The Faith & Religion mega Thread

The funny thing is that Jesus specifically told his disciples not to try to guess a date for his second coming because even he did not know the date. He would come, he said, like a thief in the night, and burglars don't usually advertise when they are going to break in!

Originally Posted by hazel There isn't one. That's where faith comes in. There has to be an element of personal commitment to believe the truth that Christ died for us and that faith in His sacrifice will save us. ...

I'm almost there except for this: I believe that Christ demonstrated salvation through non-compromise of his pacifistic ideals to death and beyond. However, I don't believe that faith in his sacrifice will save anybody, unless they too, likewise refuse to compromise the ideals of pacifism unto death... It is through one's own sacrifice that salvation is possible. Otherwise Christianity only breeds mediocrity. There is no such thing as vicarious salvation.

And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in. When you accept Christ, you receive the Spirit who inspired the scriptures. You can trust Him to ensure that your interpretation of His word, while it may be incorrect in some respects, will not be so in any way that harms you.

I feel this. The interpretive Spirit, whether Holy or not, is there and there is a feeling of serendipitous epiphany when the lens through which we view our experiences suddenly sheds a new light over everything....a possible explanation or hunch on they way of it, that rings true on the inside, cohering internally to all else that has rung true, and suddenly you feel: I'm right about this.

And that's how I feel about this inner voice that says to me Christ would prefer that we love and carry our pacifistic ideals to our own crosses, in nobody's name more than any violence ever being committed in his name. So much violence and bloodshed has already occurred in his name, that a cross has become more of a symbol of warfare than of peace: it looks like the hilt of a sword... Through the millennia since his death, fake Christians have ruined his name.

Just praying in Jesus' name, amen, honors him with lip service... but the real service is in the heart, and doesn't even need to be formulated into the words and names used in the fake lip service.

Trying to insist that we call pacifism unto death Christianity is trying to own it, like with trademarks and copyrights: sorry Bahai, we already call that Christianity. We don't need to call it Bahai either.

My gut conviction, and for all I know, the Holy Spirit are the whispering prayers of my gut bacteria, is that these names of things is not important and have more to do with vanity and politics than with God.

There is a terrible thing humans do with talent: they put it on a pedestal, up on a stage, separated from the throngs, making it seem like something only a few can have. We do this with our favorite musicians, yet there is music in all of us. There is a herd stomping juggernaut of mediocrity whispering that Mozart wrote his first symphony when he was 4 year old, so is you didn't write a symphony by the age of four, you probably don't have the talent it takes to be real music composer, and should keep your aspirations focused on being a good dish washer...

And we do the same thing with spiritual "talent"... when someone does not let the environment of fear and cruelty steal their inner peace, and practice that peace to the death, we like to put them on a pedestal too, create a religion about them, and say, look what only a few of us are capable: let's believe in their capabilities over our own...

I have a conscience. Not sure exactly what it is: perhaps the Holy Spirit; perhaps the bacteria again--but there is a voice, warning me of my excesses, telling me not so much of this here, and more of that there; and through the years, I have wondered about this voice, and discovered that regardless of its source, when I disregard its advice, the consequences it predicted happen. In otherwords, my conscience is like an inner prophet, nudging me to do the right thing or face calamity. Doing the right thing and avoiding the calamity doesn't invalidate that internal prophesy, just because the calamity didn't happen.

So that is my view on prophets: they are humanity's collective conscience, urging us to avoid calamities by doing the right thing. It doesn't follow that all their prophesies will come true... but they could if we don't heed their warnings... They are voices crying in the wilderness of despair... their words are on subway walls...

Originally Posted by enorbet It seems to me you target scientists, with which I naturally agree, but refer to Science and they are not the same thing, and I disagree with that discrepancy. Ultimately Science, the scientific method, is as simple as 1 = 1, and 1 + 1 = 2. This is an abstract construct beginning with a definition and a guaranteed relationship. That cannot be corrupted. It can only be accepted or denied. Practitioners of the scientific method, actual humans, are subjective and emotional, therefore real, flawed and imperfect unlike the perfect abstract construct...

I understand the difference between the person and the method. I don't target scientists or science, but rather I target corruption and point out its presence both in science and religion: both science and religion can have charlatans. Some doctors get called "quacks". Both science and religion employ critical thinking: the interpretation of results of experiment or of scripture both require critical thought. Science and religion both have "higher ups".

Both science and religion have pure practitioners: there are those who turn the cheek everywhere, and not just on Sundays, and there are scientists who are less prejudiced than others about outcomes of experiments before going into them. I don't believe its humanly possible to be all the way unprejudiced or objective.

What you said in another post about critical thinking seems impossible:

critical thinking and "falsification" require NOT beginning with a forgone conclusion

Perhaps this is possible in some platonic world of forms, where there is a perfect objectivity; but in our human and seemingly mortal existence, everyone has forgone conclusions and presuppositions, even scientists, such that pure science cannot be practiced. Your critical thinking about the scientific method has a forgone conclusion that 1=1 and 1+1=2, and a presupposition that this is a guaranteed relationship. Did you get a warranty on it from somewhere I missed? This presumes so much and you appear to have faith in some sort of "guarantee". This presumes that these laws of math are immutable, irreproachable--Holy and ordained by the Scientific God of universe that behaves in a way discernible to objective reason. You have a presupposition and forgone conclusion that the scientific method is infallible. It's the people that are corrupt, but this method is like some holy grail of rationality, when in fact it has an inherently presupposed metaphysics of logical consistency in the universe.

