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There is a story to this effect in the “Lives of the Fathers” about a farmer whose crops were more plentiful than those of his neighbors. On being asked how this happened with such unvarying regularity, he said he was not surprised because he always had the kind of weather he wanted. He was asked to explain. He said: “It is so because I want whatever kind of weather God wants, and because I do, he gives me the harvests I want.’’
Your Sacred Mind always knows the truth, and will eventually override the misconceptions of the conscious mind, which can be reprogrammed as you strive to clear the subconscious mind of all negative influences. Your Sacred Mind is the direct connection to the God Mind.
LOL! ditto.
If I was to believe in the likelihood of influential angels roaming these threads, I'd probably be most concerned about Seraphim. LOL! (Seraphim, this is just a joke based on your name's meaning and appearance in various religious writings.) OTOH, some theologians believe that Michael the Archangel was Jesus! In that case, I'd probably burst into flames!
But while we are on the topic of "science" and "religion", I have always seen the two disciplines as having a common thread of trying to find words appropriate to the experience of reality. Approached correctly, religion is always scientific, in the sense that we must not simply come up with platitudes and concepts that have an inspiring spiritual feeling about them, but must only say what is demonstrably found by experience to be TRUE. Religious questions, like scientific questions, are all about what is TRUE and REAL, as opposed to what is FALSE and ILLUSORY. And there is so much religious drivel out there, posing as inspiration. It's like eating white bread all the time - might taste good at first but offers very little real nutrition.
This is very very applicable to time management also. For example, I have recently been reading two books: A Factory of One by Daniel Markovitz, and Getting Results the Agile Way by JD Meier. They are totally different in their approach.
Markovitz offers fresh and systematic solutions based on long experience of what works and doesn't work in real life. Many of his ideas seem counter-intuitive at first, but if you try them out, they WORK. (Mark Forster's ideas have the same characteristic: for example, the random task management approach.) The book is chock full of practical and insightful ideas that have been proven to work. I am sure I will need to read it a few times to really digest it.
Meier, on the other hand, is heavy on concepts, theories, platitudes and plausible-sounding quotations, but with far less practical how-to. There are some solid nuggets in there, but it's tough slogging through all the drivel to find them. Probably 80% of the book is useless. For example, there's a whole chapter on "motivation" that is full of platitudes that have actually proven to be false by others who have examined these questions more deeply and seriously. It just made me mad to read it, and prompted me to look up Amazon's return policy (eh, it's not worth the return postage, the time to package it, and the trip to the UPS Store!).
Unsurprisingly, both books have excellent reviews on Amazon. :-)
Judging by the way you contribute to the discussion and how you interact, I'd say that your parents were accurate with your name.
Platitudes, arbitrary and erroneous advice? Eh, many of them are more interested in marketing themselves than really help people. Mark Forster is the ONLY expert that is truly passionate about devising methods to actually help people. He doesn't stop there. He puts his trials online so that others can test them along with him. He offers much advice yet he also is willing to listen to feedback in developing his systems. He and others here truly have my respect. This is a nice place to visit.
You frequently offer sources for further study via book reviews and articles to read. Your Kanban series was excellent. I even looked at your excel chart and photos. That was nice of you to go to the bother. I always learn fastest when I can actually "see". Thanks!
Seraphim: Thanks for the tipoff to Factory of One. I read Meier's book last year or two years ago and it struck me as very mechanistic. Adopt the outcomes only mindset, 3 MITs for the year/quarter/etc, and basically just grind, grind, grind. Motivation becomes important because there seems little inspiration to pull one forward. It was a joyless book.
Meier has certainly accomplished a lot and if this methodology helped him and his mentees survive at Microsoft, then it's certainly a great methodology. But I find these kinds of books (like relationship books and diet books) document what helped the authors with their time mgmt, relationship, diet, etc. They may not be helpful to people whose personalities favor Mark's systematically intuitive methods.
That said, some of Meier's stuff did stick with me and I added a few of his tools to my kit. But if he were to read the methods at the heart of "How to Make Your Dreams Come True", I imagine he would be truly baffled as to how they could work for anyone.
