faith issues

[Coyote Goodfellow]

[Coyote Goodfellow]

[Kolbitar]

[surprisedbyjoy]

[littlewolf]

all i know is that even tho the Bible can be interpreted in many different ways, God is the only one that is allowed to be selfish, jealous, or anything else like that... which doesnt seem right in my eyes

[tocaat]

I have often grappled with this apparent inconsistency on the part of God, especially in my younger years. I think the important thing is to recognise is that God is not a human being and cannot be considered in any sense on the same footing as ourselves. He is not judged by standards that apply to us since He is our creator -- being supreme, He is not judged by any standard.

I sometimes use a simple analogy which I find helps my understanding of this apparent dilemma. By profession I am an electronic engineer, which means I design things of an electronic nature -- current work involves control systems for lighting and other features in hotel suites, but I have worked in other areas of industry as well. Any project I undertake consists of conceiving an electronic system that will implement some required function, and designing the 'circuit' to do this. The circuit consists of various electronic components assembled together on a circuit board (like you see inside a computer), and my job usually includes designing the circuit board itself. Since nowadays most electronic control systems employ an embedded processor, software is required to make it function and I usually write this as well.

The systems I design must operate in a certain way, which is planned out very carefully before the design is begun. Almost always the first prototype doesn't work as it should, and I have to make it work. Because it fell to me to conceive the design in the first place, it is my responsibility to bring my expertise (such as it is) to bear on the problem and to do all within my capability to make it work. In a sense, because I made correct operation of the system mandatory -- a prerequisite -- at the outset, unless it performs as intended, it is a failure. (To my discredit there have been a few past instances where I have had to give up altogether, but fortunately not too many.)

There is a superficial analogy here to the creation by God of the world and all that is in it, and in particular humankind. Admittedly our failure to function as God originally intended is not due to imperfections or oversight on the part of the Creator, as is the case with my electronic systems, but to other external influences. But for whatever reason, we don't function as He originally intended -- this is what He calls sin. The Bible teaches that sin cannot go unrequited, but the Christian message (which is a fulfilment of the Old Testament Law) is that God has embarked upon a comprehensive exercise of getting mankind back on track, by taking the punishment which is due to us upon Himself. A parallel could perhaps be drawn between this and the painstaking effort I have to put in to my job (working through the night etc) to make my electronic 'creations' work properly. In a sense, I have to sacrifice my time (sanity etc) to make my gadgets work, whatever the cost to me.

Surprisedbyjoy is absolutely right in describing God as self-sacrificial. It is not the will of God that any of us should perish, however short of His standards we have fallen. And to give us every possible chance of escaping the penalty for our rebellion, He actually stepped down to our level -- took on human form -- and became subject to all the strictures laid down for proper functioning of His creatures. In doing so He endured all the sorrow and humiliation that results from sin (not His own of course, but ours) and paid the ultimate sacrifice. In the light of this I cannot view God, as manifest in human form (Christ), as anything but self-sacrificial.

[salanor]

Hello littlewolf
If you have come to this topic in this forum searching for Christian apologetics, you have come to the right place. There are some very clever and articulate people here, which is why I, as an atheist, am still here.

Here is a different perspective.

It is clear, from casual observation, that human life is governed in the main by habitual and instinctive behaviour upon which rationality or irrationality have little impact. If it were not so, we would exhaust our energies through a daily rational analysis of the best way to behave in every situation we encounter.

So, as we went to clean our teeth, we would be forced to contemplate the various methods of teeth-cleaning and their long-term effectiveness and we would need to have long discourse on the data before breakfast with experts in dental care. Clearly, life cannot go on like that. Thus, rational thought has little application to our day to day life.

Fortunately, we are able to suspend our skepticism about the merits of teeth cleaning and go on as if the evidence was clearly in its favour. We have an innate probability mechanism which advises us that “9 out of 10 dentists can’t be wrong” – that, despite the obvious benefit to many parties financially of you engaging in teeth attention activity daily – the dentist (yes, you are reminded every day of their product), toothpaste and toothbrush manufacturers, health professionals and so on.

When rationality is allowed an indulgence, it is usually fairly superficial. Which route should I take to work today to arrive on time? This is not “rocket science”. The drover’s dog could probably work it out with a bit of trial and error. Systematic rationality – science – is almost entirely absent from our daily operation. Sure, it was imperative in the development of so much that we depend upon. But it has so little bearing on our daily routine – governed by whim, fad, fashion and self-deceit.

Who would be a scientist - applying rationality systematically? Not only must a scientist defeat their own innate desire for irrational behaviour, but when they do work something out, they receive no credit until they are subjected to a thorough workover by their peers and then they are ignored by nearly everybody in the world. The return on investment is meager indeed.

