God Owes Us an Apology

[Mr. McD]

The tsunami of sea water was followed instantly by a tsunami of spittle as the religious sputtered to rationalize God's latest felony. Here we'd been placidly killing each other a few dozen at a time in Iraq, Darfur, Congo, Israel, and Palestine, when along comes the deity and whacks a quarter million in a couple of hours between breakfast and lunch. On CNN, NPR, Fox News, and in newspaper articles too numerous for Nexis to count, men and women of the cloth weighed in solemnly on His existence, His motives, and even His competence to continue as Ruler of Everything.

Theodicy, in other words--the attempt to reconcile God's perfect goodness with the manifest evils of His world--has arisen from the waves. On the retro, fundamentalist, side, various men of the cloth announced that the tsunami was the rational act of a deity enraged by (take your pick): the suppression of Christianity in South Asia, pornography and child-trafficking in that same locale, or, in the view of some Muslim commentators, the bikini-clad tourists at Phuket.

http://www.progressive.org/march05/ehren0305.php

[AutumnMist]

1. I Would Think

that the people who are selling these children into sexual slavery and so forth aren't what God wanted. It's what people with GREED wanted. Jesus stood at the steps of the roman government with leapers, outcasts, and prostitutes. He didn't take his message to rich, middle class romans, or anyone else. The message was to love those that were held down by society. Those that didn't have a voice. To take the stand that the "waves" were a part of Christian cleansing in some warped sense is what the modern MS would like us to believe. Those who follow the bible and then use it as a weapon are far from the message. They are the messengers of ill intent. But even the son of God didn't say he walked with those that are perfect, and we shouldn't blame God or the son of God for the world not being perfect. In the perfect bullshit Godly sense. It's not what it is about. I do believe that it took much strength and balls of steel to stand up as a Carpenter, one making less than the regular citizen at the time, and make a stand. For those that were not represented. It had little to do with sin, it was forgiven. And it had nothing to do with money. Thats my two cents. Take it our leave it.

[Stunster]

2. Only for making Earth habitable

Plate Tectonics - Continent Builder, Temperature Controller, Cosmic Radiation Protecter

How does plate tectonics contribute to our planet's becoming habitable for complex life? First, plate tectonics have produced a landmass on an earth that would otherwise have remained a smooth sphere covered by 4000 feet of water. Second, plate tectonics on Earth formed regions of shallow water just beyond the landmass. In these shallows, carbon dioxide chemically reacts with calcium silicate to form calcium carbonate and silicon oxide (or sand). This process removes sufficient carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to avoid overheating as the sun's radiant energy increases. Third, plate tectonics allows for sufficiently large thermal gradients to develop the convective cells in the Earth's core that generate our magnetic field, which in turn protects us from cosmic radiation.

It is reasonable to assume that without plate tectonics, no planet could be habitable.{45} Of the 62 satellites in our solar systems, only Earth has plate tectonic activity--a fact that reflects the difficulty to meet the conditions required for this transformational process. Plate tectonics requires just the right concentration of heavy, radioactive elements in a planet or moon's core, in order to produce the proper amount of heat through radioactive decay. Furthermore, the core must be molten, with a solid, but viscous crust. The viscosity of the crust must be carefully calibrated to the heat generation in the core. The total volume of surface water present on a planet is also critical (on Earth, it is 0.5 percent by weight).{46} Too much water will yield a planet with only oceans. Too little water or too much plate tectonic activity will produce a planet with almost all land mass and very small oceans. This imbalance would leave the Earth with a water cycle that could not aerate the landmass adequately to sustain life. The oceans also buffer temperature fluctuations, helping to keep the Earth's surface temperature in a viable range. Earth's current proportion of 30 percent landmass to 70 percent oceans is biologically ideal. However, this complex end result arises from a myriad of factors that appear to be independent. Again, an explanatory model based on "accidents of nature" seems insufficient to account for yet another remarkable feature of our planet.

{45}Peter B. Ward and Donald Brownlee, Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe (New York: Copernicus, 2000), p.208

{46} Ward and Brownlee, Rare Earth, 264-65.


Full article is here.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

3. Well as we all know

God works in mysterious ways, in other words don't ask questions.

I read an article several years ago, which I am still kicking myself in the butt for not keeping, where the premise of the author was that if one views the bible as the support for a belief system, it makes more sense to view it as the work of Satan instead of God.

The idea being that a rational person would think that if God wrote a book for mankind he would write something that would bring peace and harmony to the world. Seeing how the bible has brought incalculable misery, suffering and death since its creation, it is more rational to think that the evil one would have written it.

Then again, its really all our fault, as we are just too depraved to get it, isn't that how the story line goes?

[Selwynn]

5. Faith Seeking Understanding

Blind, question-less faith is not actually "faith" - its fideism.

