Ship of Fools: Enlightened or deceived?

Thread: Enlightened or deceived? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

I was raised Catholic but over the past few years I have lost my faith. I wouldn't say I have lost my faith in God, just in mans ability to truly know anything about him. After reading different religious beliefs and questioning my own long standing ones, I can't make sense of any of it anymore. I'm here looking for answers and open to my own errors. Not truly believing in anything leaves me open to any possibility as I am in a state of I don't know, not i know it's not true.

My first question is where does the Christian idea of Satan come from? According to my reading The Jewish religion never taught of Lucifer or fallen angels or a war in Heaven. They do not believe in Hell as anything other than eternal sleep until the Messiah comes and brings them to God. The Satan was mentioned only a few times in the OT where it was a title which meant the accuser. According to that belief, it was an angel still very much in union with God who would act as your prosecutor before God on the day of your judgement. God would allow the satan to tempt you at times in your life to offer you a choice and then recount to God how you handled the temptation. So how did such a big concept change for Christianity?

[ 10. June 2013, 06:55: Message edited by: Ancient Mariner ]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

I am not an expert but am aware of some of the theories; this is mainly through anecdotal conversation so I am not going to cite here. However I am also aware that there is a whole area of study around this. As I have found other Very Short Introductions useful maybe The Devil: A Very Short Introduction may well be useful as a starting point.

Jengie

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

I find your first point interesting, that we don't know. I realized this a few years ago, but I didn't automatically become an atheist, since it is also true for them (that they don't know).

If it's impossible for humans to know if there is God, and if there is, what he is like, then a skeptical theism is still possible I think.

I suppose it depends partly on whether religious symbols, rituals, stories, actually resonate with you. They do with me, powerfully, hence, I keep faith with them, without knowing if they are 'true'.

But then all views of reality are in the same boat, aren't they? They are all guesses.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

thanks for the link, i'll have to check that out.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

Well thats kind of where I am at right now. I feel that if man did nothing but record thoughts about God since the beginning of time we still would only have a small fraction of the truth. I don't think man is fit to comprehend what God is. If God is everything, is there really a wrong way to believe in him?

Another question i have is the idea of works. Some Christian denominations believe that Catholics are pagans, partly because they believe in "works" for salvation. Those groups preach that all one needs is faith in Christ to be saved. They however seem to spend a great deal of time telling people they are going to hell because they are sinful. For example, if a murderer has faith in Christ as his savior, isn't that by their definition enough to ensure his salvation? To believe that his actions have anything to do with his salvation is to believe in the same concept of works they disagree with which contradicts their own beliefs. Could be wrong here but that never made sense to me.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

There's an old saying that if you say anything specific about God, then that cannot be God, since God is unknowable. I suppose a counter-argument is that perhaps God can be experienced, as with the mystics.

The 'Cloud of Unknowing' has an interesting slant on this (as do other mystics), that it's concepts of God that are the barrier to God. Hence, we have to dismiss them, until we arrive at unknowing.

I sympathize with this, as I have had plenty of 'God-moments', which are not arrived at intellectually. In fact, intellectuality will block you.

I suppose there is an analogy with love - you cannot find it via argument. So how do you find love? Well, there is no 'how' really. Just be open.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

The theology of Satan is a development of ideas from the old and new testaments. The core, biblical beliefs are quite straightforward, that there is a sentient being who works in opposition to God. That is, in itself, a development of both Jewish and Christian thought, but seems to be broadly supported by the NT writings, including the gospels.

Of course, there are a whole lot of ideas that have developed from this that are unsubstantiated - not necessarily that they are wrong, but that they are developments beyond this. The idea of Satan as a being with horns and a tail, the concept of demons as a troupe of anti-angels, the details of the fall from heaven etc are all enhancements.

It is exceptionally difficult to separate the 2K years of doctrine from the originals, on a topic that we can only speculate on, and not experience. Of course, that is why people like to speculate on it, because it cannot be proven either way. What is more, Jewish understanding changed from the time of Job through the the time of Jesus, and was not entirely consistent even then. So it is a minefield.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

But Satan in Job is God's consigliere, isn't he? Hey boss, what say we rough this guy up a bit? OK, but don't kill him, just louse him up a little. OK, boss.

