(urth) resurrecting a 2002 thread that posits an alternative lineage for Sev

[Norwood, Frederick Hudson]

I was raised a Christian, have read the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and find the teachings of Christ deeply appealing.  I attended Grace Fellowship Church for years, and accepted Jesus Christ as my savior.  I'm still His if he wants me.  I gave up Grace Fellowship for one reason (they said that every good Christian must vote for George W. Bush) and gave up Christianity for another reason (I could not make sense of it; for me to believe in a statement I must first understand what the statement means).  

As for faith, according to Paul's Letter to the Romans, faith is a gift from God, and he decided before the creation who would get the gift of faith and be saved and who would not get the gift and be damned.  Cannot the potter discard defective pots if He wants?  Evidently I'm a defective pot.

Rick Norwood



-----Original Message-----
From: Urth [mailto:urth-bounces at lists.urth.net] On Behalf Of António Pedro Marques
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2014 9:02 PM
To: The Urth Mailing List
Subject: Re: (urth) resurrecting a 2002 thread that posits an alternative lineage for Sev

No dia 07/10/2014, às 14:58, Lee <severiansola at hotmail.com> escreveu:

>> Rick Norwood: 
> 
>> Christ was entirely God, all powerful, all knowing, able to perform miracles.  
> 
>> At the same time, he was all human, there was much he did not know, and 
> 
>> much he could not do.  He prayed to God, asked God to change His mind, 
> 
>> and asked God why He had forsaken Him.
> 
> 
> 
>> This is one of the great Mysteries of Catholic dogma – and one of several reason 
> 
>> why I’m not a Christian
> 
> 
> 
> I'd add to that the paradox of Free Will.

To which, of course, you're aware of solutions of various kinds. 

This is disturbing. It implies that if what you conceive as logical difficulties were not present, you would find yourself a person of faith. Is that really so?

I rather think that what happens is that *because* you are not a believer, *then* such tenets of religion strike you as irrational.

(Tho there is the possibility that you are, in fact, religious at heart, but unable to reconcile that with your analytical mind. If that is the case, there's no need to struggle, many folks have worked out any such issues over the ages.)

Religious belief is something that you either accept for yourself or you don't (you have doubts in two very different cases: 1 - you accept it but feel disheartened, 2 - you actually don't accept or don't know it at heart, but mentally you try to), and you just don't arrive at it after scientific consideration, nor abandon it after scientific consideration. No one acquires or loses faith through reason, for the very same reason that no one acquires or loses a romantic interest or a favourite dish through reason.

Yes, many seem to think that faith is some kind of primitive science, and, of course, if it were so then one might abandon it for scientific reasons. And no doubt there are many using their religion like some kind of science, but that's like deciding that a person has a number of good qualities because you happen to like the person. The opposite, also to be found frequently, is to decide that you like some dish because current science says it's healthy. And there are those who think they hold some sentiment dearly because they put some given work into it. All these, be they true or false, are orthogonal to the things they're supposed to be linked to.

That's not to say that belief cannot grow aided by external factors, or dwindle, but it remains fundamentally ruled by itself.

But it may be the case that what you're saying is not that you find such tenets of Christian belief illogical or otherwise, but rather aesthetically or emotionally unappealing (as opposed to rationally unappealing). That's a whole different matter. De gustibus, etc, I can only say that in that case one can't really make a judgement based on isolated bits, for the same reason you can't do it with a painting. I mean, you can, it's a free country.


_______________________________________________
Urth Mailing List
To post, write urth at urth.net
Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net