Where is God?

[slave2six]

"Professional Christian" is an oxymoron. Yes. I am clergy.

Ah! Well, actually that helps me a great deal in understanding you.

Hey Cobbles, save your time. It's pointless to try to discuss things with Soj. Trust me. As the child of a clergyman and having spent a lifetime around similar-minded people, I know first hand. You'll go round and round but you'll never get this guy to commit to anything that is not ethereal/mystical/magical and therefore everything is open to interpretation and "revelation" or whatever. You'd have better luck trying to nail jello to the outside of your house than to get a solid, meaningful, reliable, non-mystical answer. The words "charlatan" and "snake oil" spring to mind as apt references to people who make a living off of god. There's no way on Earth that your going to have any common ground with such people.

Some people actually like that mysticism stuff because the "answers" are unverifiable and therefore comforting - just like the ancients believed that the sun was pushed across the sky by Ra. As long as they have an explanation (that they can cling to without having to think), no matter how wrong, they are satisfied. And I suppose that's all good and well when answering questions like "what happens when we die" because, like the answer, the question itself is meaningless because we have absolutely no way of knowing. From what I have read of your posts, you do not seem the kind of person who likes slippery and unverifiable answers, am I right?

 

[jtartar]

Supposedly he has created the universe, supposedly he has sent prophets and messengers to us, supposedly he communicates every now and then with people and supposedly he does his works daily.

A legitimate question would be: where is (the abrahmitic?) god?

ThereIsNoSpoon,
The Bible itself answers this very question, Ps 115:2,3. These two verses are asking from the nations point of view; Where is the Jew's God? They answer that their God is in the heavens.
Seversl times in the holy Scriptures the Bible tells us the God's dwelling place is the heavens, 1Kings 8:30,43,49, Ps 33:13,14, 123:1.
Consider what Rom 1:18-20, says about God being the creator of all the things we see, and that there is NO EXCUSE for not knowing that God created these things. The Bible tells us that every house was made by somebody, Heb 3:4, and that all things were made by God.
Have you ever thought about the way the heavens, the earth and all the many things in it are made?? God could have made one color, one food, one race. we could survive without all the beauty in nature, without sound, without a mind that is capable of learning for eternity, a mind that seeks out his maker. There are son many thing God has done to make life on earth pleasurable. All these things show that God loves His creation, and wants us to be happy, just as He is the Happy God, 1Tim 1:11. Of course the greatest proof of God's love for mankind was the giving of His son as a Ransom Sacrifice to take away man's sin, John 1:29,3:16,17, Matt 20:28, Rom 5:6-10, Eph 1:7, 1John 4:9,10.

 

[Cobblestones]

The words "charlatan" and "snake oil" spring to mind as apt references to people who make a living off of god. There's no way on Earth that your going to have any common ground with such people.

Hmm. Seems kinda harsh. You can't mean that all clergy are like this. I have known many who are extremely rational at least when it comes to everyday life etc. I have always been amazed by those who seem so sure about the "answers" as you say particularly when the answers cannot be known. Still, there have to be some people who are simply convinced of the unknowable but honestly so.

 

[MountainHumanist]

No, it's more than "my hyposthesis." It's the understanding that millions of believers share.

Millions stating a hypothesis does not elevated it beyond the nature of a hypothesis. It is still a statement made without backing evidence and thus a hypothesis. Fallacy of ad popularum notwithstanding.

 

[MountainHumanist]

ThereIsNoSpoon,
The Bible itself answers this very question, Ps 115:2,3. These two verses are asking from the nations point of view; Where is the Jew's God? They answer that their God is in the heavens.
Seversl times in the holy Scriptures the Bible tells us the God's dwelling place is the heavens, 1Kings 8:30,43,49, Ps 33:13,14, 123:1.
Consider what Rom 1:18-20, says about God being the creator of all the things we see, and that there is NO EXCUSE for not knowing that God created these things. The Bible tells us that every house was made by somebody, Heb 3:4, and that all things were made by God.
Have you ever thought about the way the heavens, the earth and all the many things in it are made?? God could have made one color, one food, one race. we could survive without all the beauty in nature, without sound, without a mind that is capable of learning for eternity, a mind that seeks out his maker. There are son many thing God has done to make life on earth pleasurable. All these things show that God loves His creation, and wants us to be happy, just as He is the Happy God, 1Tim 1:11. Of course the greatest proof of God's love for mankind was the giving of His son as a Ransom Sacrifice to take away man's sin, John 1:29,3:16,17, Matt 20:28, Rom 5:6-10, Eph 1:7, 1John 4:9,10.

Begs the question..where is heaven..you have only removed the question by a factor of one. He is the Happy God? Tell that to the people who died in a tsunami he allowed to happen (if gods actually existed, which they — on weight of lack of evidence — do not).

 

[sojourner]

As the child of a clergyman and having spent a lifetime around similar-minded people, I know first hand.