You wrote:
“Approached correctly, religion is always scientific, in the sense that we must not simply come up with platitudes and concepts that have an inspiring spiritual feeling about them, but must only say what is demonstrably found by experience to be TRUE. Religious questions, like scientific questions, are all about what is TRUE and REAL, as opposed to what is FALSE and ILLUSORY”
Could you elaborate on this just a touch. Over the years, I have run with the assumption that if something can be demonstrated to be a fact, then Faith is not reguired and it is usually deposited in our database of knowledge and we move on to other ponderables. My impression was that Faith is used when there is an unknown and the person believes a deity is responsible or is the answer. I had the concept that religion attempts to answer questions that science cannot.
When you use the words “demonstrably” and “scientific” I am pulled to think of the workings of the Scientific Method. Stealing (a sin) from Wikipedia, the steps basically boil down to this: There is a formulation of a question such a “why is such an such” or “how does such and such occur”. Then you develop a Hypothesis to try to answer the question(s). A Prediction is made to determine the logical consequences of the hypothesis. Next, a stringent Test is developed and performed to see if the prediction necessarily follows from the hypothesis. And this test must be repeatable to demonstrate that the prediction holds water. Finally, the data from the testing is Analyzed by other experts (scientists) in the field and those with sufficient training. If it survives that process, only then is it given any validity. Because of the way science works, it was my understanding that it does not approach the questions that are at the core of religions. Maybe this is outdated thinking.
I am not trying to debate the issue, only to understand what you were referring to.
Thanks for the question, I love discussions of this kind. :-)
There's the long answer, and there's the short answer. I will try to give the short answer. :-)
In my opinion, the idea that "science" is about what can be known and proved, and "faith" is about the unknown and the unprovable, is one of the most significant and pervasive fallacies of our times.
This understanding of the word "faith" leads to all kinds of arbitrary beliefs. In a more communal and hierarchical era, perhaps it took the form of arbitrary absolute belief in a general authority of some kind: a Priesthood or a Scripture. In our more individualistic era, it takes an equally arbitrary form: "I can believe whatever I want and who are you to tell me otherwise?" Not only religious people fall into these traps, of course!
But arbitrary acceptance of authority (whether it's an external authority or the authority of one's own personal opinion) is not at all the meaning of the word "faith" (Greek πίστις). That just isn't what the word means. "Faith" means "trust". That is, if I have faith in someone, it means I find them to be trustworthy, I can rely on them. The word originates from the Greek πείθω, which means "persuasion". In other words, I have faith in someone or something, because I have been _persuaded_ that the person or thing is reliable, true, trustworthy.
This is exactly the opposite of accepting an arbitrary belief that cannot be proven or known.
In religious matters, this refers mainly to God: first, is God real? Second, what is God like? Third, what is my relationship to God; what does it matter to me? In my own life, I have been persuaded by many experiences in life that God is undeniably real; that these experiences in life cannot be explained in any other way; and that this is an ongoing experience in life that doesn't ever really change in any essential way (although my own understanding of it certainly grows and matures and changes). And this experience of God shows me that God is not just some arbitrary spiritual force, but is Personal, with certain things that are very important to Him, and certain things that are true about Him, and other things that are not true at all. And it also shows me that God is very concerned about humanity; and not just humanity in general, but in fact very lovingly and seriously concerned about every individual human person; which also means He is very lovingly and actively concerned even about me, personally.
Not only is the experience intellectually consistent, holding up against confirmation bias and other fallacies, and so on. And not only is the experience external and visible, in terms of miraculous things I and my family have experienced so many times. But chiefly for me personally, I feel the most substantial experience is the inner experience and conviction - grace and peace and light and joyful sorrow, a kind of inner vision that cannot really be explained. It's like explaining color vision to someone who has only ever experienced black and white. And that inner experience is predominantly of a moral nature - love and betrayal, friendship and adversity, courage and cowardice, good and evil, sin and redemption, brokenness and healing, sinfulness and repentance and forgiveness, seeing the connections between one's secret moral actions, and the outcomes that inevitably follow. One finds that there are spiritual laws operating in all these areas, just as physical laws govern visible phenomena.
