Ask Miranda a theological question!

[miranda2]

Since the other thread is getting long, I thought I'd start another in case anyone was still interested. (Am I mad??....) Won't be offended if no-one posts!!

awwww! I've just discovered this thread and saw my name! Thanks ScummyMummy - I won't attempt to join in at the moment - no time to read the whole thread, but will point Juno in this direction, as she studied Theology at university and will no doubt have an opinion or two.

But thanks for your lovely words!

And what about forgiveness isnt that one of the most important things that Jesus preached???
God does not do much of that it seems.
IMO a person does not have to be religious to forgive.

aloha I always ask the Jehovahs witnessess (when they knock on the door) the exact same question.The answer they always give is always the same old tired excuse and that is the suffering happens because of MAN and his ways.
This to me is a pathetic excuse as look at all the wars that are caused through religion.Yes man does the killing and suffering but in the name of their God.

Haven't had time to read, let alone digest, all this but a good series to read (or even just the first one) is Michelle Guiness' autobiography as a Jew who converted to Christianity - she brings to life the relationship between the OT and NT in a way which I think you could only understand if you were Jewish and makes the NT make even more sense as a fulfilment of the covenant. Fab reading and I wish I could learn more about Judaism to better understand the historicity of my Christian faith.

Indeed not. I think being kind and cooperative and tolerant of others is not related to religion at all (see other thread!!). If anything, it is a natural part of survival. If we don't band together, work together, form social networks bound with love, we die - that's not in the interest of passing on our genes. And animals do seem to feel love, loyalty and live in groups towards which they feel responsibility, so, no, I don't think those qualities are exclusively human or the result of having a soul or knowing god. For all we know they may well experience shame, guilt etc too. Monkeys taught to speak (via sign language) do seem to express a wide range of emotion. They also live together in complex social groupings and express love and grief - they are excellent, tolerant and loving parents too. Yet they do not worship a god.

My last post was agreeing with Doormat about forgiveness. Lots of posts arrived while I was gathering my thoughts!

Tinker, I agree so much with your point 'why would anyone worship this God'. As I said earlier, in pre-Christian times people believed in gods and worshipped them because they thought that if they didn't, the god would hurt them. Basically, the gods ruled by fear. Fair enough, can see the point of all the sacrifices etc if the consequence was that the god would come down and have them destroyed by fire etc. What utterly baffles me is the Christian insistence that God is good. He's angry, vengeful, murderous.... but infinitely good. And we must worship him because he loves us (eh?) but if we don't worship him (because we simply and honestly and with utter moral and intellectual conviction don't believe he exists) he will ensure that we suffer appalling torments for all eternity. None of this hangs together. Bloss says that all God is doing is saying he can't help us - but he's GOD - of course he can. Or else he's not God. Why would anyone 'love' such a being?

i agree aloha and doormat,if theres a god hes a real bad one,how can he let the things that happen in the world go ahead,im not religious but i remember when holly and jessica disappeared i prayed and prayed till the end,why didnt he listen to all the people praying,how could he let those poor little girls die,how can he send earthquakes and floods to already very poor countries,how come people like,franco,homeini,saddam hussein ,pinochet and lots of other evil dictators die peacefully of old age,why oh why does he give children to people that will harm them and not to those who will love them?is he a fair god?is he?

Surely, when you look at the facts, it comes down to this...Religion has always been a means to control people. The bible and other religious texts are books written and edited over a long period of time, by powerful men, for powerful men....

1. Misogny. Strict instructions that women were put in their place, and do what the men want. From obeying husbands to not being able to preach themselves (see previous posts on this thread!)

2. Patronising. Strict instructions to the masses/plebs so as they stay in their place, and put up with the poverty stricken and unjust lives they may have been dealt, while being promised a heaven which would make up for all the crap things in their lives (only the meek shall inherit the earth etc.)

