One a day, plus iron

I find all of that most depressing.

Read the sermon, or started too. But my migrainy eyes decided it was not worth it.

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Near as I can tell, pretty much everything happens by the grace of God. God doesn't ever not pay attention so you can't blame your personal rain of frogs on him having an off day. He does not have off days. All that transpires transpires because he so wills it in his ineffable and divine plan.

(I am not at all sure where the hell free will comes into this. It was one of the areas of confirmation class that I just didn't get.)

Anyway, I guess if God wants there to be rains of frogs, there will be rains of frogs. Thing is, the rains of frogs and swarms of locusts and shit, those were visited upon Egypt so's to convince old Pharoah to let the Jews go. They weren't RANDOM. Moses and Aaron were in charge of the Jewish Liberation Front. Following the plagues and the killing of the oldest son in each household (the households of the Jews were spared because they painted lamb's blood over the lintels of their doors so that the Angel of Death would know to pass over their houses. This is an event still celebrated by Jews as PASSOVER. I believe it's in the springtime, along about April or so.), the tribes of Jews left Egypt and the Red Sea parted and then they wandered in the desert for forty* years, following a cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. In the desert, they had the golden calf and they got the ten commandments and eventually they showed up at Canaan where they had to fight the Canaanites for the promised land (which would have struck me as a bit of a gyp, personally).

And, y'know, I'm a Godless Heathen. This is not my faith... and even I know that you don't just get random rains of frogs.

*Not an actual tribble. "Forty" is probably best read as "a good long while".

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Free will doesn't much come in to this, actually. The standard, hand-waving answer is that God made us with free will (so he could punish us all the better when we err), but he knows exactly when, how, where, why and to whom you are going to fuck up, and has known since before the very first moment of creation.

Which kind of takes the whole free will thing out of the picture--because honestly how much more work would it have been for God to tweak the starting conditions to leave Hitler out of the picture. He's *GOD* for crying out loud.

(As I have said, I'm having theological issues right now. The whole big, omnipotent God Behind The Clouds idea is one of the *biggest* issues I'm having.)

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Well, I'm not a godless Heathen, but this struck me as attempting to pigeonhole God at the most annoying.

Do we have to describe things we cannot even begin to understand? I suppose that's the nature of humankind. But still...let's limit the God we're supposed to have faith in (I mean that writer) by categorizing him and I really don't think God spoke to him personally and told him all those things.

And it does rain frogs. Every so often in different places around the world. It's not a once and done phenomenon, it's natural. So we're judging now that every time a rain of frogs appears it's God's judgement against someone? That's like those Predestination people who say that only good people are wealthy, and the poor are poor because they deserve it. God has sent them hardship to punish them. Feh!

I have...as you might have noticed, a problem with that.
Oh. Forty years. They got the forty year (so sayeth the Bible) because they disobeyed God. Moses died within sight of Canaan. He disobeyed God and wasn't allowed in.

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We have free will to live our lives and make our choices. We can choose to do what we know is right as well as against it. But because we have choices, there are results to those choices.

I've never really thought of a big omnipotent God behind the clouds. Well, I haven't thought of it that way since I was a kid. If we're going to believe (and I do), and he's omnipotent and omniscient, then he's not off behind the clouds as the deists believed. He's everywhere and in everything.

No, not like the Force and midichlorians.

And part of the free will thing is that we do suffer the consequences of our actions. We could be happy little zombies always doing right, with no concept of what we're doing. But then we wouldn't be very interesting, would we?

I personally do not believe that God sets us up for a fall. But I do believe that when we make a choice, there are repercussions. Hitler was not a magical person who appeared out of nowhere and caused all that havoc. There were lots of decisions made by people leading up to that, and it included a lot of vengeance visited upon Germany by the allies after World War I. Vengeance set up by Good People as well as bad ones.

My sister in law has a very large problem with Why God Lets Bad Things Happen to Good People. (on a tangent, are all people good people? How does she judge who is good or bad?) There are some things that are natural occurances in the system. We have an incredibly intricate system that weeds out people, especially when there are too many of us.