And this isn't just my own experience - it is the common experience of nearly all Christians I have ever met, and also of some non-Christians who have been seeking to find God and understanding His place in their lives.
At the beginning of this post, I said that some might believe in a Priesthood or a Scripture merely because it is "the Authority" and people are just in the habit of submitting to the Authority. Christians believe in Scripture (and perhaps other reliable sources of authority as well). But not simply because it's "The Authority" and we must blindly accept it. Rather, we believe in the Bible because we have found through common experience that it is trustworthy and reliable, and it confirms and supports and strengthens our own experience of God, and helps us to understand it better by seeing how so many others before us experienced and explained the same kinds of things.
This is like "the scientific method" in so many ways… We look at our own experience, our own observations of life, our own inner world as well as ordinary mundane experiences, and we try to make sense of it. In the same way, science observes the world and its phenomena, and tries to make sense of it. In both cases, you can follow a fairly simple method, such as proposing a hypothesis, testing it, evaluating the results, drawing conclusions, and forming a new hypothesis. Sense CAN be made of it - there are patterns and rules, an internal logic that demonstrates cause and effect.
The real difference between science and religion is the subject matter, not the methods. Science deals primarily with impersonal physical phenomena (often making the mistake of trying to reduce EVERYTHING to impersonal physical phenomena). Religion deals primarily with personal and spiritual phenomena (sometimes making the mistake of trying to exalt EVERYTHING to the level of personal and spiritual phenomena). These are two different kinds of things, but they are not two separate realms, they are both interwoven and overlapping, just as we humans are both physical and spiritual beings. And the personal and spiritual phenomena are just as real, and just as objective, and just as subject to the rules of reality and truth and falsehood as the realm of impersonal physical phenomena.
That's why nice-sounding platitudes fail equally spectacularly in both domains - which is what started me on these reflections in the first place, a few posts back. :-)
(And now that you have seen the short version, aren't you glad I didn't post the long?) :-)
This doesn't mean I put faith in the scientific method on the same level as faith in God. God, as the Creator of the universe, obviously understands the truth of things better than we ever will, or will ever be able to arrive at, by means of a useful tool, even a very useful tool such as Bacon's method. My point is not to equate faith in God and faith in the scientific method; but rather to point out that they are essentially the same kinds of faith: reliance on something we have found through experience to be trustworthy.
Sacred doctrine is a science.
We must bear in mind that there are two kinds of sciences.
There are some which proceed from a principle known by the natural light of the intelligence, such as arithmetic and geometry and the like.
There are some which proceed from principles known by the light of a higher science: thus the science of perspective proceeds from principles established by geometry, and music from principles established by arithmetic.
So it is that sacred doctrine is a science, because it proceeds from principles established by the light of a higher science, namely the science of God and the blessed.
Hence, just as the musician accepts on authority the principles taught him by the mathematician, so sacred science is established on principles revealed by God.
Religion has evolved as a means to try and make sense of the world. It takes different forms in different cultures. For a long time it served a purpose in trying to give order to things that we notice, things which other creatures lack the ability to look for patterns in.
Death is a good example. In looking for meaning in it we are troubled because we can map our own experiences onto what we see happening in other people. Religion offers a way to give meaning (make sense of a pattern) to what is nothing more than a process which happens to everything, in this case on a biological level. We are looking for meaning where there simply isn't any, and in doing so have concoted a framework in religion to deal with this most normal of processes. Being dead is very much like not being alive yet, something which I personally experienced for many billions of years and can tell you it was most uneventful.
So religions have been mankind's first structured attempts at astronomy, healthcare, the process of observation and generally making sense of the world around us, as we are driven to do.
We've moved on from there and thanks to our exponentially increasing knowledge and improving tools we continue to unravel the world around us using science, with each thread sometimes posing even greater questions. Our picture of our reality slowly takes ever more shape. We moved on from thinking that rain is caused by Zeus, but at one time that was as good an explanation as we could imagine.
