You're in grade 10?!?!?

Well done.

You've touched upon a lot of points people cite when they decide to give up belief in God, and some points about why some go back.  I don't have the perspective of a believer, because I've never been one, so the answer for me has always been "no".  But for those struggling with the question, think I can see the part of the attraction.

Where I lose you is here:  "But without God, the human race would find something else, with that much power to create and destroy."

I'm not sure we could.  There are other reasons to hate and fight, but not for so long, with such conviction, as faith.  With faith, both sides can feel that not only are they right, but that God is on their side.

 why, thank you.  

for you, if the answer is "no" - then you think the world would be better off without God? 

and hmm, i guess what i meant was that it's part of human character to believe in something like God... if you know what i mean. but, yeah, good point there. 

like the crusades. *shakes head sadly*

There may indeed be an innate "need" inside some people to believe in a higher power.  I wouldn't even begin to guess what percentage of people have this need, but it's not 100%.

Would the world be better off without God?  I think so.  It won't be complete, and it won't happen overnight, but the influence of God and religious leaders can subside with time and education.

To me (like Chansen) I don't think a God is woth it. It would seam that for every positive there are two negatives. I am interestid in what some of the Christian members of the cafe will say. And thank you for posting that question, I've thought about posting pretty much the same thing in the past but haven't :3

 There are vast differences between God and church... between god and religion, for that matter... ANY religion. A religion is just a human response to God; a Church is an organised human response to god.

An intelligent response to an intelligent young man.

Bolt

Hey Starboy!  You are indeed a shining star.

I'm glad to see your post.

I would however respond with,,,are "we" worth it?

It would seem that this is a challenging question to many as well, especially in this world that offers in many cases, to many people, little hope for a future.

When one would respond to a life with a thankful heart with an attitude of thanksgiving, one would assume one would have an accurate estimation of one's self within the Kingdom in which they serve.

Bolt

Starboy,

for all those things you've written, kudos to you :3

And no matter what, it is people who do the doing, who create the music, who build the cities, who fight the wars, who care for the children, who heal the sick, who tend to each other, who explore this vast creation.

But people do things in response to something else, never in isolation. Motivation, meaning, purpose and such all have a role.

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Are you flirting with me?

Faith, not necessarily in God

During the 20th century the human race found at least 2 major anti-God systems with significant power to create and destroy: the National Socialism of Germany and the Communism of the USSR. Fortunately for the rest of the world, they spent enormous power fighting each other, with considerable fanaticism and faith (in their leader? their system? their country?) on both sides. Fortunately for Canadians we are still free to speculate about the existence of God, and do not have to accept the dogma of those 2 systems that asserted that God does not exist.

During a war, people say all kinds of things.

It is convenient for politicians and generals to claim that God is on their side, especially if they think that will steel the population to fight on. That doesn't mean the war has anything to do with God, it just means the combatants are willing to try using God's name as one of their weapons. God can be made a convenient scapegoat.

My impression is that the longest-standing reason for hating and fighting is tribalism (competition for territory, resources, power etc, or simply out of revenge). That covers gang turf wars in city neighbourhoods, great imperial conquests (ancient and modern) and a lot of violence in between. Neighbouring tribes tend to have a history of past grievances to use as justification if someone wants to start a fight. (Maybe you even experienced the germs of such violence in some schoolyard behaviour?) It always helps if you can label the enemy as heretics, infidels, barbarians, atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, Communists, Nazis or anything but fellow human beings. "We" don't fight "us". "We" fight "them".

Hi Starboy:

It was great to meet you in person at the GC in Kelowna. If you represent the new generation of our church, then there is indeed hope for the UCC—and God.

I think the divisiveness and destructiveness that organized religion was—and in some parts of the world still is—responsible for is due to rigid dogmatism. When a fixed idea about God becomes more important than our personal relationship with the Divine, then we tend to "lord" our ideas about God over others, and argue and fight over different interpretations. But when we experience the Divine, then we experience not only the unity between all things but also, and more importantly, a powerfully compelling, universal and unitive love. That's why we say "God is love."

Mystical experience is powerfully unifying. Mystics of all belief sytems, and even those who are beyond doctrinal belief, tend to agree that the experience of the Divine is a unitive experience that is powerfully unifying. Mystics harmonize and agree where dogmatist fight.

If we are serious about retaining what is good and great about our church, as well as the church itself, then we should encourage spiritual experience. Experiencing God is better than believing in God.