So if someone gets cancer, is that God's fault? Or is that part of the system that keeps our world from overpopulating? Or is that a result of someone's decision to smoke like a chimney when they were young? Or from another person's decision to use certain chemicals on his lawn?

We can't have it all ways.

I've also heard people say that God only gives us what we can handle. I don't agree with that. I think that human beings have the capacity to handle enormous amounts. Some of us choose to deal with things in a way that is considered heroic socially. Some people collapse. I don't ever *want* to deal with anything horrible happening to my children. So I watch like a hawk, get them checked out regularly. I will never know how I will react to a tragic event until it occurs, and I truly, Truly hope one never does.

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When I say "this" I mean that sermon, not your comments.

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My issue with human free will and a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent deity is this:

God makes us the way we are. God makes every person, every rock, every tree, and the very firmament of the heavens.

God knows everything. Not a sparrow falls but that he knows about it. God knows the past, the present, and the future, for ever and ever.

Therefore, this most merciful, loving God has made people who are doomed to fail, doomed to burn for all eternity, doomed from the get-go -- and he knew that they were going to be like that and STILL he made them anyway, knowing what awaited them. That's some whack shit.

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The sermon in question is Puritan-era stuff -- they were a lot more fire-n-brimstone back then, as I understand it. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was a piece of early-American writing that we had to read in high school... and I've remembered it since then.

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They do have the choice not to be doomed, don't they? And I'm not necessarily convinced that all the people my M.I.L. and her fundamentalist friends expect to show up in hell are actually bound there. I certainly don't know, and they don't either.

Since I have a trouble just understanding the concept of Linear Time, God being outside of time is a bit beyond me. I don't believe in predestination.

But then again, it's a matter of belief. *I* don't believe in it, but certainly people like Charles Manson and Cotton Mather did. I have always figured that I'd wait and see, that I'll understand more of what is going on afterward.

It may sound like an excuse, but since I'm neither omnipotent nor omniscient, I don't expect to have all the pieces to fit into the jigsaw. It would be nice to have everything logically categorized and explainable, but I don't think anybody really can limit something like God to only what they believe. The only person I can limit or be responsible for is myself.

And I try not to make scary bad decisions.

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My favorite quote from back then is Cotton Mather (the witch hunter).

"The devil invented gin and fried food."

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I don't know if they have a real choice to not-be-doomed. That's my problem... I think maybe, if God knows all the answers in advance, that's not real free will. Free will is where nobody knows what's going to happen next. If, on some level, someone knows what's going to happen, it's not free will and choice does not exist, no matter how much it LOOKS like choice exists. If the future can be known with certainty, then there is no choice and there is no free will.

*sigh* I'm probably not explaining this very well.

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Yes. God can basically *not* be simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent. So bye-bye classical Christian conception (and to a lesser extent Jewish, though Jews generally aren't so hung up on the omnibenevolent thing) of God.

Which leaves people who can see the problem with the classical conception (not everyone) to find/invent/whatever their own vision of God. Or to decide that the whole God idea is bad ju-ju and live ethical lives without (which is an equally fine alternative, IMO).

Personally, I'm a panentheist--I believe that God is everything and is in everything, but there is more to God than the universe that we can percieve (now or ever). I think that, if God is Omni-anything, it's Omni-Outside-Our-Ability-To-Understand. Every attempt to write or speak about God is, on some level, blasphemy because there is no way humans can comprehend the mystery and vastness. Every word we say is a limitation on God. Even saying that God is vast and mysterious may keep people from seeing God in tiny things like neutrinos and in simple things like grains of sand.

Sorry. I have spent *years* studying theology, believe it or not, but I'm still not exceptionally articulate about what I believe.

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I think you and I basically agree about God and religion, Sue. :)

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But then there was Benjamin Franklin who said, "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." :)

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I'm not either.

Part of it is because I can't really subscribe to the "there can be no changes." That nobody can make changes to their lives, because it's already predestined. And if there are changes, there are other possibilities.