The awe and beauty revealed by this process is far more wonderful than anything provided by any of the hundreds of man-made religions, including the relatively few mutually exclusive ones left today.
There's my 2 pence (or 3 cents) on the matter.
Is it possible that your views about death and everything are just *your* brain seeking patterns and meaning in the world about you in order to come up with an explanation which is meaningful to you? You may be imposing your own pattern on the world.
As I say, religion served its purpose but today it generally holds humanity back through fear and dogma and an obsession with death. Thankfully it is declining. I don't have anything more to add here. The onus is not on me to disprove an extraordinary assertion.
The soul knows how things are likely to happen. The soul is outside of time, looking at life from above.
Where do you come up with this stuff? The brain has no capacity to plan? Where do you get your information about the knowledge, concerns and thinking capacities of the "soul"? Is it really bothered or capable of looking at life? Why from above? GEEZ! Why not state "I believe that..." vs framing it as declarations of truth. With such bold declarations, you might want to provide references, footnotes, etc. as if you could...
As my brain and body plan for yet more medical procedures, my soul doesn't know the outcome nor does it care.
How can you be so pedantic about that which you (nor anybody else) can possibly know and posit it as declarative truth? GEEZ!
I can only pray that you're neither a man of the cloth nor a university professor.
<< the short answer is no, that is not possible. >>
So to sum up, the human brain evolved in such a way that it consciously looks for patterns and meaning in the world around us. But it's not possible that that would apply to *your* brain.
Did I get that right?
If you ever bothered to delve into any serious theological or ideological discourse, you'll note that it's always heavily footnoted.
Did I get that right? "
No, of course not, that is the polar opposite of what I wrote. Whatever, I'm not interested in being baited into a fight by having to rebut "have you stopped beating your wife" type reasoning, so feel free to crack on as you were.
I can't really see that christian beliefs are scientific, if they are then why wouldn't the 'law of attraction' type stuff be scientific too?
Please forgive me. I thought you were interested in having a discussion. That's why people usually post in this Forum.
It is interesting that each claims to have no biases and their conclusions are all based upon "objective" examination. When anyone claims such, I am on the alert. I'm not aware of anytime I have been completely objective about anything and I cannot conceive of it being the case for anyone. Even science assumes this bias, thus we have the process of peer review to expose the faulty leanings of the experimenter. We all see the world through our lenses. Some are more critically based than others, but everyone has some sort of filter.
The first year of my marriage, I would bring home flowers from a little old lady I visited from time to time. My wife became sick and a neighbor who gardened a bit, wanted me to cut any flowers of my choice. They were pretty much the same varieties I had brought home before. After about 5 or 6 days, they were still fresh looking. We marveled at this and tried to figure out the factors that made this possible so that we could enjoy our flowers more in the future. We thought that maybe it was the short time between cutting and getting it in a vase compared with the previous ones I had brought home. But we were not really sure.
Yet at no time did it occur to us to think, "I can think of no good reason for the flowers to be this fresh. Based upon that, there is only one other thing it could have been--God".
Not saying that could not be the answer, but we do not go to it as our default when we are clueless about some event in our lives.
Recently, a tenant at an apartment complex complained of Bedbugs. Sure enough, we found them. The tenant assured me that there was no way they were brought in by her family--they had to have been there all along (two years). After 2 days of interviewing tenants and doing inspections, we found where they were coming from (an apartment that her child visited everyday) but we almost gave up and were lucky to find out where the problem originated.
BUT, at NO time did we say, "I can't explain how these people got bedbugs in their home, so it must have been something Supernatural"
In fact, I know of no instance where the world had no knowledge of how some event occurred, and eventually we discover it was the supernatural. In fact, every time it has been just the opposite--we claim a god did it, only to find out differently years later.
God may be very real, but our claims of his dealings with man seem to fall short. I wonder if he has a V8 moment, slaps his head and says, "I can't believe they are saying I did THAT". Of course with his perfect foreknowledge, he already knew they would :-)
So the article posted regarding the "Miracle of the flowers" was a bit disappointing. This led me to wonder about the amount of critical thinking many bring to the arena of faith.
