Different Tan
Jan. 29th, 2005 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ladysisyphus writes about why she is a Christian even though she cannot say unequivocally that Jesus Christ is her Lord and Saviour, which, as we all know, is the litmus of such things. People who thought that the Jerry Springer entry was intended to imply that I believed all American Christians were nutters, take note: there is at least one who is not. andrewducker says what I'd have said about truth and facts, in a conversation which reminds me of those I've had with cathedral_life.People who read Hebrew might want to have a look at the huge thread on Creationism that developed under my post here, since some of it relies on what I suspect are standard Creationist assertions about the Hebrew used in Genesis. Or you might not: after I while, I learned to avoid the Creationism threads on uk.r.c, only popping out occasionally to ambush people with physics.
There are more photos of the musicals party, to add to bluap's. My camera's rubbish in low light, alas.
Random Flash linkage: To Kill A Mockingbird, Numa Numa. Been doing the rounds, but I mention it in case you've not seen it.
Update: I got a comment from someone recommending the CICCU mission talks this year (which have now been and gone). This has started a debate on whether God is just. Read all about it in the comments inside.
This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-05 12:40 am (UTC)Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-05 02:29 am (UTC)im sure you'll be pleased to know that this year's CICCU mission is starting on Monday.
My dear boy (or girl), I am ecstatic. Ecstatic in a way that's appropriate for me, that is, that is, in a sort of dignified way involving swaying from side to side gently in time to the music, rather than waving my hands in the air or suddenly falling over, or any of that sort of stuff, which, as you know, the Lord finds faintly embarrassing.
Thing is, I could probably give those talks myself, were I to be qualified by my elevation to the position of Pastor-Teacher in A Church Where The Bible Is Taught Exactly Like It Is At StAG (such elevation seems unlikely at this point, I'll admit, but, you know, mysterious ways and all that). I know what they'll say, more or less. Some missions might concentrate on getting alongside your nonchristchunfrends' paradigms in a sort of Paul-in-the-Areopagus kind of way, whereas others may rely on mad Australians with amusing views about gay people, but the message will be the same: the Good News that a God you've previously never heard much from intends to horribly torture you. There's nothing you yourself can do to save yourself from this fate. But he loves you (I am not alone in finding this love/torture combination slightly kinky, by the way). So he won't torture you if you Accept Jesus As Your Personal Saviour, because he tortured Jesus instead of you (he couldn't just let you off, so torturing the wrong person was necessary to meet the demands of perfect justice). I think that's the central message, all else is window dressing. Did I miss anything?
While I'm always willing to talk to people who're reasonably polite, the CICCU mission talks are unlikely to be a productive use of my time (or, I'd argue, anyone else's).
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-05 10:09 am (UTC)the Good News that a God you've previously never heard much from intends to horribly torture you. There's nothing you yourself can do to save yourself from this fate. But he loves you (I am not alone in finding this love/torture combination slightly kinky, by the way).
I can't help but feel that you are trying to present God as a rather sadistic, malicious, character. Do (did) you believe that God takes pleasure in the death of the wicked?
the CICCU mission talks are unlikely to be a productive use of my time (or, I'd argue, anyone else's).
I must disagree. Knowing people who professed the Christian faith as a consequence of previous missions, and seeing them still living as faithful Christians now, I have to say that on past performance mission talks have been an immensely productive (ok, not quite my word of choice) use of some people's time.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-05 12:42 pm (UTC)I doubt that God even exists to take pleasure. My point is that the central message, the gospel of CICCU's brand of Christianity portrays God as a sadist, or at least as functionally equivalent to a sadist. There can be no true love under the threat of violence. I think even some leading evangelicals have realised this and become annihilationists. The fact that Ezekiel has God saying "I'm not enjoying this, you know, I'm only doing it for your own good" doesn't alter how we're told God actually behaves, which is all that matters. (I think Ezekiel might be surprised to learn that this passage is read as being about non-Christians going to Hell when he thought he was talking about the punishment of the nation of Israel, too, but I guess there's a bunch of typology there which allows evangelicals to make that translation).
