Figuring Out Religion

[Mountaineer]

I could have put this in the "murdered babies sold for parts" thread but Harrison's article has more of a religious view - e.g. the Satan comments.

... M

http://blogs.lcms.org/2015/harrison-on- ... not-silent

Harrison on Planned Parenthood controversy: ‘God is not silent’
on July 29, 2015 in Office of the President, Official Statements

By Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison

“It is the deadly hatred with which Satan attacks Christ. It is the thirst for a vengeance against Christ, which Satan cannot satisfy. It is the anxiety before Christ the judge. It is the rage of the fatally wounded beast.” — Rev. Hermann Sasse’s sermon on the Fourth Sunday after Trinity, 1942

Tuesday morning, the Center for Medical Progress released another video exposing Planned Parenthood and the evil and immense pain that occur inside its clinics. The video is graphic. Little arms and legs are ripped from tiny bodies. They are callously referred to as “specimens,” sold at a price.

Jesus warned us about this. He reminded us that the devil would be hard at work, seeking to devour hearts and minds. He told us the world would try to silence His Word of life, and that His truth would be shunned. Satan will stop at nothing to rage at Christ, even if it means murdering the tiniest of people and selling their bodies for profit.

But God is not silent. He has a word for us, too. He comforts us in the knowledge that the devil’s attempts are desperate and futile, for Jesus came to save people, regardless of their size. He reminds us that He has “overcome the world” (John 16:33) and “came that [we] may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). His point? Satan is fighting a losing battle, and he knows it.

So also, we pray, is Planned Parenthood. Its leadership can make excuses and attempt to justify its actions, complain that the videos are edited or that the Center for Medical Progress isn’t a legitimate organization. The chatter doesn’t matter. In Christ, the tide has already turned. God is not silent. He will not allow Satan to prevail.

Even now, He is causing young people to rise up, no longer content to let this genocide continue. His Church is standing up, too, as congregations and individuals show mercy to those who suffer the emotional pain of an abortion and come alongside moms and babies in financial and spiritual need. LCMS Life Ministry carries on its joyful work as well, supporting crisis pregnancy centers, providing educational life materials, teaching youth about chastity and working closely with our friends at Lutherans For Life and the National Pro-Life Religious Council.

Satan will roar for a time, but his evil, murderous ways won’t last. Sasse reminds us, “Before the power of Jesus the unbridled power of Satan has to stop,” for Jesus “takes the dominion of the world away from Satan.

“Satan cannot overpower us,” Sasse continues. “He cannot stand before this Lord Jesus. That’s why he rages.” Be comforted. Pray boldly. Speak bravely. Defend life. Act courageously. Let your frustration and disgust be turned to prayer and action on behalf of our littlest neighbors, for Satan cannot win, and God is not silent.

The Rev. Dr. Matthew C. Harrison is president of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

[Mountaineer]

To those who struggle or search,

Find someone (not here) and discuss, explore, ponder the phrase "the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." You are struggling (which is good because you are being drawn to Jesus) but are all tangled up in logical, philosophical, and reasonable categories. Until one is slowed down and actually comes under the power of the teaching of the Holy Spirit (who comes through the oddest means -- word and sacrament), one cannot do much of anything except what sinners do -- which is try to blaze a trail to the infinite by their own responsibility, decisions, and sacrifice. That won't work. An ancient Buddhist philosopher once stated "if there is to be a path from the finite to the infinite, it must come from the infinite side." He did not know the profound truth of what he had figured out. The only way to the infinite is through the infinite -- Jesus the God-man who died to take away our sin and rose victorious. In Him alone there is life eternal.

... M

[moda0306]

But my question to religious folks is this:

If life was discovered on another planet, would it challenge your faith?  If that wouldn't be enough, what if it was intelligent life on par with human beings, and similar moral tendencies (care for one another, etc)?

I don't think one could discover life on another planet and still think of earth or human life as nearly as unique as the Bible tries to make it out to be, but that's just be.  Mountaineer, Desert, etc.... what are your thoughts?

For me, of course not!  God created everything, the universe(s) on down to the smallest microbe.  Why would you even think that would challenge my faith?  What part of the Bible are you referencing when you say we are unique and whatever you take that to mean?  My understanding would be that God chose Israel to bring the Savior to the world.  He does not discuss many other earthly civilizations, let alone alien ones, that he did not choose.  I'm a bit flumoxed by your question.

... M

moda,

Edited to include link to Sunday's Sermon at my church that somewhat speaks to your question: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SimuKXQ ... Wilmington

Well you raise a good point about the bible taking place in a small area. One that lends even more skepticism to it being the Word of God but oh well.

The reason I ask is because no "souled" alien races are mentioned in the Bible. The earth is mentioned as the sole meaningful place of life.  Further, if there are beings with souls elsewhere, they are likely not aware of Jesus' existence, which you've already gone to lengths to explain is necessary to get into heaven. So all these alien beings are likely doomed to hell without their knowledge.

[Mountaineer]

But my question to religious folks is this:

If life was discovered on another planet, would it challenge your faith?  If that wouldn't be enough, what if it was intelligent life on par with human beings, and similar moral tendencies (care for one another, etc)?

I don't think one could discover life on another planet and still think of earth or human life as nearly as unique as the Bible tries to make it out to be, but that's just be.  Mountaineer, Desert, etc.... what are your thoughts?

For me, of course not!  God created everything, the universe(s) on down to the smallest microbe.  Why would you even think that would challenge my faith?  What part of the Bible are you referencing when you say we are unique and whatever you take that to mean?  My understanding would be that God chose Israel to bring the Savior to the world.  He does not discuss many other earthly civilizations, let alone alien ones, that he did not choose.  I'm a bit flumoxed by your question.

... M

moda,

Edited to include link to Sunday's Sermon at my church that somewhat speaks to your question: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SimuKXQ ... Wilmington

Well you raise a good point about the bible taking place in a small area. One that lends even more skepticism to it being the Word of God but oh well.

The reason I ask is because no "souled" alien races are mentioned in the Bible. The earth is mentioned as the sole meaningful place of life.  Further, if there are beings with souls elsewhere, they are likely not aware of Jesus' existence, which you've already gone to lengths to explain is necessary to get into heaven. So all these alien beings are likely doomed to hell without their knowledge.