Although it may be a very old document, I think, not actually Jewish originally.

[ 09. June 2013, 16:49: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I don't believe in Satan. I don't see any reason for it.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

Thats where i am at right now. Satan to me was introduced (the more current idea seemingly borrowed from other religions of the time) because in order to preach the idea of salvation, we needed something to be saved from. I don't think God could have failed with his angels, and then with man. I don't think God is an old man in the sky playing a chess game with his children's lives. I do believe in God. I just don't have a definition of him anymore. It just is.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
Rafin: I do believe in God. I just don't have a definition of him anymore.

I'd say you've made an important step in your faith journey. But I'm a lib'rul, so take this however you want.

Posted by Bostonman (# 17108) on :

If you're looking for Biblical antecedents for the idea of an adversarial God-Satan relationship, you probably don't want to look at actual mentions of the name "Satan," with the exception of Revelation. In Revelation, Satan is conflated with the Leviathan or Dragon.

This is where the money is. Look for mentions of Rahab, Tannin, the Dragon, and Leviathan, particularly in the psalms and in Isaiah, as well as Revelation. These are major sources for the adversarial relationship between some being and God.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Jesus did.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
Well thats kind of where I am at right now. I feel that if man did nothing but record thoughts about God since the beginning of time we still would only have a small fraction of the truth. I don't think man is fit to comprehend what God is. If God is everything, is there really a wrong way to believe in him?

There is a difference between an idea about an infinite God being limited and an idea being wrong. I think there are statements one can make about God that are essentially correct as far as they go, even though no set of statements will ever begin to be a complete description of the infinite. On the other hand, if I take a statement that is accurate, although limited, and turn it around to assert the opposite then I will be wrong. And of course, even your own second-to-last sentence implies that if I believe I have God completely figured out then I'm believing in him the wrong way.

quote:
Another question i have is the idea of works. Some Christian denominations believe that Catholics are pagans, partly because they believe in "works" for salvation. Those groups preach that all one needs is faith in Christ to be saved. They however seem to spend a great deal of time telling people they are going to hell because they are sinful. For example, if a murderer has faith in Christ as his savior, isn't that by their definition enough to ensure his salvation? To believe that his actions have anything to do with his salvation is to believe in the same concept of works they disagree with which contradicts their own beliefs. Could be wrong here but that never made sense to me.

I'm pretty sure that none of these groups of people (who condemn others to hell for sinful behavior) would say that prior to sinning, the person would have deserved heaven and only deserved hell because of the sin, but beyond that, I can't say that I understand such an approach. I would not myself make a connection that what I observe as apparently sinful behavior in someone else means that they are therefore going to hell (let alone actually say so).

However, I do believe that there is a common sense connection between faith and works. If I say that I have faith in Christ as my savior, but I do nothing to follow what he taught and apply it to my life, then my faith is pretty much meaningless. At best, it would be faith in my idea that he can save me in spite of the fact that I ignore what he taught. On the other hand, if I genuinely believe that he knew what he was talking about and I have faith that he has the power to save me that he claimed to have, then I will try to live accordingly.

Yet the idea that I should make an effort to follow his teachings and apply it to my life does not imply that my effort will make me righteous or earn me a spot in heaven as a reward. Nor does it imply that my failure to successfully live according to his teachings means that I will lose his salvation.

Instead, I think that the only thing it implies is that making the effort is the way that I am to exercise my free will and give him permission to change me through grace and according to my faith. Works done from faith are necessary, but through their connection to free will rather than any connection to merit. And a complete lack of works simply means that I'm not [yet] giving Christ permission to change me. At least, that's how we see it in my denomination.

Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :

BTW, welcome to the Ship, Rafin - always great to have new people join us!

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

Rafin welcome to the ship.
I understand losing "faith" in the church and also still believeing in God. That sounds rational to me. As for Satan/Lucifer I know he is not the flip side of God but a created being. But to credit him with what some of ex colleaques in fundie church does well that is silly or worse. Keep on thinking these points through, I believe thats called theology. all the best PaulBC [Votive]

Posted by Fr Weber (# 13472) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I was raised Catholic but over the past few years I have lost my faith. I wouldn't say I have lost my faith in God, just in mans ability to truly know anything about him. After reading different religious beliefs and questioning my own long standing ones, I can't make sense of any of it anymore. I'm here looking for answers and open to my own errors. Not truly believing in anything leaves me open to any possibility as I am in a state of I don't know, not i know it's not true.

