OmegaVegeta, my old fellow CaithSithian ex-Catholic agnostic, I hope your holiday was well and free of stress.. and welcome back from Vegas; I hope you made it back in one piece physically and spiritually.
I want to thank you for tolerating my ramblings and taking the time to at least humor e and and yourself in continuing to engage me in this dialog and also not totally just thinking that I am just blindly preaching ********** I am glad that you at least find this conversation intellectually stimulating enough to continue with it.. and as always I appreciate your brutal honesty; I can only pray that you appreciate mine. Brutal honestly from those that actually use their minds to debate a subject rather than their bile-ducts certainly can make for interesting times. I am not under the illusion that I can change a persons mind but I certainly enjoy expounding some of my personal discoveries and welcome the chance to defend them in the face of those that are not worried about feelings being hurt...
Anyway..
OmegaV explaining why people suck wrote:
I decided I didn't want to be associated with it anymore. There wasn't any one thing, but more a combination of things (Buttsecks scandals, Fred Phelps, my Priest retiring and a more...conservative Priest taking over the congregation, finding out how awesome sex is, et. al) that lead me to rethink my own views on religion & God in general.
I can't blame you for being dismayed by the faults and lies that are rampant in any human institution. It sucks that you chose to reject all of God because you rejected the things of man. I honestly can say that the key does not rely in a religion; it is in a personal relationship with God; one on one.
You say that it would take something supernatural for you to believe. I totally agree with this too. No one can come to believe that Christ is Risen unless the Holy Spirit causes them to believe... but with that being said God does ask for our faith and God is a respecter of the choices that we make. God will not provide you with the supernatural ability to believe unless you choose to take the leap of faith; otherwise it would violate your free will. If suddenly you were given a bunch of crazy signs.. then your believe would be meaningless because it would not be from you but from Him.. and God did not make us to just be programmed robots.
OmegaV rationalizing Jesus wrote:
I believe that he believed he was the son of God (& I believe if God does exist, then we're all his sons & daughters so Jesus wouldn't of even had to of been immaculately conceived to be the son of God) Instead of spreading those awesome ideas like he wanted you too, however, you'd rather have a pissing contest over which flavor of his teachings is the correct one.
The one real thing that matters in Jesus' teachings is that He actually is God in Flesh. Without this Truth His life and death would be no different than any other false messiah from Shimon Bar-Kokhba to Jim Jones or David Koresh..
You say that He had some awesome teachings.. yet His teachings reveal that No Man can ever live up to the righteousness of God except through His Sacrifice.. This view that He was just like another Gandhi and simply taught people to just learn how to get along is totally false. Jesus did not teach that people would some day learn to get along.. He taught that ALL were wrong and ALL are in sin and that all will be lost if they are judged by their mere deeds. Jesus taught that the forgiveness of God granted only by believing in the Cross is the only hope for humans beings. I am not trying to argue about flavors of teachings.. there is one flavor of teachings.. Faith that Christ alone saves. Everything else is superfluous.
OmegaV trying to squeeze God into a box wrote:
"Can God make a rock so big that he can't lift it?"
Honestly, the whole concept of God doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but since I know & have experienced some of the benefits that come with being religious I'm not going to knock someone else for believing.
That logic game with the big rock really is a total straw-man. It would never ever ever happen.. so to try to use that as some proof that God cannot exist really is just foolish. It is an abuse of logic and it is assuming that we can simply place an all-powerful Force "in-a-box". It proves (and disproves) nothing.
The concept of God really isn't meant to be understood. We can try and we can study and we can meditate but of course it can only go so far.. a goldfish can swim for miles and still be in his little bowl.. We do not need to understand.. we only need to have faith. I know this may sound like one of those catch-phrase slogans that people use.. but it really is the Truth; but I'm not going to waste my time explaining it as much as I want to at this moment.. but we do not need to understand God to be Saved.. we need only to look to His fleshly incarnation to get the message for what we need.
You say that you have experienced benefits of being "religious"; well anyone can experience that through anything that they do in their lives that provides structure, a framework, and some form of reward-factor.. but the only True benefit does not come from religion; it comes from a relationship with God.. something that I dare to assume that you have never had; except perhaps vicariously.. which is not a real relationship.