Real faith is, as St. Anselm said, "Faith Seeking Understanding."

We are absolutely supposed to ask the tough questions.

[Selwynn]

4. My response:

I posted it before, I will post it again:

Catastrophic tragedies like the tsunami brings one religious question into sharper focus than all others: If God is all-powerful, why does he allow horrible things like this to happen?

Sadly, I fear that it is the misconception of omnipotence and omniscience that often leads to a crisis of faith. It is the fundamentalist interpretations of what God is like that leads to such brutal feelings of utter betrayal - when the uncompromising forces of reality tear down the straw houses of simple answers and petty literalism.

I do not have any personal illusions that a God of love either causes catastrophe or could stop catastrophe and chooses not to. When we choose to apply the concept of Love to our analogies of God – and I do choose to do that – we necessarily imply certain things and unavoidably rule out other things. We know that love implies freedom and uncertainty. We also know that love cannot be coerced and that there is no escaping the reality of risk – there are no guarantees.

We accept these realities of real love we personally experience, and yet when t comes down to the nature of God’s relationship to creation, we balk. We balk because even many who reject God want to conceive of the God they reject as in total control – having power over everything. That way, there is something to blame for the unfathomable depths of pain this world is capable of inflicting on those of us who live in it. Even many who profess no belief in God still have irrational anger at the God they don’t believe in when things go terribly, terribly wrong. Having a scapegoat for our grief is easier than embracing the alternative – a world in which even God takes a risk in his choice to create; a world with an unknown future, in which even God does not enjoy coercive control.

It is because I believe that what I understand about Love tells me a lot about what God is like that I do not experience a “crisis of faith” even as I weep over the catastrophe of recent weeks. I do however find comfort in the nature of his love – as I understand love to include compassion and grace in its composition - even in the midst of the very, very worst. God's promise that he will "never leave us nor forsake us" wasn't for the times when things were going great - it was for the times when things have collapsed into utter shit.

It is God’s promise to be in the utter shit with us that makes faith worth everything – his promise to hold me when I cry and cry with me, to patiently take care of me when I’m having trouble taking care of myself, and to be ever-present even in my darkest hours. I don't expect my human friends and loved ones to have supernatural powers when I grieve. But by the very fact that they are my friends and loved ones, they will be there with me and they will comfort me and carry me when I can't carry myself. That is why I cherish them. It's the same with God, only magnified and more personal in some ways - that friend that sticks closer than a brother.

I don't love and cherish my relationship with God because he is a kind of amoral "superman" that is able to prevent tragedy but frequently doesn't. I love and cherish my relationship with God because he is a friend, and he loves me and I him, and he gives me grace and comfort for whatever I face. There is nothing that God can do, that he isn't actively doing for everyone at every present moment. Certainly what God might want to do is often curtailed by human ignorance and resistance, but I don’t believe there is ever anything God is deliberately holding back. God's covenant with us is not that he can prevent all human suffering or tragedy, because by the very nature of his character of love, he can’t. Love is free, not coercive. Love is risky; it is clearly not certain. So too is this world.

Creation itself was a risk of love, not a coercively controlled machine. God's covenant with us therefore is that with him, no matter what we may face in life, we can experience a life worth living. Not one free from suffering, or loss, or hardship or even catastrophe. But one where, no matter what things we face, his comfort and gentle strength can fuel our human resolve, and fortify our hope and determination to go on living and risk again, rebuild, and start anew.

God's covenant promise to his children is that if we walk together in fellowship with him, we can come to the end of our lives, look back on totality of our lives including even the most personal catastrophes) and say to ourselves "living my life was worth the cost of drawing in that final breath.” There is only one Gospel promise at the heart of faith, and that is the covenantal promise of God that with him we can look back on our lives and say in all sincerity, “if I had it to do all over again, unable to change one thing - I would."

This is the promise of faith: a life that is worth it. I believe everything else is a distortion of what actually matters. I don't love God because I think somehow he is able to prevent catastrophe. I love God because of his covenant with me to go with me and before me even in the darkest hours of my life. I love him because of the constant examples of his faithful outpouring of grace and strength over my life, all while tirelessly working hope out of even my deepest despairs. This faithfulness has proven true, even in times when I could see nothing but darkness, and all I could hear was a still small voice.

I love God for hope, not certainty. And that is why this catastrophe breaks my heart, but not the covenant.

[trotsky]

6. That doesn't sound like much of a friend to me.

What if you had a human friend who designed cars, and you bought one. Then it turns out that even though there was a safety feature that was readily available (because he's a really good designer and has all resources available to him), he designed the car without it, and because of that defect, you lost a child in a car accident.

Would you be comforted by seeing your friend at your child's funeral?