I can't explain how God would be able to see the possiblities...

I'm not smart enough, and really haven't got the background in theoretical theology to explain.

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Yes! That's it exactly!

But being humans, we attempt to define our world. I don't know that it's blasphemous though. More like we are children working our way toward understanding. Some people never will reach it. Some people reach it, and then lose it. It's a satori of sorts.

As for omnibenevolent... I don't see always making sure someone is happy is necessarily always good for human beings. My children need to learn by their errors, and they need to accept the consequences of those actions to learn. Otherwise they won't learn. So what we might see as not being benevolent, or as being downright malevolent might not be so.

Again, it's hard for me to verbalize.

On the other hand (meaning able to verbalize, proseletyze, preach)... have either of you read Charles Manson's work? There is a man who is truly dangerous in that he can make insanity and death sound very, Very plausible. So just because we can't explain the way that some do, does not mean we're not working toward an understanding of what is right.

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I think so.

And too, I agree with which chick that we have a social compact that enables us to live together. It does not take a fundamental belief in God to be a good person, or to do things that are right for our species.

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I haven't read any of Charles Manson's work--we're talking the murderer here, yes??

There are some very scary people who can make all sorts of things sound reasonable and right. Like the dude who's name I'm blanking on in Jonestown--Jim Jones? And those Heaven's Gate people, their guru was like that.

But then I think some people really *want* to believe *something*, anything--something firm and definite and more solid than "We can't really say anything that's at all accurate about God except that God Is". (Which is why I'm never going to have followers, I suppose.) And those people who want to have *someone* give them definite things to believe can wind out in harmless places like ashrams and monasteries, in annoying places like Fundamentalist prayer groups, and in dangerous places like holding a gun on someone who disagrees with them.

I agree with you that making someone happy all the time isn't necessarily the best thing for them--but I think you can get pretty far away from benevolence in letting people learn from their mistakes.

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Very, very true.

I actually find the people who say "The only reason I don't murder/rape/pillage etc. is because of the fear of God and Hell" rather terrifying, because what they're saying is that they don't have any internal compass of their own.

Even after 10 years of being with Abner (an athiest), I'm not sure I really understand how people can not believe in God--to me the existence of God is as obvious as the sun and the moon--but I don't doubt for a moment that people can be good, upstanding, ethical people without that belief.

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teflon-tim.livejournal.com

They do have the choice not to be doomed, don't they?

That's a whole other kettle of fish, as varying sects and varying interpretations of the Bible will have different standards as to what constitutes "doomed" vs. "saved" -- but that's a discussion for another day. We're talking about Fate v. Free Will* here.

Being an avid SF reader I've never liked the idea of Linear time; I prefer the quantum mechanical view of existence, i.e. life depicted as a series of infinitely branching "A" and "B" choices leading to a number of "C" futures. Using that as a model, I'd like to think that as the One who originally drew the Great Flow Chart, God has knowledge of all possible futures (all the "C" points), but leaves it up to us as to which "A" or "B" choices we make.

Ironically enough, in the end the only "C" point that matters is one that *is* pre-determined for us all: we all die. What happens after that, i.e. whether or not a "D" point exists, is yet another discussion. :)

It's not a perfect model, of course; nothing thought up by a mere mortal is. But I vastly prefer it to the idea of Predestination, which in my view eliminates free will and therefore eliminates real meaning and purpose from the life of the individual.

*[You will recall, of course, the landmark 1997 case in which the SCOTUS decided in favor of Free Will by a 5-4 vote. O'Connor was the swing vote; Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion.]

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This is an argument that Abner makes a lot to people who argue that free will exists and God knows everything...particularly if you believe that God also created the universe--because then God made the universe, charted the course of the first photons, such that you would make the decision to have whatever it was you had for breakfast this morning, and not something else. And so on for every decision in everyone's life.

With that conception of God it is impossible to have free will--though you can *feel* like you do. And maybe, for at least some people, that's enough.