TLDR - It isn't Science that has faults. It is the practitioners and that is how it must be because Chance is everywhere (events are routinely only similar, if at all, and rarely, if ever, identical) and can be affected by the objective, the subjective and even the superstitious for either extreme of outcome. Wearing your "lucky talisman" or knocking on wood may fill you with sufficient confidence to prevail even when the odds are unfavorable otherwise. However, given sufficient information, Reason is more reliable. Successful poker players are not actually lucky. They are just better at figuring odds than those that only trust in luck.

Its way more than figuring odds: successful poker players are better at figuring people, a knowledge that comes from their living chemistry with the whole, a type of knowledge that is not objectively acquired. When one prepares one's lucky talisman, one is investing energy into this living chemistry. Likewise with chanting, singing, praying, meditationg: our energy interacts with the living whole and has realtime responses...

Please consider a metaphysics in which the physical stuff the science is measuring is shaped by consciousness. Consciousness is not shaped from physical stuff: physical stuff is shaped by consciousness, just like wonder twins, "shape of pale" -- "form of water", lol.

The scientific method has inherent prejudiced denial of this relationship between consciousness and the laws of physics. This makes it dangerous because it cannot accept responsibility for its own shapings, and because disconnecting everybody from the living chemistry into quantifiable entities is shaped like hell, with everybody lonely and separate, when we are not!

So if such a metaphysics was the case, then the scientific method is dangerous, because it is inherently based on a different metaphysics in denial of possibility that what is measured is shaped by consciousness. That is why science is just another religion: because deep down at the core of its method is just another metaphysics. Accepting its metaphysics of isolated measurable dead particles, is rejecting this other metaphysics of the living universe. What's the point in measuring them if we can change them with collective conscious intention? The more science takes measurements of hell, the more hell gets shaped by its experiments, in one long self-validating descent to nuclear holocaust (fire and brimstone): btw, this is a prophesy.

Originally Posted by hazel The funny thing is that Jesus specifically told his disciples not to try to guess a date for his second coming because even he did not know the date. He would come, he said, like a thief in the night, and burglars don't usually advertise when they are going to break in!

Perhaps he already came back, and he was so sneaky none of us wicked folk noticed; and so now all we got is a contraction of hell and earth: health... and its getting poorer all the time! Perhaps hell is knowing that heaven is but a shift in pov, and sharing that unto infinity to no avail as the people just walk away shaking their heads, continuing on with their old pov, muttering about paying attention to science and bloody idealists...

These are among the inconsistencies that lead me to ponder "the quest for the historical Jesus." On the one hand, He said that "no one knows the hour." But, on the other, He also said that some of his disciples "would not taste death" before He returned.

And, as for me, I don't endeavor to explain it. I have nothing to "reconcile." I simply find it interesting. To me, the texts of the books we now possess – and the entire provenance that led up to them – was always "vulnerable to manipulation," and we would have no way to know when or how this "manipulation" might have occurred. Over the passage of centuries and endless political struggles, "here are the texts that we now have."

You guys still going about this guy who nobody knows for sure ever really lived.
Btw, a sect was started by crazies of the time and survived, thrived into a mega global corporation that committed seriously heinous crimes against humanity and including slavery... for profit and power.
Noting like brainwashing to keep the masses to keep on giving and from a book that changes every century to fit the narrative of the time.

Good luck to whoever drank the cool aide but hey, a sect is a sect no matter if it is big or small.

Testing (Blocked?)

My apologies. I don't understand yet what's going on here. I successfully post this and the last post but whether I initiate a specific response or edit to include, I get a Cloudflare error saying I'm blocked when obviously, that's not accurate. I'll first just try again later but may have to resort to a piecemeal set of posts to determine if some keyword is a trigger since I have edited and added to this post several times now without error. The only time I get "blocked" is with a specific response. Curiouser and curiouser.

Seen https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...ys-4175719610/ yet?

Thank you mrmazda. I have yet to figure out the offending "code" (none intended and not using Tor) but at least your link let me know this happens from time to time.

This is WEIRD! As you can see 1 + 1 = 2 posts fine here but it triggers Cloudflare when posted numerically below where I had to use text instead. I wrapped the text that doesn't post as numbers with *s.

Just FTR slac-in-the-box and in all sincerity I don't see that, even by definition, Faith requires critical thinking. Quite the opposite or there wouldn't even be a common term like "Blind Faith". Conversely, the abstract construct of 1 = 1 (Identity) and *One Plus One equals Two* (apparently that last equation numerically is the Cloudflare trigger) (extended Identity by definition) is not a "forgone conclusion" as it isn't a conclusion at all. It is a premise on an agreed definition of terms following the "If This, Then That" progression.