I would even add that in every book I've ever read the topic has been limited to one very small segment of all that is.  Novels only have a few characters that live in relatively few places.  Study of language in depth is usually only covers one language and takes multiple books to do so ... ditto other topics.

I can't address the fate of "aliens" - I have no idea how God/Jesus/HS works other than what they have chosen to reveal to us in Word and Sacrament.

... M

[Mountaineer]

Are you a "breadwinner"?  Here is a great article to consider before you answer.

... M

When we are gainfully employed we sometimes refer to ourselves as: “Breadwinners.” It is an endearing phrase to be sure that has meaning and peril. It first and foremost reminds us that, all other claims to the contrary, we work for our food, our daily portions. How the word “winner” got incorporated into the phrase I know not but the inter-web assures me that the term originated in the early 19th century but that its use was limited until the 20th century but then became a commonly used term. The same world wide inter-web also suggests that the term “winner” was read in the sense of “struggle for” or “work hard at.”

I took the tack last Sunday from the pulpit to suggest that food, bread to be exact, is a very complicated substance. It is all too easy to think of it as something picked up quickly on the way home from work. But, it is not that easy, really. Bread comes form flower. Flower comes from grain via a mill. Grain comes from the field, via a seed. Seed comes from grain. Grain comes from seed, and suddenly a longs chain of repeating and intertwined events, each and every link important, stands behind the loaf. Bread is not easy, nor simple, it has roots all the way to the beginning of time and dirt. Yes, dirt. You cannot grow grain without dirt and dirt is made of . . . I will spare you that chain. It is lengthy but it does involve volcanoes, so that makes it kind of neat.

Bread connects us to the beginning of creation. (the fish do too but it would get too lengthy to explain that, let me talk bread here, you can talk fish and wine by yourselves) The term, “Breadwinner” is peculiar if take at 21st century face value. We do not “win” bread. We might not even be able to earn it. The only parts that are in our control is the sowing, reaping and processing. All other things are under the control of time, creation, and the loving hand of the Father. (Small Catechism)

As 21st century people we are even further removed from a healthy connection to the reality of our lack of control over our bread. We have cut out the tedious and risky processes that grows the bread. We do jobs, get money, and exchange it for bread (preferably flat, toped with tomato sauces spices, cheese and meat, cooked by someone else and boxed neatly) and then we shout: “Pizza! Let’s eat.”

Moses had no bread to give. We have no bread to give. Behind each and every bit of bread stands God and the fraction of eternity already passed since the beginning of the world. It is too big to be bought, earned, or won. Eating is at some level a receiving of God’s word in creation: “let there be.” Will we received it like Cain?

How did I get to Cain? Let me explain a bit. In Genesis 4 we see Cain and Able laboring over their chosen mode of farming. Both bring sacrifice but God “considered” Able’s sacrifice but not Cain’s. The fact that they will have to labor hard has been told to Adam and Eve in chapter 3. Nothing will come without labor after the Fall. But what is that labor and what is the meaning of the sacrifice made by the brothers? Is the sacrifice given in pride for the labor or in thanksgiving for the unfathomable chain of events that make the harvest possible? And in spite of the labor involved, in spite of the success of our harvests, our riches, our capacity to bring home the bacon, do we not do well to eat our bread in humility? Cain does not think so and gets even more alienated from land and labor. (Gn 4:12)

Manna, to bring this back to Moses and the Gospel of John, is a good example of the need for humility. Israel had done absolutely nothing to set itself free. Moses had done nothing that God did not command and the one time he did depart from God’s instructions by adding his own symbol action, it cost him his ticket into the Holy Land. (Nu 20:2-12) The people and the prophet in the book of Exodus receive from God. They have no cause to boast. If we look at the story closely, it is revealed that they were their own worst enemy at times and were known to complain that they had to be free. (ex: Ex 16:2-3 “the flesh pots of Egypt”)

Manna is received. It is not earned. It is the tangible reminder to Israel that all is in God’s hands even when, and maybe especially when, they think otherwise.

The Holy Eucharist is received. It is not earned. It is the tangible reminder to the One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church that all is in God’s hands even when, and maybe especially when, we think otherwise. John Kavanaugh writes:
If there is any pre-eminent task for us as we celebrate the Eucharist, then, it is not that we execute it well or work out our different roles, helpful as these things may be. Our task is to believe that our God, in Jesus, is our very food and drink.?The liturgy is not just a meal we have made, not just fellowship, not something we have artistically dreamed up. Its reality does not depend upon our ingenuity or virtue, our expertise in preaching or singing. It is fundamentally an act and gift of God.

"What must we do to perform the works of God?"  Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe (lit. put your Faith in) in him whom he has sent.” (6:28-29)

Faith is to stick with Jesus, no matter what. As for the sign for which they ask (6:30), he has already given it, and they should know it. It is because of this sign that they are talking to him at this time. But the sign is not enough. Maybe it is not even that, maybe the sign is already forgotten. Maybe it is too simple, too every-daily, too trivial. Who wants a sign that is merely bread? If bread, which, as I said is neither simple nor easy, is not enough of a sign, what will be? Will turning water into wine be enough? (Jn 2) Will healing sick children be enough? (Jn 4) Will healing the lame be enough? Jn 5) Will multiplying the loafs and fishes be enough? (Jn 6) Will walking on water be enough? (Jn 6) Will making the blind to see be enough? (Jn 9) Will raising the dead be enough? (Jn 11)

Faith is to stick with Jesus, no matter what. To have and cherish him as the Lord of your life because he is the Son and therefore the author of it. What will it take to for you to have Faith? Will it take an “act of God?” Such was had. You can read about it in chapter 19 and 20 of John’s Gospel. And again, Faith is like bread, like Manna. It is simple but complicated. Easy but hard work. It reaches to heaven but falls in pride. Humble Faith is just “mere” Faith. There is no proud Faith. There is only the Faith you received from Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.
There is Bread and Wine. The Lord and the blood of his sacrifice. Where are you?