I don't really accept that God knows every decision we're going to make, but then I don't really think of God as the sort of person/personality that precisely knows things. It's like thinking of gravity and magnetism as being aware of the things they're moving around--doesn't quite work for me.

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True. I won't let my kids do something that will kill them or maim them.

The thing is... just a thought... if this isn't the end all and be all life (though I live it like it is), then death is not the worst thing that can happen. Maybe. I don't know...

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I have believed for a long time that God will sort things out.

So I have faith that the people I love who do not believe, which includes the majority of my friends at Otakon etc. will be taken care of.

And I don't mean taken care of like taken out and shot or anything.

I always found it interesting that my fundy, judgemental M.I.L. never knew the beliefs of her churches, for example the belief that babies are sinful. A baby is one of the most selfish beings on the planet. But it's okay for her to believe that babies are automatically "saved", but not the old sinner down the street that she doesn't like, or even the good person who does lives a godly life but doesn't belong to a specific baptist church.

One of the saddest things about people like that, people who are so busy judging their family and neighbors that they don't look to their own behavior, is their effect on their family. Karl's dad left him a note in his will about how he hoped Karl and Becky would be saved. It was like a blow. he judged his own son (who is a believer, by the way, but doesn't follow exactly what his father did), something we are told Not To Do. No "I love you", nothing like that. I suppose it seemed like a good idea to him when Karl's dad wrote it. But it was an awfully cold thing to leave his children at a time when they needed comfort.

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Even if this is the be-all end-all life, I don't think that death is the worst thing that can happen. I mean, "death before dishonour" is kind of trite sounding, but ... I think there's a point there.

Because life is about more than just living and staying alive--we're all going to die, there's no escaping that--so what you do with your life is what makes a difference. Whether you believe in heaven/hell, reincarnation, or oblivion, all you can control is how you live *now*. And living with honor and according to your principles is more important, maybe, than simply keeping alive.

Sorry, I'm being even less articulate than usual and I'm not sure I'm even *right*. But it feels right--I'd rather die with self-respect than live without it. But, of course, in the actual situation of choosing, who knows what I'd do.

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The spouse absolutely will NOT read Time Travel novels exactly for these reasons. Paradox. aaieeeee!

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I'm not sure. I know there are more important things out there. I know there are things I would die for. The spouse and the kinder being three of them.

But those are just words until something like that happens to come up. How do I know how I will act until the crunch comes (hopefully it will never come).

So while I agree that there are things worth living for, and things worth dying for, I'm also one of those obsessively picky people who can't generalize enough to say, "I would die to protect the constitution" or anything like that.

As Missus Pongo said in 101 Dalmations, "How can I depend on a thing that depends?"

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I absolutely agree with you there--until the situation comes up (God forbid) then I can't say what I'd actually do.

I know what I wish I'd do. But *shrug*...

Honestly, I hope I never find out and I hope you never find out. :)

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teflon-tim.livejournal.com

No, no, I wasn't thinking about that at all. There's no heading back to an earlier point "A" so you can choose "B" -- what's done is done.

Let me put it this way: in the Catholic tradition in which most of my family was raised, we are taught to pray not for specific things to happen to us ("Oh Lord, please let me get that job I interviewed for last week..."), but for the strength/wisdom/insight to do what is right.

To insert this into my (flawed) model, God looks at the choices before us (points "A" and "B") and then looks ahead on the Great Flow Chart at what the consequences of those choices (one or more points "C") will be. The wisdom that someone prays for would take the form of a insight into that possible point "C" -- not a vision of the future, but some extra brain power enabling one to deduce the results of one's actions more clearly and thus make more informed choices.

Hmmm. I am definitely putting this Flow Chart thing into my novel -- if I ever get around to writing it, that is...

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staceman.livejournal.com

That's the biggest thing that disturbs me about the so-called Christians; They're so busy judging others, that they rarely look at themselves. And they feel that they don't have to; they feel that since they simply go to church and are doing right by their peers and their pastor, that they are surely great, godly people. The truth is, they really don't even truly understand their religion. The God thing, ends up being nothing more than a big name to drop to associate themselves with, and a big scary monster that's gonna get you if you don't believe and live like they do. (God is gonna GET you! Rawwwrrrr!) All in all, religion is just a way to make them feel superior to others, and to another extent, a drug to make them feel better about the mystery of what happens when they die.

