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Often times you guys will comment/email me with some questions that you might have of Christianity.
How could God…
If you God really cared…
How could you actually believe…
The list goes on and on.
I am honest enough to admit that nine times out of ten my answer is short and simple: I don’t know.
I don’t act like I know, nor do I feel obligated to know. I’m just another dude trying to take it a day at a time.
Truth be told, I often ask the same questions that you unbelievers ask! Really! No matter how much I doubt and question, no matter how frustrated I get, and no matter how few answers I have, I still feel okay with being a Christian. I’m anything but a gullible spineless idiot, but I’m sold on this faith.
Will that change? Perhaps. I have no idea what tomorrow holds, but for now, I’m down with some JC.
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Bill:
My opinion is simple. We do have all the answers, and they are found in scripture.
God’s word is all we need for every situation.
For His Glory,
Jason
Jason, if it was that simple, christianity wouldn’t be as fractured as it is. and all christians truly would be sheep.
Bill, admitting to not knowing is pretty galling, humility is a bloody hard thing to acheive, and i respect you greatly for both.
ash:
Division comes when humans try to explain, in their own terms, what God has already explained in the scripture.
Before I give anyone the impression that I am arrogant (maybe I’m too late), I will tell you that I don’t have all the answers, but I do believe whole-heartedly that the Bible does. And without question, much more than anyone gives it credit for.
Personally, I’m not willing to simply say…I don’t know…and just leave it at that. I admire the humility in that approach, but I also submit to you that it is a dangerous methodology as well. God has not left us “hanging” blindly onto anything. Scripture is sufficient in explaining everything we need to know. It’s just a question of whether or not we are willing to accept the TRUTH.
Of course I’m speaking to the “moral” questions like the ones Bill purposed. I’m not at all suggesting that we could learn to fly an airplane by simply reading the scripture. What I am saying however is that everything should be tested by the scripture first before it is considered to be a good source for knowledge.
That being said, I’d be very interested in some examples of the Bible not being a good/sufficient source for the answer to “moral” questions. Maybe that would be a better (more humble) approach to my point?
Where was it that I heard, people will believe everything that they hear as long as it isn’t in the Bible?
That absolutely doesn’t match with:
The Bible is not a ‘we.’ Your first answer was a claim that some group that includes you has all the answers. Which ‘we’ is it that has all the answers? If the answers are not able to be put in human terms, in what sense do we ‘have’ them? I have a trillion dollars. It’s just that every time I try and use the money in human terms, it divides down into 37 cents.
In any case, the Bible absolutely doesn’t have all the answers - it is a finite book. Question: How do you derive the quadratic equation? Looking in the Bible….nope. Nothing remotely approaching an answer.
I’m speechless. How can you possibly consider the Bible a good source for answers to moral questions?
Jason, are you required to attempt to obey the Ten Commandments (yes/no)? How do you arrive at the answer - what is the criteria for whether or not you should be attempting to obey a divine command?
Ben I understand that the Bible is not a ‘we’ but it is given to all mankind as a source for absolute truth. Therefore ‘we’ do have God’s moral law, which is all sufficient to lead us to Salvation in Jesus Christ.
Where I feel that I may have misspoke, in my first response, was if I gave anyone the impression that I personally have a complete and full understanding of the Bible. I do not, even though I strive daily to understand it more. However, with that being said, the Bible is still my (our) source for moral truth.
Jesus quoted the Old Testament, saying: “MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.” (Matthew 4:4)
Now to the good stuff:
I’m confused on how the first question correlates to the second, but here goes:
1. How can I possibly consider the Bible a good source for answers to moral questions? How can you possibly not? What other absolute source do we have? Do we trust our own instincts or better yet our feelings? Does a society get to determine right from wrong based on the consensus of the majority? How dangerous is that thought process? (Nazi Germany anybody)
2. Am I required to ‘attempt’ to obey the “Ten Commandments”? Absolutely. God has given us his moral law for us to abide by it.
3. How do I arrive at the answer? The scripture is the source (criteria) for whether or not I should be attempting to obey a command from God. Scripture is the Word of God, and it is absolute truth. This is my entire argument.
Am I missing something here? Please let me know where I’m missing the mark.
For His Glory,
Jason
There is no absolute source. But if I were to choose a book to be an absolute source for morality, I’ll go with the collected works of Dr. Seuss.
How about rational thought and empathy? It gives the best results.