[Mountaineer]

Various Thoughts on "The Theology of the Cross" vs. "The Theology of Glory"  -  See the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 for more information. http://bookofconcord.org/heidelberg.php

In order to better understand, one must keep Exodus 33:18ff and Romans 1:20ff in mind.  In Ex 33, Moses asks, "Show me thy glory."  God answers, "You cannot seem my face; for man shall not see me and live."  So, God places Moses in a cleft of the rock and holds His hand before him until His glory had passed by.  Luther's characterization of false theology is taken from Romans 1:20.  In doing so he uses Paul's words in 1 Cor 1:21 and following:  "For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."

The theology of glory knows God from his works; the theology of the cross knows him from his sufferings.

Natural theology and speculative metaphysics which seek to learn to know God from the works of creation are in the same category as the work righteousness of the moralist.  Both are ways in which man exalts himself to the level of God.  Thus both either lead men to pride or are already expressions of such pride. 

The theology of glory seeks to know God directly in his obviously divine power, wisdom, and glory, whereas the theology of the cross paradoxically recognizes him precisely where he has hidden himself, in his sufferings and in all that which the theology of glory considers to be weakness and foolishness.  Man's cross destroys man's self-confidence so that now he allows God to do everything in him.  Such a man has been led from moralistic activism to pure receptivity.  The enemies of Christ's cross are also enemies of their own cross. 

The theology of the cross results in a new understanding of what we call "reality".  True reality is not what the world and reason think it is.  The true reality of God and his salvation is paradoxical and hidden under its opposite.  Reason is able neither to understand nor to experience it.  Only faith can comprehend that true and paradoxical reality.  As a result, throughout the theology of the cross the viewpoint of reason, the senses, experience, and the "world" appears in opposition to the viewpoint of faith.  Faith must break through the reality of this world by fixing its sights on the word of promise.

The theology of the cross is the theology of faith: the theology of faith is and remains, however, the theology of temptation.  Theological thinking and speaking does not occur apart from doubt and temptation, and faith's overcoming of temptation; rather it is and remains a thinking within this process, that is, thinking within the framework of Anfechtung (trials, temptations, assault, perplexity, doubt).

Don't understand?  No big deal.  The word can often remain in the heart many years without having any effect; and then God's Holy Spirit comes and makes the previously heard word effective.  God is free to determine not only to determine "when" but the "on whom".  Precisely because no one knows exactly when God will speak to the heart through his Spirit, it is necessary to keep on hearing the word.  There is only one true preparation; and that is to preach, to hear, and to read the word.  In doing that, however, we do not depend on our own power and activity but expose ourselves alone to the spiritual power of God in his word.  God's word in the hand of his Spirit is indispensable for man's soul and spirit.  The soul is created for the word, and it cannot live without the word of God.  It can get along without everything else but not without the word.  And when it has the word, it needs nothing else; for in the word it finds the essence of all that is good and therefore full satisfaction.  It transcends everything within this world.

... M

[Mountaineer]

The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post both have recent pieces on W. B. Yeats’ great poem The Second Coming.  One of the defining poems of the 20th century, Yeats wrote it back in 1919, but it seems to predict the rise of Nazi Germany, the growth of Communism, and now postmodernism, the rise of radical Islam, and current political trends in Europe.

The poem, famous for its lines “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity” and “The center cannot hold,” is built both on Yeats’ theories of history and his take on the Christian notion that Christ will be followed by Antichrist. 

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
             
Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst 
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. 
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out 
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert 
A shape with lion body and the head of a man, 
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, 
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it 
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. 
The darkness drops again; but now I know 
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, 
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, 
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?


... M

[Mountaineer]

From a blog I read, emphasis mine:

[We are using Pr. Matt Richard‘s helpful study, “How Do We View Christianity?” which sums up two ways of looking at the various aspects of human beings, sin, free will, salvation, and more.]

This past week we discussed the first two questions on p. 6: Is the Gospel an announcement of good advice to be applied, or an announcement of good news to be believed?  And: Is the Word of Christ information upon which I have to act, or is that Word something that acts upon me?

Both of these questions get to the heart of how we treat the Scriptures.  Is the Bible an inert book, that waits for us to read the words, figure out how they apply to our lives, and then apply them?  Or are the Scriptures–as Hebrews says–a living and active word, which the Holy Spirit applies to us in order to do something to us, to give us the Truth (Christ) to believe, and to sustain our faith in the midst of all the things over which we have no control?

This led us into a discussion about how we use the Bible as individuals.  We recalled that for most of Church history, individuals never had a Bible which they could open in the privacy of their own homes and read silently.  They heard the Scriptures of Jesus proclaimed to them, they believed them, and the Holy Spirit brought them into the story that God is telling in the Scriptures.

We also talked about how individuals understand what they are reading.  With Acts 8:31 in mind, we wrestled with how individual Christians ought to read the Bible.  I made the distinction between reading the Bible as an individual member of the Body of Christ and reading the Bible as an individual isolated from the Body of Christ.  It is helpful to keep in mind what is the greater danger in our particular time and place.  Is it that Christians will not be able to hear the Scriptures in their own language because “the Church” is controlling the Bible and simply telling people what it says and what they ought to believe (as it was, at least in part, prior to the Reformation)?  Or is it (as I believe) that individual Christians, cut off from the history of the Holy Spirit’s work in the Body of Christ, will read individual passages of Scripture out of context and figure out how the words apply and fit into their lives, as if our lives were the main story, rather than the Scriptural story?

The topic gets complicated!  It is wound up with the history of how the Scriptures came to be, the challenges to the primacy of Christ in various ways, the history of interpreting the Scriptures, and many other things.

We agreed that that sort of information is probably not where we’re going to start when discussing the Gospel or the Scriptures with unbelievers!  And yet, if it is in the Scriptures–all the words that testify of Jesus–then we can’t ignore the words or stop trying to increase in our understanding of them.

... M

[MediumTex]

The interview below is good.  Please read if you have a few minutes.

The underlined passages are the ones that really jumped out at me.

Here is the bit that resonated with me most powerfully:

When we think about mental illness, we usually think about poor people that are deluded. He says that that's backwards. People who struggle psychologically are literally choking on the truth. It's their incapacity to adhere to a constructive illusion that’s rendering these psychological difficulties.

