To want to make myself believe in god? PART 2

[headinhands]

Hello.

Gah, I had a post all typed up and lost it due to thread being full :(

previous tome

Seems shaky ground to me. Especially over such an important issue

The exact same shaky ground you thought good enough to stand on when you made a moral judgement on the Christian god before you became a Christian.

But the beautiful message of Christianity is redemption, that God can forgive your sins, so that you can start again with a clean slate if you repent.

But why would anyone need or want to make anybody else responsible for fixing their errors? Or here's a thing - what about not "sinning" in the first place? Then there's nothing to put right. Oh - clue by four to the side of the head - if you are responsible for your own mistakes you very quickly learn not to make them. If someone else keeps coming in and wiping your slate clean, there is no incentive to change is there? That's why there has to be the threat of eternal damnation in there too. If people accepted self-responsibility then there would be no need of that threat and we could spend our Friday afternoons contemplating nice things such as icecream and wine, instead of ponderng the despotic nature of the Biblical god and the weird moral compass of his followers.

Off out for a bit...

"But why would anyone need or want to make anybody else responsible for fixing their errors?"

But we don't choose to make anyone responsible, it is God and the Divine Spirit that absolve us of our sins and cleanse us and make us pure, if we ask and believe, otherwise we carry the burden of guilt on our consciences throughout our lives.

"Or here's a thing - what about not "sinning" in the first place?"
But we all sin to some degree. We are covetous and envious and jealous and harsh and cruel and nasty at times and we do not love our neighbours as ourselves. None of us are perfect, we all have flaws and we all hurt others emotionally or by betrayal etc etc in some way.

"if you are responsible for your own mistakes you very quickly learn not to make them"

But it is often only your conscience that calls you to account, since you may have done wrong and have managed to escape the law. Your conscience is your inner spirit, and in some people it can lie dormant for years, but it often surfaces and asks questions of someone who has done wrong. You cannot escape your conscience, it goes with you wherever you go and however rich you may become, because it is your inner spirit. You only need to look at the faces of some politicians who are now rich, but whose torment of conscience is visible on their faces. One day you will have to answer to your conscience, you will have to answer to your inner spirit.

The world won't forgive, humans won't forgive you, only God will forgive you if you ask and truly repent in your heart.

"If someone else keeps coming in and wiping your slate clean, there is no incentive to change is there?"

If you truly repent, then you will already have started the process of change, because the Holy spirit will work within you and begin to cleanse you.

"That's why there has to be the threat of eternal damnation in there too."
I don't believe in eternal damnation, I think that divorce from your true self, divorce from your inner spirit and divorce from the knowledeg of God's love is the suffering.

"we could spend our Friday afternoons contemplating nice things such as icecream and wine, instead of ponderng the despotic nature of the Biblical god and the weird moral compass of his followers."

But contemplating things like icecream and wine, though pleasurable, are not the be all and end all of why we are here. Those are pleasures for the self, they feed the ego, but do not feed the soul. We are here to serve others, to love our neighbours, to not be selfish, to serve God. To love others is to love God. That is our higher spiritual calling and it is more important than physical pleasures.

People are nice to each other because it is in our nature to live in tribes and to support each other

That's true. But where does that nature come from?

worldgonecrazy, what are your beliefs? (sorry if I have missed a post somewhere) - I get the impression that you have some kind of spirituality but not quite sure what - would be interested to hear about it. :)

However, your point about those who are Christians having an overly simplistic, black and white view of God - are immature in spirituality - I would utterly refute this. I have thought deeply and at length for many, many years. I have studied theology. My faith is not black and white. It's not a case of believe in God or you will go to hell, because God is so, so much wider, so, so much more graceful than this admittedly narrow view. I do think that God asks us to believe, through Jesus - and that all have the chance of this, but who knows by what means. Somehow I think there is a lot we simply cannot know at this point.

We could carry on round the houses for another thousand posts, about the God of the OT, bears and witches and such like, but we'll not get anywhere. Did the OP ever come back? Maybe we all scared her off

As for icecream and wine, why can we not ponder them if we sometimes ponder matters of faith? Icecream and wine are good things, and good things deserve to be pondered

I'm going to have to bow out of this discussion as I'm off on holiday, but thanks, it's been fun. Take care all.

But we don't choose to make anyone responsible, it is God and the Divine Spirit that absolve us of our sins and cleanse us and make us pure, if we ask and believe, otherwise we carry the burden of guilt on our consciences throughout our lives

Erm - yes you are making someone else responsible - you are saying that your god is responsible for absolving you of your sins, ergo someone else is responsible. Why not take responsibility for your own actions?

But we all sin to some degree. We are covetous and envious and jealous and harsh and cruel and nasty at times and we do not love our neighbours as ourselves.

I guess we have different definitions of "sin". I certainly don't think coveting my friends nice handbag, or feeling envious when someone does well and thereby inspired to do well myself are particularly sinful.

One day you will have to answer to your conscience, you will have to answer to your inner spirit.

Absolutely agree with you here - I just don't think the Biblical god has anything to do with either my conscience (which comes from me) or my inner spirit (which grows from being fed by connection with the divine spirit WHICH IS NOT THE BIBLICAL GOD)

The world won't forgive, humans won't forgive you, only God will forgive you if you ask and truly repent in your heart.

