What is it you believe?

[Xar]

Great post Xar. As always, I find your view of it all a far more appealing one. And of course, I certainly agree that the "scriptures" per se have been tampered with often with far less "spiritual" goals in mind.

That said, I'm not sure I agree with your comment about it being more prevalent in the OT. At least partly because of the Judiac tradition of including and preserving all discussion and commentary, rather than simply replacing. Could be wrong abut that, but it's my initial impression. (Also of course the fact that the OT really predates church etc.)

--A

The OT predates the Church, of course, but the Church isn't the only religious institution which has tampered with its sacred texts, throughout the history of humanity. Tampering with religious beliefs and texts was already practiced in ancient Egypt, where additions or modifications to the religion of the Egyptians were used as an excuse (or a divine mandate) for the action of priests (for example, sects claiming the god of another sect was simply another form of theirs, and so on). Additionally, many sacred texts have begun their existence as oral traditions, and only later have been put on paper; in the time between their appearance and the first time they were passed on in written form, any number of modifications - whether intentional or not - could have taken place. Add to that the possible outside influences of times and religions, and the picture is complete: for example, it is believed that the eschatologyof the Abrahamic religions is derived in part from the Zoroastrian religion, which was the earliest known monotheistic religion AND the earliest known religion which presented its own eschatology.

[Avatar]

Fair enough. I definitely agree that it's in the best interests of government / society to do such tampering in order to achieve their own, usually quite distinct, goals.

There's no reason that christianity should be the only perpetrator.

--A

[Sqorrox]

Honestly have no idea if we're on topic because, honestly and no offence meant, I can be bothered to read 11 pages of messages at quarter to ten at night at my slow reading pace. Sorry. But anyhoo, now I'm off topic.
I personally do not believe in any form of God. I really like the idea of Buddhism but don't know if I'd be able to discipline myself enough to get all the benifits from it. I would like to believe in bubble theory (the one where there are lots of universes in bubbles that are all sitting just next to each other) with, at the very least "our" universe if not "all" the universes being part of string theory (where the universe keeps recreating itself big bang to apocalypse to big bang and so on). I would like to think that at least some of the legends and myths were real or are at least real somewhere. I do believe in magic although not the Harry Potter type, the way you get the perfect moment, that first attraction to someone you love, the way the air can sparkle and dance. It would be pretty cool if at least some of Harry's magic were real, but I doubt it! I don't believe in a soul as such but I do think that when you die it is only your "mortal body" that dies and rots in the ground but your personality, what makes (made) you you and what you were like and loved and did lives on in others and, although it gets diluited over the years and generations it still never TRULY disappears. I did use to believe in God and be very definitely Christian but then about 6/7 years ago I started asking questions like Why? Where? How? What? When? etc. and, though it could be argued that I have yet to find an answer the answers I've gained so far, with a little help from my RE teacher and long wet Scottish afternoons, are far more satisfactory to me than the beliefs of my youth which were never quiestioned until it came to the point whereby doing so left them behind. I love philosophy and I love learning about religion I just don't feel it religion quite fits in with me as the standard use of the word but philosophy...

[rusmeister]

Rus,

interesting response on the history of the scriptures, but I don't agree with you on the Orthodox Church, I simply see this church as yet another one to wondere about and possibly be alarmed at along with the rest. For the record I am English and was raised a Catholic, went through the Charismaric Renewal in the 80s, came out of that, reverted to quieter modern Catholicism, and have a free church (non established Church of England) minister for a Dad. I also have a higher qualification in theology/scripture so I think I'm fairly well placed. I don't come from any sort of fundamental Christian background and well familiar with the tolerant loving teachings. My godfather is a priest too!

No, my issue is with Christianity as a whole. I feel it's based on mistruths. take the New Testament for example; there's an enormous difference between Christ in John and the synoptics. Too fundamentally different to reconcile really. In John he's a quiet, spiritual "let them find out for themselves and come to me" type; in the synoptics he's an evangelical miracle weaving almost hellraiser (not quite apt, but you know what I mean. In James & Judas, different again.

there's too many discrepancies on which central tenets of faith are made, particularly surrounding Mary. The very fact that the first "authorised" gospel was written around 65AD is iffy. Christianity hangs on some hard adherence to parts of the gospels - but they were written over 30 years after Christ's death and so can't be accurate. They were arguably written not as scriptures at all, but as a rough record of what happened that needed to be got down somehow before some of the eyewitnesses died.