I do wonder about the "productiveness" of these missions, even from a Christian perspective. As you know if you heard the same dire warnings as I did from StAG's leavers' talk, most student evangelicals do not remain Christians for long after leaving university. Interestingly, the UCCF people on their own web-boards claim not to have the statistics which Carrie Sandom quoted to me on this one, but as Angela Rayner writes: "To say that I keep stumbling upon people with similiar experiences [of leaving evangelical Christianity after university] is an understatement."
From my, non-Christian perspective, the talks will give the same glib answers as I've heard before, and there's the worrying possibility that people who hear them will convert to CICCUanity. People are grown-ups and can make their own decisions, of course, but I think the mission talks present a very skewed view of both humanity and Christianity.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-05 08:12 pm (UTC)That's a fairly bold and wide-ranging statement (if I've understood what you mean by love and violence). Can I take this to mean that you think parents who smack their children do not love them?
how we're told God actually behaves, which is all that matters
You do not think when assessing actions knowing the motivation behind them is important? I'm not a lawyer, but as fair as I'm aware motivations are quite important in trials; this seems quite sensible to me.
People are grown-ups and can make their own decisions, of course, but I think the mission talks present a very skewed view of both humanity and Christianity.
What is the unskewed view of humanity and Christianity? (This isn't intended as a quick retort. I would actually be quite interested in your answer.)
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 12:52 am (UTC)No, although I'm not sure smacking is a good idea. In the context, what I meant was that I find it difficult to see how God both claims to love people and threatens the worst possible violence against them (Hell involving more than spanking, we presume), and how Christians who claim to love God can truly do so when they believe that if they did not, God would do them violence.
You do not think when assessing actions knowing the motivation behind them is important?
Sometimes it is. However, what I think the law goes by is intention: if someone intends to kill, it's murder, if someone kills by accident, it's manslaughter. God must surely be the one person who never does anything by accident. Someone's motivation for an intentional killing may lead us to sympathise, or even to a reduced sentence, but they're no less guilty. And of course, some crimes are so bad that there is no mitigation. Choosing to eternally torture a fair proportion of everyone who ever lived seems to fall into that category to me. I don't care whether someone claims to have reasons for that, because no reasons could be good enough.
What is the unskewed view of humanity and Christianity?
There's a question that could be the subject of books :-) Briefly, on humanity, that within us lies the capability for both great good and great evil. That it is possible to do good without the assistance of supernatural beings. That some people are better than others, and that this matters and is to their credit. And on Christianity, that there entire other traditions of Christianity which do not interpret the Bible the way evangelicals do.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 01:34 pm (UTC)Ah, sorry. I took it mean that you thought there was a logical contradiction in God's character; this I would have to disagree with which was why I was suggesting you were using a false assumption. That it is difficult to understand all of God's character, and how the various aspects of his character result in his various actions, is not something I would dispute. I strongly suspect it is impossible for me to do so fully. Of course this does not mean I do not consider it a worthwhile task to seek greater understanding of such things; to know God better.
how Christians who claim to love God can truly do so when they believe that if they did not, God would do them violence.
This is where motivations come in again. Christians love God in reponse to the love he has shown us.
Sometimes it is. However, what I think the law goes by is intention: if someone intends to kill, it's murder, if someone kills by accident, it's manslaughter.
I was thinking more along the topical news line of self-defence. When there is an intruder in my house whom I try to knock unconcious by whacking him over the head with my handy oriental vase I am told the law will treat me differently to if decided to start bashing random people over the head, trying to render them unconcious, because I don't like them. Both actions are quite deliberate with the same intention, but treated differently due to my motivation.
Or for another topical example: I think many people when assessing armed conflicts would want to have a look at the motivations of the various people involved. (Of course, there is the pacifist position of saying armed conflict is always wrong, so no motivation can ever justify it. Out of interest would you support that position?)
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 03:59 pm (UTC)Evangelical Christianity is riddled with logical contradictions, you get into all sorts of inescapable conundrums by having an all powerful all knowing God who has ended up with a totally screwed up universe, were God really all powerful and all knowing then this would not have occured (see Wikipedia: The problem of evil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil)).
