Life after death

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Okay, if we gonna use Psalms, go to Africa, find a lion and kick him in his balls, see if you can defeat him with no weapons, save foot..

You´re not provoking God, Psalms says you should kick a lion (or Cobra) in his arse and God will save you

.......................
That guy who fell from the WTC, if he was a devout Christian, would angels come and rescue him?? He did not provoke God, he was acting out of fear..
Where was God?

The morals of that small story you gave us, was "Ask not God to prove himself, for he cannot"

And if God can´t prove himself, why would we believe his presence

Well neither do I, they just have some opinions which could be more usefull than the bible, koran, torah, egyptian book of dead or another book which is based on "a supernatural who cant prove himself"

 

To each his own ignorance, Big B. I prefer known philosophers who base their foundation on things that can be seen in nature, and patterns that repeat themselves over time. But if you prefer the musings of a handful of people with no foundation other than myth and faith, good travels to you on the road of life.

 

Enough, Morgoth. The Bible is allegory - analogies to the physical world to help people understand how God bears up the souls of believers. Remember that the audience for these passages believe that a person's life on earth is ephemeral and what really matters is eternity in the hereafter. Remember too that the texts originated at a time when most commumnication was oral and most listeners were uneducated, and you'll see why they needed to use this style.

I'm not asking you to change your position, merely to use reasonable statements in your arguments. So far you've been keeping this topic quite lively!

 

What really is the difference between the philosphers that isnt in the bible and the ones that are? So if Locke, Descarte and Hobbes had had the audacity to claim that they spoke the words of god would they then have done so? That is the only difference that I can see. I prefer to put stock in someone that claims that it is what he as a human has reasoned and thought about instead of some arrogant twit that tells you how it is because it is what god told him. They are all *human*, men and women like everyone else. Even the ones that wrote and were written about in the bible, though they were a helluva lot more arrogant than anyone else.

Edit: Why should the bible be an allegory? So you can pick the nicest parts and discard the rest? What then is there for purpose with it? And who is to say which parts to use which to not. I have to say that if you are a religios christian and believe in the bible you have to take it all, either it is all true or it isnt (historical facts excluded). So either you believe that you can sell your daughter, stone gay people and smite all your enemies or you do not believe in the bible. Everything else is extreme hypocrisy imo.

[ February 03, 2003, 17:53: Message edited by: joacqin ]

 

Regarding the Bible -- there are still plenty of literalists around.

Big B, I have read the Bible. Once all the way through and then pieces of it many, many times. The point with mentioning, for example Hobbes, isn't to try to show that the Bible is wrong etc. Indeed, many of the great philosophers were Christian and read the Bible too. The point in mentioning Hobbes was because some were denying the possibility of a system of law absent faith and I pointed to Hobbes as one example of a system of laws that don't spring from faith. Go back and read it again, I wasn't saying anything that even touched on the Bible.

 

Morgoth, as I said in earlier posts, when you read the Bible you have to take into context the whole Bible, not just the verse.

In the Psalm, the lion/cobra does not stand for an actual lion or cobra. What form did Satan use to approach and tempt Eve? The snake. And sometimes a lion was used to describe Satan (i.e. 1Peter 5:8, Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.) A footnote in my Bible uses dragon, as a possible substitution for serpent. I would suspect this has something to do with the translation and the thousands of hours of dedicated work of scholars to keep the meaning intact. In any case dragon keeps consistent because in Revelation, the dragon imagery is used again.

Also keep an eye out for the capitalization of "He", I noticed when you qouted Psalm 91:11, you didn't capitalize the "He". There is a big difference between God and god, God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit and anything else in the masculine form.

Secondly, the rest of the Psalm suggests that for no evil to befall you, and allow you to be victorious over Satan and all evil, you can't do it alone. Only by seeking refuge in God, and loving Him, and calling upon Him will you be victorious.

If you go out and kick a lion as you suggest and you loose your leg. That is your own fault. God does not call you to go out and kick lions. He calls you to have faith in Him, and He will deliver you from Satan.

