Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:40PM, Rgurley4 wrote:

This short passage has me uncertain as to any deep spiritual meaning:

Matthew 27:46 (NASB)...Jesus: 1 of the 7 sayings on the Cross...

About the ninth hour (on the Cross) Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying,

“ ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is,

“MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”


If Jesus the Son of God was a person of the TRI-UNE GOD, how can one "forsake" Himself?

Because there are three persons in the Trinity.

Jesus apparently senses an abrupt loss of the communion with the Father which had proved so intimate and significant throughout eternity at this moment where he bore the sins of all humanity, spiritually separating him from his Heavenly Father.

So where in the hell did you get the zombies rising from their graves in the gospels? Have you bothered to even read the gospels because that assertion proves you have not.  Secondly, there is a wealth of scholarly information and arceaological proofs as well that support many of the claims made in the bible and in the 4 gospels specifically.  In order to legitimately refute them you would have to cite proof rather than simple minded opinion or "fable" to use your own words. 

Jesus had his moment of doubt because he sensed the loss of the intimate relationship he had with God at that moment because at that moment the weight of sin was his alone to bear.  His human side had a natural and heartfelt doubt which was soon vanquished.  To have doubt is to be human and this is one of many great lessons from just this one scene from the life of Jesus.  We can better relate to Jesus than we can God himself simply because Jesus was as human as the rest of us he was simply able to fufill what it means to be human as the perfect example as well as the passover sacrifice that allowed sin and death to passover humanity once and for all.

You may not have faith in God but you have faith in all things opposing faith and faith in God.  Which is a shame because there are countless lessons to glean from faith and faith in God.  You can in no way prove God does not exsist and not being able to prove the he does is the essence of faith.  You can be moral outside of the restrictions of faith as Buddah or other philosophers were and are. But on the whole secular morality is only observed when being observed, which is not true morality. The true test of whether or not one is moral is whether or not they are moral when no one is watching.

Do you know what keeps a person decent? Fear. And therein lies the problem, athiests have no God and thus no judgement to fear.  No incentive to be moral other than reward.  Jesus teaches about reward in heaven but if you listen close and observe his actions you'll understand that to be truly moral is to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do not out of fear of punishment or pursuit of reward.  So as a child you may fear God's wrath if you sin as an adult the goal is that you will have enough maturity to understand righteousness is it's own reward and thus no fear is then needed.  People learn in stages and that is why mosaic law can seem like rules that limit behavior, like saying all you have to do is this or that and you get into heaven.

Jesus used a "Law" of maximums.  Instead of saying don't commit adultery he says don't look at women lustfully.  He means you shouldn't just do the least to get by but the most.  Don't be average when you can be great!

So be content if you can in your certainty there is no God.  But at the least it is foolish to say, though the vast majority of mankind has faith in the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, that they are all morons and it is only you and the select few that are likeminded who are intelligent or correct on the matter.  It is like saying you know more than the rest of humanity.  And that's an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.  None of which you have.  And what lessons does an existential Godless Universe teach?  How does it make you a better person or put you above anyone else? 

You may be correct in your assertions about the age of the Earth or the Universe but for one, you simply parrot what Phd's have to say like a child repeats what the grown-ups say, for another science can only tell or prove to you the "how." Only religion can tell you the "why".  They are two ways of gaining a fuller more complete understaning of the World and Universe in which we live, and why we live in it.  Science alone can not do that.

Feb 22, 2012 -- 7:05PM, Blackjebus wrote:

So where in the hell did you get the zombies rising from their graves in the gospels? Have you bothered to even read the gospels because that assertion proves you have not.

Yes, I have bothered to read the gospels, but perhaps you have not. Matthew 27 tells us that many arose from the graves and went into the cities, an astonishing event that seemingly made or left no impression whatsoever on the poeple of the time. It would make a good zombie sword and sandal movie, though. 

  Secondly, there is a wealth of scholarly information and arceaological proofs as well that support many of the claims made in the bible and in the 4 gospels specifically.  In order to legitimately refute them you would have to cite proof rather than simple minded opinion or "fable" to use your own words.

