Doubt

[Maggyie]

I'm sorry you feel that I was being unfair to you.  I stated facts about the Shroud of Turin.  When I said that quote about believers and unbelievers, I said this because I can't help you, to pass it off to other Phatmassers who can.  Please do not address me on this thread of "Doubt" again.

 

Personally I think the Shroud of Turin is a fake. It is still a pious and holy object but it's not Jesus' face, I don't think.

 

God's existence does not depend on the miraculous - to me the proof that God exists is the evidence His grace in my life.

[Freedom]

Personally I think the Shroud of Turin is a fake. It is still a pious and holy object but it's not Jesus' face, I don't think.

 

The Shroud of Turin is not fake.

[Freedom]

Scientists link the Shroud's images to a resurrection event.

Ray Rogers: "The only way that such an idea can be understood within the known laws of nature is as matter converting to energy. This is expressed by Einstein's celebrated e=mc² equation of equivalence. And understood that way, conversion of the matter in a human body to energy (what else) would produce energy equivalent to a nuclear explosion several thousand times as great as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima."  !!!!

Read more, click below..

http://www.shroudstory.com/faq-miracle.htm

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[Freedom]

That was a bad link...

 

 

In a stunning announcement, scientists say the Shroud of Turin, the alleged burial robe of Jesus Christ, is most likely authentic.

Why it would be 'impossible' to fake

[Maggyie]

 

Scientists link the Shroud's images to a resurrection event.

 

 

 

This is off topic but there are many eminent historians who argue on the contrary. I believe the shroud was carbon dated to the 1200s.

 

Regardless, it is certainly an amazing piece of art. And regardless it's authenticity doesn't affect whether Jesus actually rose from the dead.

[Freedom]

Who made it off topic?

[4588686]

You say, "accepting the way things are" but that's the problem - you nor I don't know with any certainty the way things are. What we call "reality" is just an illusion based on our perceptions in a world without an ultimate metaphysical reality, and a world without God is a world without the possibility of a such a metaphysical reality.

 

Jeffers belief system is anti-humanist. He doesn't believe we can just live in the same comfortable way as before if the traditional idea of God.

 

Or to use Sartre again:

 

And when we speak of “abandonment” – a favorite word of Heidegger – we only mean to say that God does not exist, and that it is necessary to draw the consequences of his absence right to the end. The existentialist is strongly opposed to a certain type of secular moralism which seeks to suppress God at the least possible expense. Towards 1880, when the French professors endeavoured to formulate a secular morality, they said something like this: God is a useless and costly hypothesis, so we will do without it. However, if we are to have morality, a society and a law-abiding world, it is essential that certain values should be taken seriously; they must have an a priori existence ascribed to them. It must be considered obligatory a priori to be honest, not to lie, not to beat one’s wife, to bring up children and so forth; so we are going to do a little work on this subject, which will enable us to show that these values exist all the same, inscribed in an intelligible heaven although, of course, there is no God. In other words – and this is, I believe, the purport of all that we in France call radicalism – nothing will be changed if God does not exist; we shall rediscover the same norms of honesty, progress and humanity, and we shall have disposed of God as an out-of-date hypothesis which will die away quietly of itself. The existentialist, on the contrary, finds it extremely embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with Him all possibility of finding values in an intelligible heaven. There can no longer be any good a priori, since there is no infinite and perfect consciousness to think it. It is nowhere written that “the good” exists, that one must be honest or must not lie, since we are now upon the plane where there are only men. Dostoevsky once wrote: “If God did not exist, everything would be permitted”; and that, for existentialism, is the starting point. Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself. He discovers forthwith, that he is without excuse. For if indeed existence precedes essence, one will never be able to explain one’s action by reference to a given and specific human nature; in other words, there is no determinism – man is free, man is freedom. Nor, on the other hand, if God does not exist, are we provided with any values or commands that could legitimise our behaviour. Thus we have neither behind us, nor before us in a luminous realm of values, any means of justification or excuse. – We are left alone, without excuse. That is what I mean when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment that he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does. The existentialist does not believe in the power of passion. He will never regard a grand passion as a destructive torrent upon which a man is swept into certain actions as by fate, and which, therefore, is an excuse for them. He thinks that man is responsible for his passion. Neither will an existentialist think that a man can find help through some sign being vouchsafed upon earth for his orientation: for he thinks that the man himself interprets the sign as he chooses. He thinks that every man, without any support or help whatever, is condemned at every instant to invent man. As Ponge has written in a very fine article, “Man is the future of man.” That is exactly true. Only, if one took this to mean that the future is laid up in Heaven, that God knows what it is, it would be false, for then it would no longer even be a future. If, however, it means that, whatever man may now appear to be, there is a future to be fashioned, a virgin future that awaits him – then it is a true saying. But in the present one is forsaken.