This thought model helps me understand Jung's writings on religion better.  Whether God exists or not, the need for a unifying set of ideas that rationalizes death and allows us to live without being constantly distracted by it is very real.  Viewed through this lens, all religion really needs to do is be plausible enough to allow us to get on with the rest of life.  Some of us want it to be more than an existential band-aid, and it may be that we are frustrated because it was never intended to be anything more than an existential band-aid.  What some of us may be doing with our relentless questioning is the equivalent of following a magician out to his car after the show peppering him with questions about whether what he is doing is REAL magic, or whether he is a fraud.  The truth may be that he is putting on a show, and if we don't like the show we shouldn't attend it.  The source of our frustration may be wildly inflated expectations of what we were going to see at the "Magic Show."  When you think about it like that, maybe the naive ones are the skeptics who end up doing little more than ruining the show for everyone else and finding no truth for themselves for their effort.

The takeaway, I suppose, is that if you don't like the show, go look for another one that makes more sense to you.  There is no need to heckle the talent.

***

More of the interview is below.  The whole thing is at the link at the end.  Good stuff!

Do you think fear of death drives most of human behaviour?

Yes. I don’t think it’s the only motivational impulse for what people do, but it pervades a substantial portion of human activity — whether we’re aware of it or not. Mostly, we’re not. In our book, The Worm at the Core, we’re borrowing ideas from the books we will talk about momentarily. What we add to the enterprise are empirical studies that, by traditional scientific standards, lend credibility to these claims. None of the authors are saying this is the only reason we do things. What they are saying – and what we try to say in our book — is that if we don't consider the role that existential concerns play in human affairs, we'll be able to understand or explain very little.

So before you did these experiments, many people had claimed fear of death was an important motivator, but nobody had really proven it?

Yes. The idea that concerns about death have a consequential influence on human affairs goes back to antiquity. For us, it culminated in Ernest Becker's book, The Denial of Death. Although the book won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, it was roundly dismissed by academics. Many English professors and people working in the humanities said, “Everyone knows this! This idea has been around since day one.” Meanwhile, colleagues in academic psychology said, ‘I don’t think about death that often and therefore these ideas must be wrong.’ They also said that because the ideas are derived from existential philosophy and psychoanalysis they're fundamentally untestable — and therefore beyond the bounds of scientific scrutiny.

But you and your co-authors, Jeff Greenberg and Thomas Pyszczynski were able to test them. Do you want to give an example of how you did that?

The paradigm we developed is disarmingly simple. If concerns about death influence the way people behave, what would happen if we asked some people to think about themselves dying, and other people to think about something unpleasant but not fatal — like having a root canal? In our first study, we had municipal court judges either thinking about themselves dying or something unpleasant. Then they were asked to set bond for someone who had allegedly committed a crime. We wanted to figure out whether the penalty would vary if death was on their minds. It did. In the control, the judges set a bond of approximately $50. When they were reminded of their mortality, they set the penalty nine times higher, at $450.

And it's not only negative reactions. We also found that when people are reminded of death, they respond more positively to people who are similar, or who do things that are considered appropriate within the confines of their culture. So, for example, people reminded of death give a higher reward to someone who behaves heroically.

There are now upwards of 1000 of these studies, done not just by us, but by other researchers around the world. What’s important to note is that you don't need to know that death is on your mind. The most compelling experiments are the ones where the death reminders are subliminal. We flash the word ‘death’ so fast on a computer, for 28 milliseconds, that you don't even see it. Then you dislike someone who is different and like someone who shares your beliefs more.

Like any scientific theory, not everyone agrees with us. But I think we've made considerable headway.


One interesting thing that comes up in your book is the impact on individuals. Fear of death could drive you to do lots of exercise and be healthy, or it could drive you to smoke and drink too much. How does that work?

It works in two ways. Firstly, it depends on cultural context. For example, if you live in a culture where smoking cigarettes is considered to be desirable or manly or suave…

Like France.

Then, in those cultures, death reminders make people smoke more. Equally, if you live in a culture, as in the US, in Florida, where people who are tanned are considered beautiful, then death reminders will make people say they're going to go to the tanning booth. That's one dimension. Another, which is a little bit more complex, is that whether or not you're consciously aware that death is on your mind alters your reactions. So, for example, when people know they're thinking about death, and you tell them that being in the sun is bad, they say, ‘I need some sunscreen.' A few minutes later, when they're no longer thinking about their mortality, those whose self-esteem is based on their appearance, say, 'I want less sunscreen.' So there's really a host of factors that modulate these outcomes.

Is you interest in all this partly motivated by personal experience?

Absolutely. It was my accidental encounter with Ernest Becker that led to Jeff and Tom and I doing the work we've done for the past 35 years. We were trained as experimental social psychologists and never thought about these ideas until I was working in the library at Skidmore and saw his book. I was like, ‘Wow, this is interesting.' It made me realize I've always been a bit of a coward — and not all that enthusiastic about the prospect of dying. The experience I remember most vividly was being eight years old and my grandmother dying of cancer. My Mom said, 'Say goodbye to your grandma, she's not going to be around much longer.' She died that evening. I had a collection of American stamps with dead presidents on them, and I thought, 'Oh Grandma, I'm going to miss her.' Then I thought, ‘Oh no, that means my Mom is going to get old, and I don't like that. Who's going to make me dinner?’ And then I was looking at the dead presidents and I thought, ‘Wait a minute, this has implications for me!’ That was the first time. I literally shuddered. Fast forward 20 or so years, when I ran into these ideas, I realized that they were not only of intellectual interest but that I had a very serious personal stake in them.

Do you feel understanding death anxiety helps you deal with it?

I want to say yes, but I'm not sure. Frankly — and Jeff and Tom and I joke about this — it may just be a way of dealing with our anxieties, not by confronting them directly, but by intellectualizing them in a way that divests them of their emotional connotations. In that sense, it’s no different from the other not-so-optimal behaviours and reactions, though possibly better on the lungs. I do admit to a touch of that. On the other hand, I would like to think that although I'm not there yet, being deeply immersed in these ideas has given me a bit more courage and humility, to the point where I hope I can be as graceful and dignified as my parents were at the end of their lives.

So you’ve already mentioned the importance of your first book choice, Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death.