My first question is where does the Christian idea of Satan come from? According to my reading The Jewish religion never taught of Lucifer or fallen angels or a war in Heaven. They do not believe in Hell as anything other than eternal sleep until the Messiah comes and brings them to God. The Satan was mentioned only a few times in the OT where it was a title which meant the accuser. According to that belief, it was an angel still very much in union with God who would act as your prosecutor before God on the day of your judgement. God would allow the satan to tempt you at times in your life to offer you a choice and then recount to God how you handled the temptation. So how did such a big concept change for Christianity?

Christianity is full of things you don't find in the OT; this is because Christianity is the New Covenant, and Judaism is the Old Covenant. You don't find the Trinity in the OT either, or the Incarnation, etc--unless you're reading Christianity into it.

Lots of things change between the Old and New Testaments. I'm not certain why Satan in particular is such a sticking point, or why you implicitly privilege the position of the OT while deprecating the NT.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

quote:
because in order to preach the idea of salvation, we needed something to be saved from

Hi Raffin -

My return to faith came accompanied by a pretty clear view of what I need to be saved from - every day. I have loads of shit in my life and character...I could go on and on. For me, I don't find it useful to personify this stuff in the form of a hard-to-swallow 'Devil' character. The stuff is real easy to understand just there, nasty and everyday as it is, and taken to its logical conclusion it leads to death and destruction (via easy-to-understand outcomes of fear, rage etc, nothing fancy and theological) just as sin always does, inherent in its own definition. Hope that's some use.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

Another point is that to say that the "Jewish religion" never taught X, Y and Z is simplistic. Judaism, like Christianity is very diverse and has multiple layers.

The Judaism as practiced today, is different from the Second Temple Judaism that was the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. The Essenes, a sect within Second Temple Judaism definitely had a concept of a war between good and evil, what they called the battle between the "sons of light" and the "sons of darkness."

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

quote:
because in order to preach the idea of salvation, we needed something to be saved from
Hi Raffin -

My return to faith came accompanied by a pretty clear view of what I need to be saved from - every day. I have loads of shit in my life and character...I could go on and on. For me, I don't find it useful to personify this stuff in the form of a hard-to-swallow 'Devil' character. The stuff is real easy to understand just there, nasty and everyday as it is, and taken to its logical conclusion it leads to death and destruction (via easy-to-understand outcomes of fear, rage etc, nothing fancy and theological) just as sin always does, inherent in its own definition. Hope that's some use.

I always reckoned we need God to be saved from ourselves, not the devil.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:

quote:
because in order to preach the idea of salvation, we needed something to be saved from
Hi Raffin -

My return to faith came accompanied by a pretty clear view of what I need to be saved from - every day. I have loads of shit in my life and character...I could go on and on. For me, I don't find it useful to personify this stuff in the form of a hard-to-swallow 'Devil' character. The stuff is real easy to understand just there, nasty and everyday as it is, and taken to its logical conclusion it leads to death and destruction (via easy-to-understand outcomes of fear, rage etc, nothing fancy and theological) just as sin always does, inherent in its own definition. Hope that's some use.
I always reckoned we need God to be saved from ourselves, not the devil.

Good point, Evensong. A common criticism of Christians is that by personalizing the Devil, we shift the blame from us: "The Devil make me do it."

My view is that I believe in the concept of the demonic, which is a force that exists that opposes God and all that is good and just. This force is found within ourselves as well as outside ourselves. Understandingly, our ancient ancestors of the faith personified this force into the being known as "Satan."

So, I would say that I believe that the demonic exists, even though "demons" themselves as literal, objective creatures may not.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Some conventional christians would probably say I'd 'lost my faith'. In fact my faith in God, the Great Mystery, is unshaken; I've discarded most of the dogma enunciated in long past centuries.