The thought process behind Nazi Germany was yours, not mine. It was based on Christianity, absolute (authoritarian) morality, and anti-semitism, among other things. The Holocaust could not have been done without an authoritarian basis for morality like the one you’re suggesting.
“Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. . . we need believing people.”
— Hitler, April 26, 1933, during negotiations which led to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.
He’s making your exact argument.
“We were convinced that the people needs and requires this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”
— Adolf Hitler, in a speech in Berlin on Oct. 24, 1933
Quick: Which of the following quotes come from Hitler, and which from Martin Luther, the man who started the Reformation and for whom Lutheranism is named?
“In brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule– if my counsel does not please your, find better advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable, devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty sharers before God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, this dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe-conduct, or communion with us. . . . With this faithful counsel and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my conscience.”
“Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:
First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are able toss sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could also throw in some hellfire…
Second, that all their books– their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the entire Bible– be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and that these be preserved for those who may be converted…
Third, that they be forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country…
Fourth, that they be forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it…”
“…they remain our daily murderers and bloodthirsty foes in their hearts. Their prayers and curses furnish evidence of that, as do the many stories which relate their torturing of children and all sorts of crimes for which they have often been burned at the stake or banished.”
“They [rulers] must act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone, and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses did…
If this does not help we must drive them out like mad dogs.”
“Why does the world shed crocodile’s tears over the richly merited fate of a small Jewish minority? …Are you prepared to receive in your midst these well-poisoners of the German people and the universal spirit of Christianity? We would willingly give everyone of them… travelling expenses, if we could get rid of them.”
Got your answers? Only the last one was Hitler. All of the rest were Martin Luther, from On the Jews and Their Lies. The Holocaust is an example of what can be accomplished using an absolute morality, not an example of the dangers of a values-based morality.
OK. Then if I follow the divine command to kill a store clerk for working on the Sabbath, which meets your criteria (it is in the scripture), I am doing right?
Exodus 35:2 For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.
Why are you not in jail for attempting to obey this divine command?
Sources for the above:
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/statements.htm
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Adolf_Hitler
http://nobeliefs.com/luther.htm
Jason, i feel Ben has already answered some of your points admirably, but since you addressed one of your comments to me, i felt i should respond.
the same claim can be and is made about the torah, vedas, qu’ran, book of mormon etc.; the preference of which ‘truth’ is truer is made purely on faith.
what terms do humans have to explain things other than their own? and would a god not be able to explain things in a way that couldn’t be subverted? and would not an omniscient god be able to foresee the potential misuse of this scripture and at least provide updates to keep it relevant?
In the Bible God has given us, we have the perfect standard for judging all other knowledge…[ ]…To be obedient as a pilot we need to know how to fly a plane.
i’m really not sure how the bible provides a standard for judging the knowledge needed to fly a plane. can you explain this?
i’d need to know more about your views to ask pertinent questions…do you view the OT as applying to all christians, or jewish specific? do some bits (like the 10 commandments) apply but not others (shellfish come to mind)?
lot of questions, i know, but i’m trying to avoid challenging you on beliefs that some christians do hold, but you may not share…
It’s refreshing when I hear Christians say they don’t have the answers.
Another Christian pointed out to me recently that the bible does not contain all the answers but it is a good place to start. As we progressed through the centuries we developed laws and traditions that had their origins in the biblical teachings. We also rejected many of these teachings as our societies advanced and improved. For example slavery.
I don’t believe that it is wise to reject either the improvements over the biblical teachings that we have spend millennia refining or to reject, in entirety, the origins of our morals. As atheistic as I am I have to accept that religious teachings are integrated into our society. We must build on what we have to make things better, not go back.
Do you even know who wrote the Bible, Jason?
When ever an atheist asks me something about my religion and I dont know the answer, they get mad at me. So I ask them if they believe in evolution and start asking about really bizzare and obscure things. Do you know what the first frog looked like? Do you know what the cuddle fish evolved from? Do you know the dna sequence to make a chameleon?
Usually they dont know the answer (all though sometimes theyll make stuff up which is even funnier) and they just get angrier.I usually then leave the conversation with a smile, leaving them really confused. I once asked a guy how anger has anything to do with evolution, he called it devolution. I still dont know what he meant.
The thing is, Jared, the atheists you asked might not know the answers to those questions, but *someone* does, and it doesn’t even have to be an atheist, just a scientist, or an incredibly nerdy person ;-). Someone out there is familiar with the dna sequences of a chameleon. Or at least have a reference book to which they can refer that lists the dna sequence of a chameleon. Or a fruit bat. Or a zebra fish. The cuttle fish evolved from something; I don’t know what it is; but someone does.
