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Exactly.
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It does beg for a punchline, sorry to disappoint! Kierkegaard said a lot about Job, and at least he made it fairly obvious he was actually talking about himself when he did so.
A lot of people say a lot about other people. I appreciate your thoughtfulness when you do, because that’s when thoughtfulness counts. I’m not pointing fingers at anyone else in this thread when I single you out for thanks on that front. (edited to add, great find on that paper!)
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i was brought up in the church of christ which had enough differences between its set of practices and the other more or less mainstream churches that i ended up with many more questions than answers. over the course of time i felt that there were too many groups claiming the keys to the kingdom of heaven to be able to see any rational way of deciding which one, if any was right to lay claim to an exclusive monopoly on “the truth.” by my late 30s i found that the only religious philosophy that made sense for me was agnosticism. any other position requires much more certainty than i have. the tendency is for one to belong to whatever major religious group one’s family was part of which tends to depend on the social milieu in which one’s family developed. this does not show any inherent virtue or validity of a particular religious tradition and speaks more to the effects of social normalization through family indoctrination than it does to the inherent worth of a religious system.
i’ve seen the ethics and morals of self-identified religious people and some have been exemplary people while others have been dreadful. i’ve known atheists i would trust with my life and belongings and known others who would steal food from a soup kitchen but i’ve known christians with a similar lack of scruples. my experiences have led me to feel that there is no real correlation between one’s religious convictions and one’s personal morality. you, @TrollsOpinion, are welcome to structure your beliefs in any pattern that provides you comfort and a path toward going through life. i wish you well even as i disagree with you.
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Ah hrrm… this is an interesting question to me, as it is presented in the context of ‘telling others things one deals with which they would have a hard time understanding’. This, for me, kind of kills the whole reason to ever communicate with people. I try and speak in ways that I find they can probably best understand.
I try and find common ground.
Otherwise, why ever reach out and try and communicate with anyone at all?
Granted, I typically never post anywhere where there is no one from my world at all… though, like my own self, they also do not approach communication with outsiders as something to approach with a lack of care for their capacity to understand.
But, the “outsiders” here usually includes as much as someone who completely disregards the possibility of anything, as those who believe they know and deal with matters they actually do not know and do not deal with. Which is more difficult to talk to?
Could there be worlds which sci-fi and fantasy touch on? A good “for instance” is one of the shows I am watching now, really, just using one from a large bag: “Lost Girl”. A show about a Succubus who is a Fae and discovers herself suddenly in a society of magical beings of all sorts which legends hint at, but distort. One of their society’s priorities is to keep their society hidden from everyone else.
That is, there are countless shows and books that revolve around these sorts of topics these days. I can even right off easily name some of the ones currently running: Constantine, Supernatural, Grimm, and Sleep Hollow. Though, even some with less supernatural fare holds the same sort of concepts: the Americans, Allegiance, and 12 Monkeys.
Even in the most down to earth ones, such as the Americans and Allegiance, there is secrecy tied to these subcultures which are very much removed from outside cultures and subcultures. If one considers any of these worlds, and considers: how might one bring an outsider into these worlds… none of them include merely telling people about the details of them, because anyone would react with skepticism without evidence.
So what, on earth, would the point be?
Worse, I have almost never seen a good depiction in fiction of someone actually going from a “normal world” to one of these worlds accurately depicted. The reality is, it is very traumatic for the person. I think… in fact, maybe the best depiction I have ever seen was in the original 12 Monkeys movie, because it shows some of the extreme mental and emotional stress a person goes through when literally dealing with reality shifting.
But all of them, and so many others of these stripes (which have become very many since the 90s, really) depict bringing someone into alien worlds on planet earth… and in no case is that accomplished merely by talking, and surely not by having a tit-for-tat dialogue. Skepticism for outsiders is well understood. Of course they are skeptical.
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Its not about living with the threat of punishment. You will choose to be punished, you are choosing even now. Your abandonment of of God will separate you from the source of all that is good.
Its also not about being rewarded for being good. First of all you cannot be ‘good’ the original sin into which we are born prevents us. Second, if your ‘being good’ was sufficient then the sacrifice of the Son of God would have been unnecessary. There is only one way.
