But more to the point, do you see how being in public doesn't stop it being sin?
And the seed in the farmer story stands fot the Gospel message. It's explained just a little further down in the chapter.
Yes I do, with one proviso, though I balk at the word 'sin': like 'evil' it's not a word I find useful or meaningful. The proviso is that I think a sin must be recognised as such for it to be a sin. I accept that you think Trump is sinning (doing something very bad, in my language) but the fact that his supporters would excuse it or tolerate it militates against it being bad. It's a case of who is doing the judging. In the end, whether or not an act is good or bad/sinful depends on who is doing the judging.
And yes, moral relativism can sometimes twist one's arm off.
Yes, I get the thing about the gospel message (I must be very stony ground) and probably confused it (having checked) with Genesis 38.9 and Onan spilling his seed on the ground. My Bible 'knowledge' is basically the sackful of phrases that have entered popular language.
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
Nowhere in the world has ever been exotic. Everything is normal for where it is.
Anyway that's your subjective truth, isn't it? It looks beige to you because you have beige spectacles on?
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
There's also the explanation which says that it's true: God is.
But theism ≠ God. God, as in the Christian God, is one of many hundreds, if not millions of possible gods a theist could believe in. The question isn't so much whether a theist is right, but which of the many possible gods are they right about.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
God doesn't infringe the part of me that requires privacy; God sustains the part of me that requires privacy.
But surely sin requires privacy so if God does not infringe that part of oneself that requires privacy then God isn't aware of anyone's sin.
Apart from the non-sequitur Lamb Chopped picked up this misses the point. The point is that God is not the sort of being whose presence infringes on our presence. God not only overlaps without displacing us, but his presence creates us as we are. You say you recognise that God is the same as the no-God of atheist Buddhism, but you don't draw the conclusion: that communion with God and the Buddhist spirituality are aiming at and describing the same relationship. The no-God of Buddhism (or other atheism) isn't infringing your privacy.
Also God is nothing like the physical laws. Gravity doesn't give a damn for the poor sod falling off a roof. God, supposedly, does!
One point of difference is not nothing like.
NB, I agree that all infinite deities (assuming such exist) must be the same deity but would say that all the finite (as in defined) deities, God, Shiva, et cetera, et cetera, are pale echoes of that infinite deity and include, strange as it sounds, that deity which the atheist believes does not exist.
Firstly, students of ancient polytheistic religion generally find unhelpful the assumption that polytheistic religion was the same kind of practice as developed post-Axial religions (in which category I include a lot of modern neo-paganism).
It might sound plausible to say that Zeus and Durga are both aspects of the same reality; but less so of Zeus, Hera, and Leto since they are in part defined as not being each other.
Secondly, you seem to think that this - all gods are echoes of the unknown deity - isn't a proposition that could find its way into and form part of the subject matter of Christian theology. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that is where Aquinas' Summa Theologica starts from.
Onan's sin was selfishness on a scale approaching rape, as the poor girl had only married him to have a child who would be her dead husband's heir, according to custom. To refuse her that while simultaneously using her body was just not on. Go, God!
I think that Collin Smith may be confusing the parable of the Sower with the story of Onan. Which, I am given to understand, is frequently used as justification of the doctrine that masturbation is sinful.
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
Nowhere in the world has ever been exotic. Everything is normal for where it is.
Anyway that's your subjective truth, isn't it? It looks beige to you because you have beige spectacles on?
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
How so, when it is the locals themselves who are gladly leaving their imprisonment of their own free will? (You wouldn't believe the shit Mr Lamb's father took from his neighbors for giving his children beautiful names. Killing that superstition wasn't destroying art, it was creating it,)
There's also the explanation which says that it's true: God is.
But theism ≠ God. God, as in the Christian God, is one of many hundreds, if not millions of possible gods a theist could believe in. The question isn't so much whether a theist is right, but which of the many possible gods are they right about.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
I think that Collin Smith may be confusing the parable of the Sower with the story of Onan. Which, I am given to understand, is frequently used as justification of the doctrine that masturbation is sinful.