Well! very illuminating that! It explains very well why you would make such childish statements as:

You'll go round and round but you'll never get this guy to commit to anything that is not ethereal/mystical/magical and therefore everything is open to interpretation and "revelation" or whatever. You'd have better luck trying to nail jello to the outside of your house than to get a solid, meaningful, reliable, non-mystical answer. The words "charlatan" and "snake oil" spring to mind as apt references to people who make a living off of god. There's no way on Earth that your going to have any common ground with such people.

Some people actually like that mysticism stuff because the "answers" are unverifiable and therefore comforting - just like the ancients believed that the sun was pushed across the sky by Ra. As long as they have an explanation (that they can cling to without having to think), no matter how wrong, they are satisfied. And I suppose that's all good and well when answering questions like "what happens when we die" because, like the answer, the question itself is meaningless because we have absolutely no way of knowing. From what I have read of your posts, you do not seem the kind of person who likes slippery and unverifiable answers, am I right?

When we marry that response to your obvious stance as an atheist, the family baggage that got you to this point is all too open for us to examine and see for what it is. You're a burned PK. As such, your opinions of clergy are too subjective to be of much use for anything but to assuage your own anger and frustration.

 

[sojourner]

Millions stating a hypothesis does not elevated it beyond the nature of a hypothesis. It is still a statement made without backing evidence and thus a hypothesis. Fallacy of ad popularum notwithstanding.

It has backing evidence: The shared experiences of people over thousands of years. I can't help it if you won't accept it. Luckily for us, you're not the last word on what constitutes spiritual evidence.

 

[Cobblestones]

You're a burned PK.

Well, from what I have gathered there seems to be a stigma about PKs and that is generally a negative one. Why do you suppose that it? Could it be that such people are "burned" because the thing to which they have been constantly exposed is in fact unhealthy? I think of popular people like Frank Schaffer and Ruth Graham who are "burned PKs" and wonder why, if what their parents taught and lived was ni fact good and wholesome, they are burned.

Surely you will blame humanity, again. But isn't it possible that the problem is in fact the teaching itself?

 

[slave2six]

You're a burned PK. As such, your opinions of clergy are too subjective to be of much use for anything but to assuage your own anger and frustration.

That is, sir, the most ignorant statement I have read in months. Who knows a person better than that person's children? Who understands the Church (both the theoretical church and the actual church) better than those who have been indoctrinated in it their whole lives? Why do you think that Communists make it a priority to indoctrinate children from the earliest years of development? And if an adult raised under such circumstances was to somehow come and live in the Free world and get an objective view of Communism, would that person not be far more qualified to speak to its evils as well as its strengths?

There is an excellent book called "A Child of Hitler" that was written by a man who was indoctrinated in the Hitler Youth. He speaks of his life and his indoctrination and the transformation that he underwent after the war. This man traveled around the world with a woman who was a Jew who survived Auschwitz and together they explained in detail both sides of the story. Do you think that some historian would be better suited to explain what they underwent or that their testimony far outweighs some academic, forensic analysis of the psyche of the people who lived under the Nazi regime?

Don't flatter yourself that I am simply frustrated and angry and therefore what I say is somehow less true. Why shouldn't I be? You think the man raised under Communism or in the Nazi regime and then finds freedom and sanity is not angry at how he was abused and robbed of so many years of life under such intolerable doctrines? Of course I am angry. I have every reason and right to be. And he is a fool who thinks that one who has suffered injustice at the hands of a religious doctrine is less qualified to speak of what he knows than those who are the manipulators of such an evil system of control.

 

[slave2six]

Hmm. Seems kinda harsh. You can't mean that all clergy are like this. I have known many who are extremely rational at least when it comes to everyday life etc. I have always been amazed by those who seem so sure about the "answers" as you say particularly when the answers cannot be known. Still, there have to be some people who are simply convinced of the unknowable but honestly so.

Yes. Whether intentionally or not, anyone who perpetrates such an odious doctrine as Christianity is either a charlatan or at best an unthinking fool. Certainly there are many very nice people who are under this system but that does not make the doctrines any less wrong.

It's a strange thing about belief - otherwise rational people buying into and swearing to know that which cannot be known, as you phrased it, are all too common. And yet, the great thing about belief, especially a complex one, is that it is a playground for the truly intelligent which is why there is so diverse an opinion on doctrines and teachings. Once you accept the assumptions, there is no end to the nuances and metaphors for life - all of which are intellectually stimulating.

 

[slave2six]

I think of popular people like Frank Schaffer and Ruth Graham who are "burned PKs" and wonder why, if what their parents taught and lived was ni fact good and wholesome, they are burned.

In his book "Patience with God" Frank Schaeffer makes some powerfully insightful statements in this regard:

Children of ministers, and especially those of high-powered celebrity religious leaders, are members of a small and rather strange little club. Faith is complicated enough even if it isn't the family business. Loving God while you are selling Him is close to impossible.

