Dear Mom, I put a couple of people in Hell today.

[Shea]

George Washington wasn't our first president, but who cares?

I don't understand what your arguement is anymore.

Chardata, the trouble with the Catholic Church, is that there is so little truth and so much man made rules, that it has become dangerous. This is a very strong arguement from Paul:

Galatians 1:6-10
6I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- 7which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

The Catholics are doing what Paul himself wouldn't dare or he would allow himself to be 'eternally condemned'. This dosen't just go for the Catholic church, but for anyone. That's why you always find me quoting scripture because I want to stay as close to it as I possibly can.

[AbdoRinbo]

Shea, I think you're just saying you don't understand, that way everything I say will seem irrelevent. But if you really want me to be direct and up front with you, and--therefore--come off as insulting, then so be it.

I'll rephrase it: who cares who the first pope was?

[Shea]

The Catholics care. I thought that's what we were talking about. Anyway, it never occurs to them that their religion was started 350 years after Christ's death. If Peter was the first pope, he must have been pretty old by that time.

[AbdoRinbo]

Let me ask you an entirely unrelated question, Shea. What does the Bible mean to you? What is God saying to us? Let me hear your opinion.

[Shea]

My husband just gave his first mini sermon last Sunday. When I get an opportunity, I'll post it here. The info is really good, and it will answer your question. But he's been working on getting a website started, so I don't have much access to our computer. If he's still working on it by Tuesday, I print it out and type it on the computers at school.

[AbdoRinbo]

[I originally heard this on a Sly Stone album. I thought it was very clever and decided to post it here. I don't know why, this strikes me as extremely captivating. Perhaps it is my fascination with war.]

During the North African campaign, a bunch of soldier boys had
been on a long hike and they arrived in a little town called Casino. The next morning being Sunday, several of the boys went to Church. A sergeant commanded the boys in Church and after the Chaplain had
read the prayer, the text was taken up next. Those of the boys who had a prayer book took them out, but this one boy had only a deck of cards, and so he spread them out.

The Sergeant saw the cards and said, "Soldier, put away those cards."

After the services was over, the soldier was taken prisoner and brought before the Provost Marshall. The Marshall said, "Sergeant, why have you brought this man here?"

"For playing cards in church, Sir."

"And what have you to say for yourself, son?"

"Much, Sir," replied the soldier.

The Marshall said, "I hope so, for if not I shall punish you more
than any man was ever punished."

The soldier said, "Sir, I have been on the march for about six days. I have neither a Bible nor a prayer book, but I hope to satisfy you, Sir, with the sincerety of my intentions." And with that, the boy started his story: "You see Sir, when I look at the Ace, it reminds me that there is but one God. And the Deuce reminds me that the Bible is divided into two parts, the Old and the New Testaments. When I see the Trey, I think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And when I see the Four, I think of the four Evangelists who preached the Gospel; there was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

And when I see the Five, it reminds me of the five wise virgins who trimmed their lamps; there were ten of them: five were wise and were saved, five were foolish and were shut out. When I see the Six, it reminds me that in six days, God made this great heaven and earth. When I see the Seven, it reminds me that on the seventh day, God rested from His great work. And when I see the Eight, I think of the eight righteous persons God saved when He destroyed this earth; there was Noah, his wife, their sons and their wives. And when I see the Nine, I think of the lepers our Savior cleansed, and nine out of the ten didn't even thank Him.
When I see the Ten, I think of the Ten Commandments God handed down to Moses on a table of stone. When I see the King, it reminds me that there is but one King of Heaven, God Almighty. And when I see the Queen, I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is Queen of Heaven. And the Jack or Knave is the Devil.

When I count the number of spots on a deck of cards, I find 365, the number of days in a year. There are 52 cards, the number of weeks in a year. There are 4 suits, the number of weeks in a month. There are 12 picture cards, the number of months in a year. There are 13 tricks, the number of weeks in a quarter.

So you see, Sir, my pack of cards serves me as a Bible, an Almanac and a Prayer Book." And friends, the story is true. I know, I was that soldier.

[Chardata]

Shea, i agree with you when you said that the Catholic church is full of man-made rules that aren't relevent to the Christian beliefs. Anyway, i really don't have time to talk so I'll come back later.

[Eloise]

St. Thomas Aquinas, King James, &c. But there are better examples earlier on in history that I couldn't name off the top of my head, those two are just examples.

Surely the copies that translators use these days are a lot older than either of those men? What are the other examples?