Like this?

"GOD WITH US"

Hitler wanted to be a priest.  Stalin actually studied with that goal.  Both are widely regarded as having cultivated cults of personality.

National Socialism of Germany did not replace God and religion - they used them.    Communism of the USSR replaced religious obedience with obedience to the state, and in a way, became a sort of religion.  Look at North Korea today.  The leader isn't Kim Jong-il - it's his long-dead father, who still leads from beyond the grave.  It's a religious theocracy, masquerading as communism.

In both cases, atheism wasn't a central tenet.

"With or without religion, good people will do good, and evil people will do evil. But for good people to do evil, that takes religion."

 - Steven Weinberg

 Sorry chansen. You are quite right that German National Socialism used God and religion, only actively persecuting God-believers when they found it necessary or appropriate. (I did some more reading on the internet after I saw your reply.)

Yes, I agree that Soviet communism, like communism in North Korea (and I think also like Nazi Germany), demanded obedience to the state (or to the leader) in a way that resembles a religion.

To me that means the population is required to declare faith in (to "worship") something that it clearly not God, but a "God-substitute". That's why I think of these as examples of "faith, not necessarily in God". I was trying to distinguish between "faith in God" and "faith in a God-substitute".

However I guess, if you don't believe in God, then there are only "God-substitutes" but no real God. So then (what I call) God would be no more real to you than (what I call) a God-substitute, like Josef Stalin. That would certainly make sense to me. Is that the sense in which you call the USSR and North Korea (and maybe even Nazi Germany) as "religious theocracies"?

so, take for example the crusades. pardon me, but i think that those soldiers really thought that god was on their side. of course that was encouraged by the commanders, because it gave the army confidence. 

but if both sides thought god was on their side, who's side was he on? 

i think what i'm getting is that god is a being. and the way we interpret him (and the bible and everything else) is the problem, if you know what i mean. so maybe we aren't worth it. but if we aren't "worthy", what about god? i mean, is he just left hanging or what?

Hi Starboy:

I think and feel that God is on everyone's side. God is in everyone and everything, so how can he be expected to take sides? He would side against himself!

In don't regard God as some cosmic emperor whom one can petition to pull favours for one particular person or group. From my thinking and feeling, the purpose of prayer, meditation or worship is to link our individual selves with the omnipresent God.

We have removed ourselves from our innate union with God, not God from us. From God's side, we are always united with God. We have severed the link from our side and on our behalf, and it is up to us to re-establish the link. As I said in a previous post, experiencing our innate connectedness with God is far better than merely believing in God.

Nah,

just calling it how I see it.

Bolt

 first of all, arminius, it was great to see you at GC40. that was so cool! 

i've got a different question for you because obviously you have a beautiful and unshakable experience with god. 

is the organized church worth it? in the cases i listed, it was never god at fault, it was us. it was the church. 

so are we worth it? 

Hi Starboy! Nice to see you again!

And a good question too. You keep thinking and questioning and forging your own views and your own relationship with god and the divine and influencing others to think independantly. You will find that you can be you and that that is good and you don't have to agree with anyone else that goes by your same church name. Listen to Arminius, he speaks wise words.

We are definately worth it. And how you difine god, determins whether "he" is worth it. So find out how you want to define him. What he is to you. Read lots, watch documentaries.

Oh, and without god, I definately still feel love of the spirit. All nature is divine to me, all people, all outer space, all physics. I feel inner love without God. I can also create wonderful art of the highest calibre without god, and be good to others.

We're not worth the church, we're worth more than that. Each person has their own unique spiritual road to travel. It's more like a self guided tour.

Hi Starboy:

Are we worthy images of God?

Well, we have not lived up to our godly potential, that's for sure. But we, as a church and as a species, are on a learning curve which, I hope, is becoming a little steeper now.

I think that literalized, dogmatized and politicized religion has become just another self-serving ideology. The founders of Christianity were mystics, and their early followers were also mystically inclined. Early Christianity was a mystical movement. The "kingdom of God," which was Jesus' foremost purpose, vision and mission, probably was the unitive experience of at-one-ment with God.

Unfortunately, later Christian religion had to serve the imperialist interests of the Roman Empire, and Christianity fell away from mysticism into dogmatism and became politicized. Belief in the absolute truthfulness of a fixed doctrine replaced mystical experience as the essential element of faith, and remained so to this day.