[Selwynn]

7. Of course I don't acccept your analogy.

I have a friend named Sean, that I love. He is one of my best friends on earth. What if Sean designed cars, and I bought one. Then later on, I am hit by a drunk driver and lose my child in an accident.

Do you think I would be comforted seeing this friend that I love at my child's funeral?

Obviously as I say above, if you bothered to read it fully, I don't believe there are things that God some how "can do" and doesn't. So you saying "that doesn't sound like much of a friend to me" is you making your own interpretation of what you think God is, not evaluating mine.

If you want to say, "that sounds very well and good, but I don't believe it," that's fine. But its not possible for me to more clearly state that I don't believe there are "added safety features" that God could have added to the "car" and chose not to. I don't think of God like that. If you do, that's super, but I don't. So what doesn't sound like "much of a friend" to you is your own conception of the god you reject, not mine.

[trotsky]

8. I'll readily admit that even my analogy fails miserably.

Because, after all, God supposedly has control and power over EVERYTHING, not just a car. In your analogy, you seem to say that God is completely removed from his creation and has no control over it whatsoever. Is that the kind of god you believe in?

There's a whole lot of suffering that an all-powerful god could eliminate WITHOUT impacting free will. If god exists, his failure to do so demands explanation.

[Selwynn]

9. I think what I "actually believe" is perfectly plain

First of all, the statement "God supposedly has control and power over EVERYTHING" - that's you're statement. That's not a universally accepted statement, in fact plenty of religious traditions would outright reject that statement wholesale. Now whether you like or agree with that or not is irrelevant.

Of course, as you know if you actually read what I wrote instead of just skimming over it and deciding to make knee jerk objections because somehow it has become your sworn duty to challenge anything I ever write, then you would discover that no, I don't "seem to be saying" what you imply at all, in fact I say the precise opposite.

I believe that God is most appropriately thought of in terms of love. I believe that the statement "God is love" encompasses some truth. Now, I don't care whether you believe that or not. I do. If you don't that's fine, I'm not asking you to. But if you're going to come in and be critical and dismissive of something designed to be nothing but comforting than I at least expect you to get it right.

We know some things about love. We know that true love implies risk. Anyone who has deeply loved another person knows that this is absolutely true. Coercive "all-powerful" control is simply not possible. You cannot put a gun to someone's head and say "I demand that you love me." However, just because you can't coercively force someone to do you're "will" and be said to "love them" doesn't mean that you have no "power" or influence in their life.

It is only a cultural assumption which presumes coercion is a higher form of "power" than the "power" that is willing to the risk of relationship to things one cannot coercively control. I do not believe God even could create in a coercively controlled way. Creation in its very act was a risk or freedom, a labor of love. That certainly doesn't mean that God, like a friend is not involved in the world, but it means that God cannot be not-God, meaning he cannot act opposite of his nature, which I believe is appropriately conceived of through the analogy and symbolism of referring to God as "love."

You deliberately speak in all-or-nothing absolutes which I specifically and explicit reject right in my original post. I don't "seem to say" that God is "completely" removed from his creation. In fact I say the exact opposite: that I don't believe there is anything that God can do that he isn't actively doing for creation and for creatures at any given moment. That also does not imply that God has "no control" over it whatsoever. It depends on what you mean by control. If you mean it in the strictest sense, that God has coercive power over creation, then no I don't believe that.

If you mean that God has no influence, relationship with our participation in the reality of creation and creatures, no I don't believe that either. I believe God does participate in relationship to creation and his creatures. But that participation is subject to the conditions of God's nature - a nature of love, not coercion. Meaning that God risked in creating a free world which by his very nature he cannot not coercively control.

You need to get the fact that either God is coercive power (i.e. all-power) or he is love. He cannot be both. It is not "God's" existence and failure to end suffering that demands explanation. Its your own conception and definition of God wherein the failure to end suffering demands explanation.

As I said before, I don't expect my closest loved ones to have supernatural powers to prevent all my suffering in life, and yet I cherish them deeply and would lay down my life for them. They are a joy in my life and a constants source of wisdom, happiness, strength, knowledge, and on and on. They influence my life, and influence the decisions and choice I make, but they can't force me to make choice and still be said to "love" me.

God is like friend, only closer - his activity and influence in our lives and in the world are relationally linked to our own activity in the world, and conditioned by the nature of his character as love. He can't force us to do things, and I can't coercively control a free creation. You may feel this makes God weak. Or you may disagree for other reasons. That's fine. As I said I don't care if you say, "I don't believe in your god." But don't start putting words into my mouth, or superimposing your definition of God over mine in order to try to argue against my point of view. If you don't accept my perspective, great. But don't try to twist it to fit what you would prefer to argue against.