Ernest Becker was a cultural anthropologist who, ironically, died of cancer in 1974 at age 49. He did not know at the time that he was about to receive the Pulitzer Prize for this book. For me, The Denial of Death is one of the most profound and provocative books of the 20th century. Everyone these days knows Freud, but a lot people haven’t even heard of Becker. I find it shocking that these ideas are not in wider circulation, although one possibility is that, if he's right that death is such an emotionally charged and unique threat to human beings, then it makes sense that people would be disinclined to ponder them directly…

Tell me a bit about the content of the book. Is it a must-read for anyone who wants to embrace reality?

Yes, I would say so. It is a poignantly provocative, non-obfuscation of the way things are. In the first few pages, Becker says two things that grabbed my attention. One is that he's not in any way trying to be original, that he’s just trying to synthesize all these ancient ideas. There's so many good ideas in the intellectual mist from a variety of disciplines — theology, philosophy, psychology — and, in an era of increasing academic specialization, where you're insulated and isolated from people who don't work in your area, we're missing the point by not stepping back and trying to tie these ideas together. He also pulls no punches. In the first paragraph of the book, he makes a bold statement: “The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else: it is a mainspring of human activity—activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.”

He then unpackages that statement. Putting it simply, he argues that, following Darwin, humans are like all other creatures: we're hardwired to persist at all costs in the service of surviving and reproducing. But, besides being very social creatures, we have the benefit of an enlarged forebrain that enables us to think symbolically as well as to reflect on the past and anticipate the future. Becker then goes back to Kierkegaard, who pointed out that one of the consequences of our vast intelligence is that we come to recognize that we exist. We're here and we know that we're here. A rosebush doesn't know it's here, and neither does an armadillo. Kierkegaard says, if you're smart enough to know that you're here, that's both awesome and dreadful. Becker dwells on the dreadful, but he doesn't lose track of the fact that it's great being alive and knowing it. That’s important — I say that also to remind myself. Unless you're a baby or mentally challenged, if you know you're alive you are also shackled with the collateral realization that like all living things you will someday die. That discomfort is magnified by the concurrent recognition that you could die at any time, for reasons that you can't anticipate or control. Then, just to give us a little kick in the psychological groin, Becker tosses in the Freudian idea that we don't like to admit that we're corporal creatures, that we're basically animals. We're breathing pieces of defecating meat that are no more significantly enduring than lizards or potatoes.

Becker, following a variety of thinkers, says that those thoughts, which are hard to argue against, would literally paralyze us with abject terror if they were constantly on our minds. What we do to mitigate that anxiety is to embrace what anthropologists call culture: Humanly constructed beliefs about reality that we share with our fellow humans. These give us a sense that life has meaning and that we have value. He points out that all cultures offer an explanation of how the world started, they all tell us what we're supposed to do while we're here. They all, some more obviously than others, give us some hope of immortality — either literally, through the afterlife or reincarnations of the world's religions, or symbolically: I may not be here forever but, I’ll do something great and have a building named after me or amass a great fortune.

When we stand up in the morning, we have to believe that life is meaningful, and that we, as individuals, are valuable contributors to that meaningful universe. He asks us to reflect on when we were kids. Did you ever think of doing something great — like curing cancer of becoming an Olympic athlete? He says that that is not pathological narcissism, but the normal yearning of a self-conscious creature to be of consequence. When you consider yourself a valuable person in a meaningful universe, he calls that self-esteem. Borrowing from William James, he says we want to feel heroic. That's the way we manage the existential terror that the awareness of death would otherwise provoke.

So self-esteem is absolutely key.

That's correct. And because our culturally constructed beliefs and self-esteem that we derive from them is so important to us, we will go to extraordinary lengths -- whether we're aware of it or not -- to maintain confidence in our world view, and in the proposition that we're valuable members of that world. What the rest of the book does is to explore the personal and inter-personal consequences of the fact that this is what we do.

What does he conclude?

He says there are often unfortunate consequences. Some people react by trying to deny the fact they're embodied creatures — and he looks at schizophrenia. He says that if you look at the grandiose delusions of schizophrenics, they're literally trying to escape from their bodies. This in no way undermines the prevailing view that psychological disorders are biochemical. He also talks about depression as a situation where people are unable to confidently subscribe to a sense that life has meaning. They literally get bogged down in their bodies and can't get up in the morning. When we think about mental illness, we usually think about poor people that are deluded. He says that that's backwards. People who struggle psychologically are literally choking on the truth. It's their incapacity to adhere to a constructive illusion that’s rendering these psychological difficulties.

Then he talks about regular people in a not particularly flattering fashion. He says, following Kierkegaard, that most of us are philistines. We just unreflexively accept the view of reality that our culture provides for us and proceed to tranquillize ourselves with the trivial. What do most of us do most days? We watch television, we go shopping and we drink ourselves into a perpetual stupor. Then he goes on to argue that what some of us do when existential concerns are aroused is to attach ourselves psychologically to dynamic and charismatic leaders. He uses Hitler as an example. I would use George W. Bush. Maybe you'd use Blair, in the aftermath of 9/11. He also talks about how some people use their significant others. We rely on our spouses and our partners to serve not only as companions, but as ambulatory gods. When that happens, things do not generally end well, because it's asking too much of another human being.

Then, there's a spectacular section about how the awareness of death makes us uncomfortable with our bodies, and with our sexuality. There's a phrase in there which I love, that sex and death are twins.

Then, at the end of the book, he says, ‘Alright, what do we do about all this?’ And the book takes a surprising turn when Becker advocates embracing religion, broadly defined. The last sentence of the book is: “The most that any of us can seem to do is to fashion something—an object or ourselves—and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.” And of course a lot of people were like, "I don't know what you're talking about!! Is that not just another death denying illusion?” And people of good will could argue about that, and they still do.

***

http://fivebooks.com/interviews/sheldon ... fear-death

[Mountaineer]

MediumTex,

Thanks for posting that.  Very interesting.  I read the linked article.  His final book selection grabbed my attention, with particular interest in the underlined sections.  Why?  The concept of love.  From a religious point of view, love is key.  Love God and love neighbor are the two great commandments from Jesus that summarize the 10 from the Old Testament.  It puts the focus outside yourself, helps defeat our narcissistic tendencies.  Love reminds us of how much God loves us so we love in thankful response.  Nothing on this earth for us can be worse than the suffering of Christ who died to atone for our sins and rose again to conquor death for all time - a great exchange, His righteousness to us and our sins to Him.  It is also interesting that our western civilization currently tries to minimize how awful death is - everything from "death is natural" to the make up applied to the corpse in the casket.  I'd say bullshit to death being natural - it is a coverup that makes us try to avoid the reality of physical death.  Death is stinky and dirty, very sad to those who are left behind, and not our natural state (i.e. the way God intends us to be).  Perhaps that is why the Christian worldview is so comforting - death is not the end but the beginning of something great.  Even if it turns out I'm wrong, I've lived a life free from the fear of death - far better than the alternative - pretty much what Becker and the interviewed author conclude.

