Does Your Divine Promote Theology or Reason?

I normally don't care for thinking about God anymore, but my family has taken a liking to force me to get involved in their religious activity. I have to take part in prayer at dinner, church, and I just want to go about my atheistic life without my parents worrying about eternity. Why would God do that to us anyways; want us to worry in life when we know there is sin and such of our eternal soul. The eternal soul is just transcendent to me. It has no potential in life, why does it matter?

And I wonder, if God can convey the ultimate truth and morals, and has omnipotence, then why is there a finite sized book to grasp all answers from? Why does the divine have to be this perfect divinity?

Why is it that when we have critical thought and we can discern faults of the bible, faults of the morals that are tried as perfect for our society. What do we as human beings want more: to have a virtuous society, or making the leader needed?

Why does the spiritual leader need to be construed with the physical world, the reality that social interaction is a part of. In the dualities contrived by man, there is likewise going to be two sides to everything, therefore there can be no objective good that must be followed for the most righteous path in eternity, just as there will always be somebody who sees wrong in the morals established in the book.

Is this God, really going to condemn us to this materialistic book that promotes dualities that will inevitably lead some to "eternal doom"? Ignorance is something God does not want, or sorry, for the theologians, if the bible doesn't say so then I guess God promotes ignorance?

I normally don't care for thinking about God anymore, but my family has taken a liking to force me to get involved in their religious activity.

And I wonder, if God can convey the ultimate truth and morals, and has omnipotence, then why is there a finite sized book to grasp all answers from? Why does the divine have to be this perfect divinity?

Why is it that when we have critical thought and we can discern faults of the bible, faults of the morals that are tried as perfect for our society.

Why does the spiritual leader need to be construed with the physical world, the reality that social interaction is a part of. In the dualities contrived by man, there is likewise going to be two sides to everything, therefore there can be no objective good that must be followed for the most righteous path in eternity, just as there will always be somebody who sees wrong in the morals established in the book.

Is this God, really going to condemn us to this materialistic book that promotes dualities that will inevitably lead some to "eternal doom"?

Ignorance is something God does not want, or sorry, for the theologians, if the bible doesn't say so then I guess God promotes ignorance?

At your age I was also an atheist and was forced to do the very same things.

At the very least you can do what I used to do during the sermon - take notes and devise critical arguments of what the preacher said. Perhaps you could meet them halfway?

does not have all of the answers.
Honestly, the "divine", or God, does not have to be perfect. The way various Christian groups, and other faith traditions, speak of God is just a matter of language. God, I think, is something to be experienced. No two people see the same event the same way, and no two people can be expected to convey God in language in the same way.

I'm not sure what you mean.

Well, if the spiritual leader does not exist in the physical world, that leader is going to have a heck of a hard time leading those of us in the physical world.

Though, I'm not so sure the Bible promotes duality.

Also, I think the Bible promotes wisdom. King Solomon is an important figure in the Old Testament who is celebrated for his wisdom.

An unchallenged faith is not worth having.

The Bible is but one explanation for God; it is certainly not the only source of wisdom in the world. Don't forget that.

I sypathize with your feeling of injustice, however I must say that you are (and I do NOT mean this to be insulting) ignorantly generalizing both God and Religion into a vague Christian conception of such things.

No offense is intended, but I have to laugh at the above statement.

If you're not a Christian, why do you think that the Bible is the only truth possible for you? -- It's not.

You are free to examine ALL philosophies and faiths and choose which is right for you. I do not believe that God promotes only a single brand of philosophy or speaks only to Christians. Why do you?

What made you become a theist?

Well, if the leader, being God, is to be needed, or Jesus Christ our spiritual leader; what is more important? Making the leader actually needed in our spiritual side via more than just doing good in life; or working for a virtuous society? What is the point of doing more than good?

Yes but is a spiritual leader in the physical world in the sense of objective gain doing anything for spiritual progress, or just for spiritual centralizing of opinion.

Sorry didn't word this right at all. I meant that the bible emanates this absoluteness of morality and wisdom, for fundamentalists especially. And then this absoluteness is rebuked by society in a dualistic manner being that there will be two sides to what is supposed to be a monistic truth influence on the people. People will define the traits of the posited truths in the Bible as good or evil. So it promotes duality without that reciprocity because it seems to have promoted these fundamental claims of holiness and such that make morals too objective for the betterment of society. The objective mentality evokes people taking offense much too easily, because they'll see themselves as more right when it's all about keeping an open mind and not being easily offended so as to promote needless conflict.

Yes I am very liberal about the Bible, just also an atheist at the same time.

Is it that fundamentalists don't see this or just don't find it relevant?

Warning: The following thoughts are for those who believe in free thought, reasoning, and critical thought. Those who feel that a book can represent the ultimate truth, and we ourselves must follow it for all our answers to our problems and ignore that cognitive process we mysteriously just happen to have... then I wish for you to read on. However, if you are stubborn not to see merit in the flip side of the coin, or will only take offense to this, that is not my intent and it will only be for the better not to read on. (This probably only applies to the guests)
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Ignorance is something God does not want, or sorry, for the theologians, if the bible doesn't say so then I guess God promotes ignorance?

Constantly, all the time. I try to be open minded about things. Yes I know of Aquinas and his work revolved around reason while he is still considered a theologist.

However, I wonder, can one really study the attributes of God? One can study the bible to study God if they consider a relevant connection between the two.

No, when I speak of christianity it is primarily the fundamentalists which I speak of.

I sense you feel offended by my remarks on here. If so, may I ask why? What would it ultimately matter, avatar?