In Matthew when Satan qoutes this verse to Jesus, he implies that Jesus, surely being the Son of God, seeks refuge in Him and loves Him, and therefore His angels would save Jesus were He to jump off the temple. Jesus of course sees right through this. It's not an issue of God can't prove Himself. It's an issue of God will prove Himself when He sees fit. He doesn't jump when Satan says jump. He doesn't jump when man says jump. He jumps when He's ready to jump. That's how it is. He can do that because He is God. Any other way, and He wouldn't be God. Sorry, but that's how it is. You may think it's not fair, but when God sent His son, part of Himself, to earth, Jesus did not make everyone bow down before Him. Jesus let people choose. And then He died on the cross for everyone. Everyone. It is not right to call God unjust or unfair. He has ensured you can be saved. You just have to choose. He doesn't force it upon you.

Unfortunately, Satan does. Should you choose no to God, you're in Satan's hands. And that's not a good place to be. That's outside of the realm, the Psalmist was describing. It's not going to be a voidless, dreamless sleep. But if that belief is going to stop you from believing in God, then Satan will let you hold onto that. Only to give you a rude awakening when you die.

Again, it doesn't have to be that way. You get to choose.

And joacqin, the authors of the Bible were not arrogant about their authorship. When people in the early days of the Church, were giving too much credit to Paul, he reminded them he was only a servant to God. Humility is the word of the day for the writers of the Bible. And joacqin, the old rules of the Jewish people were becoming so twisted and misused they no longer served their purpose which was to preserve the Jewish culture and follow God. These rules were supposed to keep the Jewish people apart from the pagan cultures around them. It didn't always work out that way. Why? Because the Jews often chose to ignore God and worship other false gods, adopt homosexual practices, etc. Jesus stressed loving your neighbor and He hung out with all despicable types that the Jews hated. When the prostitute was drug out into the street and the Jews approached Him, trying to trap Him in a dilemma, He told them "Let the first man without sin throw the stone." And of course no one did, because no one was without sin, and the prostitute was saved. He told the people not to get hung up in the old laws. He told people what God expected of us and what we needed to do to serve Him. ANd then the Holy Spirit inpsired men to research and record what they had found. And we have the Bible today.

It's there and yes you are required to have faith. But faith is a good thing. It makes the concept of choosing even better.

[ February 03, 2003, 19:30: Message edited by: Big B ]

 

okay let me say a few things

1. Sorry for being such a hard-ass in my last post, was tired, in a hurry, yetta yetta, (me make stoopid post )

2. In case of anybody else throwing a bible at my head with the argument "Go read a bible" let me remind you that i got a ****load of religious books in my bookcase ranging from 2/3 versions of the bible, koran, torah, a lot of deadbooks, Nag Hammadi, spiritual ones, Plato and Nietzsche. And else I got Internet and local library

3. Big B, I´m sorry if I insulted you with calling Him a he, but you had to associate Plato, Rand, Kant and others with Kermit and Mickey, you insulted Mickey and Kermit!!

4. Okay now more serious, how do you know that your following God as you think you do?? maybe your following Satan with his lies, after all He (as in Lucifer) gave mankind knowledge and the ability to think for oneselves. When you find out your were decieved isnt it then too late??
Maybe Satan claims to be good and therefore is more popular while the real God is wise and trust on human rationalism

 

Not to be different, but I don't think that Scripture is as complicated or allegorical as people make it. It's patently obvious that God does not safeguard His people from every harm that might befall them; can you point to anyone who has never suffered in their entire life? I think of the 23rd Psalm; "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me..." God doesn't promise that you won't ever go through anything, only that He will see you safely to the other side. But anyway, that's tangential...

To answer Laches, no, I don't believe in infinite punishment for a finite crime. As a matter of fact, I don't believe in infinite punishment at all... souls do not burn for eternity in hell -- an examination of the Scriptures will demonstrate that they are annihilated.