During my morning prayers, I could swear I thought I heard God say, "miracle of the flowers...GEEZ"
Personally, I don't think Chris read closely enough even to really understand what Mark or I were saying. He issued a knee-jerk canned response (perhaps without even realizing it). It's the same shallow response I have heard countless times, till I repeatedly point out and emphasize they are arguing against strawmen, and not anything I actually said or claimed. It can take quite some effort to get past that strawman point, and then we can have some real discussion. It might turn out that we still disagree - but at least we can have a real discussion. Anybody remember "Mike" from a few years ago, and that separate email list we all started just to talk about these things! That was great fun.
<< It is interesting that each claims to have no biases and their conclusions are all based upon "objective" examination. >>
I am genuinely perplexed how you could have got that from anything I wrote. One of the most interesting and challenging aspects of these discussions is the whole subject of epistemology, "how we know what we know", self-deception, confirmation bias, apophenia, logical fallacy, and so on. And having discussed this subject at length with Mark, I know he has taken these things deeply into consideration in his own thinking - as I think would be clear from the psychological insight embedded in all his systems. We both acknowledge these dangers, and have both taken these factors very seriously in our own thinking and self-reflection and life-decisions. Yet nonetheless we somehow both ended up as Christian believers! And I think we are both astonished (and somewhat offended) when we find atheists who claim they are not possibly susceptible to these biases and fallacies. That's either really muddy thinking, or plain dishonesty - or self-deception.
<< Yet at no time did it occur to us to think, "I can think of no good reason for the flowers to be this fresh. Based upon that, there is only one other thing it could have been--God". Not saying that could not be the answer, but we do not go to it as our default when we are clueless about some event in our lives. >>
I am perplexed by this comment, too. Did we read the same article?
The article I posted (by Frederica Matthews-Greene) links to this article, with the original account of the flowers - http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/01/the-holy-water-flowers . That article specifically mentions (and disclaims) the "God of the gaps" idea. If that's the main idea you are getting from reading anything I wrote, or from reading those two articles, then we are not communicating, and perhaps I should try to explain it again. I've been hesitant to expand on this discussion, since that is not really the purpose of this forum.
I'm agnostic. I doubt there will ever be enough evidence to convince me one way or the other. I will not, however, say that others' beliefs are wrong, unless those beliefs lead them to hurt others. Even then, I won't say their god didn't tell them to do it, just that some gods should be respected (for their power) but not obeyed.
Our understanding of God will always be incomplete. It's like the blind men and the elephant.
As an engineer, I value incomplete models. The the model E-mc^2 has been proven beyond a doubt to be accurate. If it weren't, we would not be able to size nuclear reactors and bombs. However, if we'd had to discover and use that in order to size a motor for pumping water out of a mine (the reason Watt defined the concept of horsepower), the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened. Le Chatalier's law is very simple, and more than accurate enough to design chemical factories, without which we would not have gasoline or fertilizer. Insisting the engineers use quantum mechanics would give marginally-more accurate results, but it's cheaper to use a thicker pipe than pay the engineer to do the extra math. Looking up overall values in steam tables (created by experiment) is more practical than calculating the inter-molecular forces. If you're lucky enough to be in the range where the ideal gas law holds (which is much of the time), forget the tables and use the simple math. That's three models for how gas behaves. Inter-molecular forces, steam tables, and ideal gas law.
I'm okay with an incomplete model of God. I'm glad don't have to know and use the complete model! Learn several models, then pick the one that works in a given situation and get on with the job.
The belief that there is a helpful power comforts me, and gives me strength and reassurance. Sometimes I use one of the Christian models. Sometimes I use a model with Coyote. (You look a things differently with a trickster god than with a helpful or judgmental or vengeful god. I see Coyote's hand in many things.) Sometimes I use one of the Buddhist models. (They've had 400 years longer than Christianity to diverge, and it has combined with other traditions in a variety of ways.) Sometimes I focus on a general field of "good thoughts" created by all beings. (Still haven't found a tradition that formalizes that idea.)
According to St. Paul, if you believe that God asks you to eat Kosher, then you should do so. If you do not believe He asks that of you, then you should not. He asks different things of different people.