Sel

[trotsky]

10. I'm just fascinated by your totally unique brand of theism.

Not many people, especially those who consider themselves Christian, are willing to admit that their god doesn't have control over his creation. Just trying to probe a bit and find out how this god of yours "works."

[Selwynn]

11. Ok --

Look if I'm over-defensive today, I apologize. I'm just sick today, with the flu, but at work because I have to be. And I'm just like "look I don't want to go 15 rounds with someone who isn't really asking honest questions but just trying to pick at me."

If I misjudged I apologize.

You need to know that I don't frequently go around calling myself a "Christian" in the first place. Sometimes I do, but it really depends on what someone means by "Christian" and what someone believes is required in order to appropriately be labeled a Christian.

I've said this before, I take as my mantra, "Having no Way as Way."

I realize you probably wouldn't want to do this, but if you were really interested in understanding better how my god works, I would strongly recommend reading "Omnipotence and other Theological Mistakes" by Charles Hartshorne. Available via amazon for cheap.

This website has a pretty lengthly section from the book which talks about the Mistakes of Classical Theism.

http://www.hyattcarter.com/common_mistakes.htm

"The Two Meanings of 'All-Powerful'" is particularly relevant.
Sel

[trotsky]

12. Earlier, I said...

that it would be possible to ease at least some suffering without violating free will. I believe this addresses your concern that God not "force" himself on his creation. Let me give a couple of examples:

* The human female reproductive system could have been designed to make penetration impossible without consent by the woman. That would make rape (at least vaginal rape) impossible. Heck, God coulda put teeth in there and achieve the same effective result!

* Design a superior immune system that could consistently identify and destroy cancer cells.

That's what I mean. I don't think doing either of these things would be "coercing" or "forcing" things on creation, but they would eliminate a lot of suffering.

[Selwynn]

13. This makes presumptions that I don't make.

First of all, we are where we are through an evolutionary process. That's what the best evidence science makes available to me today indicates. There were no human males penetrating human females in the beginning, according to the best evidence we have of science. This is was progression of evolution, a process perhaps initiated by God, but not coercively controlled by God.

When I talk about freedom, I am not speaking of human freedom only. I am speaking of the freedom of all creation. Process philosophy postulates that freedom actually extends far beyond simply the freedom of human reasoning, and that in reality all "actual occasions" have certain degree of freedom in how they come together. While I do believe God does participate and "lure" creation and creatures in certain ways, I strongly believe that creation and creatures or free and ultimately independent of God's coercive control.

Second, we would likely agree that human sexuality, when mutual and healthy, is a joyous and wonderful thing. It is also a risk, it can be abused. I don't fault God for the fact that a good thing can be abused. I don't say, "you know this mountain is beautiful and good, but I blame you God for creating a mountain on which it is possible someone could fall and kill themselves! You could have created a different kind of mountain where such potential for suffering was not possible!" That just doesn't make sense to me. I take responsibility for my choices. My choice to climb the mountain for joy or beauty is made accepting the risk that I might get hurt. My choice to relate to other human beings includes my acceptance of the risk that other human beings might take advantage of me. Those are the risks implicit in reaching for any good thing in life. I don't blame God for the reality of those risks. In fact I'm thankful for them.

Let's say hypothetically somehow the human female evolved differently, and included some kind of mechanism for denying undesired male penetration. Does that stop all possibility of another human being violating or harming her? Of course not. She can still be sexually violated by unwanted forced activity and advances. She can still be physically assaulted, psychologically assaulted or violated in other ways. So I guess we should ask why didn't God make some kind of force shield thingy to block all physical contact that isn't desired, and why didn't God make some kind of psychic shield to block out all psychological attacks?

I'm not trying to blow those questions off, but they seem a little outrageous? Look, I don't have all the answers for why nature has evolved in the way it has, but I certainly know that nature has not evolved in such a way where in its creatures are perfectly protected from any pain and violation. I don't blame or discredit evolution for that failure. I don't say, "because women can be raped, the theory of evolution is therefore discredited." For all I know, vaginal teeth are on the way in the evolutionary progression of our species!

The same thing is true about the superior immune system. I'm not expert on evolutionary science, but I remember watching a nature program once which talked about the evolution of some crazy species of reptile and how it was believed that they adapted and evolved a different form of protection and immunity to a certain kind of poison in order to better survive around their predators. I don't know why the world happens in an evolutionary way. Why not just have everything evolved right up front? I tend to believe it is because life is not a process with an "end" and that evolution will continue and creatures will continue to grow, evolve, adapt and advance for as long as the world persists. That seems kind of exciting to me.

But the point is, if our immune system was effective against cancer (and there's nothing to suggest that it one day won't be) then that still does not rule out the possibility that some new strain of virus would crop up that our immune system was not able to defend against - at least for the moment. I don't see any of this as some kind of grounds for the denial for a relational participatory source and ground of life that lures and influences persons and things but does not - in fact cannot - force things to "be" against their will.