If I read a bible passage, I want to know for whom it was written, and in what circumstances. I'm sure that scripture encapsulates the understanding of God of many writers, each with a world view very different from mine. Or you could say, God spoke to different people in words that they could understand. It contains the myths (=stories that contain truths, that may or my not be factual) of our forbears.

Faith is not the same thing as belief, though nowadays they are often confused. Belief originally meant something like 'belove', or to take into your heart and make a part of you, not to assent to statements of 'doctrine':

quote:
"Beliefs must be distinguished from faith.
Beliefs belong to the century one lives in.
Faith goes on from age to age because it is
not a set of beliefs but an attitude - the
attitude of trust".
Wilfred Cantwell Smith

If my friend A believes that Satan tempts her to sin, that makes sense to her, though she's taken on a belief of an earlier time, while the knowledge that 'everyone messes up' and so do I makes sense to me.

Hope this is helpful.

GG

Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :

The question of the origin of the Devil or Satan was an early primitive development in tribal mythology. The Book of Job is believed to be the oldest (in origin) book of the Bible and was an answer to the question if our god is all powerful and all good why do bad things happen to good people? Answer there must be a bad god.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

That's the answer given by dualist religions, such as Zoroastrianism, that there is an evil demi-urge, which creates all the bad stuff. I suppose some versions of Gnosticism are similar, since material existence is seen as either evil or inferior.

Christianity has found this a difficult problem, although solutions such as privatio boni strike me as ingenious, if maybe counter-intuitive - the idea that evil has no existence in its own right.

I guess it remains one of the key problems for any version of theism, but in Christian theology it seems to now be resolved into two issues - the logical problem of evil (supposedly solved by free will), and the evidential problem, which states that God is improbable, because of the vast amounts of suffering in nature.

Of course, the fall is one solution to this; another one is that we just don't know, and cannot know, since we are not God.

There are interesting approaches in some Eastern religions, which might state that 'good' and 'evil' are human states of mind, and don't actually exist. Hence, 'beyond good and evil' might be mooted as a possible form of existence.

[ 10. June 2013, 12:55: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]

Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
My first question is where does the Christian idea of Satan come from? According to my reading The Jewish religion never taught of Lucifer or fallen angels or a war in Heaven. They do not believe in Hell as anything other than eternal sleep until the Messiah comes and brings them to God. The Satan was mentioned only a few times in the OT where it was a title which meant the accuser. According to that belief, it was an angel still very much in union with God who would act as your prosecutor before God on the day of your judgement. God would allow the satan to tempt you at times in your life to offer you a choice and then recount to God how you handled the temptation. So how did such a big concept change for Christianity?

A brief overview of the historical development of the idea of satan can be found in the second chapter of Elaine Pagels' The Origin Of Satan. Most of the book focuses on her views of Christian use of the idea, but the second chapter is a history of how the adversary became the evil one.

I should mention that Pagels seems to attribute the transition to the Maccabees more than most scholars seem to. The more traditional view appears to suggest it arose from Babylonian influences. But I am not really up on the scholarship, so that view may have drifted over time. FWIW

--Tom Clune

[ 10. June 2013, 23:45: Message edited by: tclune ]

Posted by Honest Ron Bacardi (# 38) on :

I haven't read Elaine Pagel's book. But the Maccabees sounds about right in timing but not locus, which would be more the shadowy "Enochic" Judaism of the period.

It's possible they brought it with them out of exile, but it's also possible that it represents an extremely old Canaanite mythology. An interesting suggestion in the light of the more recent suggestions that Enochic Judaism may have represented a strand across many other types of Judaism, characterised by their ambivalence verging on hostility towards the second temple.

But it definitely predates Christianity.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I don't know whether this will be any help or not.

I don't think speculating on the nature of God is very useful. Nor are either philosophical or even theological arguments for his existence. Nor is whether we as humans can know him or anything about him. I think that's starting in the wrong place.

St Paul says of Jesus (Col 1:15),
"He is the image of the invisible God".
St John says (Jn 1:14);
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us ... we have beheld his glory ..."

If one wants to know what God is like, start with Jesus. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. He is what God is like.

On Satan, as others have already said, I suspect a Christian got most of its ideas from Judaism as it had developed in the years between the end of the Old Testament and the birth of Jesus. However, it's best to concentrate on the positive, not the negative, God in Christ, rather than his enemies.