I'm torn when our church offers Communion. (We attend because my daughter wants to be in the choir.) I've met all the forms to be eligible for our denomination (was very into it as a teenager). I wish to be close to any good power, accept that I have hurt people (including myself by being lazy) and try to do better, and will gladly accept His Grace and any help He gives. However, I cannot truthfully say that I absolutely believe that "On the night that Jesus was betrayed..." (I feel for leaders who question their own beliefs. It's healthier to question and explore than to resist, but it can leave them in a tough position.)
It bothers me when the leader at a funeral insists that the deceased is now closer to God, and offers little other comfort. When the time comes, my son the atheist will find no comfort in the words of Oma's pastor. She's active in her church, so it's appropriate to as her Pastor to help us and to lead the service. (Oma is very healthy, but of an age when we need to be prepared.)
It's a tough balance for religious leaders. They represent a community that believes. Weddings and baptisms are joyful occasions, and the key participants can make a calm choice about alternatives. It's no hardship for non-believers to substitute their own form of well-wishing. Those planning a funeral, however, have less time and choice, and more need.
Back to the original post in the thread. I believe that it is the will of God that we struggle. That's how we learn and grow. (Shades of Coyote there, but also Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, where humanity is simply a machine the gods use to help sort good spirit stuff from bad, which was influenced by the Egyptian weighing of the soul. It's been a long time since I read those books.)
It's possible to have peace and contentment while struggling. That's a very strong theme in Buddhism. We all have pain. We can't avoid it. Suffering is our reaction to pain. It's difficult, but we have choices in how we react. We can reduce suffering of ourselves and others through both physical actions and through the practice of loving-kindness. There's a difference of opinion as to whether the thoughts of loving-kindness actually spread out in a field, or if the practice simply helps us to act with loving-kindness, which then reduces suffering more directly. Even direct action can have far-reaching affects. We've all read stories of how a smile spreads.
<< According to St. Paul, if you believe that God asks you to eat Kosher, then you should do so. If you do not believe He asks that of you, then you should not. He asks different things of different people. >>
That's not quite correct. What St Paul actually said was that those who follow the Gospel know they don't have to eat kosher, but should avoid scandalizing the consciences of those who believe they should eat kosher.
I stopped being an atheist (as opposed to an agnostic) because I didn't feel it was intellectually tenable. Atheism has succeeded in defining itself by what it doesn't believe in (God) rather than by what it does believe in. The result is that it defends itself by demanding that its opponents prove that there is a God and that it's not up to atheists to prove that there isn't one - since one can't disprove a negative. As Chris says: "The onus is not on me to disprove an extraordinary assertion."
However if you don't believe in God, you do have to believe in one of two things: 1) that the universe created itself, or 2) that the universe has always existed and never was created. Most people would consider the first statement to be self-contradictory (how can something that doesn't exist do anything?) and the second statement to be a matter of belief rather than proof. It was considering these points that moved me from atheism to agnosticism.
That's enough for now. Next installment: "Why I moved from agnosticism to belief."
By the way this is merely the (highly simplified) record of my own personal journey. I'm not trying to convert anyone.
I re-read Acts 10 and 15 and didn't find it. I'm sure he said if you are a Jew and think you should still follow Kosher laws, do so. If you are a Jew and are unsure, follow them. If you aren't a Jew, you don't have to learn and follow them (and then in 15 he gave a short list of some of the easier, better-known, more-visible Kosher rules).
I believe there has always been something (as opposed to nothing), but not the universe as we know it. I believe less strongly that there will always be something, but don't see how you can have one end without the other. God might have been the thing that existed before the universe as we know it, or it might have been a random collection of energy, or...If better minds than mine who study it can't agree, I won't do any better.
That's entirely based on a hunch, and that I haven't seen those who study it reach a majority opinion, let alone commonly-accepted model. Believe rather than know.
If that early something was God, the line moves. How was God created? Did He always exist? Has His form changed?
You don't have to believe in 1 or 2. It's possible to not to believe either, without saying either is false. I don't believe it's raining where you are, but I don't not believe it either.