Another one that came up on the Christianity Explored course was that logically God cannot be totally loving (http://www.livejournal.com/users/robhu/105882.html#isgodtotallyloving) (or perfectly loving, or 'as loving as he could be') if either some are called or some are chosen irresistably. Of course you could say that either everyone has the choice available to them, or that everyone goes to heaven - neither of these match up with what we see around us, or that everyone goes to heaven - but I don't think there are many evangelicals who would say that.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 04:23 pm (UTC)Ummm. No it's not. If you believe you have found one please do post it as a thorough logical arguement, listing *all* of your assumptions, and I will happily tell you which of your assumptions I disagree with. (He says in the hope that you haven't suddenly come up with some stunning new proof)
Out of interest, are you happy with what is wrong with this arguement (or do you think it is a valid argument against God's omnipotence?):
"Can good make a rock big enough so that he cannot lift it?"
If the answer is no the is something God cannot do. If the answer is yes the is something God cannot do. So God can't be omnipotent.
I ask, as I feel at some stage I might want to show that other arguments are equivalent to that, so would be helpful now to agree with a simple example that such arguments are invalid.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 05:40 pm (UTC)I would say that that shows fairly clearly that God cannot be omnipotent. Unless God chooses for some reason not to be omnipotent to create such a rock, in which case he loses his omnipotence by choice.
If you believe you have found one please do post it as a thorough logical arguement
OK, I'll give it a go - I'll pass this thread on to a friend of mine who is much better at explaining these things than I.
What about this:
- God would not create evil
- God is the only being capable of creating things
- Evil exists
- If only God is capable of creating things and evil exists either God is not the only being capable of creating things, evil does not really exist, or God does not exist.
or- God is omnipotent and omniscient
- God is the only being capable of creating beings
- God would not create evil
- Evil is defined as rebellion against God
- Given two, three, and four: God would not create a being who would rebel against him
- God created the devil
- The devil rebelled against God
- Given six and seven: God created a being who would rebel against him
- Given five and eight: God cannot exist
or- God is perfectly just
- Men commit sin
- If God is just, then God will punish the sin of men
- God can punish Jesus for the sin of mankind
- Hell is the punishment for sin
- Hell can be avoided if Jesus is punished in someone elses place
- God is perfectly loving
- God is able to save anyone
- God can choose who to save
- It is more loving to save everyone than it is to save some
- Not everyone is saved
- If everyone is not saved then God is not perfectly loving
or- If God exists, then God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect.
- If God is omnipotent, then God has the power to eliminate all evil.
- If God is omniscient, then God knows when evil exists.
- If God is morally perfect, then God has the desire to eliminate all evil.
- Evil exists.
- If evil exists and God exists, then either God doesn't have the power to eliminate all evil, or doesn't know when evil exists, or doesn't have the desire to eliminate all evil.
- Therefore, God doesn't exist.
orRe: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 05:41 pm (UTC)Such arguments are not logically invalid - they are perfect proofs that God cannot be omnipotent!! Therefore no omnipotent God can exist!
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 11:04 pm (UTC)Oh dear. I think then we have very different ideas of what is valid logic. Maybe you would care to explain your idea of what logic is, and how it is used to show contradictions, as if we disagree on that then reasoned discussion becomes kinda pointless.
Meanwhile, I will try to explain why I consider this to be a nonsensical play on words, rather than a valid logical proof. My apologies if I am making this sound too simple, I haven't got a clue what sort of level to aim it at. (How much do you know about logic?)
When we have a system, which contain concepts of truth and falsehood, we can seek to show that the system is contradictory by taking true statements in that system, applying the rules of deduction, and showing that we can derive false.
We can build up more complex statements by assigning them variables and substituting them into other statements.
So in my system with we are starting with an omnipotent (this could require more careful definition later on, but for now we will define it as meaning that he can create a rock of of any size, and can lift a rock of any size) God.
So we have the question:
"Can God make a rock big enough so that he cannot lift it?"
I would rephrase this as:
1) "Can God make a Z"
2) "Z is a rock big enough that he cannot lift it"
Z I would now argue is a meaningless concept. We have defined God being omnipotent as meaning he can lift a rock of any size, so the concept of a rock which he cannot lift is meaningless in this system. (If you don't find this bit convincing try expressing it to yourself formally in first-order predicate calculus. I would do so myself but typing the symbols would be problematic!)
So this definition of Z as as meaningless as saying that Z is a square circle, or Z is a strawberry flavoured electron.
