'She believes we're decended from apes!'

[Bumperlicioso]

Said with incredulous laughter by a very religious acquaintance. Does religion preclude a belief in evolution? Apparently there is nothing to support it according to same acquaintance.

Himalaya - I think God has always tried to speak to everyone, and their responses were different because of their cultures and expectations, so they came up with different religions to "codify" what they thought about God and their relationship.

I'm hesitant about saying Jesus was unique, because I don't like the idea of "my religion is better than your religion" and I'm aware that having grown up in a Christian country I'm going to be biased. OTOH if I'm going to believe that Jesus was God incarnate, then that's pretty unique, and has far-reaching consequences - if God was incarnate, then that's going to make a change in God's attitudes just as much as it is ours, and that's why I think it matters. But I need to find a way to square that with "Other peoples experience of God is just as valid as mine" which is an important belief for me. Not really got that one worked out yet....

You'd think, for an omnipotent being, he would have worked out a way of making himself clear by now.

Wasn't Osiris supposedly a god incarnate as well? He was betrayed, murdered and rose again, too. These resurrection myths generally have their basis in the natural life cycles of plants (the plant grows, fruits, dies back then grows again) more than anything, different cultures just anthromorphosize the procedure and add whatever frills (positive or negative) suit the culture at the time the particular myth is being invented.

I think that every religion has a sacrifical 'king' as it's heart. As you say SGB, based on natural cycles. There is some eveidence that these 'kings' were originally the mate of a queen who was the real power behind the fertility of the earth. She needed her king to reproduce but he was killed after a season whilst she endured. The cult of the Virgin Mary was a dilution of this - the powerful queen of fertility turned into a milk and water madonna who only reproduced asexually.

Yes I'm aware that sacrificial death and reincarnation are a big theme of lots of religions - Mithras is always the one that has caught my eye as similar, and even used the symbol of a sword/dagger which looks very much like a cross. And the cross came to replace the original fish (Icthus) symbol which the earliest Christians used once Christianity bcame big in Rome.

I'm reading this about Osiris and Mithras and nodding and thinking it's all very interesting - I just don't have any idea how it would translate into belief in one god above all the other, who happens to have a lot to say about life a couple of thousand years ago.

Amuminscotland - that there is some strong cognitive dissonance.Thanks for your honest answer. It is a question that always 's and 's me!

Himalaya - I may have to decide at some stage that I can't honestly call myself a Christian. I haven't quite reached that point yet, and I reckon I'll always be a theist and believe that Jesus was really hugely important, but when I look at it in black and white, I think I have to put the "God speaks to everyone equally" belief higher than the "Jesus was unique and God incarnate" belief.

But the concept of Cognitive Dissonance is an interesting one - I've tended to assume that I ought to be able to weigh these things up logically and work it out, but seeing that its a common problem reassures me that I'm not unusual in not having adjusted my beliefs to be completely consistent yet.

The 'one true Great Pumpkin' factor in myth-peddling is handy for colonization of other cultures and annexing of their resources, that's the main reason for it.

"people who come to religion (find god ) late in life?"

Yes, it happens. What is it you want me to explain?

Some people need to see meaning in horrible things that happen to them, want to belong to a community, need support, or simply get scared as the end nears and wonder "what if?"

My point was that the vast majority of religious people stick to the religion they were born into because that is their reality, what they have been conditioned into accepting without questioning.

Speedy - I did not say "it's only indoctrination which makes people refuse to question". Actually, I said quite the opposite:

CoteDAzur Wed 06-Apr-11 21:26:15
There can be many reasons why someone cannot question something, not only cognitive dissonance - trauma, bowing to authority, and in the case of religion, indoctrination.

AMumInScotland - If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few questions:

"That Jesus was something new and unique"

How so? What about Moses? Or Mohammad?

"... and permanently changed the possibilities of how humanity could relate to God"

How? Christians pray to God, as Jews and Muslims pray to God. What do you mean by "relate to God"?

"That God chooses to usually operate by guiding and influencing believers rather than by direct intervention."

Influencing as in mind control? Like, you wouldn't do something but you do it because God makes you? That sounds quite "direct" to me.

CoteDAzur

Or they could just find they enjoy what having a faith brings to their life and its better with than without.

Mohammed and Moses didn't claim to be God incarnate, they were just prophets. Jesus is, so far as I know, the only occasion where God is meant to have actually become fully human. Though other religions have gods who walked the face of the earth, and even died and were resurrected, I don't think they were born, went through childhood etc. Feel free to let me know of any if I'm wrong, I'm not an expert!

Christians believe that when Jesus was crucified and resurrected, he sent the Holy Spirit, and that through it we can communicate more directly with God, and understand what God wants in a more personal way.