Like Mark, I'm not trying to convert anyone, just explaining why the analysis that caused him to change his beliefs don't cause me to change mine, and exploring and refining my own while I'm at it.
<< I re-read Acts 10 and 15 and didn't find it. >>
It's not in Acts. It's in 1 Corinthians 8.
<< You don't have to believe in 1 or 2. It's possible to not to believe either, without saying either is false. >>
That's why I said this line of reasoning led me to agnosticism, not to belief.
<< I'm not trying to convert anyone, just explaining why the analysis that caused him to change his beliefs don't cause me to change mine >>
As far as I understand what you are saying, your position is more or less the agnosticism that I moved to at this point. So it's not surprising that what I said hasn't caused you to change your beliefs!
What a cliffhanger!
It reminds me of an earlier decade when the family would make sure to write in the calendar the next installment of "Roots". Mom had us by the gonads. "No watching Roots until the dishes are done and the kitchen is cleaned." LOL!
Very little (didn't catch any, but it might have slipped) mention of helping your neighbor, but that might have been such a strong part of the Law (known to Jews) and of their teachings (known to Gentiles) that it wasn't necessary. (I like that Jesus downplayed the endless list of rules, and emphasized helping.)
Also lots of faith on the Disciples part. I envy that level of faith, that moves mountains.
Romans is teaching that (a) neither Jew nor Gentile can be justified by any kind of law - only by grace through faith in Christ, and (b) the ceremonial laws are passed away with the coming of Christ.
For the brief time period between the resurrection of Christ and the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, Jewish Christians were allowed to observe their ceremonial traditions as long as they didn't bind them on Gentile Christians. Now that the temple is gone, it is not even possible for all the ceremonial laws to be kept.
But I reject his notion that, if I don't believe in God, I must believe either "(1) that the universe created itself, or (2) that the universe has always existed and never was created."
I agree that (1) is self-contradictory as stated, and can see that point that (2) is phrased as a matter of faith rather than one of reason.
But why must I assert either (1) or (2)? Is it not sufficient to claim a happy ignorance on the question of the origin of the universe?
<< But why must I assert either (1) or (2)? Is it not sufficient to claim a happy ignorance on the question of the origin of the universe? >>
Because that's agnosticism, not atheism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignosticism
We say "God exists" but we don't mean "God exists just like everything else exists". We experience God as supra-existing (in the sense that God transcends existence and is the source of existence). If God transcends existence, then He also transcends cataphatic definition, and thus transcends the box that ignosticism tries to put Him in.
.
I was much happier as an agnostic than as an atheist. My experience of being an atheist seemed to require quite a strong element of setting myself up in opposition to everyone else except fellow atheists. I had acquired an arguing style which consisted of pouring scorn on what other people believed (and yes, I can still fall into that on occasions).
Much easier to be an agnostic, which meant I could treat other people's beliefs with respect and didn't have to close my mind to new thoughts. I held what I considered was the only intellectually respectable position, that we don't know and probably never will know how the Universe was created. It would therefore be hypocritical to worship a God on the off-chance that he existed. If God does exist then he wouldn't expect us to worship him without any evidence, and if it turned out that God did exist then I would be perfectly prepared to worship and obey him.
So I considered myself to be like someone living a couple of thousand years ago with reference to electricity. We all believe in electricity nowadays because we see its effects and understand how it works and use it all the time. But a thousand or more years ago we couldn't have believed in it. Even if a time traveller went back and explained it, we wouldn't have the mental concepts to be able to understand the explanation. I considered that we are today with reference to God as that person a thousand years ago with reference to electricity.
There was however one thing which I couldn't fit into my system... (to be continued)
Thanks for this series. You have an excellent writing style. I love the analogies. It truly helps me to understand better what you're explaining. I'm impressed that you're so clear about understanding your journey. Most people (myself included) don't have your level of clarity.
[I'm closing this thread now as it's reached the maximum number of posts that can be displayed on one page. I've opened a new thread called Religious Interlude, Part 2 http://markforster.squarespace.com/forum/post/2294165 ]