I don't believe that a better world than this is possible. And that might be a place where we differ. You might believe you could imagine a better world, but I don't. I believe that this world, for all its faults was the best possible foundational framework for an evolving world that possibly could have been. They way that it has progressed, the way things have evolved, the choice and decisions that have been made by creatures and creation, not all of them were best, and many of them have lasting consequences both good and bad, but the framework of creation is something I don't believe could be any other way.

[trotsky]

14. I don't claim everything needs to be perfectly protected.

Those are your words, not mine. I just think that with a few minor tweaks here and there, that don't affect anyone's free will, much pain and suffering could be alleviated.

A loving god who cares about its creation has some 'splaining to do.

I also think that your reasoning basically amounts to, "This world must be the best, because it's the one God gave us." That doesn't answer anything - I feel it closes the mind off from asking questions.

[Selwynn]

15. I'm sorry you feel that way.

But I'm pretty satisfied with my answer.

It's not that there's some "'splainin" to do - its that you don't like the explainations. That's fine. I didn't ask you to.

EDIT - by the way, I never said that you said everything needs perfectly protected. My point was that, even if evolution happened in such a way that woman could stop unwanted male penetration that doesn't protect them from assualt or abuse. So that moves your question back. Now its, "well why didn't god make us in such a way where we were protected from that?" And then if that was also give, it would move the question back again, and again, and again. Ultimately, I don't blame God for creating a world of risk.

I don't blame god for a free and risky world in which due to the choices of another, I was abused. I blame the person who made the choice to abuse me for making that choice. And I'm greatful for the comfort I feel from a God who loves me and walks with me through a world of risk. The greatest joys in life are only acheivable as we accept the risk implied in those things. I don't feel upset at god for that, I'm glad to reach out for risky, but wonderful things.


Sel

[trotsky]

17. Would you consider yourself more of a deist then?

Just seems like the more of your responses I read, the more that seems to be the case.

[Selwynn]

18. That's an interesting question -

First of all, I'm drugged up now (flu, remember) so hope this is clear:

I'm no expert on deism. I just wikipedia'd it quickly to refresh myself. I had always understood deism to be about the "clockmaker" god - one who set the world into motion but is then absent from it.

That's not what I believe. I believe that the very nature of what might be appropriately termed "god" eliminates certain "possible" worlds. In other words, god could not create something that would require not-God to create. So it wouldn't even be possible to create a non-free world, because its not possible for God to act in anything other than his nature, which if appropriately approached through the metaphor of love, necessitates freedom as an attribute of actual love.

It is not that I believe God is "absent" from the world; it is that I believe his participatory activity in the world is both constrained by his nature and interpolated in co-creative partnership with his creation and creatures. What I do not believe in is a "sovereign" god, if sovereignty is defined as it is traditionally classically defined.

As I said before, either God's nature is most appropriately described (in anthropomorphic and analogical terms) as love or it is more appropriately described as absolute power - it cannot be both at the same time, because love in its very act and definition, surrenders control, i.e. coercive power and instead chooses risk and vulnerability. It is far more beautiful, as we all know. But it is also far more risky, as we all know.

In my personal life, I know that my friends, especially my deepest most cherished loved ones, do most definitely exert persuasive influence over my life. I definitely know that I have made different decisions, come to different understandings and that my life has been shaped in different (and positive ways) through these relationships. At the same time, my relationship to these dear people doesn't mean that they can coercively control events in my life. That would cease to be love. Ultimately love has to respect the freedom of individuals to make their own decisions.**

In the same way, just because I don't believe God does (or can) coercively control events or persons doesn't mean I don't believe in his relational activity in creation or in my life. It is similar to the lure and influence as my friends and loved ones have in my life.

As I look over the entry for Deism, there are a lot of things that I identify with. At the same time however, it is not the case that I believe in a "watch maker god" who spun the world into being and then is utterly uninvolved in it. Its just that I believe God's activity is not "tyrannical" in nature, but rather partnering.

It is limited in a sense, not by any artificial limit, but rather by the nature of love and what love can and can not do. This does not just include love of human beings or the freedom of human beings, but the freedom of all creation, to live and move and grow and be in freedom - free to heed the luring call of God and also, free to reject it. Love can only be an invitation, not a coercion.

I don't feel I answered any of that as well as I should, but seriously -- my head is spinning right now and I'm going to go lay down. :)
Sel


**Now, depending on how far you want to take the example, clearly we can think of times where friends my coercively stop us from doing something that might be bad for us, like getting in a car drunk, or physically stopping us from killing ourselves. But ultimately, they cannot coercively stop me from making my choices, and in the end if I choose to drive drunk or choose to kill myself, ultimately they will not be able to stop me. A lot of love means after doing everything you can to persuade a person toward a different path, ultimately releasing them - accepting the reality that ultimately you cannot coercively force them to change what their heart is set on. Sometimes love means letting go.