Then you have the first "priests and bishops" - Paul, Peter, James etc. They all had very different agendas both politically and spiritually. James & Paul did not agree, or even as rumour has it liked each other. You have Paul a political animal, tryiong to assuage the authorities and James the evangelist and purist trying to continue a contentious, argumentative, anti Roman faith. And Paul becomes the scirpture of choice - that's rocky for me.

Not convincing enough.

Hello again, Hamako!
(I don't come to this particular forum very often - I enjoy SRD, but the focus is too narrow for me)
I can understand your objections. Certainly, on certain levels of understanding, there do indeed seem to be contradictions. I would suggest considering (as a Covenant fan you can surely appreciate this) how paradoxes can be true without actually being contradictions; ie, that there is a difference.
I guess I would just say that your difficulties in reconciling understandings are based on your own limitations of understanding - that there could be explanations based on information you simply don't have (yet). And a 'Sola Scriptura'-type approach (where you rely exclusively on your own intellect and the information available to you to make final judgements) is bound to result in a perception of contradiction.

Again, some of the things you say take a Protestant-type view of 'adherence to Scripture' and 'Scripture of choice'. If one's study of Christianity came from a mindset and discipline that happens to not be well-founded, one might well come to the conclusions that you have come to. I'd just say don't write it off - our own minds are limited, after all, and we only have 20, 40, or 60 years of personal experience - a drop in the bucket compared to the Church's 2,000 years.

[rusmeister]

You also need to consider the fact that even gospels written a few decades after Jesus's death wouldn't necessarily be free of political corrections, placed there to suit the agenda of the writers and the fledgling group of followers; it is entirely possible that there is no true, factual, 100% (or even just 90%) accurate description of Jesus's life and works. Add to that translation errors and additional tampering with the gospels and the Bible throughout the centuries, and it's entirely possible that whole sections of them might have been heavily changed or completely removed (this would be, of course, more extensive in the Old Testament than the New Testament, due to the greater age of the former). And this applies also to the Church's tenets. Take, for example, the concepts of Limbo and of Purgatory, both of which were not in the original Christian teachings and were added afterwards. Limbo was recently declared untrue, but for centuries people believed that unbaptized children would not be admitted into Heaven, but rather left to an eternity in Limbo.
This leads in turn to the age-old question of sinning: not "why do people sin", but rather "why are some things considered to be sins" and "why, if God is infinitely merciful, are people punished for sins"? Is it possible that some sins were artificially called such by the early Church, in attempts to sway the population? There are theories, for example, that the "sin of suicide" was actually added in medieval times to prevent peasants and commoners from killing themselves rather than dedicating their lives to toiling for their earthly lord.

Truth be told, there are of course difficult ethical questions in everyday life (consider abortion, for example - is it right to kill an unborn baby, or to force an unwilling woman to carry it to term so it can live?). And organized churches of every kind offer their own viewpoints on these topics (sometimes organized like orders, sometimes not). But ultimately, it is up to us to judge, and I can't reconcile the concept of an infinitely merciful and good God with eternal damnation. If even human, "flawed" parents would forgive their children anything (and we see examples of these in the news, when someone is arrested for murder and his/her parents still support him/her and love him/her unconditionally), then how could an infinitely good and merciful divine Father sentence his children to eternal suffering, no matter what the crime?
For that matter, what about regret? Why would regretting your sins while alive (and asking for forgiveness) grant you absolution (or at least respite from Hell) and regretting them after death, when facing God, not be enough? One could say "because once you're dead and facing God, your regret would be self-serving, a cheap way for you to escape the fires of Hell you now would know exist"; but surely, there might be people who died in accidents and such, who didn't have time to regret their sins, even though they might have done that if they had had a little more time. Are there special provisions? Where does one draw the line?

