad. I identify myself as Christian becuase I want to live my life by that message. I don't care if the events described happened or not - the message is good regardless.

The bad I rationalize as likely misinterpretations of reality, outright falsehoods, and exaggerations based on actual events (like the Exodus, or the Flood - I'm sure some Hebrew slaves escaped a local Egyptian mining camp as archeology has suggested, and there are always large floods, just not evenst on the scale described in the Bible). After all, most mythology is based in some way on actual events, twisted, distorted, exaggerated and misinterpreted through the generations.

I also basically discount Paul as trying to set up a religion rather than follow the teachings of Jesus.

Revelations, the other Fire and Brimstone parts of the Bible, and even some of the Gospels (including attributed sayings of Jesus) I take similarly. The Biblical writings have been retranslated and rewritten far too many times for me to believe that some preconceived bigotted garbage didn't make its way in there along with the good stuff. Scaring people is a great way to get people to convert, and make fanatical believers out of fear, but I don't think it has anything to do with what God wants.

After all, if you have a kid, do you want him to be good because you'll fucking torture him if he disobeys? Or would you rather your child be a good person becuase he just wants to help others, with no need to bully or scare him into it?

My belief in God is founded more on personal experiences that I really can't explain or back up. Suffice it to say that, I have my own reasons that wouldn't work for anyone else (if they were intelligent, anyway) because I can't prove them. If I'm deluding myself, I really don't care, because I would want to live my life this way even if God didn't exist.

On Heaven and Hell, I agree with The Guid. Hell does not exist, or is at worst exclusion from God's presence for those who don't want to be in His presence. Not eternal torment or forever dying. Nobody really deserves that.

[Coyote]

Being Jewish I can safely dispense with problems dealing with the Book of Revelation, Jesus, etc. I agree with the position that there was a guy named Jesus, and he was a prominent philosopher, and that is about it.

I see the Torah/Bible as allegory. It is an abstract document meant to appeal to a largely Bronze-Age tribal mentality. Since I do not believe in YEC it is therefore easy for me to apply an evolutionary outlook to the Bible and realize that while stoning unbelievers back then may have been the prefferred way, now it is not.

It's like saying that in order to be an American and adhere to the precepts of Constitutional law, we have to wear breeches and tricorn hats, wigs, and carry flintlocks, and women in hoop-skirts.

If God did truly make the world, then it was made in accordance with the principles of established physical law over a long, long time (billions of years). That is the evidence we have for that. If people cannot accept that it is their problem.

I do adhere to a lot of the traditions, but I don't get 'cootie syndrome' over whether a plate once held meat or dairy. I go to restaurants that serve cheeseburgers, but I don't order cheeseburgers. A lot of religious people are hypocrites because Judaism and Christianity both, I believe, encourage people to be productive members of society, not to create so many artifical barriers that normal people have to bend over just to interact with you.

I follow my code of ethical conduct and I'm largely happy with it. I don't want my code or anyone else's enforced by government-- it's live and let live. It also helps that Judaism does not exclude others from going to the kingdom of heaven-- all have a place in the afterlife, you don't have to be a Jew. Everyone gets the proper and proportionate amount of fair, just punishment and reward as they have earned.

Rabbis that expostulate for hours on how long a woman's skirt should be, but devote maybe 5 minutes ot treating other people decently, are not the Rabbis I care about. I think, IMO, that they have lost touch with what is important.

[Surlethe]

Why do you believe in a loving god at all? Given that you believe in a loving god, why do you even bother to relate it to christian mythology? It's not like anything Jesus said was spectacularly original, and it's not like his supposed sacrifice helped proliferate love and minimise pain. It didn't give christians power over death, they still feel pain and die in their droves just like everyone else.

Because I like the idea of a loving God, life after death, etc. Furthermore, I was raised Christian, and am still nominally Catholic, so that's naturally the context in which I place my beliefs. This is all, naturally, quite irrational, because that's the nature of religion.

"Natural evil" i.e. unfair pain and death are rife in evolution, it's the driving force. Natural selection is all about children dying so they don't reproduce, and those that do reproduce have children that die, and so on. The whole process revolves around the death of innocents. In order to survive, you must have to kill thousands of sentient, pain-feeling beings, and it has been this way for millions of years. Imagine how many animals this past year fell off cliffs, or got infections, or were savagely beaten, or whatever, just died in a horrible manner. Imagine that suffering multiplied by millions of years.

That suffering is not really compatible with a loving creator god, now is it?