On faith and works, I can see your puzzlement, but it's best not to judge the Catholic Church by the accusations of those who are ill-disposed towards it. I don't think anyone these days really maintains that you can work your way into heaven, or that there's a spiritual pass mark, or that you are saved by having the 'our' sort of faith rather than the wrong sort - that's turning faith into a work.

What, I hope, most people believe is that we are saved not by what we do, but by what Jesus has done, but that our faith is pretty suspect if in response we don't try our utmost to live the Christian life. However, different traditions describe it differently.

Posted by Anglican_Brat (# 12349) on :

Another important thing to note is that religions do not necessarily passively adopt other beliefs. We know from the New Testament itself that there was a clash between the Sadducees and the Pharisees over the Resurrection and the existence of angels.

Even when a religion accepts an external belief, often it creatively adapts it to its own context, so to say that Judaism simply "borrowed" the idea of Satan from the Babylonians and Persians is a tad simplistic.

My guess is that as Judaism changed from simply a national cult in which YHWH was just a deity for the Israelites to a universal God, that Judaism had to figure out an explanation for evil. In an earlier age of henotheism, evil can be explained through the competition of gods.

Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on :

What Martin said

Posted by Eirenist (# 13343) on :

We cannot hope to know everything about God, or to define him/her/it/them. The Creeds were documents of exclusion, not inclusion: 'Whoever does not believe this, let him be anathema'. All we can know is what God chooses to reveal to each one of us.
As for Satan, if we have to think of it at all, perhaps it is best to do so as the 'evil impulse' which each of us carries within us and which each of us has to resist; the power of choosing wrongly.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

Hi, Rafin. I have lost my faith numerous times over my 50-something years -- sometimes for better, as when I went to school, finally studied the Bible contextually at the feet of very good professors who were also believers and un-learned some of the simplistic ideas from my childhood in an "inerrant Bible" church body; sometimes for worse. as when I became very angry at the Christian God for a number of things many years ago and went on an extended Christianity vacation.

I think you make a very good point about the question of "knowing" God. I just got done with a MOOC course called "Know Thyself" that touched on various philosophers, psychologists and others in the business of trying to figure out what we know; and the general conclusion is that we hardly know anything about ourselves -- how our minds work, how we make decisions, how we even know what we think we know -- let alone know about God.

That might be depressing to some, especially if their religious paradigm is dependent upon either knowing the right things to do to make God happy or knowing the right things to believe about God to make God happy. I'm in the Lutheran tradition, and for us God's loving/saving relationship with us isn't dependent upon either of those things, but rather upon a kind of basic trust...you don't have to think or feel or do the right things, but simply "live in the leap," as the saying goes, whether or not there's any evidence for rationally doing so. And that sort of non-intellectual trust has been, ironically, promoted in the context of pretty vigorous/critical church scholarship among mainstream Lutherans. So understanding the notion of "heaven" and "hell," or disembodied human souls apart from human bodies, as just a few of the religious ideas that Judaism likely imported from its neighbors, or that some of the Gospel sayings of Jesus were probably not said by him, or that the first disciples' understanding of who Jesus was was probably not what the understanding was even a couple of generations later...that stuff doesn't really both me. In fact, it's a relief to me to not have to hold a lot of contradictory/problematic Scripture in my head and feel compelled to make it all come out right.

To me the things that make me feel the farthest from God are the banal evils that we all inflict on one another to one degree, and the insidious, systematic evils we experience around us and the sudden, random bursts of absolutely destructive, nihilistic evil that happen like bombings and mass shootings. Lingering, painful, destructive diseases can make me doubt the existence of a good God. The fact that God does not make Godsself known in an obvious, universal, ongoing way can make me doubt the existence of a God, or at least of a "personal" God -- why the coyness? (And, by the way, I know most of the standard responses to these points; and, no, they're not necessarily convincing; but thanks for trying.)

I'm told that Hughston Smith, the great world religions scholar, was once asked why he was a Methodist Christian when his scholarly passion seemed to be for the Eastern religions. His response was, "In the end you've got to pick something." (Also his point while expressing distaste for some of his students' syncretistic tendencies.) Even with all my doubts, not only about the Christian proposition but about my own ability to even understand what it is I'm embracing or rejecting and why...I'm a Christian. That's where I seem to fit, although not always easily or articulately.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

LutheranChik

That's a great post. I could go through it agreeing with every line, but that would be tedious.