It all depends on the perception one has of the divine, of course. In medieval time, God as Father was not a widespread concept; God as Judge was. Therefore, it was unheard of to even propose that God would forgive your sins: if you sinned, God would send you to Hell for all eternity. Similarly, then, what I wrote above and what I'm going to write below would make no sense to some who have different concepts of what the divine is.

In truth (and here I'm offering my belief only) I find another concept easier and more believable - not just "more logical", but also better at avoiding the pitfalls of contradiction, rather than having God judge you for your sins, and cast you into the pit of Hell if you're unworthy of salvation. I find it far more believable to think that it is not God who sentences you to suffering, but yourself: not because of sins in this earthly life, but because you refuse to accept forgiveness. Forgiveness, after all, is a tricky thing: in order to accept it, you must admit (even just to yourself) you have done something to be forgiven for, and that the forgiving party judges wrong too. Follow me here - if you truly believe you've done nothing wrong (as it is the case with some murderers, for example, who after years are still secure in their belief they had every right to murder their victim), would you stand by and accept forgiveness offered to you by someone else? Or would you rather refuse to admit you ever had anything to forgive in the first place, and draw away from the person who - just by offering you forgiveness - is, in a way, "judging" your actions?
But if the forgiving party is God, wouldn't drawing away from God be a sort of Hell? To willingly keep yourself away from God, alone, because you believe you've done nothing wrong in your life?
And if, like many religions claim, God is omnipresent, wouldn't your denial be even more torturous, simply because you try to draw away from a presence which, no matter how hard you try, you cannot exclude? A constant presence reminding you it offers forgiveness for actions you believe you had every right to perform? For all eternity?
Isn't that Hell - a Hell you freely chose? And couldn't you end that torment at any time, just by admitting to yourself you've done something wrong and accept God's forgiveness? And wouldn't that be purgatory, of a sort?

Allright, I definitely strayed from the beginning of the post; but this is just to explain that in truth, a relationship with the divine is a personal thing, and it is - in my opinion - far more important for everyone to find his or her own way to relate with the divine, than simply accepting an institution's teachings without ever once questioning any part of them. Again, as a parent, what would you rather have - a child who blindingly obeys everything he's told by his brother on your behalf, or a child who thinks about what he is told, and tries to find his own way to relate to you without passing through his brother?

There are a few assumptions made here that I would like to address. (That said, I'll say that you made some excellent points, too!!)

I think it can be equally said that gospels written a few decades after Jesus's death wouldn't necessarily have political corrections, placed there to suit the agenda of the writers and the fledgling group of followers; it is entirely possible that there is a true, factual, 100% (or even just 90%) accurate description of Jesus's life and works.

Your point about translation errors is quite valid and requires a deeper answer. But to everything else that follows in your experience of Christianity, especially on the concepts of Limbo and Purgatory, seem to be based on the understanding of the Roman Catholic Church as THE one Christian Church that existed before the reformation and seems to leave out the Great Schism of 1054 and what happened to the other 4 Church centers (of which Rome was only one - the others were Jerusalem, Antioch, Constantinople and Alexandria); in short, you don't seem to know about the Orthodox Church, which never got into all of the things like Purgatory and Limbo and the other issues that led Martin Luther to revolt against Rome.

Is it possible that the Roman Church, which declared one Bishop as supreme ruler (the Pope) and broke off from the other Churches, was the one that went wrong and guilty of everything that you describe? If so, then those objections would not apply to the Orthodox Church, and you'd have to rethink your arguments.

Your question on sin, I think, can be reduced to "Is sin a real phenomenon or is it just something made up by guys in robes to control us?" This is a serious question. My answer to it is that if you understand sin as selfishness, which places the desires of self above the good of others, then most certainly there is such a thing, in which case your feelings about the word might merely be conditioned emotional reaction. Every time a driver cuts me off in traffic I see evidence of sin. (But oh, my goodness, how much harder it is to see it in myself...)

A good way to understand the Christian teachings on suicide is to compare it to martyrdom and identify the fundamental differences between them. Let us admit that suicide cannot be a solution for humanity at large. Otherwise we all might as well kill ourselves.