Why not? The loving God (at least the one I believe in) is concerned with those sentient creatures who have souls, and AFAIK animals haven't been sentient for millions of years. Furthermore, the loving God in whom I believe is more deistic in nature; he started the experiment, jury-rigged the laws of nature to result in sentience, and doesn't really stir the ant nest, so to speak, in any observable and consistent manner. So God doesn't really give a shit at all until he gives the sentient creatures souls, and then, he's of the opinion "the little fuckers can figure out the difference between right and wrong" with their minds. So he's not willing to intervene to work out what humans can work out themselves.

I understand this may be incoherent. Please, bear with me; I'm slightly confused on this myself.

[wolveraptor]

Why do so many people base their beliefs on what they like? After all, who says the universe is how you WANT it to be? It is how it is, detached from your personal wants and ideals.

Well for one, i believe that anyone who brutalizes and purposefully harms another person should get some kind of punishment. If they kill millions (like Hitler, Stalin, insert-other-dickless-dictator) or they rape children, or anyone, or something that is generally just unforgivably by HUMAN standards i see no reason that the Universe should forgive them either. Of course this is just my personal belief

Yes, but why is such punishing necessarily eternal, like hell? Punishment=Crime, remember?

Why not? The loving God (at least the one I believe in) is concerned with those sentient creatures who have souls, and AFAIK animals haven't been sentient for millions of years.

As animals, did humans not evolve? Therefore, have there not been uncountably numerous and similar human deaths, when they competed against the wildlife of their ecosystem, and natural disasters (hint hint)?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well for one, i believe that anyone who brutalizes and purposefully harms another person should get some kind of punishment. If they kill millions (like Hitler, Stalin, insert-other-dickless-dictator) or they rape children, or anyone, or something that is generally just unforgivably by HUMAN standards i see no reason that the Universe should forgive them either. Of course this is just my personal belief

Yes, but why is such punishing necessarily eternal, like hell? Punishment=Crime, remember?

I dont really have a good reason. The only thing i can say is, it's what i believe. I deal, psychologically, with such horrible things by thinking and yes beleiveing that there is an eternal court, a higher court, which i understand in many repsects is irrational and vicious but i'm being completely honest here. I beleive that somewhere innocents are vindicated and the most heinous crimes are punsihed. I dont know how i'd deal with it otherwise.

[EmperorSolo51]

Why do you reject large portions of the bible in favour of more secular ideals?

I believe that we should not take literally the bible and apply it to the rule of law in such cases as the Sodomy Laws, To do so is to infringe on the rights and Privacies of Others, Nor Do I believe that we should be using a literal account of genesis as the basis our existence when we have real proof that evolutions exists and works. Such laws and rules will hurt or children in the long run as they will not get the propper education they need to suceed in life.

On some issues like the Pledge and the Ten Commandments issues though, I tend to waiver. That debate however is for another topic.

what do you base your faith on, given the amount of the Bible everyone has to ignore in order to make it work? How do you determine how much of the Bible is realistic, or authentic of a God's intents/character, and what's not?

I, Like John Ronald Ruel Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, subsrcibe to the notion that Christianity is a "True Myth." I believe that much of the bible (mostly the Old Testament) is allegorical and should not be taken as the Literal word of god. Most of the old Testament is from my viewpoint is nothing more than the some exggerations of the history of the 10 tribes and subsequent Kingdom of Israel and the teachings of Jewish Customs with a few stories to tell a moral.

Though, I do believe that certain elements were inpired by god but on the whole the Old Testaments is usefull as it gives an identity to Christianity before the Birth and teachings of Christ. From the way I look at it, Those stories about the smiting of villages and the destruction should not be read litterally or sold as literal. These stories should be used to tell a moral not to use it a fact that the Hebrew god is evil. The moral being that if you screw up badly, you will punished for the offense you committed and there is nobody to blame but yourself.

As I said before. I believe that Christianity is a true myth. That being that while much of it is allegorical and moral telling, I do believe that there is truth in it. I believe that Christ did walk this earth, I believe that he did perform the miracles as told in the Gospels. I also believe that Christ is the son of god. (In a certain sense) But as much ad Jesus is the core representation of my faith, I think we should focus little on the question of wether or not Jesus was real or not or was the incarnation of god as man. That is an article of faith. Debate on Faith should be left to theoligians and biblical scholars. What we should be talking about is his message such as "Love your neighbor as your self" and love for love's sake or the Children and Shephard Parables and the idea that the meak will overcome the strong and the idea that Ultimate love is sacrificing yourself for your loved ones without hesitation.

