278 thoughts on “Open Conversation Part 4”

  1. Dave, I agree with the mindful, prosocial comments that Brandon has written about, but I do think that people who may struggle with negative thinking, such as what Brandon has admitted to in past posts on other blogs, appears to cause him to project. It’s the biblical terminologies he often uses like evil, sin, judgement and punishment that I take issue with.

    In previous posts (not here) he’s commented that he needs to believe in god (believe he is being commanded by god) to love others. If his belief helps him in this way, than I see no issues. He was raised a fundamentalist, taught that humans were depraved. He seems to believe he is incapable of loving humanity on his own accord. Brandon stated that his god help him overcome things in his life he deemed as immoral, but that doesn’t make them actually immoral. Only to him.

    Brandon wrote: “Is there something that you love so much that if you lose it, you would die?”

    I would ask Brandon — Do you love your god so much that if you lose it you would die? I hope you get my point.

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  2. why are Christians always such asses?

    Paul, that was a cheap shot. I think you should save your shock-and-awe tactics for someone more worthy. Personally, I think Brandon has done a fine job of fielding a lot of questions from quite a few people. Oh well, I guess we all have our own way of trying to make a point. I just don’t see the value of degrading each other.

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  4. But it does nothing to help the situation or further the conversation. Whatever, as long as Brandon can ignore it and see that some here appreciate his input.

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  5. Paul, I can understand why Brandon may have felt offended by me bringing up gratitude. I didn’t intend for it to offend him but was a reminder that it would be beneficial, well being wise, for him to apply, in his circumstances, what he states below:

    “But, I think listening really hard, seeking, striving, being conscientious and self-examination are key to making some kind of sense of it. Who do you need to love? Who do you need to forgive? Who do you need to ask for forgiveness? Who do you need to mend things with? What irks you and ruins your day that you need to overcome? What is the most important thing in your life that might take over and eat you? Do you need to reprioritize.”

    Regardless of what he may think I think of him, I do care. I just don’t sugarcoat..

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  6. Hi, Laurie! Missed you! I hope your myth-based holidays went well. I’m afraid I’m even later to the party than you – for some reason, I didn’t get any emails of comments to this particular blog entry, so I have a lot of catching up to do.

    You said earlier, regarding the Abe/Ike similarities to the “Christ” story:
    “This is not just a crazy story about some tyrant demanding sacrifice. It is much more than that.”

    I’m thinking, not really – when I very first read the Abe/Ike story, the similarities popped out at me as patently obvious. After the second temple was destroyed, the Jews had lost all hope of surviving the Roman captivity, for that’s what it was – Rome, with it’s power and multinational empire, was greater than any Babylonian army could ever have been. It’s not a coincidence that the first Gospel wasn’t written until after that destruction – to give the Jewish people hope.

    What Jew, of the time of the Roman occupation, having been thoroughly versed in the Torah, was not aware of the story of Abe and Ike? The legend of “Jesus” was modeled to fit the ancient story, which also explains Yeshua’s ability – in the fables – to “prophecy” the destruction of the temple, the story of him doing so was never written until AFTER that destruction.

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  7. Yo, Kathy!
    “When Abraham tells Isaac that God will provide a sacrifice, this clearly indicates that he ALSO believes that God is GOOD.. and will provide a substitute.” – No, it doesn’t at all, Kathy – Abe would have had no reason to believe a substitute would be provided. In fact (22:12), it isn’t until Abe has extended his knife to little Ike’s throat, that the angel says that NOW his god knows that Abe truly fears him. See, in those days – and I think Laurie can back me up – the Jews had no concept of an afterlife, when you died, you died. Abe was a hundred the year Ike was born (21:5), which would likely make him 112 at the time of the sacrifice. So Abe was so fearful of losing what little he had reason to believe was the rest of his life, for the ENTIRE life of his son! A real sweetheart!

    Oh, and what did Jake say when his sons murdered all of the inhabitants of Schechem? “What have you done to me?” The whole family was full of sweethearts like that!