No matter who or how many times one performs such calculations, the conclusion, again by definition, is always the same exactly because the premise is literally as simple as it gets, an Identity. It doesn't matter what name one selects to label single things, the concept still holds, and this applies to a single atom, which consists of several parts but can be seen as single IF the same categorization is consistent. One group plus another similar group is 2 groups, as long as we keep consistency of what a group is for that calculation exactly because such a calculation is only for quantity not quality.

Simply put there is no way for anyone at any time under any circumstances to demonstrate or even argue that One does NOT equal One because that abstract is defined as itself, as Identity.

Conversely, Faith, and we can limit this to the most common concern as "Faith in Creation" to keep things as simple as possible, starts with a Premise that is already a conclusion NOT an Identity. Logic not only does not apply, it can not apply as there is no more fundamental step of Identity that leads necessarily to that conclusion. This follows because there is no, can be no, supporting identification or ANY data from anything Before, whether we consider The Beginning as Big Bang or Creation.

Creation is impossible to falsify so it cannot be scientific. It must be Blind Faith, and again, requiring the suspension of disbelief, not Critical Thinking. One must always check ones premises for Logic to be applicable and accurate.

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs These are among the inconsistencies that lead me to ponder "the quest for the historical Jesus." On the one hand, He said that "no one knows the hour." But, on the other, He also said that some of his disciples "would not taste death" before He returned.

The "not taste death" quote is actually

Originally Posted by Matthew 16:28 Truly I say to you that there are some of those standing here who will not taste death at all until first they see the Son of man coming in his Kingdom.

The following verses in Matthew 17 detail the transfuguration. Peter, one of the witnesses, commented on the Transfiguration in these words

Originally Posted by 2 Peter 1:16-18 No, it was not by following artfully contrived false stories that we made known to you the power and presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, but rather, we were eyewitnesses of his magnificence. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when words such as these were conveyed to him by the magnificent glory: “This is my Son, my beloved, whom I myself have approved.” Yes, these words we heard coming from heaven while we were with him in the holy mountain.

So that promise was actually fulfilled six days later. As for the quest for the historical Jesus: there's more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ than there is for:

• Julius Caesar.
• Alexander the Great.
• William Shakespeare.
• Many many others who I could mention.

You have no trouble believing in those past individuals. But people reject Jesus' existence because acknowledging it imposes the unwelcome obligation to serve God as he instructed us. So in these last days, lack of faith is much easier to spread than true faith. The bulk of Christianity have also been an obstacle wth nearly two millenia of egregious bad example behind them.

Originally Posted by slac-in-the-box Perhaps he already came back, and he was so sneaky none of us wicked folk noticed:

Just because you didn't notice doesn't mean you're wicked. Unless you have something you'd like to disclose? . Witnesses believe that Christ has already returned, as described in Daniel 7:12-14 The beasts actually signify Governments, if that makes understanding things any easier. So now you know why Jehovah's Witnesses do their preaching work door-to-door and with literature carts.

Originally Posted by enorbet Just FTR slac-in-the-box and in all sincerity I don't see that, even by definition, Faith requires critical thinking. Quite the opposite or there wouldn't even be a common term like "Blind Faith".

Faith is steeled by critical thought. This is the classic model. Those monks, Augustine, and Aquinas, were both men of faith and critical thought.

A well thought out faith is not a blind faith.. .it is a faith instructed by reason. I have thoughtfully chosen to believe in the possibility of a living intelligent consciousness that is a synergy of all consciousness.

Due to the possibility of Infinite Happenstance, even the most well reasoned systems of rationality could be based on chance patterns that seem like rational order... This is the salt that we are supposed to take beliefs with. We are actors, informed of our roll by rational systems, and performing our rolls with confidence requires a little faith that the systems of rationality didn't get it wrong... while the salt is a slight humility knowing that well, the system of rationality might have gotten it wrong, but we don't know it yet... It's our best at the moment, but it could be wrong. That's why science has paradigms and not laws. So to act on a potentially mistaken paradigm requires a little faith.

Blind faith is for fools. The Slackware /usr/games/fortune sometimes displays something wise when I log in: once it said, an Old Indian Proverb is to Have Faith, But steer away from the rocks.

Blind faiths are dogmatic in nature.
Reasoned faiths are humble in nature.

In my view, slac-in-the-box, human attributes are rarely binary, they come in degrees on a sliding scale. Obviously there are those who routinely apply critical thinking who also exercise speculation, supposition, and faith, often compartmentalized. That doesn't lend the speculation and faith parts the weight of critical thought inherently. In the case of belief in a Creator, the most fundamental precept of all religion, there is zero foundation, zero possibility of falsification. That most fundamental step is impossible to reach by Reason. Therefore everything that follows is based on supposition. This is distinguished from Fact such as 1 = 1 (simple and unconditional) and "If, under the influence of gravity, one exerts a force opposing gravity, the results will be eventually in favor of the stronger force" (more complex and conditional but still obvious and immutable).

IOW, ultimately all faith is blind because the most basic principle, the very "prime mover" premise, is untestable.