It's not a mystery really, it's a paradox (a paradox can be explained, a mystery can't), and if it's a paradox it is a contradiction.

It might just be me not being used to looking for paradoxes, but I can't quite see how some of the statements I was referring to (taken from your previous post and quoted below) fall into the category of logical contradictions? Could you elaborate?

1. Consider this, according to Relativity time might be so slow in some regions of space that Christ might not have even existed there yet. 2. If you saw me enter a black hole I would appear frozen in space forever at the edge that separates space and time from the mouth of darkness, so who could say for sure if I was truly dead or not? 3. Who can say for sure that anyone is truly dead? 4. Does seeing it justify it when time is full of curves and bends? 5. Accordingly, who could say for sure that I would appear frozen at the edge of a black hole before falling off the edge of the Universe forever? After all, no one has actually entered a black hole or attempted to. (numbering mine)

I put forward my understanding of the who is really dead thing (nos 2 and 3) in my previous post:

On who is really dead, I think that's a tricky question even if you leave black holes etc out of it. Is it when the brain stops working or when the heart stops working? Is someone on life-support who is otherwise a vegetable alive or not? I don't know, but I'm assuming God does.

Your conclusion on black holes seems to me (based on 5. above) to be something that we are really not certain about and cannot explain at this point in time, which I suppose would be neither a mystery nor a paradox, but something else. In any case, your current conclusion seems to be, 'we don't know for sure' which is fine by me.

How do you feel about contradictions?

Not entirely comfortable, of course, I don't think anyone is. But then I'm not entirely comfortable with the free will - predestination thing, or exactly how Jesus' human and divine natures worked together while he was on earth, or with the problem of suffering in the world, or with any number of other things. For me, not feeling entirely comfortable with some things is not a reason to reject them utterly.

But even Einstein struggled with a problematic phenomenon: the existence (or, rather, the nonexistence) of zero. So I don't have to type it out again, just go back two pages and look at my post about Achilles and the Tortoise. Obviously, the conclusions are wrong (Time and Space--or, more precisely, Motion--exist), but there isn't a single flaw in the reasoning behind them; they're logical contradictions. But not only that, every statement can be reduced to a similar logical contradiction. You might ask me to define logic, however we'd first have to define definition (but we'd only be chasing our tails).

Your point being? Flawless logical reasoning does not always produce a right conclusion? I can deal with that.

Why is the belief in metaphysics any better than the rejection of it? They both rest on unstable foundations.

In a purely logical sense, of course, it isn't any better. It does, however, have the benefit of a supernatural element to knowledge (ie revelation) which can help explain some things. If you mean to imply, 'why then do I hold it?', it's because of the personal attribute of Christianity. I know Christ. Which is an entirely subjective proof and isn't much use for anyone other than me, but then I'm not claiming it's universal.

Think about it: a truth is supposed to be objective (eternal), right?

Well, actually . . .

Those sorts of truths can never be revealed to us. Signs (e.g. thoughts, words, sounds, colours, sensations, &c.) are not little doorways to some everlasting meaning; instead they act like mirrors distinguishing themselves from other signs that are different. Only with these prior differences do they generate anything that resembles a truth or meaning.

Have you been reading The Name of the Rose recently? More seriously, I don't quite see why this is relevant?

As far as religion and God making life more hopeful, I don't know if that's true at all. I always thought spirituality promoted sacrifice and modesty, acts that are excruciatingly difficult to many people. Some want instant gratification, others are willing to wait it out for the hope of gaining more than the hedonists. There will always be those who are marginalized. In fact, to some, non-existence after death allows people peace of mind from having to worry--not only about this life--but the next life as well.

I suspect it's different for each person, depending on their understanding and experiences of religion in different forms and so on. Which means (going back to the original question) that belief in paradise isn't necessarily a security blanket; and, as you point out, belief in non-existence after death can have the same effect. It seems to be a very complex, very personal issue which makes it more difficult than usual to generalise.

There aren't multiple 'natures', the Bible has one and, according to its own reasoning, it agrees with the Nature of the Universe and, therefore, agrees with itself. Simple enough, but very tautological (or, in other words, redundant). The essence of God should be present the same in the Bible as He is in Nature. Using Aristotle's logic, the Bible and Nature ought to have the same essence, too.

When you say that there aren't multiple 'natures', I take it you mean nature in the sense of character rather than nature in the sense of the universe? And you mean God doesn't have multiple natures? As in, God doesn't have more than one essence, although he has more than one characteristic? Just checking.