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  8. @william

    do you think that terms like “justice,” “mercy,” “love,” “fairness,” etc are terms that are easily understood, or do you think these terms are vague and difficult to define and understand?

    I think these terms are abolutely understandable depending one’s experience. I think it’s a huge mistake to try to work out a theodicy (justification for God) by saying that we don’t understand terms. I mean humans created language and it references something in the real world, in our experience.

    . . . how do you know whether you actually understand something in the bible or not?

    I think the bible is like any other historical document, if we want to try to understand the author’s intended meaning, we must use the best evidence available. Interpreting the bible has been called hermeneutics and there are principles to it. One principle is using context clues. Another is interpreting the bible with the bible, or an author with the same author. For example, if there is something that could mean different things, we should try to fill out the meaning using the same author’s material that is more clear. If that’s not possible, then we try to find a clear stable reference to build our interpretation. This is “interpreting the less clear passages with the more clear passages”. There are many hermeneutical principles such as this one.

    Some people are resistant to using external evidence, but I am not. I’m happy to compare Pauline writings to stoicism. I’m happy to compare the creation myth in Genesis against Ancient Near East creation myths. These are the environments in which the text was written, and it ought to provide insight into what it meant to original readers, which I take to be important for what it should mean to us today.

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  9. Dave,

    Thanks for your positive words, it means a lot.

    Do you feel that faith is equivalent to hope? Or is it more of a trust in your gut instincts? For me, using either of these methods, if I try to imagine that a deity exists and created our universe – I find myself hoping it is a better one than the one described in the bible.

    I think faith and hope are very similar. They do overlap somehow. Maybe the distinction I would draw is that hope has more to do with the future and faith is about something in the present. Christian faith seems to have two major dimensions to it – believing God exists and trusting in him. And, these are very different human endeavors. The former seems to be taken for granted by the scriptural authors. But, the latter seems to be the most important aspect. It’s the only thing I can think of that scripture says pleases God. I love the fact that you find yourself hoping for a better world. I mean, no matter what your worldview is, I think this is something core to humanity.

    . . . what are your thoughts on the passages where Yahweh punishes someone other than the one who committed the crime being punished for? These include: David’s baby being killed for David’s sin, Egyptian firstborns being killed for their pharaoh’s stubbornness and 70,000 men being killed for David taking a census. Doesn’t this look more like the way humans would think rather than a perfect divine judge?

    I find all of these difficult to talk about to be honest. The one about David’s census is much different from the others. The commentary I am reading (Oxford) suggests that the census was really a military conscription that was not supposed to occur or that broke purity laws which puts it on the heads of all involved. 2 Samuel 24 even says that God’s anger was against all Israel even though David ultimately takes responsibility for what happened since he sort of incites the folly from the top down. No matter what is going on here, there seems to be some implicit meaning that the modern reader is not privy to.

    I’m not sure theodicy for David and Bathsheba’s firstborn or the Egyptian firstborns will look significantly different than one for the Canaanite conquest. David and Bathsheba’s firstborn died of a natural illness, so it’s no different than many infants died in those days. The difference is that his or her death had special significance as punishment for the parents whereas other times it is not really punishment directed at the parents but just an effect of the retroactive fall. I mean ultimately, to me the important thing is that God is fair to the children and that no life is wasted, and I can imagine a way in which God is sovereign over life and death and treats everyone impartially not wasting even a second of life even though it appears like life is unfair.

    I understand that doing theodicy incites a gut level reaction that kind of makes you want to argue with against the theist. I get this too and want to argue with the theist! Theodicy, even if it is intellectually convincing, just does not satisfy the heart. I think this may be a place where the modern reader is left in the dark on purpose and is asked to have faith in there being a satisfying theodicy. Maybe if we saw the workings behind the curtains, we would not be so unsatisfied. But, I’m still not sure that saying it is just human input makes it much better (as I’ve said), because the judgment of nations and individuals and cultures runs from the first to the last page of the bible.

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  10. Dave,

    So I could be agnostic about a deity’s existence, but still be “saved” because I’ve practiced the things you’ve mentioned? Using this view, all sorts of people from different religions could end up in heaven. . .