Since we're disclosing our belief systems here, I'll take a stab at trying to explain what I believe. I believe in a higher power that designed/created us. I don't believe that it wants/needs to be worshipped, nor does it judge or punish- I believe that it designed us to be self-punishing. (this is probably starting to sound like George Carlin's "Big Electron" theory!) It's like we're machines, programmed, if you will. Actions and consequences, good or bad. When we go against the programming, bad things happen, not unlike throwing a monkey wrench into delicate clockwork. It works like logic. I believe that things like, for instance, how stress can affect your health, are good clues to this.

As for the bible, I believe that it is indeed full of good things, common sense things that go along with how we are designed and programmed by the higher power. But of course, it is an interpretation by *people*, and thus was subjected to things like personal bias by the people who wrote the particular books. Good intentions, horribly bad presentation. Not to mention what may have got lost in the various translations. You can't deny that a lot of the stuff is really out there. (http://www.landoverbaptist.org has some fine examples of really bad verses, that you can even get on T-shirts and coffee mugs if you so desire!) One good example, among a load of others, is Revelations. However, I don't think that it can easily be passed off as total bull. Amongst all the crazy symbolism, I believe are things that have came to pass, happening now, etc.. But, I believe that it was all simply a logical calculation, someone many many moons ago sitting down and thinking of possible outcomes that could come about if people as a whole were to continue on certain wrong paths. I also believe that the bible isn't really neccessary reading, I believe that many common sense things, as I mentioned, are programmed into us, and naturally come to you through clear thinking and perhaps meditation. But in today's world, clear thinking is tough, with all the distractions, peer pressure, and temptations of doing things to excess.

Unfortunately, things like this are very difficult for me to put into the right words, so I'm not sure if I quite explained myself correctly. Take it as a brief, flawed summary of what I believe. ;) It all makes my brain hurt, and I don't like discussing it much. I know what I know, if ya know what I mean. :)

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My big problem with Revelations is that here is a sermon preached to a specific group of people. And it's being taken as prophecy about the end of the world. I truly hope that nobody ever does that to some of the sermons that i've heard from people.

Just like Paul preaching to a group about covering their heads because the women of a specific congregation, freed from the constraints of head coverings for the first time in their lives had been sporting more and more elaborate hairdos to out do each other, needed to be thinking about what was being preached, not having better hair than the next woman.

Do I think that the Revelations of Saint John is a prophecy of the end of the world? No.

But again, that's my opinion.

There's a lot of common sense in the Bible. People don't tend to read it though.

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Even after 10 years of being with Abner (an athiest), I'm not sure I really understand how people can not believe in God--to me the existence of God is as obvious as the sun and the moon--but I don't doubt for a moment that people can be good, upstanding, ethical people without that belief.

I can answer that one, or at least answer it a little bit. I was raised by agnostics. (When I was six years old, I apparently asked my parents why we didn't attend church. They told me "Because we're not hypocrites.")

So I was raised to question everything. I had no religious experience whatsoever, other than the experiences one cannot escape in the popular culture of our overly religious nation, until I went to Catholic high school. (The local public school was a disaster area.)

At that point, I was smacked in the head by two thousand years (or, if one includes the pre-Christian traditions, five thousand years) of contradictory theology laid atop ancient magical beliefs. (I'm sorry if this characterization of it bothers some people, but I can't think of a way to make it more palatable without making it incomprehensible.) It took me about a semester to decide I was an atheist.

With more experience, I realized that the questions asked by theists are fundamentally unanswerable. Is there a being, more powerful than we can possibly comprehend, that created the Universe? Heck, how would I know? An alien with ten million years' worth of evolution on us could show up, move the Moon out of its orbit, read everyone's minds with some sort of advanced technology, and declare itself to be God. How would you disprove it? So, the fundamental question of theology: "Is there a god of any kind, be it good or evil or clockwork, in existence?" is unanswerable, except through faith, which appears not to have been installed in my particular version of Human 1.0.

