None of it is true - Does this bother anyone?

[Jordan St. Francis]

And that is a very nice and thorough story line except that it isn't true. You clearly believe in a literal "fall of man" although you railed against me for doing so as well. This being the case, the physical universe stands in evidence against your story thus making it moot and nothing more than a simple tale.

I never denied the Fall. For Christians, the alienated state of humanity from God is a part of the deposit of the Faith. How we understand that Fall, precisely how it came to be...these we continue to consider.

I was only pointing out that one need not see the account in Genesis as a literal account of how human beings fell into that situation- that there were an original two parents eating apples in a garden in the Middle East.

For what its worth, I side with Chesterton that Original Sin is the only Christian doctrine that one can prove by opening the morning newspaper. Perhaps you don't have any standard of how things ought to be, so you are not able to see where they miss the mark.

Also, I never denied evolutionary biology, and I think, as Christians gradually come to accept that this is how God brought about the human being into existence, many exciting possibilities for theology will open up- including how to interpret humanity's fallen state.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

The reality is that all those conditions that were once considered to be spiritual in nature (possession, lust, anger, hate, etc) in fact are physical conditions. Some of these can be treated while we have yet to discover treatments for other conditions. What will happen to your myth when science has effectively mastered the human mind to the degree that all those things that were once thought to be spiritual have been effectively managed through physical means?

I see, so techne is your Savior from the maliciousness of nature?

I do not believe for a moment that technological solutions can offer most or any of the fundamental solutions to the central human dilemmas. Of course I welcome technology, but not as Savior. The history of technology, from the wheel to open heart surgery, is just as easily the journey from the sling-shot to the Atom bomb. By the fact of what it is, it can not even approach the real moral dilemmas that face us.

Neither can technology regulate itself. If progress becomes its own definitive standard, then we enter into the dystopian worlds that many great authors of the last century have warned us about, or renew those attempts which we have already seen.

It is curious that you posit a day when science will "master the human mind". Indeed, I think from the seminal thought you have proposed, that is what will happen. Technology will master the human being in trying to perfect him, rather than the reverse direction, and when that happens human dignity can only assaulted.

The empirical sciences will continue to unravel the miracle of matter for us, it will explain many unknowns, but by definition it is incapable of grasping that foundational "unknown" on which every thing stands. Religion, spirituality, these are the means by which we are given access to the fundamental and irreducible 'fact' which upholds everything.

 

[slave2six]

I never denied the Fall. For Christians, the alienated state of humanity from God is axiomatic. I was only pointing out that one need not see the account in Genesis as a literal account of how human beings fell into that situation- that there were an original two parents eating apples in a garden in the Middle East.

A "fall" indicates that there was some original perfected state of being in which humans were not as they are now. However you phrase it, this alienation from God as you put it is in your religion a result of a fall of some kind and your lore masters came up with Adam and Eve and then go to great pains to draw a comparison between the First Adam and the Second Adam all the while ignoring the very essence of forgiveness and reconciliation.

 

[slave2six]

I see, so techne is your Savior from the maliciousness of nature?

Thus far it has proven to be the only force by which mankind can be changed. In the last 200 years we have made greater advances to "curing" mankind than any amount of religion in the past 10,000 years has done. That's not a bad beginning.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

I don't know why you are hung up on forgiveness and reconciliation. We can discuss that in a different thread. I am not positing that I know what this "original state of perfection" was. It seems that it was super-natural (as we believe so will be the wedding of heaven and earth) and so nature as it is now would have to be seen as something separate, operating according to a different order. You forget that science studies the laws of a fallen world.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

Thus far it has proven to be the only force by which mankind can be changed. In the last 200 years we have made greater advances to "curing" mankind than any amount of religion in the past 10,000 years has done. That's not a bad beginning.

So all of our moral progress has been technological? Democracy...human rights? These can all be demonstrated to be scientific conclusions? Have you found the equality gene?

 

[slave2six]

For what its worth, I side with Chesterton that Original Sin is the only Christian doctrine that one can prove by opening the morning newspaper.

That's rather a sophomoric approach to intellect. The newspaper is sensationalism and reports on the fraction of a percentage of bad stuff going on in the world while ignoring the good. It has always over-inflated reality and sought to manipulate people's perceptions. As Lincoln said, "If the South is slow in starting a war, the newspapers will speed it up for them."

It's unfortunate that a mind like Chesterton's was devoted to explaining a falacious principal rather than doing something useful that would benefit mankind. Louis Leakey has contributed more to the welfare of the species than Chesterton. A mind is a terrible thing to waste - especially if it is wasted on religion.