    Actually yes! That’s what I get out of the first half of Romans 2 and also I like the story where Jesus was asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” in Mark 10:17ff notice that he never talks about propositional belief or ontological belief but does talk about actions.

    I’ll be back tomorrow! Good night all!

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  11. “…we are all on a one way trip to disintegrate into nothing. So, why do anything at all? Please tell me. Why do absolutely anything at all?”

    Wow, Brandon! If this is what your mind goes through on a daily basis, no wonder you hide behind an imaginary protector! All of those woes you’ve listed – why do you suppose your god hasn’t done anything about that? Maybe you haven’t prayed hard enough – after all, ask, and it shall be done, right?

    “Why do absolutely anything at all?” – Because WE are the only hope we have.

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  13. Brandon,

    So I could be agnostic about a deity’s existence, but still be “saved” because I’ve practiced the things you’ve mentioned? Using this view, all sorts of people from different religions could end up in heaven. . .

    Actually yes! That’s what I get out of the first half of Romans 2 and also I like the story where Jesus was asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” in Mark 10:17ff notice that he never talks about propositional belief or ontological belief but does talk about actions.

    I think this is a very nice view that you hold. It still seems like wishful or hopeful thinking, but I like it anyway. I wish more Christians would adopt this view. I think it would help erase some of the bitterness and hard feelings that exist.

    I don’t really see a need to further discuss any of the difficult bible passages or theodicy issues because ultimately you’re saying that belief in these things is not a requirement of your deity. However, it is a fun way to pass the time. Brandon, I’d like to put the ball back in your court because you’ve been playing a lot of defense. Is there anything you’d like to discuss? Or should we take a break? I’ll leave it up to you.

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  15. Come on, ratamancueO, no one would die for a lie, that’s how we can all be sure that Islam is true, and that Jim Jones was a great prophet… or whatever it was that he said he was.

    and those heaven’s gate people… dont believe them? well, maybe you dont know that they died for their beliefs, so… true. .

    plus, look at all those people who die for crime and their drugs, and we all know that crime and drugs are real, so there you go.

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  16. I liked this especially, Ratamacue —
    “Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never of the correctness, of a belief.”
    — Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931)
    I summarizes what we had tried telling Kathy for 3 or 4 months.

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  22. sup? not much. just wondering where in the world wide web you are, setting the christians straight. I could use a few good laughs and you never fail to provide. send me a link.

    that last group over at colorstorm, they are about as thick as it gets. a real bag of door knobs.
    too bad I’m not allowed to comment. dadgummit!

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  23. Well, that explains why you lost track – I’m still over there. He hasn’t banned me outright, but he suspends all of my comments in “Moderation,” and deletes the ones he doesn’t want his disciples to hear.

    Like Kathy, he never debates, he just flings scripture at everything I say, like a monkey flings poo. In an earlier post, one of his butt-monkeys made the comment that we can’t believe the words of Man, who is evil always, and CS agreed with her – and that’s when I had him. Now, everytime he tells me what “God said,” I remind him that it is only Man who said that his god said ANYthing, and he, himself agreed that Man’s word can’t be trusted, so …

    I also told him that the only reason he has a blog, is to get the dopamine rush that comes when his sycophantic butt-monkeys kiss his ass (though I used more gentile terms), and he chose not to allow that comment to go though.

    He also likes to think he has one-upped me when he hurls such scripture at me as, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” which I believe is from Job, a case of their god tooting his own horn. I reply that I was there – that every atom in my body, as well all of his own, were there in the Big Bang, which he had previously maintained that his god created – so not quite the checkmate he had hoped for. He didn’t allow that one to publish either.

    I’m also making friends with his favorite butt-monkey – Wally – who has wound up “Liking” a lot of my comments, and I know it pisses CS off when one of his minions seems to be consorting with the enemy. Anything that pisses him off, just tickles me plumb to death —

    Sorry you got banned – seems like I just can’t take you anywhere —

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