Correct. I did confuse them. I said as much in a comment.
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
Nowhere in the world has ever been exotic. Everything is normal for where it is.
Anyway that's your subjective truth, isn't it? It looks beige to you because you have beige spectacles on?
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
How so, when it is the locals themselves who are gladly leaving their imprisonment of their own free will? (You wouldn't believe the shit Mr Lamb's father took from his neighbors for giving his children beautiful names. Killing that superstition wasn't destroying art, it was creating it,)
See, you call it a superstition. That superstition, in my view, is the equal of your belief.
Sorry, but I find all missionary work and evangelism appalling. It destroys cultures. It destroys indigenous belief. It's cultural imperialism at its very worst.
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
Nowhere in the world has ever been exotic. Everything is normal for where it is.
Anyway that's your subjective truth, isn't it? It looks beige to you because you have beige spectacles on?
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
How so, when it is the locals themselves who are gladly leaving their imprisonment of their own free will? (You wouldn't believe the shit Mr Lamb's father took from his neighbors for giving his children beautiful names. Killing that superstition wasn't destroying art, it was creating it,)
Whatever good or bad there is in people changing religions, I don't think the general situation is really symmrtrical with the destruction of ancient artworks, which renders the works in question impossible for anyone, believers or not, to appreciate.
Now, if the pagan-to-Christian converts go around smashing up temples and icons of their old faith, that's another story.
Getting back to the original post, The New York Times had a good opinion piece today, entitled: Where Is God in a Pandemic? by James Martin. Lead sentence:
The honest answer is: We don’t know. But even non-Christians may find understanding in the life of Jesus.
There's also the explanation which says that it's true: God is.
But theism ≠ God. God, as in the Christian God, is one of many hundreds, if not millions of possible gods a theist could believe in. The question isn't so much whether a theist is right, but which of the many possible gods are they right about.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
Theism is like believing in Liquorice allsorts. Believing in the Christian God is like claiming the only true Liquorice allsort is the pink aniseed jelly and claiming without a shred of evidence that all those worshipping other varieties of Liquorice allsorts are wrong.
For the Atheist there are no Liquorice allsorts of any description so the issue isn't atheism versus God, which is how Christians tend to present it, but atheism versus any kind of god. So the question an atheist is left with is why a theist makes the leap to one particular god while condemning all the other possible gods as false.
There's also the explanation which says that it's true: God is.
But theism ≠ God. God, as in the Christian God, is one of many hundreds, if not millions of possible gods a theist could believe in. The question isn't so much whether a theist is right, but which of the many possible gods are they right about.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
Theism is like believing in Liquorice allsorts. Believing in the Christian God is like claiming the only true Liquorice allsort is the pink aniseed jelly and claiming without a shred of evidence that all those worshipping other varieties of Liquorice allsorts are wrong.
For the Atheist there are no Liquorice allsorts of any description so the issue isn't atheism versus God, which is how Christians tend to present it, but atheism versus any kind of god. So the question an atheist is left with is why a theist makes the leap to one particular god while condemning all the other possible gods as false.
This Christian doesn’t relate to the idea of the “Christian God” vs other gods. I tend more to thinking that all theists worship the same God, or the same divinity, but they have different understandings of the nature of that God/the Divine.
This Christian doesn’t relate to the idea of the “Christian God” vs other gods. I tend more to thinking that all theists worship the same God, or the same divinity, but they have different understandings of the nature of that God/the Divine.
I am very sympathetic to that view. I also include my own atheistic, science based understanding of things to be part of that 'Divine', along with all varieties of spiritual belief. It may be that all we are doing is worshipping, or regarding, a projection of our own individual consciousnesses onto an indifferent universe, but undoubtedly whatever it is we're doing helps us to make some kind of sense of our lives.
I tend not to think of viruses as having 'interests'. Or, if I remember my high-school biology classes correctly, even as 'alive', really.