3. Homophobia.

4. Bigotry. Incredible arrogance in the form of other faiths going to hell, but hey stick with us we're the best.

Yup this is a simplistic argument compared to others on this thread. But common sense shows it really is this simple. All the rest is myth and legend!

I agree with you, Lil - all these things can be seen in the bible and in religion. The name of God has been shamefully misused for millenia as a way of controlling people. But that doesn't mean that is what God is really like, that just doesn't follow. All that tells us is that men are manipulative b***s - no surprise to any of us surely?!
Aloha - I am trying to answer you're question, but it is taking a long time to get my thoughts together! The difficulty is that we seem to be coming at this from completely different positions - I don't just mean that I believe in God and you don't, I mean that what we each mean when we say or hear 'God' is completely different. To me, God is by definition what is completely good. This is my starting point now, and so for example I come to the conclusion that those bits of the bible that show God to be a nasty vindictive piece of work are not 'God speaking' but people speaking for much of the reasons lil outlined below. When I was first converted (very much a sudden thing - a sudden realisation that God existed - which takes me on to the experiential point, I'll come to that in a minute), I 'knew' God existed but wasn't at all sure that I liked him, for all the reasons you say. It may well that God exists, I thought, but that certainly doesn't mean I'm going to worship the git. The difference for me was coming to an understanding of Jesus and becoming specifically a Christian, not a deist. If Jesus 'is' God - that is, is what God looks like to the extent that God is analogous to a human being - then I'm sure we'd all agree (everyone seems to so far anyway) that that is a good thing - Jesus was a good teacher, a caring and compassionate person, etc. etc. Not vengeful, uncaring, cruel at all. So then God as revealed to us in Jesus allows us to test the authenticity of previous revelation about God in the Old Testament - is it consistent, because if not it isn't the same God its talking about, so not talking about God at all. Does that make sense? I don't mean you have to believe that, just that that is how I see it. I quite agree with you that the sort of god you describe is not good at all, and I certainly don't love such a God. If I get to heaven and find out I'm wrong, and that's what he's like, I'll join you in rejecting him, as I said before.

But the point someone else made is important here - what about our own experience? As I said below, it is our experience that makes us take the bible seriously anyway. I was certainly converted by my own experience of God - and good things flowed from that amazingly. At the time I was sleeping around and the whole situation had got really messy - I was in a small college so everyone knew everyone else and it was getting to the point where noone was speaking to anyone etc. Anyway, one of the people involved was a Christian and I ended up doing one of those agnostic prayers ; 'dear God, if you exist, as X thinks you do, so maybe you do for him if not for me, oh I don't know, anyway, if there's anyone out there, HELP!'. Immediately I just had the most certain feeling of God being there. Its impossible to describe it - I didn't see anything etc, but God was there. From being so agnostic I was almost entirely atheist, there was suddenly no question that God existed. As I said, I was not at all pleased about this - in fact I said out loud 'Oh no, f*k off, you're not supposed to exist!' and spent the next few weeks feeling dreadfully guilty that I told God to f*k off. It lasted maybe half an hour, then I fell asleep (I'd been in bed). The next day, suddenly the situation with all my friends/enemies was transformed - teh girl whose boyfriend I'd been sleeping with came round for a friendly chat and forgave me without me even asking her to, and it was almost as if the whole mess had never happened. And I started going out with my now dh! Certainly makes me feel God is good, but I wouldn't want to push that too far because obviously some people have really crap lives so what does that say? I DON'T KNOW! I don't want you to think I have all the answers (mind you if you've read all this thread you know I haven't...) - the issue of why there is suffering in the world is one theologians have wrestled with for centuries and there is no really satisfying answer. We just have to learn to live with the question, and I don't mean just accept it - I keep struggling with 'God, WHY???', and indeed the bible is full of people doing just that (see the psalms for example). I can go through the different answers people have given if you like, but it'll probably jsut annoy you... and I'll have to look up my degree notes!