When you say "It is up to us to judge", in a very real sense you are right. Unfortunately, as I said above, the fact of death remains, and none of us make it much past 100 years of experience and most far less - meaning that we live 20, 40, or 60 years, live and learn, then die, and the next generation repeats the process. Civilizations rise, then they fall. So we have to judge, yet hardly have the experience to be able to competently judge on questions of enormous complexity. Protestant Christianity stays with the self, identifying the Bible as authority. Yet it can be seen how many cacaphonious interpretations result from everyone relying exclusively on the self to interpret Scripture. Well and good. The Roman Catholic Church claims authority to interpret Scripture, and yet has resulted in the things you describe. Yet the Orthodox Church remains - and without a supreme leader like the Pope has managed to maintain a remarkable unity of dogma over 2 millenia. The initial Christian teaching was VERY simple. Dogma arose for the purpose of combatting heresies that arose within the Church (and for the first 1,000 years of its existence, there was only one Church).

The concept of a God who punishes people for their sins and sends them to hell is alien to Orthodox Christianity. Sin is something we do to ourselves, and it is our own self-destruction (by our own choice) from which we need to be saved, both physical and spiritual. So congratulations!!! You are thinking like Orthodox Christians do!!!

One doesn't draw the line. God draws the line. In Orthodox thinking, we can't judge whether another person will be saved or not. We don't know what is in others' hearts, how they lived their lives...

The problem with relativism is when 'paths to God' clash. We can't assert that all are valid when some flatly contradict others. This always brings us back to a need for absolute Truth somewhere, and you're back to questions of right and wrong, true or false. Not everything can be merely shades of grey. I would say that your analogy works better with father rather than brother. That said, the child who is preferable is a child who thinks, but recognizes that the father is far older, has far more experience and loves the child, and further, is a fountain of truth that can be learned from, and we learn when we listen, not when we speak. He says snow will soon fall, and like in a fairy tale, it soon does! He says that it's dangerous to play in the street, and later you see a dead cat and discover that it's true. Of course we should think, but identifying and recognizing authority gives us a lot more opportunity for development than simply learning from ourselves and our own experience. Could you imagine a person becoming a Nasa rocket scientist without ever studying science from some kind of institution or text, relying on only his own personal experiments?

Just trying to get across that Christianity might have a rational basis, and that there may be explanations for the things you object to in it.
Whew! Responding to these posts is a lot of work!

[Skyweir]

i believe in me .. i believe that there is a god who also believes in me .. i believe i am accountable for my own actions not for the actions of others unless i have influenced or caused their actions

Xar makes some good points - the God concept was not in the OT depicted so much as a parent figure .. and I too think that we will ultimately judge ourselves .. who better would know our motivations .. and ultimately then i believe that after life there is a death and i believe after death there is life.

Rusmeister .. I see your point about judgement that who are we to judge .. we have experienced such little of life .. but we have experienced sufficiently ourselves .. and thats really all we are held accountable for imo

is ourselves and what we ourselves have done in this world

what value we have added .. what value we have detracted .. etc

i believe that if we navigate our lives and selves to care about others, love, show kindness, abiding by what we know is right .. we will be happy in this world .. and happy in whatever worlds to come.

i have died .. once .. about 10 years ago .. and it truly changed me .. lol

I am a better person because of it .. and i have a belief in the value of me and the value of each of us ..

i believe we are inherently good .. and believe me I have seen evil .. but I do not believe we start out like that .. i am sure there are exceptions .. but generally speaking we are good.


i believe there is more to life than what can be seen and felt in this physical world .. i believe i am a spiritual being engaged in a physical experience as opposed to being a physical being being engaged in a spiritual experience (occassional to rare at that)

[danlo]

I said it 3 years ago, and I'll say it again,

I get off on this creation. This planet that we call home. If this is an incarnation I feel very blessed that I am here and it exists now.

I prefer the term 'spiritual awareness' to religion. I have no need for past tenets, constructs, or belief systems. I feel that the individual is free to determine his/her own path and that spiritual belief and awareness is too personal to even adequately express and should never be forced upon another. My life motto, so far, is that if you are not learning you're not living. I am always in search of answers but since this is an ongoing process I realize I am far from any answers. Is this the essence of an 'open-mind'? I surely hope it is.