Influencing - I mean as in the way my husband influences my behaviour by suggesting things, or disliking things that I do - I'm not forced to comply, but because I love him and want him to be happy, I am likely to do things that he likes, and not do things he dislikes. But I can choose not to follow suggestions, without any worry about the consequences, because they are only suggestions.

"Mohammed and Moses didn't claim to be God incarnate"

Neither did Jesus. That claim was made in the Council of Nicaea several hundred years after his death, by people whose great-grandparents weren't even born when Jesus died.

"when Jesus was crucified and resurrected, he sent the Holy Spirit, and that through it we can communicate more directly with God, and understand what God wants in a more personal way."

Confusing. Where did Jesus send Holy Spirit and how are you communicating "more directly" with God because the Spirit is between you and God? Praying directly to God seems a "more direct" way of communicating.

"... in the way my husband influences my behaviour by suggesting things - I'm not forced to comply, but because I love him and want him to be happy, I am likely to do things that he likes, and not do things he dislikes. But I can choose not to follow suggestions, without any worry about the consequences, because they are only suggestions."

Except that you can actually hear your husband making these suggestions, whereas God "influencing" you would have to be disturbingly close to mind control.

Cote - I'm not trying to convince you that I'm right - I'm sure that anything I can say about what I believe, you can counter quite easily. I'm simply trying to explain to you what I, as a Christian, believe. Which includes the divinity of Christ and the concept of the Holy Spirit.

As I mentioned above to Himalaya, there are aspects of Christianity that I'm quite likely to have to "downgrade" if I'm going to be entirely consistent about the universality of religious experience, and I'm not sure that I could (or should) try to convince you of why I believe that Christ was divine. when it's one of the aspects of my beliefs that I'm less sure of.

The whole "cognitive dissonance" thing has got me thinking, and I'm pretty sure that the clash is between the things that I have worked through for myself (existence of God, equality of the experience which different peoples at different times have had of that God) and the things which I have learned about Christianity (uniqueness/divinity of Christ, concept that connection to God is only available via Christ/Christianity).

Therefore, I'm going to have to try to describe/explain things without reference to Christianity, which is difficult since that's where my "vocabulary" for discussing religious experience comes from.

But I'll attempt it anyway, and then you can tell me why you think I'm a nutter.

I "experience" the existence of God in terms of an awareness of a consciousness which is not my own, and with which I am capable of limited two-way communication. When I say "limited", I have no doubt that God can comprehend my thoughts in a reasonably precise way. I however only experience the opposite "direction" as a general sense of an identity, a personality, a concept of approval or disapproval, and occasionally an image or concept of "going somewhere" or "doing something". I can recognise all of these things as being separate from my own personality, conscience, etc. These are the things I mean by "suggestions" - they are not "mind control", in that I feel no compulsion to act on them.

Within Christianity, this would be described as "the indwelling Holy Spirit" making itself know to me, and is seen as an aspect of God which is distinct from, but linked to, God the Father and God the Son. If/how it relates to other religions points of view I don't know, as I haven't looked into other religions in enough depth to discuss anything this personal.

So there you go - you may now feel free to stop trying to understand the way I think, or to convince me of anything rational.

I didn't ask you why you believe Jesus is God.

I told you that Jesus never claimed to be God.

I don't mean to be disrespectful but I couldn't make enough sense from the rest of your post to answer it.

I like what science teacher said to me when I was in secondary school (I went to a Catholic school) God's image is DNA therefore mankind is made in his image.

Hi, I am a Christian and a 'creationist' and not at all nutty . Check out www.creationworldview.org for great facts and discussions on this subject!

That website is nutty and so are you, if you think the world is 6,000 years old

Do you seriously believe that? Genuine question, but I'm baffled!

That website coffee linked to goes into pathetic lengthy explanations of how and why Earth must only be 6,000 years old, just like the Bible says.

You would think anyone with the intelligence that her God promised a doorknob would look up Carbon Dating rather than believing the bullshit ignorant rants of a stranger on the internet. And you would be wrong, it seems.

Ah bless you cote, the point for me is that I believe the bible and if that's what the bible says then that's what i believe - i dont see that that has to be remotely offensive to you. i'm not just believing the rants of a stranger on the internet but trusting in what i believe in. to me, it actually does not really matter how old the world is, and up to about a year ago i believed the same as the majority of others, what is more important to me is my relationship with God and i believe that he made people in his own image and that we are not descended from apes, amoebas or anything else but made/created specifically to have a personal relationship with the living God. So whether the world is 6000 years old or 6 million i really dont mind - i was just stating what i believe. about the doorknob comment - are you calling me one? lol

Coffee, can I ask what happened 'about a year ago' to make you change your beliefs to include the possibility that dragons really existed and dinosaurs died out as a result of over-enthusiastic wooing of maidens?