... M

Your fifth and final choice is a novel, Clock Without Hands.
This is by Carson McCullers, an American author. It’s a complex novel from 1953 and I chose it partly for the same reason as I chose Frankenstein, which is that in great literature we see, in graphic and amplified detail, things that go unnoticed otherwise. Every idea that we have spoken about is magnificently displayed in this book. The first line of the book captures it all: "Death is always the same, but each man dies in his own way." In the next line, we are introduced to the main character, TJ Malone, who, at age 40, is about to be diagnosed with leukemia. This is long before Elizabeth Kübler-Ross wrote about the five stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. But that's what happens in the book. Malone is told he has leukemia, his first reaction is that the doctors have got to be wrong. Then, just like in our studies, he starts hating people who are different and he becomes reflexively repulsed by his own body. As we go through the book, he is estranged from his wife, who he is still married to but claims to not have loved for decades. Just like Frankenstein, who is so preoccupied with denying death that he doesn't notice the people around him and can’t appreciate nature, you see how this guy, who at the beginning of the book has planted a garden, doesn't pay attention to it all summer. Then, at the end of the summer, he walks out and there are these beautiful vegetables. She talks about how ‘livingness’ is so miraculous and all around us — and because it's all around us, we don't notice it. Maybe this is not at all subtle, but the point is that life goes on.
Right in the middle of the novel, Malone checks into the hospital and they have an ambulatory library. He grabs a Kierkegaard book and he says he doesn't understand a single sentence in it. Kierkegaard has a saying, that the greatest danger, that of losing oneself, may pass off quietly as if it were nothing. Every other loss — that of an arm, a leg, $5, a wife etc. is sure to be noticed. This is where Malone realizes that he's about to die, but he has not yet lived. It's the turning point of the book. He realizes that he loves his wife and that she loves him. At the beginning of the book, the idea of clock without hands is the ultimate depiction of the terror of death, because you realize that the meter is running, and you can expire at any time. By the end of the book — and the phrase only appears twice in the book — it's a reflection of the fact he now accepts that, and the fact that he's about to expire momentarily no longer matters.
In the classes I teach, I like this book as an uplifting and palliative culmination of the study of the other books — which to young people can often be brutally traumatic. When they evaluate the class at the end of term students often say things like ‘Thank you and f**k you! You made me read all these books and they're great, but now what do I do?’ This book is a nice way to end on a high note, but a realistic one. He does die, as will we, but surrounded by loved ones. At the risk of sounding like Walt Disney, love does conquer death, not literally, but at least psychologically.

[Pointedstick]

I've never really been afraid or upset by the concept of death, so maybe that's why my spiritual needs seem so low.

death must not be so bad.. every human that has ever lived, in the entire history of mankind up to those still present... has died... and not a single one has come back to complain...

[Fred]

When reasoning about death as a young person it seemed that there were three possible outcomes, 1.) heaven, 2.) hell, or 3.)ceasing to exist. Two out of these three felt terrifying. As I got older, #3 began to bother me less and less until I finally realized it wouldn't be so bad at all. And as I got older still, #2 began to feel like such an irrational possibility, despite what religions tell us, that it didn't make sense worrying about it. So all in all, I'd rather be alive for at least a few more good years but I don't spend much time and energy worrying about dying.

[Greg]

I liked this quote (although technically not a quote, more a summary)a lot even though I don't identify as Catholic.

"Faith without reason, he argues, leads to superstition. Reason without faith, he argues, leads to nihilism and relativism."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fides_et_Ratio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith_and_rationality

[MediumTex]

The piece I linked to helped me to articulate things that have been swimming around inside my head without shapre for quite a while.

I am envisioning a continuum and on one end is death and on the other end is love and heroism.  This continuum represents the degree to which we might say we are "alive" at a given point in time.

The way that the article described the reasons that love and heroism have anti-death characteristics helped me understand why my intuition has always pointed in that direction.  Love and heroism each have the dual qualities of being death-negating AND effective distractions from the whole topic of death.  Very effective.

For a person who asked how to live a meaningful life but who wasn't interested in anything supernatural that might tax the mind with doubt, I would say to always be seeking opportunities to engage in loving and/or heroic acts and spend your downtime studying those who have engaged in loving and/or heroic acts in the past.

Even as the maturation of my mind has gradually chipped away at the edifice of institutional Christianity (which is the tradition I grew up in), I have always found the figure of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament intriguing even as the rest of the Bible has started to seem like a tangled mess of contradictory stories.  I think the reason that the figure of Jesus has remained intriguing to me is that he is a figure saturated in love and heroism.

What this take on Jesus does, ironically, is validate in symbolic ways most of what Jesus taught, principally that there IS a path to eternal life, but it is not in the form of immortality, it is in the form of filling each moment of life with love, and expressing that love through heroic acts when the occasion arises.

It's almost like there was this perfect set of principles that somehow came into the hands of humanity (i.e., love + heroism conquers death symbolically), but humanity was unable to comprehend it, and thus wrote it down in an awkward and confused way, and now we have painted ourselves into a corner because tampering with the core texts through such liberal interpretations is often viewed as heretical.

I keep coming back to my green army men and lightbulb metaphor because it seems like such a precise representation of humanity's relationship to the divine unknown.  The green army men are sitting right on top of the Truth but they can't comprehend it, and the tragedy is that as they institutionalize the questions and answers surrounding the nature of the lightbulb, their thinking becomes calcified with their own internal projections of what the nature of the lightbulb should be.