"Are viruses alive?" is a tricky question with no established answer. There are good biological justifications both ways.
I tend to think of them as alive, but packing lightly--just a carry-on, or nothing at all. On landing, they grab what they need, and make it theirs.
Food for thought: the Smiths in "The Matrix" were a virus. A person would come in contact with a Smith, get infected, and visibly turn into a Smith identical to all the others.
This may be weird...but I wonder if there's some smallish thing humans could do to make our bodies uncomfortable places for this (or any) virus? Not a vaccine--and I'm not against vaccines, but it sounds like one for this virus is going to take a long time. In the meantime, maybe something like altering our ph temporarily, taking a particular amino acid in an amount that's more than the virus can stand, etc. Preferably something that's inexpensive and pretty easy for most people to get. And have no-fuss programs to get the item(s) to people who can't afford and/or obtain it on their own.
. But in the case of God, of any infinite deity (all infinite deities must be the same deity), the answer is both. God doesn't infringe the part of me that requires privacy; God sustains the part of me that requires privacy.
Going beyond the infinite with transfinite numbers
The transfinite numbers are a set of numbers representing different levels of infinity. Consider this for a moment: The counting numbers (1, 2, 3, . . .) go on forever, so they’re infinite. But there are more real numbers than counting numbers.
In fact, the real numbers are infinitely more infinite than the counting numbers. Mathematician Georg Cantor proved this fact. He also proved that, for every level of infinity, you can find another level that’s even higher. He called these ever-increasing levels of infinity transfinite, because they transcend, or go beyond, what you think of as infinite.
This may be weird...but I wonder if there's some smallish thing humans could do to make our bodies uncomfortable places for this (or any) virus? Not a vaccine--and I'm not against vaccines, but it sounds like one for this virus is going to take a long time. In the meantime, maybe something like altering our ph temporarily, taking a particular amino acid in an amount that's more than the virus can stand, etc. Preferably something that's inexpensive and pretty easy for most people to get. And have no-fuss programs to get the item(s) to people who can't afford and/or obtain it on their own.
Alkaline diets and waters are hokum, BS, snake oil, etc. because despite things like viruses, your body is incredibly self-regulating. In another way, it is also delicate. If you could change things like ph in the cells, it would likely be as or more dangerous than a virus.
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
Nowhere in the world has ever been exotic. Everything is normal for where it is.
Anyway that's your subjective truth, isn't it? It looks beige to you because you have beige spectacles on?
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
How so, when it is the locals themselves who are gladly leaving their imprisonment of their own free will? (You wouldn't believe the shit Mr Lamb's father took from his neighbors for giving his children beautiful names. Killing that superstition wasn't destroying art, it was creating it,)
See, you call it a superstition. That superstition, in my view, is the equal of your belief.
Sorry, but I find all missionary work and evangelism appalling. It destroys cultures. It destroys indigenous belief. It's cultural imperialism at its very worst.
Why, thank you!
(Don't make me laugh. You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries, do you?)
I wasn't pushing any particular thing. Just wondering out loud. If viruses are alive (and I lean that way), then they probably experience some sense of comfort and discomfort, "ahhh" and "ickkkk". Not saying they philosophize about it! Just that living things tend to lean toward things they like, and lean away from things they hate.
Maybe there's something they need that we can block them from getting?
Is that in the same category as customs elsewhere about not praising a child. because it invites the attention of evil spirits?
Thx.
Yes indeed. Except worse to my way of thinking, because it means that some poor child is actively being called "piece of shit" or similar day in and day out. A positive evil, vs. a privation of good.
This may be weird...but I wonder if there's some smallish thing humans could do to make our bodies uncomfortable places for this (or any) virus? Not a vaccine--and I'm not against vaccines, but it sounds like one for this virus is going to take a long time. In the meantime, maybe something like altering our ph temporarily, taking a particular amino acid in an amount that's more than the virus can stand, etc. Preferably something that's inexpensive and pretty easy for most people to get. And have no-fuss programs to get the item(s) to people who can't afford and/or obtain it on their own.