When I say: I have no need for past tenets, constructs, or belief systems what I really mean is that I haven't and will not subject myself to such without a hell of a fight. I do try to study such to the best of my ability and I can see the beauty, logic and usefulness of certian parts. These I may decide to incorporate into my own system..so far attempting to be nice, working to curtail my own anger, being non-hippocritical, trying, trying, trying not to judge another, attempting to put myself in anothers shoes, advocating and practicing non-violence and leading by positive example have been my goals.

Accepting responsibility has always been a sticking point with me. I do believe that Jesus is the son of God, but I also believe that all of us are the sons and daughters of god equally. I also see no difference between humans, animals, plants and matter-I have no idea how we came to seperate ourselves. I believe that Jesus died for the sins of the old world and that we are, now, responsible for our own. When Jesus said "I am the truth the light and the way" what I really believe he was saying is "You are too, if you can find it in yourself."

Leading by positive example, having unconditional love for everything, embracing the gift of life and fellowship. Taking the aspects of all religion, beliefs and creative endeavours into your soul and processing them until you find something that is comfortable, that gives back, that lends a helping hand to those less fortunate than you..ah then we may have a start. I'll continue to believe in a loving God as long as these thing are possible.

Cause if it's an accident, plan, mass hallucination or intelligent creation I'm happy to believe in whatever's responsible for that. Pick and choose, it's up to the individual-I have yet to encounter the arguement that will convince me that something isn't responsible for the glorious gifts found among this chaff. (I'm not afraid to compost my brain in this, potentially useful chaff-we don't know the stinking power of even anything we call chaff...) I can't put my finger on it, and it might not even choose to identify itself by it...but for now I'll call it God.

[Skyweir]

*bows deeply*

wow .. just wow .. nicely put danlo .. can these be my beliefs as well .. cos I like em too

[Loredoctor]

I do not believe. I doubt. Thus, I have no belief system. My main philosophy is the system of doubting, of questioning.

[Prebe]

wow .. just wow .. nicely put .. can these be my beliefs as well .. cos I like em too

Said the disciple to the Christ. Heh!

[Skyweir]

I do not believe. I doubt. Thus, I have no belief system. My main philosophy is the system of doubting, of questioning.

questioning is always going to be good, positive, useful .. of value

the value of doubt is not so clear to me .. though i do not suggest to doubt is of no value ..

i need to think on this when it is not so late ..

pity eh?? when someone picks up on a comment that may have been made facetiously .. but it is interesting

[Lord Mhoram]

Skyweir,

i believe in me .. i believe that there is a god who also believes in me .. i believe i am accountable for my own actions not for the actions of others unless i have influenced or caused their actions

Xar makes some good points - the God concept was not in the OT depicted so much as a parent figure .. and I too think that we will ultimately judge ourselves .. who better would know our motivations .. and ultimately then i believe that after life there is a death and i believe after death there is life.

Rusmeister .. I see your point about judgement that who are we to judge .. we have experienced such little of life .. but we have experienced sufficiently ourselves .. and thats really all we are held accountable for imo

is ourselves and what we ourselves have done in this world

what value we have added .. what value we have detracted .. etc

i believe that if we navigate our lives and selves to care about others, love, show kindness, abiding by what we know is right .. we will be happy in this world .. and happy in whatever worlds to come.

i have died .. once .. about 10 years ago .. and it truly changed me .. lol

I am a better person because of it .. and i have a belief in the value of me and the value of each of us ..

i believe we are inherently good .. and believe me I have seen evil .. but I do not believe we start out like that .. i am sure there are exceptions .. but generally speaking we are good.


i believe there is more to life than what can be seen and felt in this physical world .. i believe i am a spiritual being engaged in a physical experience as opposed to being a physical being being engaged in a spiritual experience (occassional to rare at that)

Very well said. Very glad to see you back around, btw!