So: we seem to be getting into some confusion through different understandings of the word 'model'. My understanding of a model is that it replicates both internal and external characteristics of the thing on which it is modeled. Based on the original quote (reproduced below), I assumed that this was your understanding as well:

Is nature a model of the Bible? If so, why aren't things like black holes, general relativity, or even dinosaurs (et cetera) mentioned in it? Would you say that those things do not exist?

However, your last post indicates that by 'model', you mean internals only. Which, funnily enough, was almost exactly my point - that these internals, 'the essence of God' as you say, are revealed both through nature and through the Bible. (And if we';re talking internals, you wouldn't expect black holes, relativity, dinosaurs etc to be there, which was what I was trying to argue). The difference is that you say that the essence of God is present in the Bible and nature, whereas I would say revealed through. I'm no theologian, but I suspect that saying that the essence of God is present in the Bible and nature is dangerously close to heresy (via idolatry). The only places that I think you could say that the essence of God is anywhere near present are: in Christians, via the indwelling of the Holy Spirit (and even this is probably theologically dodgy); and, in some traditions, in the Eucharist (which is strongly disputed, as I'm sure you know). So I would say that although the Bible and nature do not have the same essence, they do reveal the same essence. Clear as mud?

Unfortunately, Man wrote the Bible, not God.

This raises a very interesting point, which I should have mentioned in my first post, about the purity (or otherwise) of said revelations. As you point out, the filtering of divine inspiration* through human experience, ie. that of the biblical writers, who were of course writing out of their particular situation (eg. Psalm 51 David repenting of adultery and murder, Paul's letters written to specific churches touching on their individual situations and the people he had met when he had visited there), creates some corruption? confusion? distortion? can't find the right word. I happen to believe that not only were they divinely inspired in their particular situations, but that their writings also contain stuff useful for me today, only you often have to study it carefully to try and find it, trying to sort out which bits are what, which is extremely problematic. It's a good thing I don't think God is expecting us to get it all right all the time!

Likewise, through the entry of sin, the fall and so on, nature has been corrupted and so its revelation of the divine essence isn't 100% pure either. The impurities in nature's revelation are unlikely to be the same as the impurities of the Bible's revelation.

So we've got one God with one essence, who is revealed through two different media, namely the Bible and nature. These media use different external means to reveal this essence hence they are not models of it, or each other. Complicating matters, we have the imperfection of these media due to sin, and hence the impurity of their respective revelations of God. I don't think any of that is outrageously heretical!

*This is of course only my particular view of the mechanics of divine inspiration, and I'm not even terribly clear and certain of it all. I would also suggest that they vary with the different genres of writing in the Bible - prophecy would be far more directly inspired than a pastoral epistle etc.

By the way, look at a Catholic priest. He's given his entire life away for the sake of his religion, whereas a Protestant preacher is allowed to live a normal life, have a wife and a few kids. Not a lot of sacrifice there, so we can at least say that the Catholics are more respectable in that regard.

Well, why living a normal life is so terrible? Look at the Pope (sorry to anyone who happens so like him). He's Catholic priest and HAS children. Why is it so important for Catholic priests not to lead a normal life? Protestant priests do and so they are not proper Christian priests? I'm not good at quoting the Bible, so Shea feel free to correct me, but doesn't it say (how to say it in English...) something along the lines love and multiply yourselves. Sorry, never held an English written Bible in my hands.

FWIW, I agree with Jay. You seem to be implying that the more sacrifice one does, the more religiously 'respectable' one is? I don't quite understand where you are getting that from. Whether or not the Pope was or wasn't part of the Church at any particular time is completely irrelevant, as you say, 'who cares who the first pope was?'.

ATTENTION: for anyone wanting to post a Bible verse but not having a Bible or concordance handy, we do have a copy of the KJV at this address:

http://www.online-literature.com/bible/bible.php

which is searchable by verse or by keyword (like a concordance. It is linked under the header on the main page of www.online-literature.com. If you want to use a different version, most of the more popular ones are available at www.biblegateway.com.

[Jay]

Hey thanks Eloise, it didn't even occur to me there could be the Bible avaible on this site :oops: .

[AbdoRinbo]

You're a terribly cunning analyst, Eloise. You know how to piece together logic quite well; break it down, measure the stability of its foundations. I see in you an almost supernatural ability to dig through words and meanings, get to the heart of an argument. I see many rich conversations ahead of us. Let's start fresh: forget whatever 'facts' I've given you, they could be wrong. We'll just get right down to the nitty-gritty.