Same thing applies to Jesus, how do you deal with him calling a gentile woman a dog, or saying that unbelieving towns would be killed worse than Sodom, and unbelievers have evil hearts, must be destroyed, those that don't want to believe in God should be killed, etc? How do you deal with the book of revelation, with all the unbelievers dying horribly? How do you square this with morality?

I will answer the revalation Question first if you don't mind. Like Old testament, the Revalation of St, John for the most part should be taken as an allegoricall attack on the Roman Empire for it's persecution of Christians in Rome. Afterall it was written during the time of the emperor Nero who was torturing Christians after he blamed them for the Great Burning of Rome a Fire which he started. The scenes that depict the killing of unbelievers in IMHO, are representations of St. John of Patmo's anger towards the ruling elite of Rome who commited these acts of torture.

But to defend John, I will say that I believe that there will be atime of reckoning when the forces of good and evil will clash. I believe that after the forces of light win, there will be chance for humanity to decide wether to embrcae the love of god and finally repent or join with the devil's lot in hell for eternity. I believe that above all else that this story not only has an anti-roman message buch sends a second message that we should be careful about the choices we make in life and at the end of it all the most serious of all choices will dictate our fate.

On the Question of the remarks of Jesus. I don't really have an answer prepared as I haven't read the quotes in thier full context. Though I do say that they are at odds with the more compasionite Jesus depicted in the gospels.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

I believe in Heavan, Hell, and Purgatory. To me it's all about choices one makes in live. If you are doing horrible deeds (murder, rape, defraudinf friends, lying etc. real cardinal sins)and have no remorse for what you did, then you will burn in hell. You had the oppurtunity to atone and did not do it
you will burn. If you do act trutfully remorsedull and accept your punishment, you will eventually see the light of god and bask in his glory.

That being said, you should always try to show compassion for all those you meet. Even the ones who harm and wrong you, even those who are just downright mean. The idea of Aggape or Altruistic/spiritual love is what sets us apart from animals. We have the ability to forgive and forget and take a walk in the shoes of others. The ticket into heavan is not through faith or prayer. It helps but it will not be used on it's own. It must be accompanied by Good works to show you made your best effort to act in a manner that is the path of the light and understand the people around you. My statements on the idea of heaven should be relevant to all faiths.

Jesus said, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (Gospel of John 13:34-35) He went on to say, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Gospel of Matthew 22:37-41)

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

As Noted earlier, In believe in the process of a Thiestic Evolution. I believe God programmed the universe to start the big bang and the fomation of the universe. Once life bagn to grow on earth, he programmed life to evolve in way that would ensure Humans would eventually appear on the Earth. This being an Article of faith, I can't prove it.

I do rationalize this belief on the point that through evolution, death, extinction new life, never before seen life is being created daily. AN evil god would just kill things for his own evil and twisted purpose, A loving god would understand that there comes time in which his "children's" time is up and that species will die off. He will understand that by thier death, new life will have ability to grow and multiply.

[Ford Prefect]

Back in primary school, when I still had a religious bone, I spent a lot of time trying to rationalise religious belief. We were told that a lot of the stuff didn't actually happen, especially Creation (strange is the Catholic Church, eh?), so never once did I assume that the Earth was created in seven days. On more than one occassion did a friend of mine try to fathom the strangeness of God. We were ten at the time, so we didn't really get far.

[Surlethe]

Why do so many people base their beliefs on what they like? After all, who says the universe is how you WANT it to be? It is how it is, detached from your personal wants and ideals.

*shrug* Human compulsion? I will subordinate my beliefs to my observations, in that if the observations directly contradict my beliefs, the beliefs are modified, not the observations.

Why not? The loving God (at least the one I believe in) is concerned with those sentient creatures who have souls, and AFAIK animals haven't been sentient for millions of years.

As animals, did humans not evolve? Therefore, have there not been uncountably numerous and similar human deaths, when they competed against the wildlife of their ecosystem, and natural disasters (hint hint)?

Well, naturally. My post said God started caring for humans once they had souls, and then still won't intervene directly in an observable manner to mitigate harm.

Hmm. I may have to alter my belief in a 'loving' God.

[Magnetic]

Just wondering how we could tell whether an animal had a soul (developed a soul). It's not like they wouldn't have one solely because they don't have speech. Who knows.

[CaptJodan]

Ever since I was a kid, and I'd think about something in the Bible that didn't make sense to me, and say, came to the conclusion that what it was saying just didn't jive, I've always thought "If this is suspect, why is not the whole Bible suspect?"