Truly, scientists only do science because they are obsessive. The selfish gene has allowed a certain proportion of population to have minds that thrive on little else but the hope of discovery or the satisfaction of finding that what they guess at is right. Were it not so, humans would have little advantage over their evolutionary brethren and a big brain would be a waste of energy.

Fortunately for humans, rationality is codified, institutionalised and structured into our society. We have standards rigorously applied in terms of safety of vehicles, we have standards of road building, we have road rules, we have courts to administer penalties for reckless endangerment of others and so on and so on.

But unfortunately, these very rational structures often become insensitive to humans. As humans we have an irrational side that "resonates", in much the same way as a musical instrument resonates, with natural environments and other humans. We can induce states where this resonance is clearer by reducing the stimulus into our brain, especially from language. This is spirituality - the deliberate embrace of the irrational in order to stay sane.

This is the long road to saying that if you feel a "resonance" in druidism that is missing in Christianity, then you join 100% of the human race in this. However, others have found, through contemplative activity, the same resonance in Christianity. I would boldly say that this is the case for many in this forum.

Of course, these is a certain folly in attempting to bring that irrational experience into the rational world. For a start, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the irrational can be expressed in language. I sometimes suggest to people that they should "Get in touch with their Neanderthal side" - try to experience the world without language, especially written language.

To generalise, many Christians have become so fixated with a rather odd book written in part by nameless, identity-less, non-witnesses about a person about whom we can only guess and the other half so culture centric that it has curiosity value only (one would barely start living one's life by interpretation of an Aboriginal painting, no matter how fascinated one was) that they have abandoned the contemplative side of their lives.

My suggestion is you return to druidism and relive the "resonance" you found, ignore the cultural colonialist (Christianity) and enjoy your life. If you continue to try to find "sense" in the Bible, you will only find frustration at every turn, as I did when I was Bible centric.

[salanor]

[littlewolf]

*wonders where i can find a thread that knows about druidism*
i do appreciate all of your help, but when you are in a situation like mine, you need help from both sides of the story.. you know?

[Nietzsche]

[littlewolf]

[littlewolf]

[alecto]

Before we go anywhere else, remember that just because they might not have been Christians, this does not mean that Druids did not believe in God. We tend to think that belief in gods precludes belief in God, but this is not necessarily the case. I'm sure some Greeks referred to Jewish angels as gods, and I know some early Christians took certain more illuminated ideas about Zeus to actually represent God. The idea that the Bible is the only way to find out about God is NEW.

That having been said, here is a review of the Wikipedia article on Druidism at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid. For each section, I give a short judgment on how accurate it seems based on my reading of book sources. "I don't know" means I cannot comment either way as to a section's/statement's validity.


Section above the table of contents: good

Overwiew: par 1,4,5 good; others less well founded.

Etymology: these are the usual theories; pay especial attention to the last 2 paragraphs

History: I can't vouch either way on this one.

Caesar: correct. Assume Caesar was not impartial, but less partial than a modern historian might be about an enemy. A complete translation of the section is at http://classics.mit.edu/Caesar/gallic.6.6.html (Chapters 13 and 14)

Other Romans: I don't know about these. But Pliny is missing. His description of Druids is reported at: http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bim1/bim1008.htm but I cannot say how accurately.

Medieval Sources: this seems to be OK. The Welsh versions of the Arthurian legends are not here. They have a unique character which may at some level reflect the influence of druidical systems of "magic."

Social and Religious influence: probably too much fitting into modern categories here.

In Christian literature: Probably good. Notice the pre-"fundamentalism" lack of worrying about the names of things.

Late druidic survivals: I don't know.

Druidic Revival: I cannot vouch for all of these statements but those I have heard of or have read seem accurately reported. Unfortunately for modern "druids" the disconnection between today and ancient times is far greater than it is in Christianity, due to the general annihilation of the original Druidical oral tradition. One cannot count on most modern ideas of druidism being the same that ancient druids held. This may be a problem or not in itself, but there will always be difficulty in bridging the gap.

Modern druidism: don't know.




A possibly biased but detailed article on Druids exists at http://www.lugodoc.demon.co.uk/Druids/DRUIDS.htm
This article has seemingly accurate and complete quotes from ancient sources. Its writer claims to be a druid but his history indicates that he is aware of the disconnect between ancient and modern druidism.

The entire heavily contested Barddas of Iolo Morganwg seems to be located at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/bim1/index.htm This is believed to be largely fantasy and is essentially the positing of a new philosophy that is probably not ancient druidism despite its name.

Just to stir the pot: http://www.lugodoc.demon.co.uk/Lugodoc/rant03.htm
I don't necessarily agree with all that, but man, that monkey thing is a hard hit.

[surprisedbyjoy]

[littlewolf]