On the question of "Is there a God such as is described in the Bible?" I came to a simpler answer. No. There is no way that the world could be as it is, with villains prospering and the good dying in horrible conditions, if there were a loving and omnipotent father-god. That's the modern definition of atheism in America (y'all dunna believe in Gawd!) so I'm an atheist.

Although, I will say that back in college a friend asked me if there were any thing I would ask a prospective candidate for God, to prove His existence and power. I said, "Make two plus two equal five."

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I agree with you absolutely that God As Described In The Bible does not exist. I even understand, very well, that God As Described in The Bible is exceptionally unappealing. I wouldn't worship that being.

Abner and I have discussed this extensively and I've come to the conclusion that he sees all the things that to me reveal God (or let's call it the Divine, to get away from that Judaeo-Christian-Islamic thing) in the universe. He even has, as near as the barrier of language rather than direct communication will let us determine, much the same emotional reaction to it (awe, wonder, amazement, occasional giddiness at the sheer fucking *coolness* of the universe). He just doesn't then make the leap to thinking then that there is something Divine in that sheer coolness. Which is cool--it is quite probably something that is either hardwired into an individual's operating system or not. To me the Divine is as obvious as the chair I'm sitting on--but I get that either I'm telling myself fairy stories or you and Abner are missing something I'm seeing. One or the other. :)

I've always joked that what it would take for Abner to believe in God is simultaneous supernovae spelling out "Abner, don't be a shmuck!" across the night sky. He says it doesn't have to be personal like that--but simultaneous supernovae spelling out something intelligible might do it. :)

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The problem is that a lot of the common sense in the bible is hidden by the culturally specific, the mythological, and the just plain...don't know the word...horribleness of it. I mean according to Leviticus it's an abomination to wear mixed fiber clothes, kids should be stoned for disobeying their parents, and gays deserve death. Yuck!

The signal to noise ration in the Bible is not so very good, in my opinion. And I say this as a committed Jew (though one who is having issues with some of the theology).

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He just doesn't then make the leap to thinking then that there is something Divine in that sheer coolness.

The question that I ask in this case is: How could I see the divine in something that's an integral part of being human?

I've always joked that what it would take for Abner to believe in God is simultaneous supernovae spelling out "Abner, don't be a shmuck!" across the night sky. He says it doesn't have to be personal like that--but simultaneous supernovae spelling out something intelligible might do it. :)

If that happened to me, I would probably spend the rest of my life in a mental institution, trying desperately to convince the psychiatrists - who would presumably have seen the celestial light show and believed in it - that I was mad. How do you determine, to your own satisfaction, if you're sane when you've undergone an immensely improbable experience like that? Heck, the psychiatrists to whom you think you're talking could be hallucinations, too!

Is there such a thing as being too sane? 'Cause I think I may actually be utterly deficient in whatever lets people believe in things. :)

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staceman.livejournal.com

http://www.cafepress.com/landoverbaptist/75553

Good Stuff™

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The question that I ask in this case is: How could I see the divine in something that's an integral part of being human?

What are you referring to as the integral part of being human here--the coolness of the universe or the ability to see and appreciate it?

I mean the universe would be incredibly cool whether we were here to notice it or not, right?

And I don't actually think everyone is able to see that awesome coolness--I don't think it's necessarily an integral part of being human. Maybe. Hrm. I might need to think about that more.

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teflon-tim.livejournal.com

Make two plus two equal five.

If memory serves me right, O'Brien did that in 1984 -- or at least he did so as far as Winston Smith was concerned. Richard Burton played O'Brien in the movie. Does that make Richard Burton God?

Seriously, though...

