19th Century American Religions

[fccool]

But these are not answers any more than a belief in creation.

I'm glad that you can recognize this. Then I wonder, what rational reasoning do you base your beliefs on as the question of origin IS foundational IMO? All of your other beliefs would build based on that foundation. Otherwise we would resort to Taoist philosophy of "We are, because we are". So, if it is not creation of evolution... do you have your own theory? Also, I would like to know how you can know for certain that earth is more than 10k years old.

I think it is far better to say I don't know than to claim a specific origin in a god as described by the Bible.

I can, with good reasons, come to the conclusion that the god of the Bible is not an accurate description of how life came to this planet.

I would like to read that reasoning... at least in part.

The weakness that I see in the Christian view of god is an over dependence on what that god will do. I have observed that there are many difficulties in life that can be overcome by learning new ways of doing things and often in the waiting for god to do something, an opportunity to grow and to learn is lost.

There is also a tendency to over simplify things and this results in some rather immature judgmental attitudes toward those whom Christians view as inferior or controlled by Satan.

I'm sorry to hear that your experience with Christians would lead you to conclude that. But I hope you can see through this as this is not inherently a "Christian" problem, but human problem. We tend to blame things and avoid responsibility for our actions. People tend to find shortcuts and "leach" of somebody in any environment. Be it Communism which was USSR ideological replacement for religion, or be it belief in God. I don't believe that we should be Idle and sit around waiting for God to come down and make things right. I think the general consensus of Christianity that we need to be active participants and changing agents for the better. If the Christians do not follow what they preach is simply because they do not believe it this or as you said have an oversimplified understanding of the reality. But I don't think we should pitch kitchen knives because some derange husbands murder their wives using these. Or do we?

And Christianity's history in general does not speak well for it. It has only been subdued by secular governments who have had to work to free themselves from its rather violent solutions to societal problems and to stop Christian institutions from carrying out their violence against portions of society that are attacked only for religious reasons.

See the kitchen knife analogy above.

[cardw]

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Then I wonder, what rational reasoning do you base your beliefs on as the question of origin IS foundational IMO? All of your other beliefs would build based on that foundation.

That might be an emotional requirement, but it certainly is not a practical one. There are a lot of things I don't know, but I certainly can live within what I believe I know.

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Also, I would like to know how you can know for certain that earth is more than 10k years old.

Well, this link has a great summary of reasons and rebuttals.

Old Earth vs Young Earth

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I can, with good reasons, come to the conclusion that the god of the Bible is not an accurate description of how life came to this planet.

I would like to read that reasoning... at least in part.

Well, when I read about how the Bible was put together, there are far more probable answers for why the Bible says what it says based on who was in power when the Bible was being put together rather than being an organized inspirational document guided by a god.

Plus it hardly contains evidence of any advanced thinking or philosophy that is greater than other holy books or writing. One simply has to look at the second commandment. Is making no graven images really the second most important moral principle we need to follow? And if we are to make no graven images, what do you call the Ark of the Covenant with 2 cherubim sculpted on top?

Lets take Isaac Newton's book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" and compare it with the Bible. Newton's book provided a very accurate description of physical phenomena that was not improved on for almost 200 years. He clearly did not claim that this book was inspired and we recognize it as a man made work.

And yet we consider the Iron age books of the Old Testament to be of superior value when they contain stories of brutality, God ordered genocide, stoning for all kinds of infractions, God ordered rape, God ordered enslavement, and a set of laws that supposedly God came up with that marginalize women, support slavery, and generally make a happy care free life pretty much impossible.

The Bible is poorly organized, confusing, contradictory, and its so called science has been a source of persecution throughout centuries of an intellectual dark age. That's just a few reasons.

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But I don't think we should pitch kitchen knives because some derange husbands murder their wives using these. Or do we?

I think the illustration that more accurately reflects my view is just because poison can be useful doesn't mean we serve it for dinner.

[fccool]

Well, this link has a great summary of reasons and rebuttals.

I would like to know who put together those rebuttals, as only one of them includes a catastrophic theory which created a great amount of havoc in a short period of time.

Many of these is hard to either prove or disprove as once again these hold to certain hypotheses to be true. I think these are valid questions nevertheless and I don't have answers for all of these.

For example, the one that I have no explanation for but would be evidence of the old age is the underwater volcano in pacific ocean with flowing out iron being polarized (magnetized) in equally dispersed layers that flip poles ever so often. It is not described as one the provided site, but it does puzzle me.

Starlight is a good one also as I can not explain it, although the explanation provided seems plausible. But I don't see these as any way problematic or conflicting with Biblical account.

It may sound ridiculous that God would create stars with lights already reaching the earth, but not if you except a possibility of God to begin with. If He is all powerful, then it would not be a problem for Him. If he indeed purposed for the stars to be witnessed by humans, wouldn't it be logical that he would not make them wait thousands of years till they see one?