In order to become worthy of having been created in the image of God we need to reclaim mystical experience as the essential element of faith.

My biggest Christian heroes are the three great medieval Dominicans, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Meister Eckhart. They were mystics and rationalists. Thomas Aquinas translated the works of Artistotle into Latin, and tried to reconcile Aristotlean thought with Christian theology. Alas, these mystical Rationalists were outnumbered and defeated by the Traditionalists, and dogmatic Christianity triumphed, despite the later Protestant Reformation, to this day.

Deep mystics have always been rationalists. After all, science analyses what mystics experience as a synthesis. What we need today is not irrational, pseudo scientific religious belief but the experience of the cosmic synthesis, a.k.a. God. Science analyses the totality which is God most truthfully; mysticism experiences IT most Truthfully. The two diametrically opposed approaches to truth necessitate and complement each other.

As I understand it (Millenium by Tom Holland), the 1st crusade began after Pope Urban II's announcement of 1095: "If any man sets out from pure devotion, not for reputation or monetary gain, to liberate the Church of God at Jerusalem, his journey shall be reckoned in place of all penance" (which I interpret to mean no time need be spent in purgatory). I would certainly expect any devout soldiers hearing this to believe they were "fighting for God".

Neither side, of course (or both, as Arminius suggested). Do you mean "who was on God's side?"  

What was God's will in this situation anyway? Did it happen?

I'll be presumptuous (and therefore very probably wrong) and suggest that God's will was for the 2 sides to lay down their arms, live peaceably and lovingly together, and stop bringing God's name into disrepute.

It hasn't happened yet.

Does that mean God is helpless to do anything? No, not helpless.

Place yourself inside the story of the Fall, as told in Genesis 2-3: man and woman in paradise, one tree off-limits in a garden full of endless supplies of free fruit of every kind.

Was God helpless to stop them eating from the off-limits tree? Of course not. He could have set up an electric fence with machine gun towers and made sure noone was getting anywhere near that precious tree!! (or a suitable Genesis-context substitute - angels with flaming swords maybe?)

God simply gave them a choice. He told them which choice was right, but he left the decision up to them. From the perspective of Genesis and the rest of the bible story, they made the wrong choice, and they suffered the consequences. But God both made things a little easier for them, and took steps to limit any further damage. (Why didn't they just ask God, "please let me try a little of the off-limits tree?").

For better or worse, we have to make choices and God leaves us free to make them.

So God is helpless after all? We can do what we want?

Well, Christians tell a story that God became a baby, grew up in a provincial backwater of an ancient empire, and was executed. That's pretty far down the helplessness scale! But fortunately for Christians their story does not leave their God in a grave, but tells that he was raised from the dead as the first sign of a world that is being re-created! That's so far up the helplessness scale that I think it must be off the scale entirely. In this Christian story God's apparent helplessness is actually enormous power.

God forces us to choose our responses. It can be desparately difficult.

War or peace? That's easy. Choose peace!

Not so fast. Let's try WW2 again. (I hope I can be more accurate than last time.)

Germany annexes Austria. War or peace? Peace!

Germany invades Czechoslovakia. War or peace? Peace! (But I hope they stop!)

Germany invades Poland. War or peace? War (but maybe it won't last long, if you're British/Canadian). Peace (but we're not going to ignore this, if you're American)!

And where is God in this? Everywhere. Absolutely everywhere (as Arminius suggested). Telling the decision makers which choices to avoid. (Who obeyed? Who did not?) Then, after war began, telling the combatants which choices to avoid. (Who obeyed?)  Helping to minimize the damage when wrong choices were made, and make things a little easier for all who suffered. Teaching some of the survivors to do things better in future. (Who obeyed?) Perhaps even working for some kind of justice?

Sorry, I got a bit carried away in my own rhetoric.  It probably started when I became presumptuous. Apologies for the length. I hope you can find some of this helpful.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've read today, even if it is only 12:43 AM.

The remarkable thing about all of that is, if you take God out of the equation, nothing changes.  God was telling, teaching, and looking for people to obey?  During WW2, like it was some kind of pop quiz?

If you really believe that, would you say your version of God is sadistic, lazy, or just indifferent?

RAN wrote:

 Sorry chansen. You are quite right that German National Socialism used God and religion, only actively persecuting God-believers when they found it necessary or appropriate. (I did some more reading on the internet after I saw your reply.)