[trotsky]

19. I'm wondering if you believe in any of the bible stories then?

Many (most?) of them involve some degree of coercion on the part of God. Burnt offerings & sacrifices, plagues in Egypt, Jesus healing people, feeding the multitudes, etc. In fact, I'd find it hard to justify belief in miracles period if you don't believe that God uses coercion in the world but plays only a "comforter" role. A miracle, by its very nature, is God interfering with the "normal" course of events to accomplish or show something to his followers and/or detractors. If that isn't a coercion of will, what is?

[Selwynn]

20. I "believe" the bible differently --

I don't believe in a literalistic interpretation of the bible. But the reason I say that isn't in order to have quick and easy cop-out to get around things I don't like. The reason I say that has to with exactly what "believing" the bible means to me. I'm not sure how do to this fair and honestly without a little background:

I personally believe there is something like a spiritual dimension or element to the lives of many. Or perhaps it is something better understood as a capacity and/or need to express one's living experience in religious language. There is a difference between religious language as interpreter of personal experience and religious institutions. I argue that such a personal spiritual dimension to life is natural for many. But religious institutions in all forms are not divine, nor are they natural. They are human made constructs. Religious institutions must not equated to God, infallibility, objectivity or perfection of any idea.

Religious traditions are human beings’ feeble, stuttering, stumbling, culturally centered attempts to describe the nature of their human experiences through exploring the spiritual dimensions of their lives. They are human attempts to craft a description of complicated and often mysterious-yet-genuine life experiences though a religious language mode of expression. At least, that's how it starts. It pretty quickly becomes distorted - as do all human institutions - into a mechanism for power, control or personal agendas, and loses much of its connection to any honest attempt and understanding or expression. .

Because I believe this, I certainly don't have much of a belief that "one" particular religious institution is the divinely appointed, infallible carrier or absolute religious truth to the world. I don't believe a "Christian Church" is the "true Church." I draw strength and inspiration from the traditions of Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and many other man-made language attempts to talk about spiritual things.

All religions say is, “This is what experiencing God is like.” I don’t believe any of them can appropriately say, “This is who or what God is.”

Being man made constructs for approaching deeper truth, all religious traditions are therefore subject to the same fallibility and limitations that all human beings have. Meaning I don't simply accept any teaching from any tradition as authoritative. Ultimately I am the arbiter of what teachings and ideas I believe to contain truth and have value, a decision made from experience blended with reason.

As is the case in any other dimension of our human life, there are very few pat answers, or simple answers, or absolute answers. We are constantly required to evaluate and process the different information we are fed and make the best interpretations based on our understanding of all the elements important to making a decision. The same thing is true when it comes to the many different “doctrines” and things said in religious traditions.

Here’s why I gave all that background:

I don’t see the Bible as god’s top-down revelation to human beings – something “inspired” by God and “delivered” to human beings. I see the Bible as a long record of a human people’s struggling attempts to articulate their religious experience, to understand the nature of the God they believed in, and to grow in understanding. I don’t particularly believe that Jesus literally walked on water or fed 5,000 with next to nothing, or that donkey talked to a person, or that Angels came down and destroyed cities. But I do believe that the stories had theological significance to a certain people coming to understand the nature of their spiritual experience.

So I neither see all bible stories as literally true, nor do I see all that is written as God’s coercive insertion of his unfettered revelation into the lives of human beings. Instead, I see the bible as bottom-up. I see it as a record of human strivings to grow and understand more deeply the nature of their spiritual experience and develop a satisfying language by which to articulate those experiences. As I said, I am not a strict deist that denies all involvement of God in life. And thus I don’t deny God’s involvement in the shaping of scripture.

The differences is, I believe his activity in the lives of those who wrote the texts is no different than his activity in all of our lives – a luring, loving, invitation to move and grow in positive happy ways. It is a kind of revelation of God to human, but it is not a coercive or absolute one – it is a simple and gentle progressive invitation to discover what it is like to experience god in life. So I believe that just like we can, these bible writers were writing the personal spiritual journals of their history, how their thoughts and ideas about God changed and grew.

Because I see the scripture, and indeed all scared texts, in this “bottom-up” way, I don’t usually suspect that stories of miracles or other fantastical things are to be taken literally. Many of the non-literal stories in the bible convey very valuable truth which is in fact trivialized when it is put through the ringer of false literalism.

If I were to say something like "I believe the bible" what I would mean is not "I believe the stories are literally true." It would mean I believe that this record of a people's spiritual seeking and journey - the good, the bad and the ugly - has value to my own life. I believe in its value.