 

[Riverwolf]

Well, that's a real problem. If you claim that your Holy book is in fact a divine revelation from God then it should be the final authority and there is no room for the religion evolving, is there?

And NO WHERE in the Bible does it claim itself to be a Holy book from God.

There is Paul's quote in his letter to Timothy which basically says that all scripture is God-breathed, but that doesn't HAVE to mean the entire Bible; heck, when Paul wrote that letter, the Bible hadn't been fully canonized yet, and wouldn't be for another couple hundred years.

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

The Chesterton comment was obviously rhetoric. I am not basing the doctrine off the press. But it seems clear both to myself and many others that, for all the good human beings accomplish, we also have a strong tendency towards violating our own standards of what ought to be done. Wherever there is human society there is, among the virtues, also much disorder. This tendency towards violating even our notion of the Good is, in the Christian tradition, called Original Sin. It does not mean man is wholly depraved, just injured by nature.

I know what I ought to do, but I don't do it. Why? I'm sure you've read the relevant Pauline passage.

 

[Riverwolf]

You are talking about something other than the Judeo-Christian religion. As such, your position is correct. But within the confines of the Judeo-Christian faith, God is "personal" even to the point of becoming a human being. That is what I was addressing.

God takes on human forms all the time, in many religions.

The Bible does often does portray God with human-like qualities, but that may be because most humans can't comprehend God in any other way. Doing so requires EXTREME abstract thinking.

 

[slave2six]

I see, so techne is your Savior from the maliciousness of nature?

I do not believe for a moment that technological solutions can offer most or any of the fundamental solutions to the central human dilemmas. Of course I welcome technology, but not as Savior.

And yet after 2,000 years of evidence you still hope that your Savior will provide a solution despite how little of a solution he has provided in all that time? That's pretty sad.

The history of technology, from the wheel to open heart surgery, is just as easily the journey from the sling-shot to the Atom bomb. By the fact of what it is, it can not even approach the real moral dilemmas that face us.

And what would those dilemmas be? Homosexuality? Violence? Greed? Just what has Christianity done to address any of these issues? Every single one of them is still around. Where's your savior?

Neither can technology regulate itself. If progress becomes its own definitive standard, then we enter into the dystopian worlds that many great authors of the last century have warned us about, or renew those attempts which we have already seen.

That is quite disingenuous. We have proven that we can regulate ourselves - that's why there has not been a nuclear war and yet nuclear energy is used to run civilizations.

It is curious that you posit a day when science will "master the human mind". Indeed, I think from the seminal thought you have proposed, that is what will happen. Technology will master the human being in trying to perfect him, rather than the reverse direction, and when that happens human dignity can only assaulted.

By your reasoning, antidepressants and antipsychotics are an attack on human dignity. That seems uncharitable at best.

The empirical sciences will continue to unravel the miracle of matter for us, it will explain many unknowns, but by definition it is incapable of grasping that foundational "unknown" on which every thing stands. Religion, spirituality, these are the means by which we are given access to the fundamental and irreducible 'fact' which upholds everything.

Yeah. Uh huh. And that's why no two people on the planet can agree on what those spiritual "facts" are. Brilliant.

 

[slave2six]

I don't know why you are hung up on forgiveness and reconciliation.

Are you serious? What do you think Christianity is about?

 

[Riverwolf]

In other words, he's a ghost.

In a way.

Except "ghost" is usually taken to mean a spirit of one who is dead. God is neither alive nor dead.

 

[slave2six]

So all of our moral progress has been technological? Democracy...human rights? These can all be demonstrated to be scientific conclusions? Have you found the equality gene?

Democracy is certainly not a result of religious reasoning. Indeed, many of founding fathers of the US were strongly opposed to religion. And the Greeks founded their government not as a theocracy but as independent of religion. I cannot recall ever reading of a Senate gathering in which the will of the Gods was to be found. Rather, they had debates and employed reason.

You want to talk about human rights? There's plenty in your Bible about it being OK to sell your daughter into slavery, for example or Paul's admonition for slaves to be good slaves and honor their massas. Women's rights? Not in your Bible or the historical church.

 

[slave2six]

And NO WHERE in the Bible does it claim itself to be a Holy book from God.

There is Paul's quote in his letter to Timothy which basically says that all scripture is God-breathed, but that doesn't HAVE to mean the entire Bible; heck, when Paul wrote that letter, the Bible hadn't been fully canonized yet, and wouldn't be for another couple hundred years.