S'OK, I'm rather used to threads like these being Godwin'ed and having atheists compared to nazis.  It's a favourite line among many believers, so the reply comes quite naturally by now.

OK, but the hard atheists I know aren't just against faith in God, they're against faith.  They are against belief without evidence.  That's why I say these examples don't represent atheist states - they had their own religious substitutes.

Joseph Stalin was far more real than God ever was, but I see your point.  I think the better comparison is God and Kim Il Sung.  North Korea is very much a theocracy, where you have to praise the Dear Leader, who is infallible, and never steps down.  Sound familiar?

Yes, GOD is worth it. First of all I'm thinking of the promise of Heaven. Also the crusades, homophobia, etc. didn't come from GOD, it came from people using HIS name in vain. It came from human ideas and misinterpretation, often deliberate, of the Bible. I hope people distinguish between GOD and what is falsely ascribed to HIM.

What I want to know is, "What does God have to do with it anyway?"  What I mean by that is, in the case of ... say ... the residential schools, is sure we were were hard on those indigenous children but then again weren't we hard on all children?  Weren't orphanages organized in the same way?  Wasn't corporal punishment meted out in all the schools ... not just in the residential schools but also the Catholic schools and in the public schools.  Wasn't it a practice to mortify and immobilize all children not just native children.  Sit up straight!  Hands folded on your desks!  No you may not go to the bathroom!  Go stand in the corner!  Face front!  Legs under your desk!  No talking to your neighbour!  Michael!  Look at the board!  What do you find so interesting about Debbie?  I went to a school where you could get in trouble for running in the school yard!  (no kidding!).  It was all mortification all the time.  When I started school in 1952 they still had the strap and they still used it.  (and what still seems like a century later in 1959 they were still using it).  So what did that have to do with God?  Nothing!  That's just what people did  ... despite the teachings of Christ ... or of Buddha for that matter.  Pretty well everybody was hard on their kids.

Go to the grocery store and you still see mothers inflicting a sort of military discipline on their kids; screaming at them in the manner of a drill sergeant when they dare to go over to the shelf and pick up a can of soup; yanking them around; threatening them; putting on a show of how well they "train" their children and of their expectation that their children should act like little adults when really all the child is doing is trying to do is shop like mommy shops and do what mommy does; trying to learn.  And eventually, of course, they do learn ... and they do act like adults ... neurotically controlling their own children and bullying them and screaming at them.  Two thousand years ago Jesus told all the neurotic controlling mothers trying to hold back their curious children so as to exact perfect obedience from them (as usual even as to where they might walk or stand), to "suffer the little children to come to me".  What then does God, or Christ, or Christianity or Methodism, or Presbyterianism really have to do with any of that? 

When the Jews and the Arabs fight it is not about God or because of God.  They fight over territory, over water, over power, over money.  Sure they invoke their God (who by the way is the same God, the God of Abraham) and call each other Godless, but God or no God, they would still fight ... because it is not about God, or religion or Judaism, or Mohammed.  God has nothing to do with it.  They fight notwithstanding the best teachings of their religions.

Spirituality is not about social regimentation and control.  God is not about social regimentation and control.  God is about freedom and choice and the knowledge that one may rise above one's fate.  So when we act in a way that limits our freedom and that of our children, when we fail to choose and fall into the same old pathways to failure, and we fail to rise above our fate, why would we lay that failure on God?  We are contemplating a human failure not a divine failure.

Of course God is "worth it" ... but "it" isn't the "same old shit".  "It" is something different and something of a much higher quality and standard than "the usual".

I am reading a compelling book called I Don't Believe in Atheists by Chris Hedges.

The thesis of the book is that the cause of much of the modern genocides (perpetrated by the Nazis and Communists) is the myth of human perfectibility.  The idea that human beings are progressing and evolving becoming more rational are evolving toward perfection..  The idea started with the Enlightenment and reached its first practical application in the French Revolution with the "Republic of Virtue".  Unfortunately the Republic of Virtue also requires a Committee of Public Safety to enforce the virtue and eliminate those who are against our Utopia.  This lead to the Reign of Terror and the deaths of 16,000  to 40,000 people.  These ideas under Nazism and Communism lead to the deaths of millions.  Organized religion itself is not immune from this thought process, especially those religious movements whose goal is to build a theocratic state where there is no room for tolerance or decent.