I'm not convinced that there is a God. However, I'm not convinced that there isn't one, either. I hold open the possibility of a higher existence because I'd like to think that there's more to life than just the proverbial moment of light and warmth as the sparrow flies in the window and through the house. But you'll need to do a bit better than asking me to "take it on faith." I need more supporting evidence than someone simply saying "God says so," or "It's written in the Book of so-and-so."

I suppose that makes me an agnostic. Or maybe I don't have Faith 1.0 installed in my OS either. :)

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I think I'm a really, really strange sort of theist--because I'm not sure I believe that there's more than this life (though I'd like to believe in reincarnation, I'm not sure I actually on a gut level *do*). We live, we die, we rot (or get eaten--I prefer eaten, personally). Some people try to make that sound insignificant--but really it's not. It's really, actually, quite a lot. Not a little thing at all to live and love and move through the world and appreciate the beauty. I mean there's mystery there and awesomeness, in just one life and then the oblivion of the grave.

But I still believe that there is something Divine in the universe. Like, as Terry Pratchett says, I believe in the postman.

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The ability to see and experience the coolness is a vast part of our humanity. It may, in fact, ultimately turn out to be what makes us human as opposed to a very dextrous ape.

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But I still believe that there is something Divine in the universe. Like, as Terry Pratchett says, I believe in the postman.

I imagine this is what it's like to be colorblind. I honestly see no evidence of the divine in the Universe. It seems like a great, blind clockwork that's running along at an immense rate of speed across vast, mostly empty distances. While it's awe-inspiring, it's awe-inspiring in the way that the Grand Canyon is. It's huge, and it's beautiful, and it obviously took a lot of time to get there. :)

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Ah, fair enough. On more reflection, I think I probably agree with you about that. Which means that there are some H. sapiens running around that aren't entirely human.

Like that's a shock.

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It may be a hardwired difference between us. It may also be the way that each of us was brought up. Your family are agnostics. I was taken for walks in the woods when I was small, and, in fact, to see the Grand Canyon, and we talked about the Divine, my mom and I. Hardly ever went to church, but walked in the woods and felt the mystery a lot.

You may be colorblind, and I may be like Arthur Conan Doyle, seeing fairies where there are none. (Only I don't write as well. :) )

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I had a family background with strong faith. So I see the divine in a lot of things. Love for one thing.

And again, since I don't understand God, it makes it that much harder to describe him. My understanding is that the original spirit, what became the Holy Spirit, was female in the original versions of the old testament. Until I learn those languages, I won't know for sure, and even then can't. Nobody can. There are no vowels. So open to misinterpretation.

In any case...the old testament is description of something in terms that the people then would understand. It might not hold meaning for a lot of people today. On the other hand, I've read some fairly wretched translations. so I prefer to read as close to an accurate translation as I can to get some idea of what the history of my system of belief is. Not everyone feels the need to do this.

Which is why the Bibles my church hands out to 3rd graders translates "Eunuchs" as "Government Officials".

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The Jewish Publication Society translation of the Hebrew bible (the Old Testament, only in a different order) is about the best translation that modern scholarship has. You might want to look for that one in the Jewish section of the bookstore.

The problem with the Bible, both testaments, is that they are very culturally conditioned--written by and for people in those times, places, and cultures (more than one of them) and with underpinnings, overt and subtle, that we can't really hope to get.

One of the reasons I am a committed Jew is that being Jewish you're allowed to argue with God, to disagree with the tradition, to argue (politely) with other Jews. It's kind of in the "rules" of being Jewish that as long as you continue to be a Jew you can disagree with the faith as much as you want. :)

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fooliv.livejournal.com

Omniscience, predestination, free will - choose two.

Generally, I'm inclined to drop omniscience, if only because it makes God-the-person optional. If you drop predestination, you've essentially opted for a nonrational universe, because you've denied causation at a metaphysical level. If you drop free will, you've legislated identity out of existence.

I'd much rather demote God to notational demiurge and/or evolutionary goal & preferred end-state than to believe in a mad universe or to deny my own existence. But I don't insist on the interpretation as any sort of doctrine.

Does keep me out of church on Christmas morning, though it makes it hard to explain to the family.

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