Such knowledge is incredibly specialized to people’s respective fields. I study languages, not frogs, so no I can’t tell you a danged thing about them. But someone can, and with learned authority. Ask me to compare and contrast the Arabic and Persian languages and what the differences/similarities mean social anthropologically, and we’re good to go. But a scientist familiar with dna mutation patterns of e. coli probably can’t help you with that, nor should s/he be expected to. It’s probably not relevant to that person’s life.
Questions about religion tend to be about individual (or group) interpretation, not observable facts. Ask a Catholic why innocent unbaptized babies that supposedly still have “original sin” hanging around their necks used to have to live in limbo if they died (except now it’s decided that limbo doesn’t exist… go figure), and you’ll get an interpreted answer, paraphrased from someone else’s interpretation of something written by someone, hard to tell exactly who most of the time, several hundreds of years ago. And that text has been translated several times over.
Ditto when asking someone to explain how the Trinity three-in-one-deity deal is any different from and less paganistic than the many faces of Hinduism’s conception of the god Brahman.
The things you ask atheists (the examples you gave anyway) are questions about the observable world, answers that, more than likely, *someone* knows, even if it’s not your atheist in question.
Questions about religion tend to be about what people *think.* Why do you *think* the way you do? And if you don’t know why you think the way you do, than it’s time for some serious self reflection.
Hypothetically speaking, if one thinks homosexuality is a sin an order of magnitude worse than lying, even though as far as I know specific sins aren’t ranked in order of least to greatest anywhere in the Bible, and that belief is enough to cause one to judge a person negatively, then one better have a good reason for that. Because one’s judgment of others is relevant to the lives of the people one judges. If one thinks the earth is 6000 years old despite all observable evidence to the contrary, one should have a reason for that.
That was long-winded. Sorry. If that didn’t make sense let me know and I’ll try to be more concise. Perhaps after I take a nap. I’m working on three hours of sleep here and had to wake up at 5am.
I don’t know what devolution means either.
I get where youre coming from sara. But…
“Such knowledge is incredibly specialized to people’s respective fields.”
What Im trying to say is that I dont know everything about my beliefs just as scientists dont know everything about evolution. I know my core beliefs, and I have some speculation, but sometimes its hard to progress and learn about certain things because Im still learning about other things. Basically what I mean is just because Ive heard people talk about something, and have read a book on it doesnt mean I know everything about it. Im still in biology 101, Im still learning the basics.
My points just that I dont know everything about religion just as other people dont know everything about evolution. And usually when I dont know something, it has to do with the bible cause I havnt studied it as much as probably should. (I used to be LDS, so I know more about those beliefs and the Book Of Mormon than I know about the bible) So I usually should know the answer, but dont because of lack of effort.
Hmm…hope that makes sense, I may have confused you by trying to explain it like 3 times. haha
It’s cool. Looking back at my own post it appears I explained my point about three times too.
I see where you’re coming from as well, but I’d argue that no one can really know *everything* about anything; that goes for theists and atheists. What a shame if that were possible! Learning is so exhilarating, and for any part of that to come to an end would be disappointing. Imagine losing the excitement of learning new things about something that fascinates (or frustrates) you…
Evolution and religion are two very different animals. Evolution is an actual observable process from which one can pull factual data and come to rational and beneficial conclusions, most especially regarding bacteria. It’s a process very well (but not yet completely) understood by biologists, and they’re understanding it better every year, the results being that they are finding new ways to treat life threatening diseases. The potential is mind blowing.
The process by which (for example) prayers are supposedly answered, however, is not so fortunate. Personal anecdotes aren’t observable, and scientific approaches to this issue haven’t produced convincing positive evidence. The answer “the Bible says so” is not good enough, because Muslims can say the exact same thing about the Qur’an, Hindus about the Bhagavad-Gita, etc., and it quickly becomes a battle of whose book is better than whose, a battle in which no side’s argument is any more valid than the other. Then people who say they take the issue on faith just admit that there isn’t evidence.
I fear, though, that this conversation may be falling into a trap that assumes being a theist and an evolutionist are mutually exclusive. My parents are both firm believers in God, and in evolution. They’re of the opinion that evolution is true and guided by the hand of God. Nearly every theist I know feels the same way.