 

Just to qualify - Sartre seems to imply Divine Command theory (that the arbitrary will of God is in the old sense goodness) but in the old model the God of Abraham and the God of Plato and Aristotle are the same, so God's will is not arbitrary but the manifestation of Love. I think that, under your model, there is no possibility of metaphysical truth, and that is what I mean when I say you cannot construct "meaning" because to me meaning is synonymous with telos in the Aristotelian sense.

 

The problem with Sartre is doesn't really go far enough - though he is right in his essentials, he still in the end tries to reconstruct an excuse for life to go on at all just like those he criticizes.

 

What I doubt are simply matters of fact, i.e. the Resurrection, the Fall, etc. I don't feel I know enough to even make a probabilistic evaluation of the veracity of these things, so I can only go with what seems best to me without knowing if I am right.

 

Also, while I appreciate your taking the time to respond, I came to this site to get away from the discourses of secularism and agnosticism and engage with people who share the faith I feel is weak in me. So I would rather not continue this debate. If you what you believe makes you feel good, all the more power to you, but it will not work for me.

 

 

 

Near the end of his life Hitchens made the interesting point that, no, Trotsky could not have saved the USSR and turned it into a genuinely humane system.  The best he could hope to implement had he won the politburo power struggles was a more benign form of Stalinism.  That is because, external realities being what they were, there was no way the revolution could be saved from the White Generals and Imperialist powers without things like some form of collectivism and disciplining of labor.  The Soviet Union saved it's political reality but lost any distinctively socialistic (the absence of private property is not unique to socialism) features and became an authoritarian state like any other.  Hitchens concluded by noting that the last chance that Trotsky had to save any moral legitimacy in the revolution was in 1905.  Before WWI.  

 

History doesn't have any determined direction (sorry, Marxists) and teleology is just a very comforting myth.  There isn't any meaning in a fixed sense with a God or without.  If things are good because God wills them to be good then they are arbitrary and rape could be positively moral tomorrow, if God were to will it.  If morality is determined by God's essence, his essence and will being the same, then it still pretty flimsy.  God can't be any other way and therefore goodness is constant but that still seems pretty meaningless since sin and goodness to others is really only important because of it's relation to God, ultimately.  

[Freedom]

 

This is off topic but there are many eminent historians who argue on the contrary. I believe the shroud was carbon dated to the 1200s.

 

Regardless, it is certainly an amazing piece of art. And regardless it's authenticity doesn't affect whether Jesus actually rose from the dead.

 

 

An amazing piece of art work?  Puulease!  You are a misinformed person and unwilling to be informed.  The Shroud has been examined for decades by the highest ranking scientists and was proclaimed authentic by all of them and the majority of them were atheists.      

[Kevin]

 If morality is determined by God's essence, his essence and will being the same, then it still pretty flimsy.  God can't be any other way and therefore goodness is constant but that still seems pretty meaningless since sin and goodness to others is really only important because of it's relation to God, ultimately.  

 

I'm not sure how it is flimsy. First, the idea that God "can't be any other way" puts God within the context of time - but God exists absolutely.