Hedges then uses this thesis to condemn the modern atheist movement (Dawkins Hitchens Harris et al.) as perpetuating the same myth.  The modern atheist movement believes that we are evolving toward a more rational and progressive society and they ignore the fact that human nature and morality has not progressed with the material progress that (in the Western world) currently enjoy.  Hedges view of human nature is rather dark, and he believe that once the veneer of civilization is stripped away (either by war, famine, or catastrophe) we will quickly revert back to a more animal nature.

The modern atheists also seek to derive morality from science when science itself has no morality.  He examines the Theory of Evolution and how it has been distorted as a social and political theory to serve various agendas, like social Darwinism and eugenics.  Looking to science to provide a moral code is  not something that can be relied upon because at its core science itself has no morality.

He also makes the case for evil.  How can evil be explained?  In the context of the rational utopian thought of the atheist can it be explained?  Is there such a thing as pure evil?  Religion does explain evil and how we all must be aware and vigilant against it because the potential exists within all of us.

It is a potent criticism of the atheist movement and some of their excesses such as simplistically categorizing all religious thought as fundamentalist, or categorizing ethnic/political conflicts like Northern Ireland as "religious wars". 

I can't say I believe in all of Hedges ideas, but it is a compelling thesis and useful counter-argument to some of the prominent ideas being perpetuated now. 

I think it's a good time to be an atheist.

Athiests in our society remind me of someone that refuses to get the flu shot because they never get the flu, therefore it's unnecessary to be vaccinated. As long as the majority of the populaton receive their flu shot, they will undoubtedly have less risk of contracting the flu because there will be less chance of transmission from a vaccine protected population.

An atheist will tell you that society would be better off without God while living  amidst a society that has supported Christian principles  for generations or has at least attempted to live by them. The benefit is never acknowledged. Instead it is stated it is possible to live better without God's guidance. God is non existent and unnecessary. 

In my opinion, the luxery of atheism  never becomes so prevalent as when  freedom is secure and God is in the house. 

.  

If I am sadistic, lazy or indifferent then that's just me, not God. I'm sure you would agree with that.

If God was around, God would be telling me to act differently.

Would I hear? Perhaps, but my listening skills surely need more practice.

Would I obey? I wish it could be so. However I believe God would leave that up to me.

If I don't obey, then I should expect to suffer some consequences. (Cause and effect.)

What, when, where, how? I don't know, though consequences are sometimes quite predictable.

There are God-substitutes that may be encouraging my actions (sadistic, lazy or indifferent), rather than opposing them. They might even threaten me if I try to act differently.

Even when I give in to such threats, I would still hope to tell the difference between God and a God-substitute.

Do you think there are consequences for people who are sadistic, lazy or indifferent?

H3Y R4N! IM IN Y3R 7HR34D 4N5W3RING Y3R QU357I0N5!

(Sry, couldn't resist )

Anyway, I'm not too sure if that last little question was meant for Chansen of for all of the thread (I assume it was for Chansen but i'm answerin' it anyway because I'm in yer thread answering yer questions).  I think that karma will provide a "consequence" for people who are sadistic but karma needs no "god", think of it more as a natural law ("what goes are comes around" if you will).

things are getting mildly complicated here so i've got a bunch of simple questions/comments, just to... make reading easier. xD 

arminius: why were you a farmer instead of a history/philosophy/theology professer? i just about fainted when i read what you wrote... i hope to know as much as you someday.

RAN: but was god helpless to stop the snake in the garden of eden?

qwerty: i hope you haven't told anyone about your opinion of residential schools... umm, at least your culture wasn't being attacked and demoralized at every turn. at least you had a family to go home to. i understand that all schools were.. a lot different than today, but - gee i don't know. it doesn't seem like you've done your homework (no pun intended).

waterfall: atheism's surely easier.

My Grandmother was in a residential school...Qwerty being "hard" on the students is one thing but what went on in those schools was horrible and sick. "I went to a school where you could get in trouble for running in the school yard!  (no kidding!)" did you also go to a school where you could get beat for speaking in you native tounge while outside or speaking at all inside? If you do some reading about them I'm sure you'll understand what I mean (I don't want to go into detail as it is something that happend to my family and really isn't something I think my Grandmother would want me to share with people).

Starboy, Has it been helpful so far?

I do find it easier than I think it is for you. I never had to deal with these questions.