Anyone read the Red Tent. It describes the Judeo Christian God (ie the one we're talking about) as a rather nasty spiteful terrible scary piece of work. It certainly doesn't decribed him as loving.

obviously it's just a novel but I thought the description was rather good (Aloha don't know if you've read it, but if you haven't I'd recommend it I think you'd enjoy it)

I might well do that Jimjams. Miranda, you sound like a really nice person - not vindictive or intolerant or anything - and I have to accept that intelligent people believe in God BUT I have to say that wonderful things have happened in my life - I am very happy with my dh and my son is my miracle boy - but I don't feel any presence of God. What I think is so 'unfair' in religion is that you will go to heaven, and I and my lovely husband will go to hell, just because you 'feel' God and I simply and honestly don't. This is why I think God - the all loving God you describe - isn't being kind or parental or loving in keeping himself hidden and permanently 'testing' us. I don't permenently 'test' my son's love for me. I just love him and love him and love him and would die for him, but not send him out to die for someone else. The parental view of God as Our Father seems such a bleak and terrifying one to me. I agree that the figure of Jesus does seem a very different 'person' to the OT God, but you can't be a Christian and totally reject the OT, or can you? After all if Jesus said he was the son of God, then he must have believed in the OT God, surely? And I don't want to be insulting or patronising or anything (really) but it does seem a bit of a luxury to pick and choose as you do.

BTW Jimjams, did you see the very interesting feature on the possible causes of autism in the Observer on Sunday, which talked about the differences in the way the brain is formed in early babyhood? And possible links with testosterone in the womb. What did you think of it?

Agree Jimjams, the Red Tent is a fantastic book about women's lives in biblical times, the best read I have had in years!

Aloha - I didn't say you'd go to hell!!! I really, really, didn't!!! IMO if you are a good and loving person who is nice to people then God is at work in your life even without you knowing it, and you are on God's side. What I was trying to emphasise right at hte beginnng of this thread (or was it on the other one?) when I said you don't get to heaven by being a good person, was that heaven isn't a reward for good actions, you can't earn your way there. So you don't get to go by being good; BUT, if you are fundamentally loving that in itself suggests that you are with God - the fruits of the spirit are love,peace, joy, if you show these it is evidence of God's spirit.

Did you miss my earlier post about the father/son thing? Teh point of God sending Jesus to die for us is precisely that God himself died for us, his children, not that a vindictive tyrant sent his son to do his dirty work for him! I agree this is a problem with the father language used for God. You might find it helpful to try thinking of God as female - it can get rid of all those patriachal and aggressive overtones very effectively (and since God is genderless, and the bible includes female imagery for God as well as male, please don't anyone tell me this isn't allowed!!!). The idea of the trinity is that Jesus IS god, so it was god dying for us.

Way back when, someone mentioned The Big Bang & Dinosaurs (different posters) and I notice that few took this part of the thread up, so here goes....

As I have mentioned before I am a confirmed Agnostic. The reasons for this, to me, are clear.

1.The evidence 'for' the Big Bang Theory and Darwins Theory of Evolution exists, we have fossils which can be carbon-dated showing the evolutionary stages of fish, birds, land animals etc.

2. We have evidence of shared DNA between simian and human species.

3. We have skeletons of evolving man, which show a clear pattern of change from that of Ape to today's Homo-erectus.

We have very little evidence that there is some all powerful 'God', all we have is a story book written many, many years ago. I have no doubt that the stories are sometimes educational, interesting and a support to some in their hour of need, but I find it very hard to see any great factual evidence for the presence of God.

I could believe that there was a man (possibly named Jesus) who lived x-thousand years ago and did good things for his community, but I do not for one second believe that he was implanted into a virgins womb by some invisible spirit etc etc. Religion is a personal choice and it is none of my business what anyone else choses to believe but I am curious to know how you can ignore/discount the evidence we have for Evolution over Creation ?