You turned away from God because Santa Claus? That’s a… logical decision.
I just explained this, up there ^^^^.
Look, flattery will get you everywhere with me.
We can take the advice of a man who raised himself from the dead.
People witnessed the resurrected Christ, some of these people chose death over denial of this fact.
Is that meant to promote the idea that there is an objective measure to driving trollies? 48 comments on the thread so far seems pretty good to me 
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We don’t have any evidence worth trusting on that one. At best we have hearsay written down at the earliest 40 years after it would have happened, by people who are motivated to make up such a story anyway. We’ve got no historical records with regard to that particular miracle.
The thing is, the bible says a lot of miraculous things happened when jesus died, but none those things were written down by the numerous meticulous record keepers of the time. It says right in the bible that many corpses came back to life and walked amongst the living. It also says that the sun went black for hours. Both of those things would have been noticed by the Romans. Both of those things would have been written down. Especially that the sun went dark for several hours in the middle of the day. Because that would have really fucked up commerce and trade.
The bible is fantasy, and it’s ridiculous to take it seriously. If the bible is your source of morality and you stick to it, I’d rather stay far away from you, for my own safety. Nobody follows the bible because people are actually better than their religions. You may have been raised to believe it, or you may have been suckered into believing it as an adult. In any case, it’s pretty insulting that you insist that people can only be good because of your god. I know a lot of people who are better than your god, yet don’t believe in him. That’s pretty baffling, I’d bet. You could be making good points here, but you’re soft-balling, and it’s almost as boring as speaking to a Methodist pastor.
What is good anyway? Does god like what is righteous because it’s intrinsically so? Or is it that anything god says is righteous is only righteous because he says so? If it’s the former, there’s a greater good than god to aspire to. If it’s the latter, then your god is simply a petty tyrant (Job illustrates this wonderfully, but I’m sure you know that).
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It’s religion - it’s a gimme.
@TrollsOpinion’s posts in this thread have been boring. trollies can be annoying, stupid, aggressive, jerkish - but they really can’t be just plain boring without any other un-redeeming qualities… TO has work to do.
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The stories about the resurrected Iesus are relatively late, and probably aren’t in the original version of Mark. But Paul describes an experience/vision of the resurrected Iesus, and claims that other people claimed similar experiences/visions. And Paul was willing to convert and to die for this.
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Do you say that as proof of Paul’s vision? Because lots of religions have martyrs, yet I doubt you’d accept their martyrdom as proof of those religions being true.
People die for stupid convictions all the time, and some will convert for even more stupid reasons. Personal conviction isn’t a substitute for substantiated claims.
Paul is a secondary witness, and his claims for the miraculousness of jesus ring hollow when the only people writing about jesus are already motivated to worship him. Would it be reasonable to take Tom Cruise’s testimony on scientology as truthful or significant? Or even evidence that body thetans are a thing?
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I do not believe I will be punished at all after I die, nor will I be struck down by some mysterious supernatural force while I walk my sinful way down the street. God can’t touch me, because He doesn’t exist in my reality except as a figment of your imagination, and that of others who share your delusion. You can make plans to wave at me as I crouch there in the Lake of Fire, all sad and disappointed that I backed the wrong horse, and if so I promise to wave back and make every effort to contact my heirs from beyond the grave and instruct them to divert my entire estate to the charity of your choice.
But y’know, whether I’m torn to pieces by a pack of ravenous coyotes tomorrow or peacefully pass away in my bed a century from now, I am fully confident that I won’t have a consciousness remaining afterward to spare you or your god a second thought. 'Cause I’ll be dead. And that’ll be perfectly okay.
Will it? I don’t think so. I don’t think there was a God to abandon, but if I did it wasn’t when I stopped believing in Him. Nor was it when I thought He’d abandoned me. It was when I decided He wasn’t worthy of my belief, when I realized how petulant and childish were all the facets of His character as taught to me by the various churches I attended and the various translations of the Bible I read. And I am not separated from “the source of all that is good.” I am as well-loved and as close to all the good things in my life as I was when I believed. Closer, in fact, because I don’t have to factor any deity into my interpersonal relationships. I don’t have to wonder if He’d approve. I don’t have to worry if I’m serving His purpose. I don’t have to give Shit One about anything that an invisible ghost could want. I only have to worry about other people, other creatures, the planet on which we live… and that is quite enough, thank you.