Also, pertaining to the law/faith discussion -- if morality originates only from a sense of enlightened self-interest, then how do you explain altruistic self-sacrifice? To put it a little more plainly, try to explain Christ's death on the cross in terms of self-interest. If it cannot be done, then the apparent conclusion is that there is a higher motivation than the naturalistic (Darwinian?) model would account for. So our moral code, our sense of good and evil, is somehow imprinted by a source outside the natural world that we experience daily.

On the big bang issue, it's patently obvious that our universe did begin at some point. To those who would suggest that the singularity was not created, but was always there, I ask what started the Big Bang then? And once again you come to the need of an outside force, so whether or not it always existed is really a moot point, since either way God would have had to start/create.

I'm trying to avoid the discussion of why the Bible is right, since it's a terribly long one, but it looks like I'm going to get sucked in anyway...

Let me go ahead and put a main point in. The primary reason not to dismiss the Bible as just a collection of wise, but fallible, teachings is because of prophecy. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the accusations by nonbelievers of prophecy being written after the fact have been dealt a hard blow. Some Internet searching will educate you...

I should mention that although the Bible does contain symbolism, I believe it in a literal sense. To take it any other way robs it of most of its power.

 

Tiamat, I know that you, along with pretty much all atheists, believe that your consciensnesses will dissipate, and that's exactly what I'm trying to get you to imagine. And if you are capable of imagining it, I'd like you to try to explain "why" we should live if only to fade from all forms of existence?
The desire for ultimate salvation is not necessarily the reason why men believe in God. There are those who actually believe in the "rightness" of God, that (for them/us) there not being God just doesn't make sense. And because we find that we agree with God's teachings (as we understand them).
I accept that there *are* other perspectives, I just don't usually accept that they are, or can be, correct. You said that "we don't really know for certain." You may not, but *I* do. Both my mind and my heart agree on this issue (one of the few issues they do agree on).
Yes, it is as simple as that. God *is* good. Satan *is* evil. Period. No gray, no shading. Black and white. I try not to make atheists feel like crap, because that's not how I think of atheists. Almost none of my friends really believe in God and I don't even try to make them feel bad about it. I've even been ridiculed for my faith in God, but never have I called an atheist something other than that, an atheist. I do respect atheists, I always have. However, I've found that this respect is often only one way. It's amazing how many people who call for respect DON'T have any of their own (I'm definitely not talking about you, but in this case, atheists in general).
About that law in Kentucky, I know that there's a lot more like that around the world, but were they dictated by God or by man? I've never read in the Bible any laws forbidding trespassing on government property, or that hurting a police officer is much worse than hurting an ordinary citizen, etc. I meant earlier that the *concept* of laws was inspired by God.

Morgoth,

In our society, faith and science are very different (although, they actually aren't), but back then, blind faith *was* science to most people. We can't judge the past by today's standards. God came from nowhere. God has always been, God will always be. Those 3 questions refer to the origin of the universe, something that had a beginning. The universe is expanding, therefore it started from somewhere. I haven't read anywhere that God is expanding, or that He is shrinking.
Why do you infer that the quote means "Ask not God to prove himself, for he cannot"? You are living proof that he does exist. Ask yourself this "How did life come about in the first place?" Who do you think it was who, as I've said earlier, breathed life into dust to create living organisms. Life certainly didn't come from hydrogen, or any of the elements formed in the Big Bang.

Amon-Ra, I'm sorry, but without reading "The Virtue of Selfishness" I find it hard to understand how selfish acts can depend on others. Just because he doesn't know how to grow corn, doesn't mean the man shouldn't kill the farmer. A corn crop is generally pretty big, and once it's expired the man could always move on. Theoretically, that's a good argument, but realistically, it's not.
Fear and respect could never achieve the same as love. Historically, show me one civilization based on fear that achieved the same as one based on love. (If you can, I may be forced to concede your point).

Laches, I know you're addressing Big B, but "those people" you speak of, are me. I know that his system of law didn't spring directly from faith, but where did it spring from? His own thoughts, beliefs, etc? Can you honestly tell me then, that none of these (ie, his thoughts, beliefs, etc) were affected/inspired in any way, by faith?