 "Unfortunately, later Christian religion had to serve the imperialist interests of the Roman Empire, and Christianity fell away from mysticism into dogmatism and became politicized. Belief in the absolute truthfulness of a fixed doctrine replaced mystical experience as the essential element of faith, and remained so to this day."

Arminus--I couldn't agree more than with this statement.  I should now pull Eckhart off my bookself and start reading him.  I had good intentions when I bought the book a few years ago but I have never actually read him.

For a different perspective on the mystical experience read:

The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah,  Christians have much to learn from Sufis  who do not consider themselves to be "Moslem mystics" at all.

Yes, pleroma, I've read Idries Shah, and other Sufi mystics, back in the eighties. I probably should dust them off and re-read them.

The Sufi mystics are even more examplary of the union between rationality and mysticism than the three great medieval Dominican mystics. Most Sufi mystics were powerful rationalists as well as mystics. The advances in mathematics and the sciences that were made in the Golden Age of the Islamic world were due largely to mystical insights. The Western World took over the mathematical and scientfic knowledge from the World of Islam, and expanded it, but forgot about the underlying mysticism, and divorced science from mysticism.

Mystics experience as a synthesis what science analyses. I think and feel that reality is in an ultimate state of synthesis, which can only be intuited, imagined or experienced in the pure, unconceptualized experience, a.k.a. mystical experience. There appear two be two diametrically opposed truths at work in the universe, the small "t" truth of analysis and the capital "T" Truth of synthesis, with synthesis being the higher and ultimate Truth and analysis the subordinate truth. Synthesis, however, can only be intuited or experienced. And, in the experience of synthesis, we experience God.

Science, however, has the most analytically true explanations of the ineffable mystery which is God. All other explanations are more or less metaphorical. Even science is slightly metaphorical, but most true. But the pure, unconceptualized and direct experience of synthesis is ultimately and absolutely True. But synthesis is ineffable in analytical terms and concepts, and can only Truthfully be experienced.

Hi Starboy:

Well, I grew up in the extreme post-war poverty of Germany, and there weren't many options. My father was the village blacksmith, and I had to become his apprentice and helper when I graduated from Grade 8 of our one-room village school.

When I was 24 I left our village and migrated to Australia, and at age 28 migrated on to Canada. The battle for daily survival in foreign lands, and the struggle to make it from a welder and factory worker to a self employed farmer occupied all of my energies. It wasn't until my retirement from farming that I had ample time to read, think, and write. But I had been an avid reader from age 8 on, and read whatever I could get my hands on, whenever I could.

One really studies inside one's head, not inside school rooms or lecture halls. The biggest university is TU: The Universe! It is always wide open for any of us to study in. I often say jokingly that I have a BS degree from TU.

Sebb,

Everyone thinks their troubles are the worst troubles.  Contrary to what your grandmother told you, indigenous people did not and do not have the market on suffering cornered. 

Couldn't Adam and Eve themselves have stopped the snake by saying "no, thanks" or "just let me check with God first" to the temptation? God gave them power to say no.  

When I was a young child, my parents would try to protect me from temptations they believed were too big for me to face at that age. Of course they couldn't isolate me from all temptations, and I don't think they would have considered it healthy for me if they had tried. I believe that God was working through/with my parents, on at least some of those occasions.

I have certainly experienced temptation as a voice (an "inner voice") telling me to do something that I believe I should not do (or avoid doing something that I believe I should do). A great variety of people and things may trigger such temptations in me, so I know God does not stop all temptations from coming to me. 

Wait a minute - Either God/Spirituality is real or it isn't. We may abuse the name of God and commit atrocities in the name of God, but that doesn't make God any more unreal.

Let's use the Leaning Tower of Piza as an example. I have never seen it personally. Just because I believe it's crazy that a building can lean at such an angle doesn't make it any more or less real. Either it exists or it doesn't

For instance Sebb what does your grandmother have to say about the depradation of the Christian brothers at the St. John school in Uxbridge?  Their situation was analogous to that of your grandmother in a residential school.  None of the victims there were native children.  What about the children abused by the Christian brothers in Newfoundland?  Their situation was analogous to that of your grandmother in a residential school.  What about the girls in the laundries of Ireland?  Their situation was analogous to that of your grandmother in a residential school.  None of them were indigenous peoples. 