The problem of existence of intelligence is that only intelligence begets intelligence... and only intelligence begets information (DNA is information). Without DNA you can't have life as there is no other mechanism to pass around information. For a cell to function properly all of its mechanisms would have to come into existence at once. Not only that, but this would have to happen millions of times over, as cells would die off if they have not found a proper outlet for replication. So to conclude that life can originate without intelligent force behind it is as great of leap of faith as belief that God exists. I think both of us agree on that.

Well, when I read about how the Bible was put together, there are far more probable answers for why the Bible says what it says based on who was in power when the Bible was being put together rather than being an organized inspirational document guided by a god.

Plus it hardly contains evidence of any advanced thinking or philosophy that is greater than other holy books or writing. One simply has to look at the second commandment. Is making no graven images really the second most important moral principle we need to follow? And if we are to make no graven images, what do you call the Ark of the Covenant with 2 cherubim sculpted on top?

I don't look at the Bible as that of advanced philosophy or advanced thinking. It has extremely Basic reasoning for things and that is the beauty of it. Today secular societies try to create some kind of coherent order by legislating millions of laws that no one can possibly know and understand. Bible gives us 10 laws and a dozen principles based on which our lives will be judged. Just because it describes the murder, rape and chaos, it does not mean that it was Gods approved mandate for it to be so. Even earthly governments punish extreme deviant crimes by death penalty. Would it be so wrong for God as creator to do same? We have only limited information about the situations described so I would not derive my view about fairness of God from "dark ages" of judges and kings. These were some of the gruesome ages of Biblical history... apart from pre-flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Lets take Isaac Newton's book "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" and compare it with the Bible. Newton's book provided a very accurate description of physical phenomena that was not improved on for almost 200 years. He clearly did not claim that this book was inspired and we recognize it as a man made work.

I don't think this book talks about things to come in a very specific manner as the Bible does. The Biblical prophesy is one of the major reasons this book is being held above any other books, not its philosophy about life... as many religions have similar ideas. The prophesy, if you believe that many of these indeed were fulfilled, is what elevates Bible above other books. As only God claims the power to accurately know the future.

The Bible is poorly organized, confusing, contradictory, and its so called science has been a source of persecution throughout centuries of an intellectual dark age. That's just a few reasons.

I think that intellectual dark age came about not because Caltholic Church held to Biblical principles, but quite the opposite, because they have decided that they will make up their own. And I think you know better than that, especially on this forum .

I think the illustration that more accurately reflects my view is just because poison can be useful doesn't mean we serve it for dinner.

Chocolate can be delight for humans, and poison for dogs. and I don't believe that you are a dog.

[Dr. Shane]

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It may sound ridiculous that God would create stars with lights already reaching the earth

That isn't very reasonable because many stars have burned out by the time their light has reaches the earth. That would mean God created star light without the star behind it. Possible but not probable. Creationists have better explanations than that.

Start a thread in the Origins forum about star light and we can discuss it.

[fccool]

Holy cow! There's lots more to this site than I thought!!!! Thread is there now

[cardw]

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It may sound ridiculous that God would create stars with lights already reaching the earth, but not if you except a possibility of God to begin with. If He is all powerful, then it would not be a problem for Him. If he indeed purposed for the stars to be witnessed by humans, wouldn't it be logical that he would not make them wait thousands of years till they see one?

Well I'm not willing to come to conclusions based on this type of reasoning. The problem is, because one assumes that there is a personal god, there are all kinds of assumptions made about what is true. This clearly has had detrimental effects. Those who burnt witches at the stake certainly believed they were following the best scientific principles available. And these so called scientific principles were based on a particular Bible based view of god that said one should not suffer a witch to live. This combined with their particular view of hell, which they derived from the Bible, dictated how they tortured witches to find the truth.

So, when I look at history, I find it rather dangerous to assume that there is a god directing things. This is one of the main reasons we must certainly keep religion out of scientific enquiry and out of political power. It creates assumptions that are not sustainable by science and require political power to maintain often to the great detriment of humanity. Too many have died and so much knowledge has been lost due to Christian and other religious superstition, that to even give it credibility is to ignore its violent and harmful past.

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The problem of existence of intelligence is that only intelligence begets intelligence... and only intelligence begets information (DNA is information). Without DNA you can't have life as there is no other mechanism to pass around information.

To me this is unproven since consciousness has no algorithm. Even human consciousness is god-like because it is as deep a mystery as any god. I find it a far better approach to not make any conclusions on things we have no understanding of. They are a source of wonder whether or not you are a Christian or an atheist. It does not require a god to make them a spiritual encounter.

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I don't look at the Bible as that of advanced philosophy or advanced thinking. It has extremely Basic reasoning for things and that is the beauty of it. Today secular societies try to create some kind of coherent order by legislating millions of laws that no one can possibly know and understand. Bible gives us 10 laws and a dozen principles based on which our lives will be judged.