I have grown to believe that all human beings are far more narcissistic than they imagine, and some of the most narcissistic ones are those who imagine themselves to be selfless servants.  The problem with narcissism IMHO isn't that it generates asshole-type personalities, it's that it creates a shell around people who are often very intelligent and perceptive and it starts to create ruts in their mind that makes it impossible for them to even visualize reality from more than one perspective.  Like the army men with their self-serving stories about the nature of the lightbulb and what it wants for its creation, I think that this creeping narcissism soils the mind of people and reduces the contemplation of truth to the selfish desire to find a quick, easy and self-serving answer to the problem of death.

Joseph Campbell talked about how shining too bright a light on religion is akin to ruining the magic show by heckling the illusionist.  I have been guilty of this myself on many occasions, and I think that I have only recently truly started to understand that most people don't go to church for the same reasons that I do.  I think that most people simply want to be reassured through a story that helps to make the lightbulb and army men make sense.  It doesn't really matter whether the story has any relationship to the truth, especially if the truth is currently just a long set of questions.

Imagine what the fate would be of a green army man prophet who taught the following after having a vision that involved spending 5 minutes in an 8th grade science class during which he understood everything that was being taught:

"Little green army men, listen to me, for I have had an amazing vision and learned the following:

Our inability to comprehend the lightbulb is because we have plastic heads instead of real brains.

The lightbulb is the result of amazing design, and yet its appearance over our heads is mostly accidental.

The forces that created the lightbulb created far more amazing things, and they were created based on a set of principles that hold the universe together.

The lightbulb doesn't give a shit about us.  The lightbulb is dumber than we are.  We're only impressed by it because its nature is intriguing to our simple imaginations.

If we set aside all of our self-serving interpretations of the lightbulb, there is a whole world of knowledge and ideas that are manifested in the form of the lightbulb, and they can potentially help us to elevate our understanding immeasurably, but we must first put aside our lightbulb mysticism.

Now, who is with me?"

Fast forward to a little green army man being nailed to a cross.  To me, that sort of the history of humanity and religion.  Unfortunately, the highest expressions of love and heroism are often sufficiently disruptive to get you killed by the mass of narcissistic assholes whose rutted thinking simply can't tolerate fundamental challenges to the orthodoxy of the times.

But it does seem like love and heroism are the keys to finding meaning, to the extent that there is any meaning to be found in life.

I envy people like Pointedstick whose disposition seems to allow a much more relaxed approach to all of this stuff.  People like him can go to a magic show and be entertained and leave without feeling burdened.

[Greg]

So it boils down to three people:

1.) Those who don't want to be wrong, yet just stick with their current thoughts, and fight those who want to change them.
2.) Those who don't care what is right or wrong.
3.) Those who look for truth and their opinion sways based on their knowledge/feelings/etc. at that point.

or

1.) can go to the magic show and doesn't want someone to spoil it for them.
2.) they are watching football unaware a magic show is happening.
3.) they can't keep going to the magic show unless they figure out the truth of how it isn't magic.

[MediumTex]

So it boils down to three people:

1.) Those who don't want to be wrong, yet just stick with their current thoughts, and fight those who want to change them.
2.) Those who don't care what is right or wrong.
3.) Those who look for truth and their opinion sways based on their knowledge/feelings/etc. at that point.

I think that any honest search for truth must start with the assumption that one's opinions might be swayed based upon what they find.

1.) can go to the magic show and doesn't want someone to spoil it for them.
2.) they are watching football unaware a magic show is happening.
3.) they can't keep going to the magic show unless they figure out the truth of how it isn't magic.

Well, if you figure out that that the magic show isn't really magic and seeing a magic show is the reason you went in the first place, I don't know why you would want to keep going after you realize it is just a series of illusions performed for entertainment.

Letting Go

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.
-- from Illusions by Richard Bach

[Mountaineer]

Do you believe in magic?  There are many metaphors in this song.  What is your magic?  Is it built on solid rock or sinking sand?

... M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuuqFp9 ... ones50yrs4

Do You Believe In Magic by The Lovin' Spoonful Lyrics written by John Sebastian has a place in the Billboard Top 100 hit song.

Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart?
How the music can free her, whenever it starts
And it's magic, if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie
I'll tell you about the magic and it'll free your soul
But it's like tryin' to tell a stranger 'bout rock and roll

If you believe in magic, don't bother to choose
If it's jug band music or rhythm and blues
Just go and listen, it'll start with a smile
It won't wipe off your face, no matter how hard you try
Your feet start tapping and you can't seem to find
How you got there, so just blow your mind

If you believe in magic, come along with me
We'll dance until mornin' 'til there's just you and me
And maybe, if the music is right
I'll meet you tomorrow, sort of late at night
And we'll go dancing, baby, then you'll see
How the magic's in the music and the music's in me

Yeah, do you believe in magic?
Yeah, believe in the magic of a young girl's soul
Believe in the magic of rock and roll
Believe in the magic that can set you free
Oh, talkin' 'bout magic

(Do you believe like I believe?)
Do you believe in magic?
(Do you believe like I believe?)
Do you believe, believer?
(Do you believe like I believe?)
Do you believe in magic?
(Do you believe like I believe?)

[MediumTex]

I absolutely believe in magic because I see a world around me too glorious to fit into any of the mental boxes we have thus far created to hold it.

The idea that there would be any existence at all is pretty amazing, but for us to be sentient beings who can observe it and ponder its meaning, that is really miraculous.  It would be like Aristotle walking into a convenience store and winning the lottery the very first time he ever played.

Here is the thing, though: When I say the world I see is too glorious to fit into any of our boxes, that includes our religious boxes.  I find religion's motives to be far too mixed to spit out any truth that might be of use to me, and when you do find that rare religious leader like Jesus who uncovers real insights into the nature of the world, those insights are rarely embraced by religious leaders, and in fact the religious leaders often react to the new insights by turning into little more than a lynch mob.  In other words, if you are trying to figure out where to put institutional religious leaders on the continuum of good and evil, where does murdering the Son of God suggest you ought to be placed?

As skeptical as I am of the motives of most modern religious leaders (maybe the leaders of the ancient religions knew they were fake, too.  Who knows?), I do, however, find Jesus's message to be very powerful and it rings true for me as far as the teachings that are attributed to him. 

