|
Korean Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Teachers from Around the World!"
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
|
 Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 10:56 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| laogaiguk wrote: |
Arguing against Christianity, while fun, is usually not useful. It is very hard to defend the Bible, and the word "faith" or "God's plan" tend to come up a lot. But defending against arguments against it is much easier, as you can debate processes, people or intentions.
|
Arguing *for* Christianity is a lot of fun too (though I find myself arguing just as vehemently with other Christians as I do with complete atheists.) I agree that it's hard to defend the Bible-- there are layers and layers between us and the original text as time passes, and it's difficult to get a grasp of the meaning as non-participants in its contemporary cultures and languages. I'd be interested to know if I've used the words "faith" or "God's plan" in any of my defense though, or if I've used processes, people or intentions as a an excuse.
I don't the Bible can be easily understood without a grounding in the book as a whole, and the people and places in which it was created. There are parts of it I still find obtuse, quaint or just wild, but damn if its not still a very powerful, poetic, challenging book that deserves my respect. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| kermo wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
Arguing against Christianity, while fun, is usually not useful. It is very hard to defend the Bible, and the word "faith" or "God's plan" tend to come up a lot. But defending against arguments against it is much easier, as you can debate processes, people or intentions.
|
Arguing *for* Christianity is a lot of fun too (though I find myself arguing just as vehemently with other Christians as I do with complete atheists.) I agree that it's hard to defend the Bible-- there are layers and layers between us and the original text as time passes, and it's difficult to get a grasp of the meaning as non-participants in its contemporary cultures and languages. I'd be interested to know if I've used the words "faith" or "God's plan" in any of my defense though, or if I've used processes, people or intentions as a an excuse.
I don't the Bible can be easily understood without a grounding in the book as a whole, and the people and places in which it was created. There are parts of it I still find obtuse, quaint or just wild, but damn if its not still a very powerful, poetic, challenging book that deserves my respect. |
I don't think you have, atleast not when debating Christianity. There was that thread where you were wrongly and vehemently attacked for showing your preference in men (which was completely illogical on your attackers side), but it made more sense there. I have said before that I respect your opinion.
I just feel that even if there is a God (which I do believe in in my own way), Christianity is man made. The Bible would probably do more good as a moral story book than as the word of God anyway, in my opinion of course. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:37 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| laogaiguk wrote: |
I just feel that even if there is a God (which I do believe in in my own way), Christianity is man made. The Bible would probably do more good as a moral story book than as the word of God anyway, in my opinion of course. |
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Re: this "moral story book" suggestion though, I'd have to say that it's not a book that lends itself to easy moralizing or palatable lessons.
There are so many characters in the Bible that are whiny, violent, greedy, adulterous, cheating losers, and somehow they get worked into the narrative as agents of God's will and carriers of His favour. Moses, Jacob, David, Elisha, Abraham, Paul, Peter... they've all got serious skeletons in their closets. I can only think of a few genuine "good guys" off the top of my head: John the Baptist... er.... maybe Joseph? Even the geneology of Jesus himself includes a prostitute, a woman posing as a prostitute who gets knocked up by her father-in-law, and (*gasp!*) a non-Jewish woman!
Somehow, I feel that this makes the Bible more convincing-- it lacks the sort of white-washing and easy answers you might expect from a Grand Missive from God, i.e., the kind of book we would write for ourselves. It's not even about the sort of God I would make up for myself, so it's hard to be complacent-- it presents something to come to grips with, not a comforting pap. That intrigues me. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:41 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| kermo wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
I just feel that even if there is a God (which I do believe in in my own way), Christianity is man made. The Bible would probably do more good as a moral story book than as the word of God anyway, in my opinion of course. |
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Re: this "moral story book" suggestion though, I'd have to say that it's not a book that lends itself to easy moralizing or palatable lessons.
There are so many characters in the Bible that are whiny, violent, greedy, adulterous, cheating losers, and somehow they get worked into the narrative as agents of God's will and carriers of His favour. Moses, Jacob, David, Elisha, Abraham, Paul, Peter... they've all got serious skeletons in their closets. I can only think of a few genuine "good guys" off the top of my head: John the Baptist... er.... maybe Joseph? Even the geneology of Jesus himself includes a prostitute, a woman posing as a prostitute who gets knocked up by her father-in-law, and (*gasp!*) a non-Jewish woman!
Somehow, I feel that this makes the Bible more convincing-- it lacks the sort of white-washing and easy answers you might expect from a Grand Missive from God, i.e., the kind of book we would write for ourselves. It's not even about the sort of God I would make up for myself, so it's hard to be complacent-- it presents something to come to grips with, not a comforting pap. That intrigues me. |
I feel that is why it is a good moral story. All are like that. That is also why I disagree with your last paragraph. I feel the Bible was more written as a way to control the masses (there were many reasons, but I feel that is one of the larger ones). It had to be believable or it would have not been able to do that. Like the Matrix, the first one was a total failure as no one would accept it. Entire crops were lost  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Roch
Joined: 24 Apr 2003
Location: Seoul
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| ED209 wrote: |
3239 people in America killed by Zeus 1959-1994 .