On the subject of knowing yourself, heartily agree. I was a psychotherapist, and the degree of our
ignorance about ourselves is awesome really.

On losing faith - about every week, for me. I used to think this was a bit odd, but I just surf it now.

I've settled into a comfortable skeptical theism in my old age. I don't know anything really. I like going to church. The end.

Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on :

[Smile]

Posted by hanginginthere (# 17541) on :

lutheranchik Thank you for the expression 'live in the leap'. I've never come across this before and it expresses very well where I am at present!

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

thanks for the replies all. My point about knowing God was in regard to my prior and current beliefs. Even though I do not follow a set religion anymore, i do not feel like i know God any less. If anything, i feel like I understand him more because i am able to put it into context that makes sense to me.

I have no problem with anyone's beliefs, i can't say whether they are right or wrong. But I have always felt that maybe the way to God is not through religion, but relationship. In my mind, God far surpasses human intellect. I don't see him getting wrapped up in the same things we do.

When Christ said I require mercy not sacrifice, I always took it as saying "don't make sacrifices to me, make them for each other." I don't know if i even believe in Jesus anymore for sure, but i believe in what he taught. At least what I always got from it. If you project goodness, goodness will find it's way back to you. The same can be said for evil.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

Promise this one shows.

Posted by Gramps49 (# 16378) on :

Regarding how other Christians see the Roman Catholic Church.

First, I think you are making pretty wide assumptions that all other Christians see the Roman Church as pagan because of works righteousness. Not all Christians see the Roman Church that way; and if they do, it is because they do not understand the Roman Catholic positions on salvation and sanctification.

As a Lutheran I have always had high respect for my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. I also come from the catholic tradition. The biggest difference has to do with the power and primacy of the pope--but, then, I know many Roman Catholics are having questions about this too. That is one reason why I like what I am seeing from the new pope.

Myself, I don't get hung up about Satan, either.

I concentrate on how Jesus is speaking the world today.

All other questions are secondary.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

"Some Christian denominations believe that Catholics are pagans" is what i said. I know not all do. I was referring to the groups that do, as i do not know which denominations believe that (and i am sure not everyone in the denomination does.)

Sorry if it sounded like an accusation, i think you misunderstood. I am just curious how a group can be so opposed to a group with mostly similar beliefs, that it would discount the whole group?

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

Rafin
Coming from Roman Catholicism, I imagine it would be too great a step to move to non-belief, and, being an atheist, I will stay away from this topic! [Smile]

However, I wonder whether you have had a fair look at the 'there is no God' idea?

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

Well, i can't really jump to that idea totally. As an atheist, is it God in general you don't believe in, or just the popular idea of what God is?

I have given up on the definition. I personally don't know that God is listening to me or that it directly interacts with people. There is at the very least a design to nature. Everything is star dust as they say, and everything is in some way interconnected. For consciousness and intellect to exist they must be basically built in to the design, into nature. I don't at this time feel that man could have become self aware, if something wasn't also aware of man. It's sort of like a computer. A computer can do a ton of things on it's own, but it first has to be given the commands and programming to do it. So i can't say that i don't believe in God at all, simply because I can't comprehend how everything came to be without being created by something.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

I will say though, considering that i don't have a solid belief anymore it leaves me open to anything.

I'm always willing to listen to anyone's ideas no matter what they are. I don't get offended if someone has different ideas than i do because i am open to the fact that i don't actually KNOW anything.

I am not on an elusive quest for the absolute truth, because i don't think any of us can truly know we have it. If someone believes they have found God, then they have. I am just not in that group right now.

Posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg (# 17687) on :

Sugar, you're asking the wrong people.

You ought to be asking God these questions, since you already know He's present for you.

We the people are in the same quandries you're in, so asking us is pretty pointless.