 

Imperial Rome? How many civilizations did they absorb and conquer? How many great inventions did its peoples invent, mainly because the inventers were super-rich/elite intellectuals [and as a by-product of their wealth, the rest of Rome was held poor under the bootheal of an Emporer]?

For centuries this country, held today as the single-greatest "empire" in the sense of fear and dread that commonly comes with the term, owned Europe. Not through love, but through military dominance. And you can't say nothing good came out of it- the elites were free to enterprise and think.

There is an example of a country that didn't need love, in fact, Christian love was part of its undoing. Christian love successfully rebelled against the oppression. This does not mean love is inherently "superior" in terms of successful countries. What came of Rome after Christian values spread can be seen clearly today.

As far as the cornman example, I admit that was a bad example, but there are things that still one man cannot do without another. A man is sick, can he treat himself or should he seek a doctor? A man wishes to have progeny, should he find a woman and rape her? Happy children are not this way born. A man desires to travel over a large body of water, should he seek a ferry or build his own boat? He could, of course, steal a boat, but then he's running a risk, a risk that could very well get him killed. That's not very rational, unless you are a superb thief and have confidence you can get away with it.

Reality shows that if you want something, you have two choices: to use something you have to get it [often trade or services], or you have to run the risk of taking it from whoever has it. We are taking for granted in the corn/farmer story that the man CAN kill the other man, and as a result of the killing will not be sought out by other men [perhaps other corn farmers fearing for their own safety, or in some way damaged by the loss in the farming community].

Rationality provides its own morality, its own ethics, as a form of compromise. Everyone wants something, or rather, a lot of things, and if they keep running risks, eventually the risks will catch up with them. A better method is compromise. We work together to get what we all want, or we become singled out by society as a non-participant, a disruptor, a rogue.

You are saying without the principles of religion, we would all be rogues, and no one would be logical enough to realize that cooperation has its merits. Would we all be willing to risk certain death if we wanted to take the mans corn? Or would we take something we have and give it to the man in return for some corn? I think the barter system is independent from God.

Inter-family, inter-tribe cooperation was around way before practiced religion, do you not think that this would have spread to mass-societal cooperation? And from cooperation, certain standards, certain laws would not be established based on the nature of that cooperation?

 

Faerus, and I'd like to ask you why shouldn't we live only to fade out of all existance? Why should there be a god to save us?
And if your god has existed forever then why should we not believe that the universe has? Surly if god can something else can?

And in the wisdom of Terry Pratchet, 'All answers eventually come down to 'because.' Why should there be a reason for everything? Why should we have this uber guy to save us? But then, why shouldn't we? Just because

 

Amon=Ra, Rome did conquer through fear and military might, and it did hold most of its outlying territories mostly through fear. But what about the heart of the Empire? If Rome had truly been completely run by fear, would the Emperor really have needed a Senate to "speak for the people"? Granted that it was the rich/elite intellectuals who invented all of those amazing things, but how often have the poor/below average citizens of a country invented amazing things? Granted that their wealth allowed the emperor to keep most of the rest of the Empire in line. What about the Roman Republic that came before? Here was a society based more on love than fear. Which accomplished more, the Republic or the Empire? IIRC, the Empire did more expansion than the Republic, but the Republic was the source of most of what is considered today to be the greatness of [Ancient] Rome. It was founded on love, but it grew through fear.
Yes, "Christian love" brought about the Empire's fall, but who can say whether this is good or bad? The Empire had gone into decline even before Christianity overwhelmed the Empire.