489 people in America killed by Zeus between 1995-2004
link
God's death toll |
Then there is the Korean, Moon, who sees himself as God-like and murdered lots of Americans who tried to flee his cult.
Then, there are the loads of other Korean cult leaders wanted for murder... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:50 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Ok, let's look at that idea. More morally ambiguous = more believable = more effective? It could work, but I don't think it's really been demonstrated in other religious movements.
I'm reminded of Joseph Smith, his Golden Tablets, his bland blatherings and millions of subsequent followers. Believeability doesn't seem to be at a premium with Hinduism or Krishna devotees either. I don't know the Koran well enough to judge its moral complexity or palatability, but from what I've gathered it's largely poetic and law-giving in nature. Are there many colourful characters?
You might be right, but if I were writing the Bible, there's a lot I would have left out, adjusted, pitch-corrected and embellished to make it easier to accept and understand. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| kermo wrote: |
Ok, let's look at that idea. More morally ambiguous = more believable = more effective? It could work, but I don't think it's really been demonstrated in other religious movements.
I'm reminded of Joseph Smith, his Golden Tablets, his bland blatherings and millions of subsequent followers. Believeability doesn't seem to be at a premium with Hinduism or Krishna devotees either. I don't know the Koran well enough to judge its moral complexity or palatability, but from what I've gathered it's largely poetic and law-giving in nature. Are there many colourful characters?
You might be right, but if I were writing the Bible, there's a lot I would have left out, adjusted, pitch-corrected and embellished to make it easier to accept and understand. |
I agree with the bolded statement, but as you said earlier, we are talking about a culture that is very different from the one we have now (as time has passed). |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
True Samurai
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 11:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
If anyone, especially you so-called christians, believe that God ever killed anyone you simply don't understand your professed religion.
I, myself, as a Buddhist am not interested in whether a god (christian-version or otherwise) exists or not, but I do know that the non-ignorant Christian view of God is that he is all good - that is: He is incapable of doing anything negative or evil. This ought to be especially clear to English speakers as the words 'God' and 'good' have a common etymology in our language.
So, if God has never killed anyone how is it that they're dead? To understand this we must switch from the God channel and have a look at reality and reason. Organisms get old, wear out and they die. Billions of years of evolution dictate the inevitability of this outcome. From a Buddhist perspective, we would say that their own karma, the results of a person's good and bad deeds cause the person to wind up elsewhere, that is to say: in another situation, possibly the death of their physical body.
Theee is so much more I could say, but would these christians listen?
(presumed) courtesy of 'manlyboy' |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
| True Samurai wrote: |
Theee is so much more I could say, but would these christians listen?
|
To more theories that a good God can't also judge? Probably not. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Grimalkin
Joined: 22 May 2005
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
True Samurai
| Quote: |
| Organisms get old, wear out and they die. |
And yet a lot of organisms before they reach adulthood have the ability to replace old, wornout cells (humans included). In adulthood however at some point they cease to do that. It's as if we're programmed to self destruct at some point (cf Telomere theory of ageing). If we didn't have that programming we could live indefinitely with no fixed life span.
(Certain species of amphibians have no fixed life spans. They don't die of old age. They die of other causes, attacks from predators etc.) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flakfizer
Joined: 12 Nov 2004
Location: scaling the Cliffs of Insanity with a frayed rope.
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:04 am Post subject: |
|
|
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Nature certainly does have rules. Many on this board consider those rules to be the only knowable truths and the study of those rules to be true religion. If you mean moral rules, then I quite agree, yet many here constantly argue otherwise, that we can be morally good with only nature as our guide. And then some proceed to pass moral judgements on a God they say does not exist measuring him against the moral standards that they apparently got from neutral (amoral) nature. |
There is no reason a human can't have morals and Nature not. Morals are ideas that allow others to act in ways that serve to make their lives better. Most morals actually do make life better for a society, even if they seem to infringe upon certain, more instaneous pleasures.
Secondly, many on this board do not consider the study of nature's rules to be the true religion, or any religion at all. They are usually (I won't say always) pointing out fact. As an agnostic myself, I don't hold with athiesm, but it's not a religion. |
Hi Laogaiguk. I don't wish to get into a whole thing here and you have generally struck me as a pretty honest agnostic with a "live and let live" mentality. However, I don't get your first response. Without God, how can you put humans and Nature into two separate groups? Without God, Nature is all there is and man is simply a part of it. If Nature has no morals, then there are no morals as Nature encompasses all that exists-all of reality.