What about the children who died in Bergen and Belsen and at Aushwitz?  How does your grandmother's pain compare to theirs?  Many of the children I went to school with were the children of Holocaust survivors.  I have sympathy for all children who suffer everywhere.  Don't presume to tell me whether my sympathy is sufficient.  If one considers the bigger picture your grandmother's suffering is not exceptional but sadly, quite ordinary, and if one looks at its roots it does not have very much to do with God or religion or Methodism or Presbyterianism or Catholicism for that matter (quite the opposite I would say).  It has to do with ignorance and the abuse of power and the things people do when they think they are not answerable to any higher authority and their actions are secret.  This of course was my original point.  Had God and the teachings of Christ actually figured into the calculations of the perpetrators perhaps the result might have been different.

... well actually Sebb it was worse than that ... I went to a school where you could get beat for using slang in my own language while outside and for speaking with other children in class ... I considered myself lucky though because I wasn't going to a Catholic school and getting strapped regularly by the nuns ...

You may read about the Magdalene laundries here ...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/08/sunday/main567365.shtml

see above

This is about people and a society perpetrating outrageous cruelty on their own kith and kin.

I have, Starboy, in fact, "done my homework".

There's also an excellent and disturbing film called, appropraitely, "The Magdalen Sisters". I recommend it's viewing.

Humans are God's most fallable creatures. It is because of humans that atrocities and crimes are commited. We can choose good or evil, but we are also influenced by good and evil forces that balance the existence of humanity. God is worth my time to love and understand because he created me, and gave me this lifetime to figure out why I am here and what purpose I serve. HUMANS WHO USE GOD & CHURCH for self-serving aims, slander the good name of the Creator and blur the lines of morality. The Catholic Church is one such example. If homosexuality is a sin, then how come Priests molested and raped countless children in residential schools? Were they exempt from the ten commandments because they were "Doing God's Work"? That is some pretty backward, grey water-fed thinking, if you ask me. It is not God we should blame for all the troubles of the world, it is Human's Ego and Satan's grasp on that knowledge. Like I said, Humans are God's most fallable creatures.

You hit the nail on the head, unfortunately.

Hi Starboy:

As I just pointed out on a different thread: It is written elsewhere in Genesis that Adam and Eve did the right thing by eating from the Tree of Knowledge, only they forgot to eat from the Tree of Life as well. Had they eaten from the Tree of Life as well as the Tree of Knowledge, then they would have remained in Paradise.

In my opinion, the "knowledge" of the Tree of Knowledge is analytical knowledge, whereas the Tree of Life symbolizes unity and synthesis. When get way from analyzing, and immerse ourselves in the pure experience of unity and synthesis (which is the actual state of being) then we are in Paradise, which is here and now and always.

And all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. 

-Julian of Norwich

Jonny,

You'll need to make a whole lot of qualifiers.  You are speaking only of your personal concept of god and heaven, neither of which are universal. If you can get a handle on the fact that you live in a big, shared world of many, many concepts, then your 'understandings' are very blinkered.

Perhaps that might be a source of conflict?

LL&P (perspective s.v.p.)

Spock

Is god worth it?

As a non-believing atheist, making deisions based on the best available knowedge (as opposed to beliefs), I can confidently say...

No, god or any belief system is not worth it.

Life is less complicated, easier, much more fun, interesting....

Free thinkers are free to think. Why imprison yourself with theology?

LL&P (without the need for god)

Spock

Spockis53,"Free thinkers are free to think. Why imprison yourself with theology?"

I would say,"Christians are free to think. Why imprison yourself with only worldly knowledge?"

Christians are constrained by the parameters of their beliefs. The fact they label themselves as Christians limits them by definition. ie. "I believe in 'this', therefore I am a Christian."

Free thinkers can honestly discuss ALL theologies and all concepts of the real world without the bias required of a Christian. If you are a Christian, you must have some limits to your beliefs preset. If you don't, where's the integrity in the label?

You can 'think' all you want as a Christian, but there are dogmatic walls.

LL&P

Spock

Hi Spock:

Not every Christian is an absolutist, fundamentalist or dogmatist. Many of us Christians are not constrained by dogma. Call us metaphorical Christians, if you will. We have feelings and experiences that we metaphorically interpret in Christian terms, but we regard the metaphorical interpretations of others as equally metaphorical and equally valid. And, as far as truth can be detrmined by the scientfic method, we regard scientific findings to be true. And our speculations are, like yours, speculative and/or metaphorical.

I regard myself as a freethinker without losing my integrity as a Christian. To me, the label "Christian" does not necessarily mean "dogmatic Christian."