This of course would be the Holy Grail, but the fact that nobody's found it yet (and coronaviruses have been around for a long, long time) suggests that it's unlikely we'll find such a thing now. And since coronaviruses include the bugs that cause the common cold, well, people have been looking. So your idea is not weird at all, but is definitely in the wishful thinking category for probably zillions of us. Pity.
I know they're now a long way back now, but @Lamb Chopped thank you for both your posts, the long one and the short one too.
And @quetzalcoatl I think the reason why people aren't frightened any more of leprechauns or dryads, why they're just quaint, is because nobody really believes they exist. Following on from that @Colin Smith, have you wondered how you can be angry with someone that you don't believe might exist?
Thank you!
About leprechauns etc.--
I've lived for 30 some years among people who do in fact have a living believe in spirits etc. and the overwhelming emotion they raise is fear. People do shit like shaving off their hair (of 30 years' growth) because they want to be so ugly the evil spirits of sickness won't recognize them and come back. They name their children words like "Trash" and "Unwanted" so the evil spirits don't recognize their value and kill them off. They dress boys as girls (sorry, folks) because in their culture the boys are considered of higher value, and evil spirits etc. etc. etc. People propitiate their ancestors (in my experience) because they might do something bad to them, even though in life the person was a sweetheart and would never dream of it.
Give me the Christian God any time, over this dreadful slavery. (It's been interesting helping new believers adjust to living in freedom.)
And thus yet one more part of the world becomes a little less exotic, a little less colourful, more beige.
How quaint that you find other people living in terror to be colorful, and to be disappointed when they are freed from it. For values of quaint equaling sick.
Well, people take what they want from all kinds of traditions. I don't see how it can be any other way. As Nietzsche almost said, adore appearance.
If by 'almost' you mean 'pretty much exactly the reverse', I suppose. He wrote that of the ancient Greeks; and of course there he was hardly an advocate of taking only what appealed.
As for not seeing how it could be any other way ... well, in my experience the best restaurants have a fixed menu, and the worst are often buffets. But a chacun son gout.
Sometimes, people are allergic to certain things on a fixed menu, and/or have a critical need for something not on the menu. And the seats may be scratchy or too tight.
Sure. But there's more than one restaurant with a fixed menu. And your chances of finding out what's actually in your dish are much better in that sort of establishment.
There's also the explanation which says that it's true: God is.
But theism ≠ God. God, as in the Christian God, is one of many hundreds, if not millions of possible gods a theist could believe in. The question isn't so much whether a theist is right, but which of the many possible gods are they right about.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
Theism is like believing in Liquorice allsorts. Believing in the Christian God is like claiming the only true Liquorice allsort is the pink aniseed jelly and claiming without a shred of evidence that all those worshipping other varieties of Liquorice allsorts are wrong.
For the Atheist there are no Liquorice allsorts of any description so the issue isn't atheism versus God, which is how Christians tend to present it, but atheism versus any kind of god. So the question an atheist is left with is why a theist makes the leap to one particular god while condemning all the other possible gods as false.
Your analogy doesn't work for me at all.
Only if one has the mindset that those who believe in God, or a god, do so for a reason like making sense of life or warding off threat or wish fulfilment might it be seen as if it were a liquorice allsort selection.
The reason this particular person began to believe in God was none of these. I had no desire to become religious. I was simply interested in finding out the truth: does a living God exist, or not? I happened to find out through the Christian route. I don't exclude other possible routes to finding the same God, but there is and can be only one living Creator God.
Using discernment, a good deal of scepticism, and observation, I not only discovered that God is real but continue to have this reaffirmed, time and again.
And the more I observe, the more I try to discern, the more I doubt that God exists. How to choose between our contradictory experiences?
I guess this is one of the morsels of faith which continue to feed atheists, @KarlLB, as no two religious people can describe the same experiences, and as God is greater than anyone can imagine or see fully, the snatches we are occasionally given are all too brief, or seemingly non-existent.