<This> is why all so-called evangelical/fundamentalist intellectual activity has such a hollow ring to it; it begins with its "answer" and then twists itself into knots trying to justify the conclusions.

This latter quote is true not only of evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity. I have yet to meet any professional Christian of any sect who did not operate from a position of "knowing" things that you don't know (whether because of some intellectual arrival at a conclusion or because of some "revelation" or "personal experience") and then look down their noses at you because they are "in the know" and poor you just simply can't understand.

 

[Charity]

That is, sir, the most ignorant statement I have read in months. Who knows a person better than that person's children? Who understands the Church (both the theoretical church and the actual church) better than those who have been indoctrinated in it their whole lives? Why do you think that Communists make it a priority to indoctrinate children from the earliest years of development? And if an adult raised under such circumstances was to somehow come and live in the Free world and get an objective view of Communism, would that person not be far more qualified to speak to its evils as well as its strengths?

There is an excellent book called "A Child of Hitler" that was written by a man who was indoctrinated in the Hitler Youth. He speaks of his life and his indoctrination and the transformation that he underwent after the war. This man traveled around the world with a woman who was a Jew who survived Auschwitz and together they explained in detail both sides of the story. Do you think that some historian would be better suited to explain what they underwent or that their testimony far outweighs some academic, forensic analysis of the psyche of the people who lived under the Nazi regime?

Don't flatter yourself that I am simply frustrated and angry and therefore what I say is somehow less true. Why shouldn't I be? You think the man raised under Communism or in the Nazi regime and then finds freedom and sanity is not angry at how he was abused and robbed of so many years of life under such intolerable doctrines? Of course I am angry. I have every reason and right to be. And he is a fool who thinks that one who has suffered injustice at the hands of a religious doctrine is less qualified to speak of what he knows than those who are the manipulators of such an evil system of control.

You appear to be a rebel with a cause and perhaps rightfully so. Perhaps a rebel that had religion shoved down your throat by a somewhat fanatical dad that upheld religion and tradition. Another "do gooder" that took the word of God and turned it to man's word and used it for control and self righteousness.......
Some of these people God would have probably spit out of His mouth in disgust....

Didn't mean to go on a tangent, but I have several friends that were Pk. They also turned away from the way they were raised.......

 

[slave2six]

Luckily for us, you're not the last word on what constitutes spiritual evidence.

Just who is? Seems to me that the Gospel-story Jesus had particularly scathing things to say against religious professionals in particular. Or perhaps you will simply dismiss those as the rantings of a frustrated and angry GK (God-Kid)...

 

[slave2six]

Didn't mean to go on a tangent, but I have several friends that were Pk. They also turned away from the way they were raised.......

Yes, the two tend to go hand-in-hand. Of course, to the parents they are simply prodigals and the thought that it is their fault that their children rebelled never occurs to them. More's the pity.

Of course, for me the rebellion didn't occur until I was 43 so the term "PK" is a little misleading as I am hardly a "kid" any longer.

 

[Cobblestones]

Some of these people God would have probably spit out of His mouth in disgust.

That's always been a bit of a conundrum for me. I mean, look at the life of Christ who was supposed to represent the heart of the father. Then look at the teachings about "I will spew you out of my mouth" and other such lovely terms (not to mention the whole Hell thing) and one has to wonder. Who was the philosopher who said that Christianity begins with absurdity? I can't remember. But he was right.

 

[Charity]

But it doesn't alter the fact that you were a PK....The damage was done it took a while, old habits die hard...
I'm happy that you took a while to ponder your collateral damage and start to rebuild.

 

[slave2six]

Who was the philosopher who said that Christianity begins with absurdity? I can't remember. But he was right.

I believe you are thinking of Kierkegaard:

If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd.

 

[slave2six]

But it doesn't alter the fact that you were a PK....The damage was done it took a while, old habits die hard...
I'm happy that you took a while to ponder your collateral damage and start to rebuild.

Yes they do. I still catch myself feeling like some invisible being is looking over my shoulder and evaluating everything I do. It's happening less and less, which is freeing.

But, as you said, I am happy too. If not only for myself, at the very least I am able to teach my own children to think first and to believe only that which both their hearts and minds can accept without conflict. I do not teach them to believe nothing. That would be a huge mistake. But they do know how to ask the right questions and get to the heart of a matter pretty well. I'm really proud of them!

 

[Cobblestones]

I believe you are thinking of Kierkegaard:

That's the bloke!

 

[Charity]

That's always been a bit of a conundrum for me. I mean, look at the life of Christ who was supposed to represent the heart of the father. Then look at the teachings about "I will spew you out of my mouth" and other such lovely terms (not to mention the whole Hell thing) and one has to wonder. Who was the philosopher who said that Christianity begins with absurdity? I can't remember. But he was right.

See that's what I mean about old habits die hard......Understand that I mean here that God would probably been more upset at the self righteous than the "poor sinner" they were tongue lashing.....