For me, I think trying to believe in the Bible only in the loosest of senses is the only way you can get away with believing in it at all. For me, it's very easy to believe that bias and culture of the time worked its way so deeply into the words of the Bible that things were peverted beyond what they were intended.

I think something to consider with relation to Christianity in general, and perhaps other religions as well is the question of "What is X?" What is Christianity, for example. For more moderate or liberal Christians, is Christianity about what is in the Bible, or is it beliefs and secular ideas that just happen to jive with some of the teachings of Jesus? A sort of "cutting out the fat" of the Bible, leaving only the positive influences? If it's the latter, then you're basically saying "I believe in secular ideas, and God created those ideas." No proof of that, but it's better than the alternative.

At this point, I'm not giving justifications for the Bible's atrocities so much as I'm ignoring them until I find out what God is to me. I have a few theories for the moment, but nothing concrete.

What about the afterlife? What do you believe and why? Do you believe in Heaven and Hell, and that Hell is eternal? Do you think that Jesus is love, yet won't let old buddhist ladies out on day release from an eternity of burning and torture?

The concept of Heaven and Hell have been thrown out of wack for me, as has many of the things I once believed in previously. If we're speaking of a fair and just God, then Heaven will exist, perhaps in the form the person themselves would best enjoy, and Hell wouldn't. Maybe some who did unspeakable wrongs would get some kind of punishment, but not eternal.

If we're speaking of an unjust God, well...I guess there'd be a Heaven and Hell, and I'm going to the latter I'm sure.

Regarding evolution: to what extent do you think God created? Did he leave the universe be, then spur abiogenesis by carefully aimed comet? What sort of God would use evolution, anyway? Evolution requires far more pain, death and general evil at every step than an intelligently designed world would, so how do you rationalise that with a loving God?

I was taught, quite early on and quite harshly, not to believe in evolution. It's only recently that I've begun to question that stance, and when you look at the evidence...really...come on.

This question relates to one of my top theories. I believe that God might well have created, say, the Big Bang. The idea of a particle or substance of some kind that contained the entire universe, then exploded into the universe, thus creating it, and the concepts leading to the "time" before the Big Bang confuse the hell out of me, and I can only summerize that either a Being or creature of immense power could concieve or create such a phenomenon.

After that, it gets damn fuzzy. I don't really think that God gets invovled with natural disasters like Katrina or goes out of his way to get invovled in...really any of the happenings here. At the moment I'm kind of looking at God as a kind of Outside Context Problem...something that it so far beyond understand, and not even in the same plane of existence that our overall wellbeing may not be really noticed all that much. Like trying to care about one individaul ant in Africa. I'm hoping, perhaps irrationally, that there is an afterlife of some kind and that perhaps that's God's little domain, and thus he kind of keeps to himself save for there. I doubt he very much cares whether we worship him or not. We're just so unbelievably small and unimportant. As humans, we just have such a major complex about ourselves, thinking we're the most important beings, or that we have a major destiny. I doubt God sees it that way.

Should God be the bastard he is in the Bible...well...then I simply want nothing to do with him.

Why do so many people base their beliefs on what they like? After all, who says the universe is how you WANT it to be? It is how it is, detached from your personal wants and ideals.

As we've seen, not everyone does. Many take the sole word of the Bible as fact, and thus we run into that whole problem we get with Fundies.

I think for the rest of us, we base our beliefs on what we like because....well...we can't live in a world that MUST follow the rules that God laid down in the Bible. As has been said many times, beliefs like this are pretty irrational, and are designed mostly because we're a bit frightened of the unknown. I'll be the first to admit that I just dislike the idea of dying and that being it. That I have to learn all this shit through life, work my ass off, and then just die, and that was all there was to existence. It's more of a hope than a belief at this point, though. I HOPE there's something after this, something better.

But I don't see the harm in believing in something greater, especailly after life. As long as I am sure to live the best life I can, follow a humanist approach to life, and try and be the best person I can be, then my beliefs or hopes are not crowding or interfering with my life, and won't hold me back from opportunities or experiences that I would otherwise miss out on if I was....say...my major Fundie grandmother (who has truly never had a life). Its when you let it interfere that it becomes a problem.

[Surlethe]

Just wondering how we could tell whether an animal had a soul (developed a soul). It's not like they wouldn't have one solely because they don't have speech. Who knows.

We can't really tell, because the soul isn't something we can observe. Thus, if you want to believe in a soul at all, you need to violate parsimony, and make an arbitrary judgment consistent with your belief system about when the soul exists on the sliding scale of sentience.