As we don't hear or see or touch God with our physical senses, or think God into existence in our heads, spiritual matters can't be discerned in the same way as other matters.
The 'heart' in us resounds with the truth, and dulls without it.
I wasn't pushing any particular thing. Just wondering out loud. If viruses are alive (and I lean that way), then they probably experience some sense of comfort and discomfort, "ahhh" and "ickkkk". Not saying they philosophize about it! Just that living things tend to lean toward things they like, and lean away from things they hate.
Maybe there's something they need that we can block them from getting?
I didn’t think you were pushing any particular thing, but people do try things which are dubious. Often it is only harmful to the wallet, but sometimes people harm themselves. Like the idiot who died from drinking fish tank cleaner.
One reason most medicines have a listing of side effects is that altering the bodies processes and normal state is fraught with potential problems.
With all due respect to @Colin Smith , I do wonder why an avowed atheist is bothering to spend so much time and effort going round and round in circles on this thread.
Time may be hanging heavy on his hands, what with the lockdown and all that, but (a) we're never going to be able to prove the existence of God/god/gods, and (b) he's never going to be able to prove the opposite.
With all due respect to @Colin Smith , I do wonder why an avowed atheist is bothering to spend so much time and effort going round and round in circles on this thread.
Time may be hanging heavy on his hands, what with the lockdown and all that, but (a) we're never going to be able to prove the existence of God/god/gods, and (b) he's never going to be able to prove the opposite.
Time is indeed hanging heavy. But it's not about proving one way or the other but about accepting that one has made a choice about what one believes and that one person's choice is as valid as any other person's choice. God/god/gods are as real as anyone needs them to be but no more.
And the more I observe, the more I try to discern, the more I doubt that God exists. How to choose between our contradictory experiences?
I guess this is one of the morsels of faith which continue to feed atheists, @KarlLB, as no two religious people can describe the same experiences, and as God is greater than anyone can imagine or see fully, the snatches we are occasionally given are all too brief, or seemingly non-existent.
As we don't hear or see or touch God with our physical senses, or think God into existence in our heads, spiritual matters can't be discerned in the same way as other matters.
The 'heart' in us resounds with the truth, and dulls without it.
Can you explain what you meant by the bit I've put in bold.
Personally, I'm not an atheist because I have considered the Christian faith and rejected it. I'm an atheist because atheism is what I hold to be true.
Are you a Christian because you considered and rejected Buddhism?
(Don't make me laugh. You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries, do you?)
I know you do a lot of social work as well. But historically the spread of Christianity, and to lesser extent Islam, across the globe has destroyed or corrupted indigenous religions and from the perspective of someone interested in religions, mythology, and folklore, it is hugely disappointing.
Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularisation, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them."
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_colonialism
And of course many of the restaurants claim that if you go to any of the others you'll get fatal food poisoning.
Sure. But I don't think that for most of us, in the modern West, this is really our problem. Generally speaking the challenge is that we have what seems like an endless array of choice and it's always easiest to go for the things that are artificially sweetened. Over the course of the years we readily end up diabetic and obese, and have never in fact learned what real nourishment tastes like.
But those long-term consequences are hard to perceive; while we're hyper-alert to someone infringing on our choices.
A comment on various points I have noted in reading through, but not in response to any particular post:
I am an atheist, having been a firm believer in God (but not the other biblical stories) because I have learnt that there is no objective (etc etc) evidence for any God/god/s.
I'll challenge anyone who assumes that 'spirituality' is exclusively owned by or available to believers and, in particular, Christians.
I find it, and have always found it from an early age, interesting to join in discussions on the subjects on this forum.
CS Lewis has an analogy which works better for me. A mathematical problem only has one right answer, but some of the wrong ones are closer to it than others.
Obviously I think I've found the right answer. Others disagree with me.
CS Lewis has an analogy which works better for me. A mathematical problem only has one right answer, but some of the wrong ones are closer to it than others.