Oh aloha I was shouting at that article!!! Mainly because
a) it said having spoken to goups of researchers Wakefield's theories have been rejected. Quite possibly true but I know they could equally have spoken to gourps of researchers who do agree. There are two camps, the juries out etc
b)they said that if it was due to difference in brain structure it couldn't be due to vaccinations. What they meant was that it couldn't be die to MMR, could quite easily be due to the baby jabs
c)they mixed AS and autism. In my mind there are several (many?) different routes to autism. Some- usually the high functioning AS end do appear to have a strong genetic component (ie a variation on personality iyswim). Others appear to have a strong link to autoimmune problems. Other (10%) MMR.

So no I didn't think much of the article. I had a reply from the Prof in the Times. She sent me her original email. To be fair it was fairly reasonable- the Times had pretty much made up an article without basing it on her email.

Oh and there will be other ways to autism as well don't mean those three are the only ways. In fact that's the problem with loads of the research imo. The children are all very different, and seem to have different problems. Maybe these need to be studied further before we start looking for causes

That's interesting Jimjams. And I know this is off the thread completely, but what about the larger head size, the different areas of the brain lighting up and the extra neurons? ie the evidence of a true physical condition that has nothing to do with not climbing trees etc?

I'm genuinely interested to hear what any 'believers' have to say in answer to my Evolution versus Creation post......

Well, Miranda, it is very kind of you to suggest I might get my place in heaven (not sure I want to go though, it sounds a bit boring!) but I think from what you say there is just such a fundamental gulf between believing (because you feel God in your life) and not (because you don't) that I can't see how they can be bridged. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to be religious, but if that's the definition then I know I never will be. Also, far too many intellectual question marks for me. And, of course, so many other people around the world and in history are/were equally sure of their god/s existence.

Hi Miranda
How do you interpret the patriarchal statements in the Pauline household codes?

before miranda answers, would you like to explain what they are, for us lesser mortals? or is this just a wind-up?

I believe in creation in conjunction with evolution if that makes sense. Scientists have the big bang as a theory, but they don't know where the chemicals came from in the first place, and how life evolved from the big bang. It's just a theory for the time being that covers some of the questions of existence.
Not long ago we were told that man came from one species of ape. Now we are told that there were two, Neanderthal and Homosapiens. Neaderthal died out whilst Homosapiens took over. Can anyone tell me where Homosapiens came from? And I still don't think that the missing link - the jump from ape to man - has ever been found. They have found ape-like skulls that resemble man, but there are recent ape skulls that are like that too, they don't prove anything.

Also no-one answered why we have this struggle between good and evil. What makes humans so different from animals? Why do some humans devote their lives to the causes of others? Why all this psychology? If that is down to evolution, how come other animals haven't evolved in the same way? How come dolphins don't have religion? Or have dolphins that devote their lives to doing good? Animals seem to rely on instinct, the choices we make often come into conflict with instinct. We have morals, we place a huge emphasis on right and wrong - no other animal does that.

For me, atheism throws up just as many questions as religion. As a Christian I don't have the answers to many questions being asked on here, but I doubt that scientists can explain much better either. I have settled for religion because of my personal experiences, a gut feeling if you like. Because I happen to believe the Bible about a lot of things and I believe in what Jesus taught. I believe that we are different, and that there is a higher intelligence responsible for nature, etc. I believe that nothing happens without a reason, and that goes for the creation. Big bang or not, we are here for a reason.

I won't run and grab a bible, but basically, in some of the middle letters (Collosians etc), Paul talks about how, within the household, the man is the "head of woman", as Christ is "head of the church", and that women should submit to their husbands in everything.

These passages are known as the houshold codes - a series of regulations and principles that families are told to operate by. They are very significant for discussions about family, gender, household organisation etc.

I'm interested, because I wrote my dissertation on the issue, for my Theology masters

So, it's not a wind up, but a bit of a test I'm interested in what Miranda says about them.