Second point, I put "god" in quotation marks when referring to nature and I suppose I should have used quotation marks when I used the term "religion," as well. Some hold that the only things we can know are through the study of nature's laws. I don't mean to say this is an actual religion, but was making a parellel. Religion can be seen as the means by which people know God and/or his truths. For those who don't believe in God (or Truth) but believe only in Nature and her laws, science is the means by which they know Nature and her laws. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:16 am Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
Hi Laogaiguk. I don't wish to get into a whole thing here and you have generally struck me as a pretty honest agnostic with a "live and let live" mentality. However, I don't get your first response. Without God, how can you put humans and Nature into two separate groups? Without God, Nature is all there is and man is simply a part of it. If Nature has no morals, then there are no morals as Nature encompasses all that exists-all of reality.
Second point, I put "god" in quotation marks when referring to nature and I suppose I should have used quotation marks when I used the term "religion," as well. Some hold that the only things we can know are through the study of nature's laws. I don't mean to say this is an actual religion, but was making a parellel. Religion can be seen as the means by which people know God and/or his truths. For those who don't believe in God (or Truth) but believe only in Nature and her laws, science is the means by which they know Nature and her laws. |
I get your second point, I think. I think atheism is based on a belief like religion, but I don't totally agree with your conclusions about their quests to understand the universe. The means to know the truth for science is pretty different from the ones for religion. I think you are over simplifying things a bit too much.
For your first point, one counter example I can think of is that the "human soul" comes from a different plane of existence without a God, bypassing the laws of this universe. I don't actually believe that, but that is one way.
Or that just through years of trying things out, society realized the best way to grow and prosper were to do certain things, which we attribute to morals. Most animals of the same species fight on a frequent basis (usually over girls  ) but most have rules set up where they don't kill the other one. A moral can be nothing but an evolutionary defence to self suicide. Therefore Nature's morals are the things you have to do as a species to survive (as Nature is always trying to survive which can be seen as a moral, though different from what we think of).
The existence of no higher power of any sort seems strange to me though. It doesn't have to be like the God we know, but for there to be none seems arrogant. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:36 am Post subject: |
|
|
| flakfizer wrote: |
| gang ah jee wrote: |
| flakfizer wrote: |
| Is death a concept? I thought you would consider it nothing but a natural reality. |
Just that most Christians - and Genesis - seem to think that God invented death is all. If one believes that an omniscient, omnipotent God created the universe, one would also accept that death is one of God's ideas, no? |
If you are talking from the christain point of view rather than your own, then yes, the concept of death existed first in the mind of God. I'm not sure what your point is, though. Athiests seem to have no problem with the idea that Nature gives us life and then takes it, but if God does the same, He must be bad and they argue that they can't believe in a God that would such a thing (though they do believe in a "god" who does exactly that). |
Um, I've never met an atheist who believes that the Inventor of Death is morally perfect and will send them to heaven if they say and do the right things. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
tomato
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: I get so little foreign language experience, I must be in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:50 am Post subject: |
|
|
Has anyone heard any more news about Dover, Pennsylvania?
I have been waiting to hear about that town ever since Pat Robertson announced that they would suffer Divine retribution.
PS mindmetoo, did you know that if you type a number 8 followed by a right-hand parenthesis, it comes out as a smiley face?
I noticed a few unintended smiley faces on your OP, and I think you've done the same thing on the evolution thread. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
kermo
Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Location: Eating eggs, with a comb, out of a shoe.
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 11:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| True Samurai wrote: |
If anyone, especially you so-called christians, believe that God ever killed anyone you simply don't understand your professed religion.
I, myself, as a Buddhist am not interested in whether a god (christian-version or otherwise) exists or not, but I do know that the [b]non-ignorant Christian view of God is that he is all good - that is: He is incapable of doing anything negative or evil. This ought to be especially clear to English speakers as the words 'God' and 'good' have a common etymology in our language. [/b]
So, if God has never killed anyone how is it that they're dead? To understand this we must switch from the God channel and have a look at reality and reason. Organisms get old, wear out and they die. Billions of years of evolution dictate the inevitability of this outcome. From a Buddhist perspective, we would say that their own karma, the results of a person's good and bad deeds cause the person to wind up elsewhere, that is to say: in another situation, possibly the death of their physical body.
Theee is so much more I could say, but would these christians listen?
|
Our understanding of "good" is not nearly clear enough to define God. No two people could get together and agree on what "good" is, or what is "good." As a Buddhist, you know that suffering springs from wrong desire-- desire for things that we consider "good" even though they bring us harm. You seem to believe that death is not "good", but how do you know this to be so? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