If it is basic reasoning then it should not have the authority to state what is real. There is only beauty in simplicity if it works. In my experience the Bible is simple minded and produces simple minded and harmful solutions. I think it is quite easily demonstrated that in cultures where the Bible was held as the standard of governmental action, extreme violence resulted. So, I would rather live in a society of laws that can be changed, even though its complicated, than in a society with a simplified code based on the Bible.

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Even earthly governments punish extreme deviant crimes by death penalty. Would it be so wrong for God as creator to do same?

So you would say that gathering wood on the Sabbath is an extreme crime or committing adultery? Have you read the laws that the Bible claims God gave directly in regards to enslaving the races around them and treating women who were raped? You really think that some advanced all-knowing god came up with those? That was the best ideas god could come up with?

For me, those are deal killers. I can't endorse that kind of nonsense.

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The Biblical prophesy is one of the major reasons this book is being held above any other books, not its philosophy about life... as many religions have similar ideas. The prophesy, if you believe that many of these indeed were fulfilled, is what elevates Bible above other books. As only God claims the power to accurately know the future.

I think the Bible itself argues against this. Paul certainly doesn't give much credence to prophecy as proof. Anyway there is no way to verify most of the prophecies in the Bible and the SDA church's view of prophecy has so many holes in it that its not sustainable historically. This is really poor proof of anything.

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I think that intellectual dark age came about not because Caltholic Church held to Biblical principles, but quite the opposite, because they have decided that they will make up their own. And I think you know better than that, especially on this forum .

Well the Protestants took over burning witches and heretics as soon as they came into power. Read about Calvin and Martin Luther. They were butchers and Martin Luther really set the stage for the Nazi treatment of the Jews with his little book on the problem of the Jews.

You can read how the Church began very early to kill pagans and those sects of Christianity they didn't agree with. There is this myth that somehow Christianity had this pure age. There is no evidence of that at all. Read about Augustine, Origen, and Jerome. These are pivotal church fathers and they are all nut cases.

If Christianity hadn't been embraced by Rome, it would have died out with all the other non state endorsed sects of the time. The New Testament is largely a pagan and neo-platonic document mixed with 1st century Judaism ending with what was probably an Essene apocalyptic document. We have all kinds of revelation type documents that were often used to send messages without being arrested for treason against the Roman empire.

I have not found any good reason to hold an imaginary being as the source of meaning for my life. I think that feeling love, joy, and satisfaction are far more direct sources of meaning that don't require any claims that a personal god gave them to me. I don't have to claim any source to enjoy the presence of these experiences and to learn how to more skillfully engage them right now.

[fccool]

If Christianity hadn't been embraced by Rome, it would have died out with all the other non state endorsed sects of the time.

Richard... speculation, but all we can do is speculate about history. I'm not trying to scare you into believing... as I can not, but the only way to figure out what comes after death is to die. Science can not take us across and it can hardly extend our lives for that much longer.

If you can find happiness and joy outside of belief and faith in creator God, then it's fine with me. It's your choice and as you have showed me, you believe that have good reasons for making it... the same way I believe I have good reasons for making mine.

[Woody]

Richard ... as an ex-Adventist .... what did you find that you liked about Adventism enough that caused you to become one?

And what do you find in us that you still like?

Just curious.

[cardw]

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Richard ... as an ex-Adventist .... what did you find that you liked about Adventism enough that caused you to become one?

I didn't really have much of a choice since I was born into an Adventist family. My commitment was based on a lifetime of indoctrination within Adventist churches and schools. I came into it believing that it was absolutely true. This included both the Bible and Ellen White.

As you may have determined I am very well read on both the Bible and Ellen White. This is because I spent years studying both to prepare for what I believed was the Time of the End. So there is no lack of trying, believing, studying and praying. I know all of the apologetics and I have explored any and all that I know about to test if Adventism is both true to reality and true to itself.

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And what do you find in us that you still like?

Well, I like people in general, but there are some things that I like about Adventism.

I like the commitment, at least in philosophy, to the pursuit of truth and Adventism's work on religious liberty. I think that the establishment of institutions of education and the work coming out of those institutions has been good for the most part. It is these institutions that will probably change the face of Adventism much like Harvard and Princeton did to congregationalists.

There is a undefinable eagerness that, while I believe is based on an illusion about god, does provide interesting people within Adventism to dialog with. I have observed a maturing of Adventism and this is encouraging. This may sound arrogant, but it is not intended to convey that I feel that I am superior in all ways to Adventists. But I do have a unique perspective on some of the deeply harmful assumptions taught not only by Adventists, but by Christians in general about the nature of who people are.

And from my experience of what I find healing and where I came from, I am uniquely connected to Adventist Christians. And there is a very large group of us cultural Adventists, that for the most part, are silent. I happen to believe that now is the time to speak.

[Woody]

Thanks for that response Richard.

And despite being out-numbered ... I do hope you feel welcome here.

[CyberGuy]

Now I did not know those churches before this. Very interesting.