[Auleliel]

I took that BeliefNet quiz, and got quite a surprising result (to me). I consider myself to be Roman Catholic (even though I don't necessarily agree with all of the teachings). See where it is on my results list (#19):

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (95%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (95%)
4. Orthodox Quaker (91%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (90%)
6. Hinduism (87%)
7. Theravada Buddhism (86%)
8. New Age (73%)
9. Neo-Pagan (71%)
10. Jainism (70%)
11. Seventh Day Adventist (65%)
12. Bahá'í Faith (64%)
13. Sikhism (64%)
14. Taoism (63%)
15. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (62%)
16. Reform Judaism (62%)
17. New Thought (60%)
18. Eastern Orthodox (54%)
19. Roman Catholic (54%)
20. Scientology (51%)
21. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (50%)
22. Secular Humanism (46%)
23. Orthodox Judaism (44%)
24. Islam (37%)
25. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (33%)
26. Nontheist (29%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (24%)

I think I shall have to re-evaluate my beliefs.

[Prebe]

No you sha'nt! You will have to face what a great mess religion is.

[rusmeister]

No you sha'nt! You will have to face what a great mess religion is.

This is akin to saying "what a great mess nutrition is". It is true that there is a lot of abuse of nutrition, a lot of misunderstandings and mistaken beliefs, but that does not mean that there is not a proper and correct understanding of nutrition that we ought to respect. We can look at poor nutrition in Africa or poor nutrition in the US and yet admit that some people seem to maintain good nutrition in spite of the shortages in the one and excesses in the other.

[Prebe]

Religion, even if we just consider christianity, IS a mess. You have yourself posted the article of faith, that -according to you - is the only thing you need to agree on as a christian. Compare that to how many nominations consider themselves christians. Then ask yourself how many of them YOU consider christian. THEN consider how many other nominations - in turn - consider each other christian in anything but name.

And IF you include other religions there is nothing other than belief per se in common between them.

So many religious views to choose from, nothing to unite them; I call that a mess.

I turned out to be (surprise)
1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Nontheist (89%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (89%)
4. Liberal Quakers (68%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (63%)
6. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (59%)
7. Neo-Pagan (50%)
8. New Age (39%)
9. Taoism (39%)
10. Reform Judaism (35%)
11. Mahayana Buddhism (31%)
12. Orthodox Quaker (30%)
13. Sikhism (25%)
14. Bahá'í Faith (21%)
15. New Thought (21%)
16. Scientology (21%)
17. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (18%)
18. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (17%)
19. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (16%)
20. Jainism (14%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (14%)
22. Eastern Orthodox (10%)
23. Hinduism (10%)
24. Islam (10%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (10%)
26. Roman Catholic (10%)
27. Jehovah's Witness (0%) Heh!

[unicorngirl]

I believe that we, barely infants in our evolution, know precious little about all there is to know.

I am an agnostic that leans towards deism. I prefer to be humble in regards to what I believe. I could always be wrong. I only discuss my beliefs with someone that truly shows interest and does not wish to persuade me otherwise.

[rusmeister]

Religion, even if we just consider christianity, IS a mess. You have yourself posted the article of faith, that -according to you - is the only thing you need to agree on as a christian. Compare that to how many nominations consider themselves christians. Then ask yourself how many of them YOU consider christian. THEN consider how many other nominations - in turn - consider each other christian in anything but name.

And IF you include other religions there is nothing other than belief per se in common between them.

So many religious views to choose from, nothing to unite them; I call that a mess.

Hey, Prebe!
Guess what? I call all the ones that subscribe to the Creed "Christians". They may not be part of the Church, but they're still seeking to follow Christ.
You're right; it IS a mess. That has no effect on the question of whether there is a true original version or not.

[Avatar]

Well, it had to start somewhere. But whether the orthodox church is the direct inheritor, I'm not sure. Maybe in terms of organisation, but it really started with a bunch of guys wandering around talking to people about it. Little organisational structure I would guess.

(Welcome to the Close Unicorn Girl. We're pretty good about not bothering to try and convince people. But that doesn't mean you won't get people who disagree with you anyway. )

--A

[Prebe]

Welcome to the Close Unicorn Girl. We're pretty good about not bothering to try and convince people.

Poppycock! Rus is constantly trying to make everyone see that eastern orthodoxy is the only true christianity, and I am relentlesly trying to take peoples believe in god(s) away, and convert them to my own particularly fundamental atheism!

But apart from that: Welcome Unicorn Girl