You sound contemptuous. What happened to Rome that was so bad? It became the head of the largest religious organizations in the world. Granted that it faced centuries of corruption, a corruption that is in the process of being cleaned out.
About those other examples, which way would be better for the man in question? Trying to cure himself on his own, or seeing a doctor? Raping a woman or having a relationship and then having children? Stealing a boat or riding a ferry? Either way, the man is still being selfish. He's doing this for his own personal gain, and while cooperation is necessary, it need not be lasting. Working together to achieve goals can be, and often is, done through selfishness. You want to advance yourself, but you need help from someone, so you try and befriend/intimidate that person.
I'm not saying "without the principles of religion" I'm saying "without the principles of faith." There is a significant difference, I assure you. I did not say that people would not cooperate, tribal communities were around before faith, AFAIK. I do not think that inter-tribe and inter-society cooperation would have spread to mass societal cooperation. First of all, inter-tribe cooperation was usually done to defend against a common threat or to get certain wanted/needed goods. Once the threat was eliminated or the goods gotten, cooperation usually ended there. The one greatest thing in history that brought tribes together was common or similar faith. Faith that helped the different tribes merge to form a greater tribe, and eventually, a society.

Aikanaro, we shouldn't believe the universe has existed forever because it is expanding/growing. And, when something expands/grows, it must have started somewhere. Why is it, that "if God can something else can"? I can think of nothing in the universe that comes even close to being as great as God, can you? Or, if you don't believe in God, try to think of something as great as what Christians/Muslims/Jews define God as being.

 

I think you were missing my point, Rand's point as well, selfishness is the 1 prized virtue. You said we cooperate only to get what we want, that's exactly what I said. What I'm saying is, that notion of selfish cooperation supercedes and predates faith. History is skewed now, because faith was introduced, so we may never know whether or not society would have progressed into mass cooperation. As far as I can tell, faith unified some tribes into greater tribes, and from there zealified the great tribes against eachother. Greeks vs. Persians, the Crusades, Nazis vs. Jews, Spanish Inquisition vs. Non-believers, take your pick. Faith has created as many schisms as it has unities.

As far as the expansion of the universe: it has been put forth that the universe IS expanding, and is accelerating in its expansion, but that positive acceleration is decreasing. Have you ever taken calculus?

Imagine the graph of x^2 + y^2 = R where R is some number. This gets you a circle. In the beginning the graph is growing in both positive x and y, and accelerating even [concave up]. But at a certain point it begins to decelerate and collapse back in on itself, forming the circle.

Many scientists today believe the expansion of the universe is similar to the oscillation of a spring, and that at some point of critical mass, the universe will collapse back in on itself.

Either that, or the Great Heat Death, where after infinite expansion of finite mass, gravitational pulls will dissipate from distance, all things will begin to cool, and motion, over infinite time, will cease...

 

Hey, hey, no one wants to say anything about my post?

Incidentally, for those who are skeptical of the existence of pure good and pure evil -- how could there not be? If we did not have a definition of what is "good" and what is "evil", we could not talk about shades of grey either.... From a purely naturalistic viewpoint, the only possible source for that definition would be "good-for-me" and "bad-for-me": the selfish virtue described by Amon-Ra. But as I mentioned, there are certain human actions which cannot be resolved with this model; the morality that dictates such actions arises from a greater motivation than naturalistic models can explain. Hence the belief in a supernatural order on which this morality can be founded.

On the expansion of the universe, it has yet to be determined whether the universe will collapse on itself. Scientists have not yet been able to measure the rate of change of acceleration; the latest I heard, there were data that suggested it may actually be positive, such that the universe will continue to expand. Admittedly, it has been a few months since I've read anything on the subject. The most basic support for continual expansion is that the mass that we can currently measure in the universe falls far short of the critical value needed for collapse. But this is really an aside -- sorry, just that cosmology has always interested me.

 

Capstone, we dont have a defintion of "good" and "evil".
Else please give me a proveable example of evil..

........................

If God had proven himself, I would become a theist, dont you think??
But I´m still atheist, and therefore I wont see these arguments as proof of His excistance..