That you have decided christians are fundamentalists as a whole. You say christians in a general sense to mean fundamentalist christians, as if they were the representative view. I am not if you are asking bothered by your questioning of my faith, but your decision to put it at odds with reason as an assumption, as opposed to an argument attacking the rational basis for faith. You say you wish to be open minded but you begin with the premise of 'faith or reason' as if predertiming the response.

Can we come closer to god by improving our knowlage and understanding of him and his creation? Yes.

Can we come to conclusions about him using his word as reported in the scripture in conjunction with reason? Yes.

Can we ever fully understand him? No.

He is beyond human comprehension, but we can come close to understanding him, every step on an infinite road that draws us closer to him.

Fair enough, though it wasn't my intent.



1.What knowledge and understand of him? It's hard to do this without experiencing him. And what creation? Can we not agree that this society we have evolved into hs been created ourselves by our own behaviour? What is the point of constraining such a system to the pretence of some divine who we can only conceive of. I see no point. This transcendence lacks potential, and steals it away from society. It does not mix well with human behaviour in that people do seem to take offense to conflicting views quite seriously. I speak of religion in general here, not trying to point at christianity. For example, there was just recently a trial in which some religious nutcases had the silly idea that it would be prudent as part of their faith to carry around these mini scimitars in public. Liberal christianity is ofcourse rational, unlike this religion here but you get my point.

2.Well first of all the bible is not God's word. It was written by humans. If I am going to go any further I need to know if you advocate the notion that God is omnipresent, potent and well... ultimate... perfect. If we can get past the fact that this sort of divine is not relevant to analyze then I can continue. If not, then we are only going to constantly disagree and arise among paradoxes

3.Also, we can reason through the scripture, but is the scripture itself reasoning? Not really. There is wisdom, but its human reasoning written by human beings.

4.I agree.

5.On an infinite road, what brings us actually closer to this divine?:listening:

6.Relatively speaking would imply that its really just the human divine we are capable of ourselves. All the good that we do, all the supposed miracles, and such... can we not accept that there doesn't need to be a God to have these things still exist and within our capacity?

7.For example. Say we might actually have a social paradigm shift, perhaps a resource based economy, get rid of capitalism. Now... why must we assume that the bible can tell us what to do here? We humans are able to figure out the morals and truths to govern virtue ourselves. Conforming to a single book for wisdom is IMHO, not virtuous, especially in the long run.

1. Not sure what you are trying to say about society? Clarify pleae.

2. I actually said '...as reported by the scriptures', jesus ,god incarnate, spoke and his words were recorded. Certainly he was not intending to have all his words taken litreally- he used parables, metaphors etc... but his words are still there and relativly uncorrupted. Plus I think paradoxes are part of what makes christianity work. More on that later.

3. The scripture is as I described it above. We use it in conjunction with our own reason.
4. But you probably mean somthing different :bigsmile:

If we add a number to another, it is higher and thus closer to infinity, but you would never reach infinity through adding. Obviously I have had to use an example of futility, because the journey towards understanding is the only fruitful infinite journey.

6. But can you accept that all these would be possible if they didn't exist? And in order to have existance you must have a cause for existance. An uncaused cause- God.

7. There are many models for a christian society that have been put forwards over the years- for instance monastries. Obviously the Bible is a guide to shaping a society, but of course the bible would and does say that capatalism is wrong.

You should start a thread on that. It'd be interesting.

And also, I don't believe that God's logic trumps mine. I am able to figure out the morals of the bible myself, not to mention surpass them. I mean, there are faults with the ten commandments.

And morals are relative(there's a failure to God's logica right there, without fixing it). It is going to put humanity in a horrible place to establish absolute morals, when the behaviour of humans constitutes relative, inconsistent values. I mean, what does God want of us humans then? For us to love him over our love of eachother?! I'm sorry, but when and if I have children, its them who comes first, not God, who I can't find a reason to employ in my beliefs and understandings when it doesn't even convey itself in our realities.

It is the now that matters, fellow mankind. I can do good, and use critical thought to denounce all of God's logic to be what is right absolutely. Critical thought, if fundamentalists can't accept it's applicable then why do we have it? To make us sin?! What kind of twisted game is this!

If God is the ultimate truth, then would you employ it into the court of law? Searching away for a quote that is open to thousands of interpretations (so God didn't really convey its absoluteness very well, to be put in the context of human writing.. in fact, human form is itself naturally relative, through variation) An invariant system is therefore insane.

If God wanted absoluteness it should've made us clones.
And in the court of law if we were to just abide by the ten commandments I'm sure there'd be plenty of situations in which paradoxes would arise. Absoluteness does not itself imply paradoxical situations... it can't logically. Logic is what humans use.

And about miracles. Explain to me why you think they exist. Can you not accept the empirical evidence that probability is the influence on why some patients die in surgery and some don't. Prayer has nothing to do with it. It is enough proof to see that its probability.

For example, I'm sure that if we had a bunch of patients who prayed for help before surgery, vs. those who didn't... the probability for survival would inevitably be the same. I'd love to test this. Besides, surviving the surgery against the odds is an act of human potential. If a surgeon can do this, good for him/her. If the odds are like 1 out of a million then I'd call this a divine acheivement. Its not that God was playing any role, its simply that the probability was there that a human being could inevitably do this. He/she could conduct the good on his/her own.

Also about society being sick. You must see this to be true. It has its merits but it is never going to be perfect. ( I know you already knew this).

What kind of society do you think we live in?

There are problems in every society and there is no need to take a defeatist attitude- we can fix a whole bunch of them.