Yeah, yeah. John 3:16. Huge sacrifice that was. Here’s a thought experiment for you: if you yourself became convinced that the only way to obtain potential salvation for the sinful masses of the world would be for you to be tortured to death by being nailed to a tree, and then hope that enough of those masses came to believe in and appreciate that sacrifice… wouldn’t you volunteer? If you knew that was the only way your Father, the Deity In Charge, El Queso Grande, would save anyone from eternal damnation… wouldn’t you nail yourself to that tree in hopes of saving as many as you could?
I like to think you would. I like to think most of us would.
You remember what “akin” and “similar” mean, right? You know what response you can expect if you ask a typical fourteen-year-old why they no longer write annual letters to the stout gent in the red fur suit who delivers toys to all the good little Christian kids on a night commemorating the birth of Jesus, don’t you? The details will vary, but the gist will usually be that they used to believe that story, the one their elders told them about the nice old fart who handed out presents to the well-behaved kids from his magical flying sleigh. But somehow, circumstances eventually led them to realize that that story was so much reindeer shit told to keep the brats in line for a couple weeks in December. They may or may not resent being lied to. But they sure as hell don’t buy the Santa gag anymore.
Can’t draw any parallels? Damn. Even Jesus knew how to interpret a parable.
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Touché
Disclaimer: I make this post on the off chance that you aren’t actually just driving trollies.
The interesting and illuminating bits are heretical. Regarding the man we call Jesus, I suspect he existed and I’m sure that entity is continuing to reincarnate today. I wish him well on wherever his journey has taken him. I’m sure he had a few interesting ideas though I’m equally sure neither the Protestant nor Catholic Bibles represent those ideas in any way.
I’ve changed my mind on a good number of subjects (including religion) numerous times (especially with regards to religion). I can—and have been—persuaded by evidence that I am wrong on various topics. Even central topics. In a conversation on this topic, you and I can’t stand on the same ground and participate as equals in this conversation.
Because you’re playing a game and you’ve decided. You’ve placed your stake in the ground and nothing will let you move it. I’m an honest seeker.
I already know the things you have to offer because I’ve been there. I threw myself at it with reckless abandon and believed harder and more thoroughly than anyone. I learned a lot more in the process of leaving. What benefit would there be to me arguing with you about it?
The hopes that I will “win” the argument and convince you that you’re wrong? It wouldn’t change things for you because I can’t “win” you to the position of an honest seeker. That’s only something you can do for yourself. It wouldn’t benefit me either because the “victory” would be hollow and meaningless.
Why am I posting this at all? Well, because while I wouldn’t have made your post when I was an Evangelical Protestant, it still reminds me of where I was once and I think someone might have saved me a lot of pain and anguish along the way if they had made a post like this.
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Maybe. He’s the one who knows his experiences. We can ask whether they fit with our experiences, or contradict our experiences, we can ask whether he benefits or suffers by making these claims, we can ask whether L. Ron Hubbard benefitted or suffered, etc. We can ask the same questions about Paul’s experiences.
But he is not a secondary witness to his own experience.
My point being,
this isn’t true, and
that isn’t meaningful either,
Not when we consider how many historical works, which we know did exist, don’t survive. Two-thirds of Titus Livius’s work is lost! we shouldn’t expect any works about some obscure Palestinian rabble-rouser to survive, except possibly via Iosephus.
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Would you have listened back then? I am not 100% sure I would have, since (believe it or not) a couple of Jack Chick’s comic books had steeled my young heart against the silver-tongued lies of those who would seek to assail my faith through logic and empirical evidence.
But then, I continued to hang my stocking shockingly late in life.
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Really? On what basis do you claim direct witnesses?
I think many, perhaps most, Christians mistakenly believe that the Gospels were were witnessed and written at the time of the events they describe by the people they are named after. The were not. The Gospels were A) not direct witness, B) written anonymously, and C) not written until decades after the death of Jesus, at least 40 years after.