Obviously I think I've found the right answer. Others disagree with me.
You've found the right answer for you. The odd thing about some religions is that they seem to insist that it's therefore right for me. How would they know that? I've found the right approach for me, in fact, but I doubt if it is for others.
(Don't make me laugh. You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries, do you?)
I know you do a lot of social work as well. But historically the spread of Christianity, and to lesser extent Islam, across the globe has destroyed or corrupted indigenous religions and from the perspective of someone interested in religions, mythology, and folklore, it is hugely disappointing.
Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularisation, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them."
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_colonialism
You do know that when you've sunk to quoting Wikipedia as an authority (rather than, say, as an example or explanation), you've lost the argument? Because any fool can put whatever they want up there, and it can be hellishly difficult for the sane editors to get it reversed. This is especially likely to be a problem on an emotionally charged issue like missionaries.
But whatever. Laying that aside...
You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries. (And I'm not going to hijack this thread to tell you. Start one if you're interested.)
You don't know jackshit about the effect that we, personally, have had on the Vietnamese culture. (What I've shared on this thread is the barest tiniest example of what we've done and not done.)
You have the further difficulty of what to do with Mr. Lamb, the foremost missionary in this household, who is himself Vietnamese (ferociously loyally so) and cannot be neatly lumped into your "cultural imperialist" category.
You are really quite astoundingly offensive. Not that I'm objecting to that, mind--we've had far worse--but I think you ought to be aware of the way you're coming off.
Comments
Yes I do, with one proviso, though I balk at the word 'sin': like 'evil' it's not a word I find useful or meaningful. The proviso is that I think a sin must be recognised as such for it to be a sin. I accept that you think Trump is sinning (doing something very bad, in my language) but the fact that his supporters would excuse it or tolerate it militates against it being bad. It's a case of who is doing the judging. In the end, whether or not an act is good or bad/sinful depends on who is doing the judging.
And yes, moral relativism can sometimes twist one's arm off.
Yes, I get the thing about the gospel message (I must be very stony ground) and probably confused it (having checked) with Genesis 38.9 and Onan spilling his seed on the ground. My Bible 'knowledge' is basically the sackful of phrases that have entered popular language.
Okay, maybe not exotic. How about unique and distinctive? But to me replacing indigenous local beliefs with Christianity, or indeed with any other faith, including secularism, is on a level with what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyam.
It's a valid explanation of theism that the God one believes in exists.
It makes no difference whether or not there are other gods which people believe in that do not exist. Other explanations may apply, in that instance.
One point of difference is not nothing like.
Firstly, students of ancient polytheistic religion generally find unhelpful the assumption that polytheistic religion was the same kind of practice as developed post-Axial religions (in which category I include a lot of modern neo-paganism).
It might sound plausible to say that Zeus and Durga are both aspects of the same reality; but less so of Zeus, Hera, and Leto since they are in part defined as not being each other.
Secondly, you seem to think that this - all gods are echoes of the unknown deity - isn't a proposition that could find its way into and form part of the subject matter of Christian theology. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that is where Aquinas' Summa Theologica starts from.
How so, when it is the locals themselves who are gladly leaving their imprisonment of their own free will? (You wouldn't believe the shit Mr Lamb's father took from his neighbors for giving his children beautiful names. Killing that superstition wasn't destroying art, it was creating it,)
That's an assertion, not an explanation.
Correct. I did confuse them. I said as much in a comment.
See, you call it a superstition. That superstition, in my view, is the equal of your belief.
Sorry, but I find all missionary work and evangelism appalling. It destroys cultures. It destroys indigenous belief. It's cultural imperialism at its very worst.
Whatever good or bad there is in people changing religions, I don't think the general situation is really symmrtrical with the destruction of ancient artworks, which renders the works in question impossible for anyone, believers or not, to appreciate.
Now, if the pagan-to-Christian converts go around smashing up temples and icons of their old faith, that's another story.