OmegaV thinking at God has to always be contradictory of science wrote:
Until we can, "God did it" (While a cop out), is every bit as valid as M Theory. As a Catholic, I was even able to reconcile the beliefs I had with that & look at things like the story of creation as allegorical instead of literal. It's too bad other people can;t seem to do that.
I realize that this could be (and often is) a large drawn-our philosophical/philological debate.. Yes.. and I do not discount most scientific observations.. although I think it requires a near equal amount of faith to believe in a lot of the quack-physics theories that are floating around out there.. I will not open that can of worms.. to stay on track I will say one thing:
If you can bring yourself to believe in the First Line of the Bible than you really could believe anything else there; no matter how crazy or impossible. I will also say that I no longer simply believe that the Bible is just a record of humans.. but that it is the communication of knowledge that God has given us.. but as far as science and nature goes.. the Bible inded states that Nature is all the Proof of God that we should need.. I may even believe that most things in nature after the Big-Bang are purely logical.. but when we observe things beyond the simple Newtonian framework things really seem to get out of whack..
..but I am digressing.
OmegaV claiming science can explain everything wrote:
I know it's tough for you to swallow, but Science may be on to something since it has yet to show that God is absolutely necessary for anything.
I'm not going to broach the subject of the Egyptologist.. except to suggest looking for yourself where the sources come from.. I have and I have found them severely wanting.. but anyway you clearly are convinced by faith alone.. I'm not going to pointlessly argue.. but I think you will find that all of those lies come from the same biased source.
You say that science has yet to show that God is necessary for anything.. That is totally false.. it s quite the oposite.. but being stuck in your cycle of reverse faith I certainly am not going to try to argue it here..
and have a pissing contest..
I'll just say this: Keep in mind that the REASON for the Large Hadron Collider is because after ALL of the research science is STILL trying to figure out WHY MATTER EVEN EXISTS. Think about that... think about it an try not to laugh too hard..
At this point after all of my studying of physics; pretty much the only reason that I don't think that they are all comletely full of crap is the fact that we have caused atomic explosions.. quite a telling feat for us.
OmegaV comparing Jesus to wrote:
the teachings of a guy named Buddha.
I used to enjoy this notion until I actually studied Buddhism and realized the absurdity of the notion (see my statement above about "God" and "Salavation". I agree that there are some similar notions between Buddhism and Christianity.. the difference is that Buddha never admitted that there is absolutly no way that a human can achieve salvation nor provided a way.. Enlightenment is not salvation.. nor is Oblivion. Both may acknowlege a Source of Creation but only one goes far enough to admit that this Source would have a will and that there actually is a point for our existence.
OmegaV on the crucifixion wrote:
I thought that was His plan?
Very good answer. God coming in the flesh and allowing Himself to be murdered by His children was indeed part of His place. That doesn't make it right by any means; but what you are getting at here is the point to all of this.. it was a clear demonstration of the nature of mankind.. It really is the root of it all.
In order for us to be Individuals then we would have to be separated from God.. in being separated we are made sinners.. for our sakes God allowed this to happen.. for now we may be forgiven and not judged for the things that we do.. for what we are. People say that this is unfair because we were made sinners.. but actually we were simply made to be able to choose and being separate from God we choose our own flesh.. and when God came down teaching the Spirit we choose to reject it and to murder Him for it.. But through this action we are saved from our own natures.. For if God/Messiah did not offer Himself as a sacrifice then we would not have an event that is so perfectly crafted t give us the opportunity to give up our pride and reject the flesh and the world..
John 3:16 and all.. That act gives is something to believe.. it is God Will that we believe this crazy, unbelievable, and unlikely event for Salvation and to be made pure and righteous so that we may dwell as individuals in God presence when the Full Plan Unfolds. It is the entire purpose for everything and it is the only thing that really makes sense; but like I said; you cannot believe something so ridiculous unless the Holy Spirit allows you to believe and to get the Holy Spirit you must fully humble yourself and cry out to God as many times at it takes for you to affirm your faith..
preach preach preach preach preach I know...
Amen