Those sorts of truths can never be revealed to us. Signs (e.g. thoughts, words, sounds, colours, sensations, &c.) are not little doorways to some everlasting meaning; instead they act like mirrors distinguishing themselves from other signs that are different. Only with these prior differences do they generate anything that resembles a truth or meaning.

You'd said you didn't quite understand what I meant there. I don't blame you, it's too metaphorical and symbolic, yadda-yadda, phony too. I really just wanted to talk about the signs. But looking back on it now, I do see a strong argument which perhaps I wasn't even aware of when I wrote it. This brings us back to the Big Question: what is the meaning of the Bible (what Truth is it communicating)? It is a collection of words which represent ideas. You have your own opinion about what those ideas are, but there are ideas there, nevertheless. It is believed there is a logic behind it, an essence that speaks to us (yourself included). But tell me, Eloise, when you hear God talking to you, what language does He speak in (English, Chinese, French)? Words are important tools in communicating, as are colors, sensations, and symbols. We'll touch on the latter two in a moment, but for now let's focus on the Word, its importance in the search for Truth.

Funny thing, languages, they aren't universal. For example, the French word 'oui', the idea of affirmation, is pronounced 'we', but in English the word is 'yes'. The idea is the same, they're just two different sounds used to represent one idea. You might not have thought about this before, but the English language is just a sound structure, an organization of verbal tones and rhythms. 'Yes' has a very distinct sound to it. It is not the same as the word 'dress', nor the word 'mess', accordingly it is neither one of those ideas; it is a different word altogether, it represents a unique idea. Odd, you could say that the words 'dress' and 'mess' are contained within the word 'yes' because only by their absence could the meaning of 'yes' be present. Understand that a language would be totally meaningless if all words represented just one idea (for instance, if every word meant 'yes'). It would not be very practical. And, likewise, a language made up of only one word representing all the ideas that are humanly possible would annihilate the whole concept of 'communication'. So, yes, a language must be made up of words that correspond to certain ideas based solely on their position within the system of language(remember, 'yes' is only 'yes' because it is not any other word). Certain exceptions are made--on one hand, there are sometimes many words for just one idea and, on the other, a single word can communicate multiple ideas depending on the context it is used in,--but there are about as many words as there are ideas that are necessary to a certain culture (I only bring the issue of culture up because in some aboriginal tribes, for example, there is only one word for money--it being a fairly unimportant element in society,--whereas in America we have a hundred words to signify it).

What I am describing to you is a linguistic theory known as Structuralism. It tells us that for words to communicate meaning, they must each be generally different in sound and content: the ideas are out there, we just have to assign words to them. But wait, notice anything strange about that sentence? The 'ideas are out there' . . . hm, what is an idea? It must be an idea too, right? But that says nothing about what an idea is, it is self-referential, redundant; all we know about 'idea' is that it is a word. Truths are not justified by this kind of logic. It turns out Structuralism was flawed internally. This realization would lead to a countermovement known as Poststructuralism (a very logical form of Nihilism). The Poststructuralists looked at words and how they revealed their meanings; in other words, how they communicated ideas. Strange events began to unfold. They began questioning ideas, particularly dichtomoties (Being/Nothingness, male/female, original/derivative) by interrogating them. For instance, the questions 'what is a derivative?' and 'what is an original?'. They began by defining 'derivative' as (literally) anything that derives from something else. That something else then (unless the derivative derived from another derivative) must be the 'original'. They noted that an original has to have, or has to have the potential for, a derivitive. In other words, it is only original because the concept of a derivative exists somewhere. Take the example of the father/child dichotomy (a fundamental Biblical archetype). What is it that makes someone a father? How does one attain that identity? In the loosest sense of the word, it is a man who possesses a child (biologically, socially, religiously, &c); it is an orientation between two conflicting identities. The trace of the child is present within the father's identity (and the mother's, too). This is the most basic concept of Poststructuralism: difference precedes identity.

Postructuralism and Postmodernism are almost interchangeable terms. The most critically acclaimed form of Poststructuralism is Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction. Deconstruction deals with signs (everything: sounds, tastes, smells, colors, textures, sensations). Anything that has an identity is a sign, and signs are identified based on their differences (remember that). Take colors, for instance. What makes something red? We know the three primary colors are red, blue, and yellow, but what is it to be red? Nothing, other than that it is to be different from blue and yellow. They are primary colors, they can't be broken down any further. Blue is only blue inasmuch as red is red and yellow is yellow (this is a good example of common sense logic being reduced to a redundancy). The point is, if everything were red, the idea of color would not exist.