Theism is like believing in Liquorice allsorts. Believing in the Christian God is like claiming the only true Liquorice allsort is the pink aniseed jelly and claiming without a shred of evidence that all those worshipping other varieties of Liquorice allsorts are wrong.
For the Atheist there are no Liquorice allsorts of any description so the issue isn't atheism versus God, which is how Christians tend to present it, but atheism versus any kind of god. So the question an atheist is left with is why a theist makes the leap to one particular god while condemning all the other possible gods as false.
I am very sympathetic to that view. I also include my own atheistic, science based understanding of things to be part of that 'Divine', along with all varieties of spiritual belief. It may be that all we are doing is worshipping, or regarding, a projection of our own individual consciousnesses onto an indifferent universe, but undoubtedly whatever it is we're doing helps us to make some kind of sense of our lives.
I tend to think of them as alive, but packing lightly--just a carry-on, or nothing at all. On landing, they grab what they need, and make it theirs.
Food for thought: the Smiths in "The Matrix" were a virus. A person would come in contact with a Smith, get infected, and visibly turn into a Smith identical to all the others.
This may be weird...but I wonder if there's some smallish thing humans could do to make our bodies uncomfortable places for this (or any) virus? Not a vaccine--and I'm not against vaccines, but it sounds like one for this virus is going to take a long time. In the meantime, maybe something like altering our ph temporarily, taking a particular amino acid in an amount that's more than the virus can stand, etc. Preferably something that's inexpensive and pretty easy for most people to get. And have no-fuss programs to get the item(s) to people who can't afford and/or obtain it on their own.
Re "beautiful names":
Is that in the same category as customs elsewhere about not praising a child. because it invites the attention of evil spirits?
Thx.
{Emphasis mine.}
Unless maybe we're playing with transfinite numbers... (Dummies)
Why, thank you!
(Don't make me laugh. You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries, do you?)
I wasn't pushing any particular thing. Just wondering out loud. If viruses are alive (and I lean that way), then they probably experience some sense of comfort and discomfort, "ahhh" and "ickkkk". Not saying they philosophize about it! Just that living things tend to lean toward things they like, and lean away from things they hate.
Maybe there's something they need that we can block them from getting?
Yes indeed. Except worse to my way of thinking, because it means that some poor child is actively being called "piece of shit" or similar day in and day out. A positive evil, vs. a privation of good.
This of course would be the Holy Grail, but the fact that nobody's found it yet (and coronaviruses have been around for a long, long time) suggests that it's unlikely we'll find such a thing now. And since coronaviruses include the bugs that cause the common cold, well, people have been looking. So your idea is not weird at all, but is definitely in the wishful thinking category for probably zillions of us. Pity.
How quaint that you find other people living in terror to be colorful, and to be disappointed when they are freed from it. For values of quaint equaling sick.
If by 'almost' you mean 'pretty much exactly the reverse', I suppose. He wrote that of the ancient Greeks; and of course there he was hardly an advocate of taking only what appealed.
As for not seeing how it could be any other way ... well, in my experience the best restaurants have a fixed menu, and the worst are often buffets. But a chacun son gout.
Sometimes, people are allergic to certain things on a fixed menu, and/or have a critical need for something not on the menu. And the seats may be scratchy or too tight.
Your analogy doesn't work for me at all.
Only if one has the mindset that those who believe in God, or a god, do so for a reason like making sense of life or warding off threat or wish fulfilment might it be seen as if it were a liquorice allsort selection.
The reason this particular person began to believe in God was none of these. I had no desire to become religious. I was simply interested in finding out the truth: does a living God exist, or not? I happened to find out through the Christian route. I don't exclude other possible routes to finding the same God, but there is and can be only one living Creator God.
Using discernment, a good deal of scepticism, and observation, I not only discovered that God is real but continue to have this reaffirmed, time and again.
(I'll get me coat...)
I've had both experiences in my lifetime. Ah well, let go, tune out, life is but a dream.