[Smile]

Emily

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I was raised Catholic but over the past few years I have lost my faith. I wouldn't say I have lost my faith in God, just in mans ability to truly know anything about him. After reading different religious beliefs and questioning my own long standing ones, I can't make sense of any of it anymore. I'm here looking for answers and open to my own errors. Not truly believing in anything leaves me open to any possibility as I am in a state of I don't know, not i know it's not true.

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

I don't know he's present. And i don't know he listens. I don't even know if i'm present anymore [Smile]

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:

I have given up on the definition. I personally don't know that God is listening to me or that it directly interacts with people. There is at the very least a design to nature. Everything is star dust as they say, and everything is in some way interconnected. For consciousness and intellect to exist they must be basically built in to the design, into nature. I don't at this time feel that man could have become self aware, if something wasn't also aware of man.

Rafin, you're somewhere close to where I am, and I recognise my theology as Progressive.
I'm a lay preacher, and I always begin worship with 'We have come to worship God, whom we know as Creator, Father, Friend, Jesus the Galilean, the resurrected Christ, the ever-present Spirit, the source of unfailing Love, and the greatest Mystery'. That covers all the dear souls in front of me, with my own trust in the Mystery at the end. I then share my conclusions on the lectionary passages, and people hear what they expect to hear. And I choose hymns whose theology doesn't grate on my personal feelings.
I don't refer to the Trinity, which to me is an inadequate attempt by early theologians to encapsulate their understanding of God.
As I quoted up-thread, faith is an underlying trust, which I hang on to; belief depends on your world view, and I think that even today in a congregation there can be a multitude of world views.
I shall go on searching for the truth of the Mystery as it can be found in the christian way.

You said

quote:
I have no problem with anyone's beliefs, i can't say whether they are right or wrong. But I have always felt that maybe the way to God is not through religion, but relationship. In my mind, God far surpasses human intellect. I don't see him getting wrapped up in the same things we do.

When Christ said I require mercy not sacrifice, I always took it as saying "don't make sacrifices to me, make them for each other." I don't know if i even believe in Jesus anymore for sure, but i believe in what he taught. At least what I always got from it. If you project goodness, goodness will find it's way back to you. The same can be said for evil.

I totally agree.

GG

Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
LutheranChik

That's a great post. I could go through it agreeing with every line, but that would be tedious.

On the subject of knowing yourself, heartily agree. I was a psychotherapist, and the degree of our
ignorance about ourselves is awesome really.

On losing faith - about every week, for me. I used to think this was a bit odd, but I just surf it now.

I've settled into a comfortable skeptical theism in my old age. I don't know anything really. I like going to church. The end.

I lose my faith about as often as I lose my keys. At my age, this is several times a day...

Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :

Radon:
Someone has already remarked that putting belief in satan at the top of your list is a bit odd.

After all I’m sure you believe that there are forces of evil as of good, and does it make all that much difference if you ascribe personality to it?

I suspect you have started to doubt at a deeper level, and surely you need to address the person of Christ as top of your list.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
Well, i can't really jump to that idea totally. As an atheist, is it God in general you don't believe in, or just the popular idea of what God is?

I am quite sure (and being ancient, no longer bother every time to allow for the vanishingly small possibility that some God/god might turn up before I die) that there is not, nor ever has been, any actual god anywhere andwould say they are all human creations. For a large part of my life I argued strongly that there must be a force/power 'out there somewhere', although did know the Bible stories etc to be ways of teaching how and how not to behave ; and then I found that the space in my brain God was occupying was so minuscule, I simply erased it.

quote:
I have given up on the definition. I personally don't know that God is listening to me or that it directly interacts with people. There is at the very least a design to nature. Everything is star dust as they say, and everything is in some way interconnected. For consciousness and intellect to exist they must be basically built in to the design, into nature. I don't at this time feel that man could have become self aware, if something wasn't also aware of man.

That is because we have evolved to see patterns, to question and find answers because that behaviour must havehelped to ensure our survival.

quote:
It's sort of like a computer. A computer can do a ton of things on it's own, but it first has to be given the commands and programming to do it. So i can't say that i don't believe in God at all, simply because I can't comprehend how everything came to be without being created by something.