That is absolutely true and yet ask and Christian today if the Bible is "the word of God" and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who would say "no."

 

[Jordan St. Francis]

Slave4six,

You are trying to shoot too many ducks in the air at once here. Is the problem that the creation account is either a scientific history or its nothing? Is the problem the Christian notion of God's forgiveness and the means to reconciliation? Is the problem human spirituality on the whole which refuses to acknowledge we are solely material? Are the dilemmas that plague human relations and the individual tackled on the level of technology, or of moral philosophy and your own notion of "reason"? (thus meaning technology is not the solution) Is it true, as you seem to suggest, that religion has had no role in the development of the moral sense?

Just because the West formulated much of what we value today in a formally or seemingly anti-religious phase (the Enlightenment), does that exclude that the Enlightenment may itself have been a certain detour down the Christian path of thought? How does one deal with the supposed collapse of modernity's ideals and the Enlightenment's notion of Reason in the face of "post-modernity"?

We need to stick to one or two of these questions if we are to avoid shouting past each other.

 

[slave2six]

The Chesterton comment was obviously rhetoric. I am not basing the doctrine off the press. But it seems clear both to myself and many others that, for all the good human beings accomplish, we also have a strong tendency towards violating our own standards of what ought to be done. Wherever there is human society there is, among the virtues, also much disorder. This tendency towards violating even our notion of the Good is, in the Christian tradition, called Original Sin. It does not mean man is wholly depraved, just injured by nature.

I know what I ought to do, but I don't do it. Why? I'm sure you've read the relevant Pauline passage.

And yet Paul did not and could not take into account the very nature of man. If we have evolved from other species then there are biological characteristics that come into play. Domination is evident all through nature and typically the stronger members of a species are the ones who get to mate or get the biggest meal and whatnot. That is simply nature in action.

The reason that we as humans see some behaviors as “bad” is not some universal moral imperative but because the society that we have created for ourselves is not solely based on physical superiority as is the case in other places in nature. Indeed, such morals are against our natural instinct. You define this as "sin" but all it is is nature. Does this mean that we are born amoral creatures? No. It means that we are natural creatures with intelligence enough to know how to coexist with one another in such a way that the species has become a six billion member tribe. It is precisely our ability to reason that makes “morality” an issue at all. Shouldn’t we, therefore, use our reason when determining what is morally good or bad rather than relying on religious pronouncements (which thus far have not made much of an impact on the matter except to incite people to more violence)?

 

[OmarKhayyam]

"The empirical sciences will continue to unravel the miracle of matter for us, it will explain many unknowns, but by definition it is incapable of grasping that foundational "unknown" on which every thing stands. Religion, spirituality, these are the means by which we are given access to the fundamental and irreducible 'fact' which upholds everything."

I have NO idea what that statement is trying to say.

WHAT foundational unknown? If it is unknown then clearly you do NOT know what it is. How do you know, other than dogmatically, that it even EXISTS? And what is missing that this "fact" would explain? You don't know that either.

The universe is what it IS. The morning newspaper reports what IS, not what you would like. And from this you construct this ancient and evil "fall" from which your "faith" offers "salvation." But you are quick to brag how we have gotten "better" in the last few centuries. And period during which numbers of the "faithful" and their control of civil society has steadily declined.

What you believe is a hateful medieval myth that has none nothing useful and offers nothing but division and hate. The sooner we leave this idea of supernatural religion in the trash can of history the better off we ALL will be.

 

[Riverwolf]

That is absolutely true and yet ask and Christian today if the Bible is "the word of God" and you will be hard pressed to find anyone who would say "no."

I've talked to many who felt that there were plenty of parts in the Bible which are NOT the Word of God, but of man.

Besides, with some exceptions, Christianity is ever-evolving, anyway. Sure, many refuse to change, but many do willingly and openly.

 

[slave2six]

Slave4six,

You are trying to shoot too many ducks in the air at once here.

BTW - I am enjoying this dialogue and if you read any anger into it, please don't.

It's all the same big duck. I'll parse it down though. The "Fall of man" however you characterize it (a literal Adam/Eve or metaphorical) is the basis of the entire Judeo-Christian faith. That's seems simple enough. Take that away and none of the rest of it makes any sense. Right?

Well, my point is that you have to take that away because there is no merit to it either literally or metaphorically. None. If it's supposed to be literal, it cannot be true fact. If it's metaphorical then it flies in the face of reason and moral goodness.

Therefore, why does Christianity exist as an independent religion? It has no foundation in fact or in moral goodness.