Well, no, there is not "a wealth of scholarly information and arceaological proofs" (sic) in support of biblical claims from the Bible or the four gospels. In fact, the contrary is true, which is why I would suggest that the story of Jesus is largely a product of myth and legend. Take, for instance, his supposed resurrection which is just another version of that common Middle Eastern theme - from Egyptian mythology to the Orphic rites - of the dying and riviving god.  

Jesus had his moment of doubt because he sensed the loss of the intimate relationship he had with God at that moment because at that moment the weight of sin was his alone to bear.

According to the fable, yes.

His human side had a natural and heartfelt doubt which was soon vanquished.  To have doubt is to be human and this is one of many great lessons from just this one scene from the life of Jesus.  We can better relate to Jesus than we can God himself simply because Jesus was as human as the rest of us he was simply able to fufill what it means to be human as the perfect example as well as the passover sacrifice that allowed sin and death to passover humanity once and for all.

Again, all of the above is merely pious supposition. One may believe it, but that doesn't make it true. The real nature of Jesus, of course, has been a hotbed of debate - often violent and vitriolic - among Christians for centuries. Even today one still encounters Christians at each others throats over the issue of Jesus' true nature. 

You may not have faith in God but you have faith in all things opposing faith and faith in God. 

No, you are quite wrong. My beliefs are held in strict proportion to the evidence. Faith is the transparent admission that one's beliefs cannot stand on their own two feet.

Which is a shame because there are countless lessons to glean from faith and faith in God.

I wouldn't deny that there are beneficial lessons to glean from the faith traditions. One can again, though, could be gleaned from reading Aesop, the tales of the Mulla Nazruddin, Buddhist literature, or Alice in Wonderland, none of which requires that one feel obliged to take the imaginative fancies that often embellish their didactism seriously. 

  You can in no way prove God does not exsist and not being able to prove the he does is the essence of faith.

You're right, one can no more "prove" that God exists than one can prove that he/she/it doesn't, but you're the only one talking about "proofs". I would rather speak of probabilities, and I would suggest that the probability that any deity such as the biblical one existing is becoming less probable by the day.

And the essence of faith is believing when there is no good reason to believe, or believing in spite of contrary evidence, and there is evidence whatsoever that God exists.

  You can be moral outside of the restrictions of faith as Buddah or other philosophers were and are. But on the whole secular morality is only observed when being observed, which is not true morality. The true test of whether or not one is moral is whether or not they are moral when no one is watching.

That is vulgar nonsense and evidence in itself that you haven't given the issue a great deal of thought. To claim that secular morality is - "on the whole" - only moral when it is being "observed" is an obtuse and silly assertion. If the "true test" of morality is whether or not one is moral when no one is watching, then it applies as much to the secularist as it does to the theist. Certainly I have greater respect for the person who does a good deed out of love and compassion for his fellowman rather than he believes that some imaginary deity says he should.  

Do you know what keeps a person decent? Fear.

Again, arrant nonsense. It seems to me that all you are doing here is projecting your own personal disposition. I would consider myself a decent person and I know that my decency does not arise out of fear. 

And therein lies the problem, athiests have no God and thus no judgement to fear.

You just continue to pile up inanity after inanity. All you are unwittingly confessing to here is that belief in some hypothetical supernatural being seems to be the only thing that keeps believers on the straight and narrow. That would simply make them dreadful people. What a confession!

  No incentive to be moral other than reward.

Being decent and moral doesn't necessitate rewards. Carrots ands sticks is the province of believers. 

  Jesus teaches about reward in heaven but if you listen close and observe his actions you'll understand that to be truly moral is to do the right thing because it is the right thing to do not out of fear of punishment or pursuit of reward.

Then I would agree with Jesus. The thing is, and as I've already said, morality doesn't demand or require that one believe in unjustified or insupportable notions. In fact, many of those unjustified and insupportable notionsof religion is what prevents the theist from living a truly moral life.