 

Secondly, sin and goodness to others are not only important because of their relation to God, or at least to revelation. Goodness can be arrived at with the light of human reason, as seen in Plato and Aristotle. There is no "relation" in the first place because, again, God's goodness (essence) and his existence (being God) are the same thing.

 

If you have determined teleology is wrong and that purpose is a myth, then I pity you your conclusion. At the very least, I feel if I drew such a conclusion at this point, it would be for the wrong reasons, so I will not do it. However, I really did not come here to debate theology. If you are trying to convince me of the incoherence of the idea of God's existence, you will not do it.

 

Actually, I think I have gotten all I can out of this thread, so I will just leave it alone for awhile. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me. I will try to get in touch with a councilor, spiritual or otherwise.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2012 by Kevin

[Gabriela]

I haven't been through all the posts on this, so pardon me if someone else has already said this, but the only way to get faith is to ask God to give it to you. I learned the hard way (your way). I spent 31 years trying to rationalize my way to faith. It was quite tortuous. No matter how much I read, studied, argued, researched, and thought, I couldn't convince myself. I eventually got so desperate that I just went to church one day and begged God to give me faith. I told Him I'd harass Him for it until I die. That I'm not giving up this time. That I will not go away. I did that every day for several months, and then, suddenly, I realized I believed. Just a little. ;-) But it keeps growing (and I keep asking!). :-)

 

What I learned from that experience is that faith is not generated out of reason. It exists just beyond reason. I imagine it like a ladder, on which the fourth rung, say, is reason, and the fifth rung is faith. I have to actually step off of the fourth rung in order to stand on the fifth one.

 

So, you know, ask. (And be shameless about it, cuz otherwise He might not take you seriously!)

[Guest]

What's up brother...I had stuff happen 10 or so years ago that left me without a doubt of a creator. I will make this short I'm in a hurry. Before my bestfriends brother died in a drunkdriving accident I woke up a week earlier and said "jeff is gonna die"right when waking up. I remember this still like it happened yesterday. The day he got in the crash he was supposed to come pick me up but never did.Around this time I read most of the Bible and was not sure if I believed it was authentic. I prayed to " god" with all I had to let me know if he was the God of the bible and if it was true. I believed in a creator at this point just wasn't sure of who he was. Anyhow after that a few events took place that left me without a doubt of his existence and I will never be without faith. I might wind up in hell becausxe I'm a very sinful person. But I will never be without faith. I won't. Include these events in here because I don't want to be mocked and some will thing I'm making them up. I would share in a personal message if you would like. But ya all of this led me to faith and a 100 percent belief in God. Also I think when you look at stuff like ghost and spirts and energy it seems to most likely be real and happening. And all the near death experiences. I think this almost prooves that there is something beyond this. Anyhow prayers and Godbless.

Edited December 2, 2012 by Guest

[Guest]

Double

Edited December 2, 2012 by Guest

[Maggyie]

An amazing piece of art work?  Puulease!  You are a misinformed person and unwilling to be informed.  The Shroud has been examined for decades by the highest ranking scientists and was proclaimed authentic by all of them and the majority of them were atheists.      

 

No. Not all of them. See here and here.

 

As one of the articles says, Carbon dating in the 1990s suggested it dates from the Middle Ages.

 

It could be real; it could be fake. My personal opinion is that it's a pious fraud, the same way letters from Pilate and other documents were created. We can still profit spiritually from meditating on the Shroud of course. Until Jesus comes back and tells us if it's real or not, there will be controversy about it. You're very sensitive about this for some reason? This has nothing to do with faith and morals.

 

It's not the silver bullet the OP is looking for. Truly there is no silver bullet - as pps have said, faith goes hand in hand with doubt.

[Freedom]

It's real, Doubting Thomas.

 

http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/scientists-determine-the-shroud-of-turin/

[Nihil Obstat]

The article you linked to does not cite primary sources. The source it cites does not cite primary sources. One of the sources that the cited article cited finally linked to the actual study, which is in Italian.

Frankly, I want to see what the original research actually said. Anyone here speak fluent enough Italian to translate a scientific study?