I guess this is one of the morsels of faith which continue to feed atheists, @KarlLB, as no two religious people can describe the same experiences, and as God is greater than anyone can imagine or see fully, the snatches we are occasionally given are all too brief, or seemingly non-existent.
As we don't hear or see or touch God with our physical senses, or think God into existence in our heads, spiritual matters can't be discerned in the same way as other matters.
The 'heart' in us resounds with the truth, and dulls without it.
One reason most medicines have a listing of side effects is that altering the bodies processes and normal state is fraught with potential problems.
Time may be hanging heavy on his hands, what with the lockdown and all that, but (a) we're never going to be able to prove the existence of God/god/gods, and (b) he's never going to be able to prove the opposite.
Time is indeed hanging heavy. But it's not about proving one way or the other but about accepting that one has made a choice about what one believes and that one person's choice is as valid as any other person's choice. God/god/gods are as real as anyone needs them to be but no more.
Can you explain what you meant by the bit I've put in bold.
Personally, I'm not an atheist because I have considered the Christian faith and rejected it. I'm an atheist because atheism is what I hold to be true.
Are you a Christian because you considered and rejected Buddhism?
I know you do a lot of social work as well. But historically the spread of Christianity, and to lesser extent Islam, across the globe has destroyed or corrupted indigenous religions and from the perspective of someone interested in religions, mythology, and folklore, it is hugely disappointing.
Historians have traditionally looked at Christian missionaries in one of two ways. The first church historians to catalogue missionary history provided hagiographic descriptions of their trials, successes, and sometimes even martyrdom. Missionaries were thus visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery. However, by the middle of the twentieth century, an era marked by civil rights movements, anti-colonialism, and growing secularisation, missionaries were viewed quite differently. Instead of godly martyrs, historians now described missionaries as arrogant and rapacious imperialists. Christianity became not a saving grace but a monolithic and aggressive force that missionaries imposed upon defiant natives. Indeed, missionaries were now understood as important agents in the ever-expanding nation-state, or "ideological shock troops for colonial invasion whose zealotry blinded them."
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_colonialism
This is pretty crucial I think. The string pulling authoritarian god is an invention. Not my God.
Sure. But I don't think that for most of us, in the modern West, this is really our problem. Generally speaking the challenge is that we have what seems like an endless array of choice and it's always easiest to go for the things that are artificially sweetened. Over the course of the years we readily end up diabetic and obese, and have never in fact learned what real nourishment tastes like.
But those long-term consequences are hard to perceive; while we're hyper-alert to someone infringing on our choices.
I am an atheist, having been a firm believer in God (but not the other biblical stories) because I have learnt that there is no objective (etc etc) evidence for any God/god/s.
I'll challenge anyone who assumes that 'spirituality' is exclusively owned by or available to believers and, in particular, Christians.
I find it, and have always found it from an early age, interesting to join in discussions on the subjects on this forum.
Obviously I think I've found the right answer. Others disagree with me.
You've found the right answer for you. The odd thing about some religions is that they seem to insist that it's therefore right for me. How would they know that? I've found the right approach for me, in fact, but I doubt if it is for others.
You do know that when you've sunk to quoting Wikipedia as an authority (rather than, say, as an example or explanation), you've lost the argument? Because any fool can put whatever they want up there, and it can be hellishly difficult for the sane editors to get it reversed. This is especially likely to be a problem on an emotionally charged issue like missionaries.
But whatever. Laying that aside...
You don't know jackshit about what we do as missionaries. (And I'm not going to hijack this thread to tell you. Start one if you're interested.)
You don't know jackshit about the effect that we, personally, have had on the Vietnamese culture. (What I've shared on this thread is the barest tiniest example of what we've done and not done.)
You have the further difficulty of what to do with Mr. Lamb, the foremost missionary in this household, who is himself Vietnamese (ferociously loyally so) and cannot be neatly lumped into your "cultural imperialist" category.
You are really quite astoundingly offensive. Not that I'm objecting to that, mind--we've had far worse--but I think you ought to be aware of the way you're coming off.