But I dont believe there was something for the Big Bang, not for me that is. Because the universe started at the Big Bang and so did this timedimension.. Therefore no before and no after

[ February 04, 2003, 20:33: Message edited by: Morgoth ]

 

Hey Cap,

A couple of quick thoughts:

1. You said that an examination of Scripture reveals that souls that are "bad" for lack of a better term are annhilated rather than suffer eternally and that this is not a disproportionate punishment to the crime. I will admit that I haven't done any real reading of the Bible in years nor when I did read it did I search out what happens to souls after death according to it. However, I'm not so sure that the Bible is going to be all that clear on the subject and here is why I say that -- iirc the Roman Catholic view now is that hell is the absence of God. So, you're bad in life and as a result you spend an eternity absent from God. I just bring that up since I think if the scriptures were obvious that souls are annhilated then that wouldn't be the Roman Catholic view since they'd go with the obvious one too.

Also, suppose the punishment is annhilation. It seems to me that to be obliterated for eternity might also be disproportionate to finite crimes -- particularly if some people are right about what constitutes the types of crime which are punishable.

Those are just some thought on that subject, am I wrong in thinking any of that? Both parts seem like they might just boil down to opinion I suppose.

2. As far as describing law/faith I think there may be two types of law being discussed concurrently and that could confuse the issue. There is the written law/man's law etc which is what I thought they were originally talking about and then there is morality (which may not be a set of laws at all.)

I first was speaking about written/man law when I brought up Hobbes as one example of how that law might come about.

With regards to morality and its ability to exist absent a supernatural power -- I think self interest is only one way such morality might play out. Another example I think would be Kant's idea of a morality born from logic.

Also, the idea of a morality born from self interest can produce a more complex system than I think some believe. Rawls imagined us as self interested being in the original position and produced a very complex social morality which I think can also explain altruistic sacrafice. Now, I'm pulling this from thin air and thinking as I type, but I think that imagining us in the origianl position where we know nothing about ourselves we might all agree to the principle of altruistic sacrafice as being a good thing because the odds are that it is more likely that we will benefit from that sacrafice than be called upon to make it. That'll be empirically debatable and I have no evidence, but it seems to me that often altruistic sacrafice involves a benefit to many and thus you are more likely to benefit than to suffer. Now, I'm not saying I think this is right, but thinking while I type I think that is one way it might go.

Also, I personally feel that there is no necessary connection between the good and the traditional Judeo-Christian God since that God is typically defined as being good and that wouldn't have much meaning if the good was dependent upon it. That was a convoluted sentence. This was originally a greek idea and I'll try to search out original quote to try to see how I can explain what I mean better.

edit -- oh, and the purpose of that last bit is that if there is no necessary connection between god and good then I think it can probably be said that morality/ethics isn't reliant upon anthing supernatural.

[ February 04, 2003, 22:16: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

I would just like to insert that even though Rome concquered by military means and kept order with superior forces it still wouldnt been able to do if it hadnt most of its peoples good will. No goverment, no matter how strong can rule for a thousand years on military might alone. The romans were the most openminded and lighthanded rulers the concquered peoples had ever had and the average living standard was alot higher than in the previous years and the following. It is first in the early 20th century that general living standards came up to the level of the ones during the peak of the empire. They also had freedom of religion, something that ended with emperor Constantin though...which was a part of the downfall of the empire though far from the main.
The reason that christians was tossed to the lions werent because of their religion but because they were seen as subvertive elements, and of course the occasional mad emperor that viewed himself as god, but that is unavoiable...

 

People are at nature selfish, this is beacause that for the small time that we are on earth we should desire the best for ourselves. Humans are still selfish at the core and will always be so no matter how much social conditioning is applied. Eg, parents educate their children to follow their orders to the letter and not ask questions realizing that the best way to prepare someone for life is the let them choose for themselves, why?, because this makes child rearing easier on the parents. Also most people who perform "altruistic" deeds do so because they enjoy receiving the love of others, or knowing that others are happy. When someone says they are happy when others are happy as a reason to do good deeds then they are admitting that the only reason they do good deeds is because it makes them feel good, they are in essence receiving something for their service. Maybe i'm wrong but when we find someone who truly is altruistic then I would like to meet them.