May I recommend a visit to the British or American Humanist Association web sites where a browse through might well help to provide answers. (Tangent: I was in the Dorchester Museum yesterday looking at the 155-million-year-old huge jaw of an aquatic dinosaur. I often wonder how people account for God/god/s before the human species arrived. End tangent)

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I will say though, considering that i don't have a solid belief anymore it leaves me open to anything.

Try 'The Magic of Reality' by Richard Dawkins, even if you read just the first section. It's written for young people, but in no way is there any dumbing down.

quote:
I'm always willing to listen to anyone's ideas no matter what they are. I don't get offended if someone has different ideas than i do because i am open to the fact that i don't actually KNOW anything.

I firmly agree, which is why I so much enjoy reading and posting on this forum as well as the JREF one during these retirement years.

quote:
I am not on an elusive quest for the absolute truth, because i don't think any of us can truly know we have it. If someone believes they have found God, then they have. I am just not in that group right now.

Like you, I have always been a seeker of truth; even as a child, I was always asking, 'Is this TRUE?'* But when I was young, the advances in Science, Astronomy, medicine, etc which have been made during recent years were not available in 'The World of Wonder'. [Smile]

Thank you - I have just spent a very interesting hour here with your posts.
*I loved fiction too of course!

Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on :

I saw this and thought of you. Liked the bit where she says she applied Darwin's approach to evidence when she investigated atheism, and found atheism came up short. [Smile]

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

Susan Doris says, 'I am quite sure that ...'. Just more of the usual dogmatism, really.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
I saw this and thought of you. Liked the bit where she says she applied Darwin's approach to evidence when she investigated atheism, and found atheism came up short.

Thank you ... I think! [Smile]

I listened right down to some of the comments ... but that was enough for now! *
*not sure whether to put 'eek', 'frown', or 'rolleyes'

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Susan Doris says, 'I am quite sure that ...'. Just more of the usual dogmatism, really.

Mild response: Not dogma, because atheists do not have a set of principles laid down by an authority.

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Susan Doris says, 'I am quite sure that ...'. Just more of the usual dogmatism, really.
Mild response: Not dogma, because atheists do not have a set of principles laid down by an authority.

But surely 'I am sure that ...' just is a dogmatic statement.

Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Rafin:
I don't know he's present. And i don't know he listens. I don't even know if i'm present anymore

Rafin, welcome to the Mystery and the Mess.

Posted by Emily Windsor-Cragg (# 17687) on :

What I have come to after reading all this is:

Some people want a final authority (eg a Pope) so they go the Catholic route, to be safe.

... Bnd some people want to feel they can INTUIT subjective authority more based in Justice than based in dogma ... so called "Free Will" and not need to be ordered around nor told what to do.

I don't believe in Free Will, actually. I believe personal actions are measured against what would occur (the outcome that would arise) if we were to act "Justly and Fairly," as seen from the perspective of the Just Will of God.

How do we stack up relative to His Will? ... is the question on the table, based on what WE DO, how we behave, compared to what He would do.

In this comparison, I think the future of our very Soul exists ... it seems to me.

There is NO Free Lunch and Creation is not just a cosmic Plaything.

As it says in the 3 laws of thermodynamics:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even. And
3. They won't let you quit the Game.

45 87 99 [Smile]

[ 15. June 2013, 23:08: Message edited by: Emily Windsor-Cragg ]

Posted by Rafin (# 17713) on :

thanks for the replies again. Lots of great stuff posted and gave me some food for thought.

My questions of the devil were not because he is on the top of my list of beliefs, i don't believe in the devil. My question was pertaining to the idea that the devil was created by the NT and didn't really appear in the OT, at least not in the same incarnation. I just think it is a huge leap in the story to have left that out for so long before Christianity started.

I still feel truth is subjective, and so is reality. No matter how many facts or how much evidence you can put in front of a person, they will usually continue to believe what they believe and try and find ways to support it. I think thats a good thing. Why should we all have to believe the same thing anyway?

Sometimes i watch the animals in my back yard and wonder what life without expectations would be like. I'd imagine they don't really expect anything from life. They just seem to seize it. I just see life anymore as a chance to exist. It comes with no guarantees. Once you are born, you automatically become part of the story in some way. Maybe we just get too worried about how big of a role our character has to play in it. I don't really care what page my character shows up on, i'm still trying to find out who the hell he is in the first place.

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