This may sound like the most heretical thing you've ever heard, but IMHO an honest reading of the entire Bible makes it seem like the "Old Cruel Curmudgeon God" from the Old Testament thought he had knocked up Mary with Jesus, when in fact Mary was knocked up by another god (that chick got around) in the form of the "Greek God of Love and Kindness", so all of the New Testament is really just a case of mistaken identity, and the only one who is in on the joke is Paul, and that's why he seems to have little interest in explaining Christianity and "The King of the Jews" to a bunch of backwater Jewish bumpkins, but he is passionate about explaining it to people who were never Jewish to start with.  That interpretation of the Bible makes way more sense to me than the conventional interpretation, and it would also explain why the Jewish religious leaders were willing to sign Jesus's death warrant--i.e., they knew he wasn't a child of their God and they were enraged at his claims that he was.

Imagine if the Loki character in the Thor movies were essentially good, rather than essentially malicious, and that may be where Jesus found himself, except Jesus was trying to fit into a Jewish world where he didn't belong, whereas Loki was trying to fit into a Viking world where he didn't belong.

See the resemblance:





   

For me, religion has a "world upside down" quality to it in that virtually everything religion says it is about is almost precisely the opposite of what it is actually about, starting with the idea that a person would seek to bolster his own authority and power by claiming that a supernatural being selected him to be the leader and make the rules.  That's not humility, that's pure arrogance.

Religion says it provides a rationale and justification for moral behavior, and yet the most immoral acts in the history of the world have been done in the name of, or under the cover of, religion.  If you are looking for the world's thuggiest collection of drug dealers, child molesters and murderers, where would you look?  I would look at the theocratic leaders of the insurgency in Afghanistan for the drug dealers (opium and heroin), I would look to the theocratic leaders at the Vatican for the child molesters, and I would probably look at the theocratic leaders of ISIS for the murderers.

[Mountaineer]

Does Religion Cause War?

The truth is, non-religious motivations and naturalistic philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind's wars. Lives lost during religious conflicts pales in comparison to those experienced during the regimes who wanted nothing to do with the idea of God – something showcased in R. J. Rummel's work Lethal Politics and Death by Government[3]

Lives Lost Under Non-Religious Dictators

Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000
Mao Zedong - 37,828,000
Adolf Hitler - 20,946,000
Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000
Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000
Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000
Pol Pot - 2,397,000

http://www.blogos.org/compellingtruth/d ... e-war.html

Wow!  More killed via US abortions since Roe vs. Wade enacted into law in 1974 than the really bad guys at the top of this list.  Let's celebrate "women's rights" over the ones who cannot defend themselves, be proud, stand for evil.    As the article in the link says, sin is the number one cause of war, and I would pose the number one cause of turning a blind eye to abortion. 

What do those of you who do not believe in "sin" attribute all these deaths to?

... M

[Pointedstick]

What do those of you who do not believe in "sin" attribute all these deaths to?

The murderous tendencies of megalomaniacal ideological zealots?

[Mountaineer]

What do those of you who do not believe in "sin" attribute all these deaths to?

The murderous tendencies of megalomaniacal ideological zealots?

And then the the question becomes, WHY are they megalomaniacal ideological zealots?  We old-fart engineers are trained to get to the root cause ... usually requires asking "why" up to five or more times. 

... M

[Pointedstick]

And then the the question becomes, WHY are they megalomaniacal ideological zealots?  We old-fart engineers are trained to get to the root cause ... usually requires asking "why" up to five or more times. 

... M

Probably a combination of bad environment and bad genes that made them susceptible to the lures of violence and ideology.

…Oh I know where this is going; you'll say that eventually it all leads to sin, and everything is created by God and all that. But then, "Why is there God?"

[dualstow]

This may sound like the most heretical thing you've ever heard, but IMHO an honest reading of the entire Bible makes it seem like the "Old Cruel Curmudgeon God" from the Old Testament thought he had knocked up Mary with Jesus, when in fact Mary was knocked up by another god (that chick got around) in the form of the "Greek God of Love and Kindness", so all of the New Testament is really just a case of mistaken identity, and the only one who is in on the joke is Paul, and that's why he seems to have little interest in explaining Christianity and "The King of the Jews" to a bunch of backwater Jewish bumpkins, but he is passionate about explaining it to people who were never Jewish to start with.  That interpretation of the Bible makes way more sense to me than the conventional interpretation, and it would also explain why the Jewish religious leaders were willing to sign Jesus's death warrant--i.e., they knew he wasn't a child of their God and they were enraged at his claims that he was.

Everything I've read from history books, for example Dimont's Jews, God, and History suggests that the Jews were pretty sophisticated for an occupied people in that place and time. Blasphemy (claiming to be God in this case) was already potentially punishable by death. The fact that the Jews even had a trial and Sanhedrin, handing him over to Pilate for judgment instead of stringing him up, doesn't sound very bumpkiny to me. Not that I really care. I just don't accept the Gospel version of it. Or of anything.

[Greg]

When I am born:

1.) I don't choose to be hungry, or thirsty, or tired, or having to go to the bathroom. These are just byproducts of being human and I have to deal with them my entire life. I can try to ignore them but eventually they'll win and I'll have to give in or I'll die. This is as far as I know considered as undebatable.

2.) I don't choose to go to hell/be separated from God due to my innate sin, this is just a byproduct of being human and I have to deal with it my entire life. I can try to ignore it but eventually I'll have to give in and repent/ask for salvation or I'll "die". This is our debatable point.

[Pointedstick]

When I am born:

1.) I don't choose to be hungry, or thirsty, or tired, or having to go to the bathroom. These are just byproducts of being human and I have to deal with them my entire life. I can try to ignore them but eventually they'll win and I'll have to give in or I'll die. This is as far as I know considered as undebatable.

2.) I don't choose to go to hell/be separated from God due to my innate sin, this is just a byproduct of being human and I have to deal with it my entire life. I can try to ignore it but eventually I'll have to give in and repent/ask for salvation or I'll "die". This is our debatable point.

How do you know this, though? Would you know it at all if you hadn't been raised a Christian? Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and a full bladder are all biological in nature and easily personally verifiable dozens of times a day by all humans who have ever lived. By contrast, how is "separation from God" verifiable? If it's such a universal condition, how is it that a strong majority of humans (Only about 32% of humans are Christian) apparently don't feel this?