  So as a child you may fear God's wrath if you sin as an adult the goal is that you will have enough maturity to understand righteousness is it's own reward and thus no fear is then needed.

Quite right. To live a decent and moral life does not require reward, is not inspired by confusion and fear, nor does it demand that one embrace baroque assumptions unsupported by an iota of evidence. In fact, as John Locke rightly said, 'The one unerrring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the evidence that it is built upon will warrant'.

  People learn in stages and that is why mosaic law can seem like rules that limit behavior, like saying all you have to do is this or that and you get into heaven.

Jesus used a "Law" of maximums.  Instead of saying don't commit adultery he says don't look at women lustfully.  He means you shouldn't just do the least to get by but the most.  Don't be average when you can be great!

So be content if you can in your certainty there is no God.

I am not certain that there is no God. I am compellingly convinced, though, that there are no omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent beings. This, of course, rules out the God of the Bible who appears to be little more than some oriental despot, only bigger and invisible.

  But at the least it is foolish to say, though the vast majority of mankind has faith in the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, that they are all morons and it is only you and the select few that are likeminded who are intelligent or correct on the matter.

I have never made such claims, although it is unarguable fact that many believers in the Abrahamic tradition have acted and behaved like morons. And I wonder what believers think of the millions upon millions of Hindu's who believe in Brahman or Krishna and gods utterly diffrent from the God of Abraham? Are all those believers morons because they don't believe in Yahweh?

And it is a matter of using one's reason to analyse the existing evidence and intelligently drawing tentative conclusions, which is why, in regard to religion, more and more people are throwing off the yoke of belief in supernatural sky beings. The intelligent person observes, for instance, that there is a very clear inverse relationship between the amount of human knowledge and the credit (or blame) we are willing to give God for direct intervention in the universe: the more we know, the less we attribute to supernatural causes. Any intelligent person faced with such a remarkable trend (with nothing pointing in the other direction) would not hesitate much to extrapolate just a bit and declare God very likely non-existent.

  It is like saying you know more than the rest of humanity.

It is not saying anything of the sort. It is simply recognizing that religion was a very early attempt by our species to provide a theory of the nature of man, man's place in the universe, and a guide to human action. But it had no rational basis, no rational basis at all.

We now know man's true historical context and have far better explanations than what any religion has to offer.

  And that's an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

Absolutely right, which is why religion now finds itself without a leg to stand on. All of its arguments have failed, and failed absolutely.

  None of which you have.

Don't be silly. As I've already pointed out, religion used to be the best explanation we had, but now we have vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining.

  And what lessons does an existential Godless Universe teach?  How does it make you a better person or put you above anyone else?

Who says it has to teach anything? And who claimed that it makes anyone a better person, or puts anyone "above anyone else"? You are merely ranting here, and you seem to have the same benighted understanding of atheism as many an unthinking believer.

Atheism is only about what one doesn't believe, and one doesn't build a way of life on what one doesn't believe. The next step of determining our way of life is much more interesting and rewarding for the atheist. For instance, my humanism is about what I do believe and my rationalism is abut how I believe it. It is, if you like, the freethinkers trinity: the negation of atheism; the positive outlook of humanism; andf the methodologies of reason. One negation doesn't imply all negation, or that I don't believe in G, therefore I don't believe in anything from A to Z. My worldview is not confined to believing something I regard as non-sensical. Atheism is the negation of an untenable and fallacious hypothesis, and the recognition of a cosmic perspective, which is the an invaluable foundation for a serious and engaged worldview.  

You may be correct in your assertions about the age of the Earth or the Universe but for one, you simply parrot what Phd's have to say like a child repeats what the grown-ups say, for another science can only tell or prove to you the "how."

The "assertions" you speak of enjoy, unlike your religious claims, compelling evidence. I am capable of looking at that evidence for myself, so I do not have to "simply parrot" what PHd's have to say, although I am very interested in analysing the results of their studies.