[trotsky]

21. But I thought you considered yourself a Christian?

In pulling from various faiths, do you pull a plurality of your beliefs from Xianity? What tips the scales enough for you to call yourself a Christian?

[Selwynn]

22. This is the most glaring inconsistency in my conversation

I admit that there have been times when I've called myself a Christian. But recently, including during much of the time I've posted here, I've taken to calling myself a religious person, or a person with spiritual beliefs. I find I use the term Christian less and less.

It's disappointing to me, becuase I personally feel that a man like me, who looks at the stories of Jesus in the scriptures and finds value and wisdom in those teachings of compassion and mercy, love and concern for other human beings and desires to live his life by that example, really ought to be called a Christian.

But I'm not stupid - that really isn't what "Christian" means at all in American today, is it? At least not to many people. Not many people would believe I could profess no belief in the divinity of Jesus or in the literalness of things like biblical miracles or other kinds of dogma and rightfully call myself a Christian. Maybe they're right, its hard to say.

I'm certainly not deliberately trying to be hypocritical at the time when I do refer to myself as a Christian. Its just that, personally I feel that I ought to be able to do so. But I doubt most other people think I should be able to do so. So sometimes when I speak I say things they way I feel I ought to be able to say them. And some times when I speak I say things with the acknoweldgement that other people don't think I should say them that way.

I made that thread a long time ago, "what are the essental elements of calling oneself a Christian" or something like that. (found the link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=291&topic_id=323&mesg_id=323)

And I said that there are basically two schools of thought on answering this question: the Dogmatic School and the Relational School. By the relational school of thought, I can call myself a Christian. But by the Dogmatic School of thought, I can not.

[trotsky]

23. I would agree it's an inconsistency, but then so is...

the dogmatic/relational dichotomy.

How, in the relational school of thought, can one truly know what actions, behaviors, thoughts, etc. are "Christ-like" if one does not first dogmatically accept at least a portion of the bible? You have to believe that Jesus really did say things like "Love your neighbor as yourself," don't you?

[Selwynn]

24. No, not really

You have to believe that the statement "love your neighbor as yourself" is valuable/appropriate.

So, if Jesus had actually never said that, I would still consider it valuable and appropriate. As I said in the relational explanation, you look at the stories of Jesus that are written and the ideas and statements attributed to them and find them to be informative, valuable, meaningful, or some way relevant to quality living. It's not that I find value in them because Jesus really did say them. I find value in them because I believe they are appropriate and meaningful principles by which I want to live my life.

When I was 21 I read Hermann Hess's Demian. I read that right as I was coming of age in my own heart and mind, and that book seriously changed my life, or at least set the course of my life for years to come. That book contained some things that struck me as immensely valuable wisdom and ideas which definitely pointed toward truth for me. That story was fiction. It's meaning, value and impact was not in any way diminished because of the fact that Hermann Hesse created the characters as literary vehicles by which to drive the story.

The same is true about the bible. You're not trying to pattern your life after a literal man who lived centuries ago that we know next to nothing about. You're opening a book, reading a story, discovering that you believe it to contain wisdom and valuable insight into living, and deciding to pattern your own life around deepening attitudes of compassion and healthy, happy relationships with others.

Sel

[trotsky]

25. If that's what it comes down to, aren't you a secular humanist?

http://www.secularhumanism.org/intro/affirmations.html

After all, you're just patterning your personal philosophy on the words of fellow humans, right?

[Selwynn]

26. I used to be a contributing member of the American Humanist Association

And I agree with 90% of the tenants of the Humanist Manifesto. However, I have a few strong points of disagreement with its statement on Religion. I don't agree with their equation of god with supernatural "being," I don't agree with there subsequent claim that therefore belief in the supernatural (which while I wouldn't call it super-natural, I understand that by this they just mean God) is either meaningless or irrelevant to the question of human survival and fulfillment.

I disagree that attempts to reinterpret religious language and reinvest in religious interpretations meaningful and appropriate to current situations only perpetuate old wrong dependencies and escapisms. Obviously I don't believe in the phrase "no deity will save us; we must save ourselves." While I certainly would not reverse that and say, "there is nothing we can do for over selves, only a deity will save us," I've been saying all along that I believe in the participatory relationship between human and the divine.

I don't agree with the very strong and staunch rejection of the idea of life after death, nor the assumption that in all cases, such a belief can only be harmful. While I agree too many people allow such a belief to take them irresponsibly out of focus on this world, it is not always the case. Further more, the subject of the afterlife is not a subject on which science can ever have evidence it is outside the scope of empirical data. So simply saying "we have no evidence of it therefore I don't believe it" is silly. I neither believe nor disbelieve in an afterlife. It is not something that can be known.