(Note: the answer to "Can God make a strawberry flavoured electron?" or "Can God make a four sided triangle?" is not "Yes. God can do anything." but "Your question is meaningless."....of course God can make strange flavoured quarks)
So our question becomes "Can God make a (meaningless concept)?"
This question doesn't have a true, or false answer, it is nonsense, so then cannot be used in deduction.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 11:12 pm (UTC)So, do the inhabitants of Heaven have free will?
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Date: 2005-02-06 11:09 pm (UTC)The Problem of Evil is then solved by arguing that a universe in which there is no evil but we still have free will is a logical contradiction. God cannot create a logically contradictory universe and so can't be blamed for evil. A counter to this is to ask whether the inhabitents of heaven have free will. Discuss [20 marks].
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Date: 2005-02-06 10:58 pm (UTC)I think there is a contradiction between claiming to love everyone and doing some people infinite harm. As
Christians love God in reponse to the love he has shown us.
Indeed, but my point was that love can hardly be seen as healthy when it is given under the threat of violence: it really does sound like the sort of Stockholm Syndrome stuff which Wednesday's Usenet posting talks about. Christians seem cast in the role of the beaten wife who makes excuses for her husband ("he loves me really; he's done so much for me; I deserve it").
I was thinking more along the topical news line of self-defence.
A key test for self-defence is whether it is proportionate (so you're not allowed to shoot someone who merely looks at you funny, or similar). I do believe that war can be justified sometimes, but again a key test for a just war is proportionality. In both cases, the analogy to punishment in Hell does not apply, since Hell is portrayed as an infinite punishment for a finite offence.
In conclusion then, the standard evangelical doctrine of Hell contradicts the idea that God is universally loving, and portrays God as abusive and unjust.
I do wonder whether there is anything which God could to which you would see as wrong, or whether anything he does is correct by definition.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-08 01:33 pm (UTC)I don't think you can just say the two things are contradictory. You're starting with an emotion (love), and ending with an action (harm). I think it is necessary to say how the two are related (emotions and actions) before claiming an emotion and an action are contradictory.
As [info]robhu points out, the parallel with limited amounts of harm
As I've pointed out in another reply my aim was not to suggest parrallel or anology, but to query some of your original statements, which I felt were key to your reasoning. (no love with violence. actions assessed apart from motivations)
Either God is not universally loving or he does not send people to Hell: Christians have chosen variations on those themes at various times, I think.
Christians have throughout history affirmed both of those truths.
Christians seem cast in the role of the beaten wife who makes excuses for her husband ("he loves me really; he's done so much for me; I deserve it").
Such parallels completely ignore God's right to judge his creatures.
In conclusion then, the standard evangelical doctrine of Hell contradicts the idea that God is universally loving, and portrays God as abusive and unjust.
Would you consider a non-infinite Hell to contradict the idea that God is universally loving? And be abusive and unjust?
(I haven't tried this line of reasoning, so be prepared for me to back-track quickly. But the prescence of the word infinite does make my inner-mathmo think an analysis style of arguement might be valid.)
I do wonder whether there is anything which God could to which you would see as wrong, or whether anything he does is correct by definition.
Correct by definition.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-08 07:34 pm (UTC)If by love we mean the pure form of agape or charity which always seeks the highest good for its object, it is hard to see how that good is advanced by sending the person to Hell, wouldn't you say?
Christians have throughout history affirmed both of those truths.
What, that God is not universally loving and doesn't send people to hell? :-)
Such parallels completely ignore God's right to judge his creatures.
God does not have that right, or at least not an unqualified right. If he stands in relation to us as a parent to a child, we do not allow earthly parents to torture their children, even if the parents think it will do them good. God as envisaged by evangelical Christians is all-powerful and so has the ability to judge, but I don't believe his might makes him right.
Would you consider a non-infinite Hell to contradict the idea that God is universally loving? And be abusive and unjust?
Depends on how non-infinite it is and what the experience is like (and what happens at the end of this non-infinite experience). As I said, it's about proportionality. We recognise that some people escape punishment for their crimes in this life, and so some kind of court in an afterlife is not necessarily immoral. However, evangelical Christianity posits that we are all guilty, another point I'd disagree with.
Correct by definition.