And just look who is parroting! I must have encountered from believers that same silly phrase - "science can only tell or prove to you 'how' -  more than a thousand times. Science is capable of answering both 'how' and 'why' questions, and does both better and more successfully than any other discipline.

Only religion can tell you the "why". 

No, you're wrong, and you can compound this wrongness with the fact that different religions "tell" us different, and often contradictory, why's!

So, whose religious "why" should one believe, given how inconsistent and contradictory they are?

They are two ways of gaining a fuller more complete understaning of the World and Universe in which we live, and why we live in it.  Science alone can not do that.

So far, science has been the only means by which we can understand the world and the universe we live in. If science's only only achievement had been the monumental discovery of mankinds true historical context, that would have been enough to earn it its right as one of our species greatest successes.

Religion, on the other hand, has been shown to have been wrong about so many things concerning the world and the universe that only a person devoted to obfuscation would have confidence that it had anything relevant to say on these issues anymore. It was also completely and utterly wrong about mankinds true historical context, and one couldn't get much more wrong than that.

Science has done more in the last one hundred years to benefit mankind than religion achieved in five or ten-thousand years. But religion is part of our human heritage and it should be respected as such, just as any relic of the human past deserves its place in a museum.

Feb 23, 2012 -- 9:02AM, Rgurley4 wrote:

Sacred Texts  > The Bible >  Did GOD FORSAKE GOD? 

Namchuck # 10

...One may BELIEVE  it, but that doesn't make it TRUE....(i.e.) The real nature of Jesus...Spiritual BELIEF makes Spiritual TRUTHS evident.

Spiritual "BELIEF" is varied, inconsistent, and sometimes as contradictory as the denominations and sects that make up Christianity. 

...My BELIEFS are held in strict proportion to the EVIDENCE.
FAITH  is the transparent admission that one's beliefs cannot stand on their own two feet...NOPE! See the citation below.

I don't need to see the "citation below". If faith can lead to wrong belief, what good is it?

No, faith is the cop-out, the great excuse from having to analyse and evaluate evidence.

As Father George Coyne, the Vatican astronomer, admitted to Richard Dawkins, there is no good reason at all to believe in God. When asked why he believed, he answered "I was brought up a Catholic".  

..And the essence of FAITH is BELIEVING when there is no good reason (proof) to BELIEVE...AMEN! See the citation below.

..."religion" is what prevents the theist from living a truly moral life....

Christ-following in the Bible is not a "religion" as Man knows it. It is a spiritual RELATIONSHIP as defined in Man's Owner's Handbook whose writings were inspired and superintended by The TRI-UNE GOD. If you spiritually discern its revelations, it answers Life's questions.

"If you spiritually discern its revelation, it answer Life's questions."

Or, in other words, interpret it according to preconceived notions and apriori beliefs. No wonder that one of the chief characteristics of Christianity is its internal divisions.

Hebrews 4:12 (NASB)
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of SOUL and SPIRIT, of both joints and marrow (BODY),
and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the "heart". (=mind+emotions+rational=personality=SOUL)

Hebrews 11: 1-2 (NASB)
Now (spiritual) FAITH is
(a) the ASSURANCE of things HOPED for,
(a) the CONVICTION of things NOT SEEN. (proven by hard and purely rational evidence)
For by it the men of old gained approval. (with God)

Faith and belief differ from knowledge in that whereas the latter is controlled by the facts, and depends upon the right kind of relationship between mind and the world, the former is all in the mind, and does not rely on anything in the world. One can, in short, believe anything: that pigs fly, that grass is blue, and that people who do not believe either are wicked. This is what makes St Augustine's remark that 'faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward for faith is to see what you believe', so sinister; for if one can believe anything, one can 'see' anything - and thereby feel entitled to do anything accordingly.

Subsequently, the long-term legacy of Christianity includes the familiar horrors of intolerance, bigotry and persecution which characterise all organised religion.

The fact remains that God has the same empirical status as that of fairies and centaurs, and people have faith in them, too.