Wrong - if I get angry with my husband it is for him to forgive, and for me to forgive myself for being human. Neither of us need some external referee to sort out our hurts against one another.

Icecream and wine absolutely do feed the soul. Pleasure feeds the soul because it enables us to fully appreciate the awesome frickin amazingness of our bodies - regardless of whether those bodies were created by a fluke of nature or some divine architect. I am sure that everyone, regardless of belief system, will agree that the human body is amazing?

We are here to serve others, to love our neighbours, to not be selfish, to serve God. To love others is to love God. That is our higher spiritual calling and it is more important than physical pleasures.

Okay if you want to believe that statement that is up to you, I think it's a pile of hookum. I believe it is possible to gain spiritual understanding and growth through physical pleasures, and that they are both important.

Have a good holiday, madhairday, and make sure you find time for lots of wine and ice cream.

However, your point about those who are Christians having an overly simplistic, black and white view of God - are immature in spirituality - I would utterly refute this.

I didn't say all Christians (I have had some great and in depth spiritual conversations with many Christians), I said those Christians who do have that simplistic view are immature in their spirituality.

As for my own spirituality - I'm a panentheist, expressed through paganism as I've found that aligns closest with the beliefs I've come through experientially.

You can't take responsibility to absolve yourself of your own sins. You can't just forgive yourself, you need an external forgiveness.

"I guess we have different definitions of "sin"."

Yes, I think there are all kinds of sins, lesser ones and greater ones.

"I just don't think the Biblical god has anything to do with either my conscience"
I agree with you, because I don't believe that the Biblical god of the Old Testatment is God. I think he is different to the God of the New Testament. But I am not asking anyone to believe in the god that I believe in, everyone is free to believe in whatever they like.

"Wrong - if I get angry with my husband it is for him to forgive, and for me to forgive myself for being human."

Yes but I am talking about people who have committed great sins such as murder. More often than not, only God will be able to forgive them.

I agree ice cream and wine are great pleasures, and I overindulge in them, but there pleasures that surpass physical pleasures and they are spiritual pleasures.

"I believe it is possible to gain spiritual understanding and growth through physical pleasures"

I agree that you can gain some of them through physical pleasure, but I believe that you can gain more and a deeper spiritual understanding through the spirit rather than the physical. The physical is bounded, but the spirit is limitless and eternal.

Did the OP over come back to the original tread?

*ever

Nope, she scarpered

How strange. Journo maybe

Ooh do you think we'll see our words in a Sunday supplement this Sunday?

I'm back! So, what have I missed?

I don't believe that the biblical god of the Old Testament is god

Jesus seemed to. He quoted or referred back to the Old Testament about 180 times from 24 different OT books. That's around 10% of all the stuff he said.

humans won't forgive you

You need to get yourself some new humans! I've been forgiven by humans.

but where does that nature come from?

That's a great question and one that many different experts study. What I would say is that it just doesn't make sense to go 'I don't know where something comes from so it comes from god'.

There was a time when people thought floods and thunder and earthquakes and disease were supernatural. But as science answers these questions we move away from making stuff up to answer those questions.

We say 'this might explain it, or this' but we don't say 'I don't know so ill just assume its god'. That's what's known as The God of the Gaps Theory

The Gnostics had their own gospels e.g. the Gospel of Thomas and Valentinus's Gospel of Truth and they don't believe that the Old Testament God is God.

"I've been forgiven by humans."

I am talking about criminals who have committed terrible crimes. For those, most of us cannot forgive them, although there are some amazing people who are able to forgive them, but they are quite rare.

The God of the Gaps argument was developed by a religious evangelist who said it was wrong to relegate God to the gaps in scientific knowledge, when in fact he is immanent and everywhere.

madhairday believes that God exists in lots of places and not just in the Gaps, and therefore she is not falling into the God of the Gaps fallacy as envisioned by the evangelist Henry Drummond.

most of us cannot forgive them

It's not for us to forgive them. It's for the victims. No one else has the right to say 'you're forgiven'. Even then, even if the victim does say sorry, the perpetrator has to live with what they did, make amends where possible and try to learn why they did it to stop it happening again. When I have messed up, a third party coming in and forgiving me on their behalf just doesn't make sense. It wouldn't make me feel any better.

Does madhair think god is behind each storm and volcano etc?

Yes, I am including victims and society. There are some victims' families who can forgive.

But often criminals are racked with guilt and their consciences torment them and they seek absolution from the third party that is God.

?He said, ?Al, you're not going to see me anymore. I'm going to do something that will shock the world,?? Rickel said.
Rickel said he knew Goff had psychological problems, and figured he was going through one of his periodic dark spells.

Then Sunday morning, Goff called Rickel from northern Michigan. He said he had been heading for the Canadian border but changed his mind and decided to return to New Jersey and take responsibility for having done something horrible, Rickel said.
?He said he was going to meet his maker and ?fess up to what he had done,"? Rickel said. ?I said, ?I don't know what you're talking about, but just come back and I'll get you some medicine and some help.?

?I thought he might be having a psychotic breakdown. He said, ?No, it's much worse than that.??

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303568/Frederick-Hart-murder-Steven-Goff-self-proclaimed-genius-criminal-driven-guilt-admit-1990-slaying.html