What sorts of questions do atheists ask you to which you don’t know the answers?
My fiance has actually decided to undertake the grand task of attempting to learn everything there is to know as of now about evolution, starting with Stephen Jay Gould’s Structure of Evolutionary Theory, respected in the field as one of the books one should read and understand in order to truly understand evolution. The tome weighs several pounds, and is apparently on the drier side of riveting, so he’s having a slow time of it.
But he gets points for trying, right? He’ll get through it eventually.
It seems you’re in an interesting place in your life right now, religiously speaking. By all means read all kinds of books from different points of view regarding the works of the Bible and come to your own conclusions, but may I recommend two for your journey? Richard Friedman’s Who Wrote the Bible? and Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus. Friedman’s book deals with the Old Testament and Ehrman’s with the New Testament. They compliment each other well, and are both good, well written reads by Biblical scholars, looking at original (as original as one can get, that is) texts in their original languages and hypothesizing who wrote the different books, who translated and interpreted these works, who pieced them together and why. There’s no way to confirm the author of every single manuscript, of course, but sound conclusions can be made (hint: Moses didn’t write the Torah).
You’re in for a good time; the Bible is quite fascinating. Completely man made, in my opinion, but then for me that makes it even more fascinating.
Yay for the number 3!
I agree completly with everything you said in your first paragraph. and if you look at my last post, I was trying to explain this…
“I see where you’re coming from as well, but I’d argue that no one can really know *everything* about anything; that goes for theists and atheists.”
I just couldnt put it into one sentence and had to draw it out into non nonsensical paragraphs. haha
I also completly agree with your third paragraph. Thanks for putting it so eloquently. Usually I hear a fellow 16 y.o. trying to explain that to me, and they just end up sounding a little…dense…
They ask about the trinity, and sacrament and the translation of the bible and how accurate it is. Just the general kind of stuff I guess. And im not really completly sure on anything that has to do with religion anymore, so “I dont know” is a common answer.for me.
And you could call my life right now interesting I guess. Id call it more confusing, :), but its interesting all the same. I think I pay more attention to religion than most kids my age. I like learning about different religions, and about how different people view the bible. I know a lot about other people’s faith and a lot about how scholars, archeologist’s and scientists view the world. But Im still trying to figure out my faith and how I view the world. I grew up believing God, Christ and the Holy Ghost were separate beings, so the trinity just sounds really weird to me. The bible cant possibly be perfect because of humans, but did God interfere and keep it in its original glory? I dont know. So when my atheists friends ask me…I still dont know.
Anyways, i’m babbling.
Devolution means the transfer of power or responsibilities from central government to regional or local government. I’m at a loss to explain what it has to do with anything that’s been discussed but I do hate being left out.
Jared, for what it’s worth, “I don’t know” is a great answer. The gap between things I do know and things I don’t know is massive. I can barely comprehend all the things that I am in ignorance on.
In slang, evolution is things slowly improving. Devolution would be de-evolution, or things slowly getting worse. That’s all it means.
The guy was whacked, lets just put it like that.
So, is there any clarification for the criteria about whether to obey or disobey divine commands from the book that is the absolute moral source? Because I still haven’t seen any reason to not attempt to obey Exodus 35:2.
@ Ben
You should read this article from a Mike Clawson. He’s a pastor and theologian of sorts. I kinda follow his line of thinking as seeing the Bible as an ever-changing document moving in time. What God may have said then may not apply now “For you have heard it said….but I say to you..” and I typically go for what Jesus says when it comes to the law. But that’s just me.
Here’s the link.
dang it! it didn’t work.
Oh well here’s the link.
http://emergingpensees.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-read-bible.html
Mike Clawson does not consider the Bible to be his absolute source for morality. The link is N/A.
how?
Even the people at the Council of Nicea said nothing about the Bible being the “Word of God” as noted in the Nicene Creed.
Only scripture that seems to point to inspiration of God is phrases like “God-breathed” or “following what we think is the Holy Spirit” (Acts)
Granted these come from new testament.
I’m not arguing which interpretation is correct. You gave me the basics of yours in the forums and I believe (if I remember correctly) I gave you a big thumbs-up of agreement - your reading seemed much more consistent than most. In the end, I would hope to convince Jason that yours is more correct, actually. Which may be what you were intending with the link and it went right over my head.
(smacking forehead)
then what are you trying to argue? I’m confused.
That the Bible is not a good source for answers to moral questions and definitely not a good absolute source for moral truth.