So what on Earth has this got to do with Christianity? Surprisingly, everything. At the most fundamental level, there exist two forces moving against each other: Being and Nothingness--either something exists or it does not. That is the Absolute. God is the personification of Being (this should be distinguished from beings, which are merely entities that exist; Being is the force that permits existence). Everything sprang from God, everything, that is, except for Sin. Look at it this way, if God is crystallized Being, then Sin must be its polar opposite, Nothingness. That makes sense, right? St. Thomas Aquinas (regardless of what you think about the Catholics) was right to say that goodness is a measurement of Being, and that, accordingly, Sin is the lack of goodness, the inadequacy of Being. To think otherwise would place all responsibility for Sin on God's shoulders, tainting his reputation. No, Sin is the lack of Being in the Soul, the measurement of its movement towards Nothingness. Deconstruction can't even touch that, it appears logically complete. There is only one force in the Universe that threatens God's sovereignty, but--hey--it's nothing.

But, then again, the question arises as to what the word Nothingness signifies. Deconstruction is useless against God, right? Difference does not precede identity, identity is something that existed prior to the realization of any differences. But then what is Nothingness? What idea does the word Nothingness open up to? This is where we run into trouble, and it doesn't stop here. Forget about Nothingness for a moment, what is Being? It's the force that allows for everything to exist, right? But how can words possibly reveal the nature of Being to us, that's the same as trying to understand the nature of Light by observing the characteristics of the objects we see. We learn nothing of Being by observing beings. To think of Being is to fall short because thoughts are beings too--they exist in the world,--as well as words and gestures. Being is an idea beyond our Human comprehension. This comes as a slap in the face to Christianity: if we don't know what Being is, then what do we know about our own existence? More questions arise. What is existence? What is 'is'? Do we exist? This is where Deconstruction takes the stage, once again. Signs are the limit of our knowledge, they do not take us to a realm where the Truth of Being is revealed (the most fundamental Truth, from which all other truths spring). We are caught in a system of half-truths. There are no viable means of escape.

Wait one moment, there is one. Yes. You see, this whole theory is just an assault on Truth (with a capital 'T'). It reveals the unstable foundations of meaning in words and other signs, the tools we use to uncover meaning in the Universe. But, in case you haven't noticed, the theory works on everything--including itself! Self applied Deconstruction is the quickest and easiest way to get back to the real world of Metaphysics and Science. Remember that fundamental principle, 'difference precedes identity'? Well, difference and identity are a dichotomy too. Both have to exist for there to be either one, and that's where the whole theory falls flat on its face. But, like the One Ring, to use the Master's Tools is to deceive one's self, even if one is using them for the benefit of others. In other words, the only way to undermine Deconstruction is to deconstruct it, which is admitting that it works.

My conclusion is that we're both wrong. It's impossible to argue anything, every objective truth requires a subjective leap of faith. To me it's just a game for wandering minds, to you it might be something more. I don't know, some leap further than others I suppose.

[DumbLikeAPoet]

A scripture to keep in mind when dealing with the RCC and in general.

Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Jonus

[AbdoRinbo]

Christianity is a philosophy, Existentialism is a philosophy, &c. Everyday someone has a new Grand Theory of the Universe. Pick whichever one suits you best, I don't see how you can ask for anything more. Philosophies will always clash.

[DumbLikeAPoet]

As I pointed out before.....

Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

Jonus

[AbdoRinbo]

Right now the Muslims are saying the exact same thing about you!

[Chardata]

DumbLikeAPoet...wow...that's a great bible verse! I so support you on this one! I'm standing beside you on this one.

AbdoRinbo...there is philosophy in the Bible ie: the book of Job, but that is not what it is based off of. AND yes, the muslims may be saying the same about us as Christians but the muslims blelieve that you have to work your way into heaven and to God rather than just ASK for forgiveness. Personally, Christanity is much easier than Islam. I don't have to work for my salvation and i know i'm guarenteed life in heaven when the Islamic views are more work and be good and hope that you are good enough to be in heaven. I don't think that is based in philosophy. And for me that is proof enough.

Secondly, i'm ignoring all that mubo jumbo you typed earlier...i just don't have the time and patience to read it.

Thirdly, i would love to go deeper into this but I just came back from marching band practice so i'm really tired and muscle sore. I also need to get to homework and i'm hungry! So......TTYL! For now! 8)