So if God appears to you (or sends an angel, perhaps) and tells you to go on a killing spree or similar, in an old fashioned OT style, would you do it?
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-08 09:33 pm (UTC)I don't think by love I mean what you mean by pure form. I understand your pure form to mean: in the abscence of other emotions/motivations. Would you say that is accurate? If that is the case, your reasoning stands.
My issue (which was the point of how emotions result in actions) is that all we know about God's character is not just his love, but also that he is just, he desires his own glory, etc..
First I would say that emotions (I want a better word to suggest the more deep-felt emotions which make up our character, rather the fickle emotions which vary from day to day) can easily appear contradictory without being so. The obvious example being how it is possible to both love and hate someone. (Has often been said how the opposite of love is indifference, not hate).
I would then think about how these result in action. I would say God's intellect works from these complex motivations to form actions. He uses his wisdom to harmonize these motivations and form effective choices, his actions.
This is my model of how a mind works. So I would agree you contradiction stands if we have love by itself, in its "pure form". But I would say this is not the case with God. He does have a genuine, universal, love. And also has a desire for justice, amongst other things, which is why what we don't get the actions we would expect if he had just that love.
God does not have that right, or at least not an unqualified right.
!!! On what basis would you qualify God's right about anything?
If he stands in relation to us as a parent to a child,
I should probably say that I don't think he does stand in relation to you as a parent to a child. That's the relationship between God, the Father, and the Christian.
As I said, it's about proportionality. We recognise that some people escape punishment for their crimes in this life, and so some kind of court in an afterlife is not necessarily immoral. However, evangelical Christianity posits that we are all guilty, another point I'd disagree with.
Hummmm. Depends what the crime being punished is. I'm guessing you're not too bothered about sins against God?
So if God appears to you (or sends an angel, perhaps) and tells you to go on a killing spree or similar, in an old fashioned OT style, would you do it?
I'm reluctant to say what I would do in situations I've never been even vagualy close to. But what I can do is affirm that when God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Abraham was right to obey. I would like to say my faith was strong enough for me to have done the same, but as I said I am reluctant to do so, never having had it be tested in such a way.
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Date: 2005-02-06 03:40 pm (UTC)Clearly there is a difference as there is no remedial value in hell (http://web.archive.org/web/20040219232003/www.losingmyreligion.com/articlesf/hell.html).
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 04:02 pm (UTC)I was unaware I was saying it was the same as anything! I was querying what I thought was an invalid assertion
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Date: 2005-02-06 04:07 pm (UTC)Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-06 04:06 pm (UTC)Perhaps they are useful as they continue to drum into the students a fear of hell which hopefully will stop them from leaving the church or thinking about what they are being told. When I stopped being a Christian although I had no reason to believe that Christianity was true I was terrified of going to hell - the idea of how awful it is gets drummed into you so deeply that fear can motivate you into going to church. Someone who left the CU at Derby said to me a few months ago that they were amazed that I was no longer a Christian, when I asked why they said that they didn't understand why I would want to go to hell! This also seemed to be a core reason for them being a Christian themselves.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-09 03:59 pm (UTC)However, I think that the practice of Christianity on the basis that one considers oneself hell-ward bound without such practice is bad practice. Here is Gerard Manley Hopkin's poem, which I think gives a far better reason for loving God: http://www.cybertime.net/~ajgood/ilove.html The crucial lines being: "Not for heaven's sake; not to be
Out of hell by loving thee; Not for any gains I see;".
I love the idea of the radical non-utility of that. "Not for any gains I see..." Wonderful. I don't know if it's true, but I very much like the sentiment.
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-09 04:07 pm (UTC)Logic is I think quite useful, it allows us to make a reasonably good decision on whether something is true or not. Otherwise one might believe anything. The more you try to take reason (well - and to some degree a God who can objectively be demonstrated to exist in any way) the more you end up with a dragon in your garage (http://robhu.livejournal.com/92268.html).
Re: This year's CICCU Main Event - DIRECTION
Date: 2005-02-09 04:27 pm (UTC)See here:
http://www.garnertedarmstrong.ws/Mark_Wordfroms/Tsunami1/tsunami1-7.shtml
For what it's worth, I just love having a dragon in my garage. The problem is that she fights with the invisible pink unicorn...