What I do agree with, is the opening introduction of the Humanist Manifesto I in a paragraph that says:

There is great danger of a final, and we believe fatal, identification of the word religion with doctrines and methods which have lost their significance and which are powerless to solve the problem of human living in the Twentieth Century. Religions have always been means for realizing the highest values of life. Their end has been accomplished through the interpretation of the total environing situation (theology or world view), the sense of values resulting therefrom (goal or ideal), and the technique (cult), established for realizing the satisfactory life. A change in any of these factors results in alteration of the outward forms of religion. This fact explains the changefulness of religions through the centuries. But through all changes religion itself remains constant in its quest for abiding values, an inseparable feature of human life.

HM I goes on to argue that in the twentieth century, no previous articulation of religion was adequate any longer, in the face of modern advance in knowledge, science, philosophy and reason. Therefore a new religious interpretation should be created - one built on the pillars of reason and inquiry. Or as the document says:

While this age does owe a vast debt to the traditional religions, it is none the less obvious that any religion that can hope to be a synthesizing and dynamic force for today must be shaped for the needs of this age. To establish such a religion is a major necessity of the present. It is a responsibility which rests upon this generation.

I agree very much that a new religious articulation is very much needed which uproots the archaic and corrupted vestiges of traditional religious institutions and lays in its place a foundation for a new and more holistic understanding, ground in a marriage of reason and experience. The difference however is that I do not reject the notion of God as part of that articulation.

Though I agree with much of the ideas and philosophy of the American Humanist Association, I finally let my membership expire. The reason I did was because I had hoped that the magazines and newsletters from the groups would be focused on social issues, humanitarian concerns, poverty, education, non-violence, a more humanistic and responsible foreign policy, and be generally inclusive-oriented material. After a year and a half, what dominated the material was nothing more than tired rants about religion. Every issue was an issue of religion vs. humanism, when I don't think that humanism and religion need necessarily be seen as adversaries. I got fed up and disappointed.

But I have a very warm place in my heart for much of secular and religious humanist literature. I own Corliss Lamonts Philosophy of Humanism, and a book I like even better, A Practical Defense of Secular Humanism. I also own a book for selected writings by a group of Religious Humanist authors, including Annie Dillard who I love. I also believe that some of the best and most beautiful streams of early Christianity were toward a Christian Humanism such as that of Erasmus. I deeply value and esteem the role of the human being in creating our destiny. I just believe that role is one of co-creative partnership with the divine life.

Sel

[Stunster]

16. Be scientifically specific and complete

* The human female reproductive system could have been designed to make penetration impossible without consent by the woman. That would make rape (at least vaginal rape) impossible. Heck, God coulda put teeth in there and achieve the same effective result!

* Design a superior immune system that could consistently identify and destroy cancer cells.


How do you know that the human female reproductive system could have been designed to make nonconsensual penetration impossible? How do you know that a superior immune system could have been designed that would consistently destroy cancer cells?

Because you can imagine it?

I doubt that's a sufficient ground for thinking so. I can imagine a 'man' who is 3 lightyears tall, can fly through space at the speed of light, and never dies. But is such a thing physically possible? I very much doubt it. For one thing, Einstein's theory of relativity says that nothing with finite mass can accelerate to attain the speed of light. Now, I'm not an expert on relativity, but I would suppose Einstein had pretty good reasons for thinking this. In particular, such a thing would be inconsistent with the relevant equations.

Ok, so let's go back to human females being nonconsensually penetrated. To have a human female, you have to have human DNA. So, I'm guessing that in order to effect the change you seek, you'd need to alter the DNA. How would you do that? I mean specify the DNA alteration that would produce the desired effect. But that's not all you'd have to do. In order to get DNA in the first place, certain things have to be true of the way atoms and molecules interact. DNA can be viewed as simply a product of the way atoms and molecules interact under certain circumstances, which circumstances are themselves the products of the laws of physics. So, to get them to interact differently, so as to produce a different kind of DNA, you'd have to alter the laws of physics. Which ones would you alter, and how, specifically? And what other consequences would these alterations make? Similar questions apply to the immune system and cancer case.

What I'm asking for, in other words, is a fully specified scientific account of what alternative physics/chemistry/biology would be needed to bring about the superior properties in the biological systems you refer to, plus a calculation of the total further consequences that would follow from such changes. The reason I ask is because it has been frequently noted by leading scientists that even rather tiny changes in various properties of the laws, constants, and initial conditions governing the evolution of the physical universe would render life impossible altogether. There is a large literature on this.

You see, I don't think it's rational to say of some design that a superior one could have been implemented if you have no idea how the supposedly superior design is really possible. Just imagining a superior design doesn't demonstrate that it's logically, mathematically, metaphysically or physically possible. Nor does it demonstrate that nothing else would become inferior if you altered the
physics in the ways needed to produce your particular superior design.