4588686 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 God is love. Nice try. But that would mean that God lives dudes and that's against the Bible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theculturewarrior Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 How does he not know how to define love? That is a failure of secular humanism. He's still my favorite all-time intellectual. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
4588686 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 How does he not know how to define love? That is a failure of secular humanism. He's still my favorite all-time intellectual. I don't think Chomsky would describe himself as a secular humanist. And I don't see how not being able to define something constitutes a failure. Saying 'God is love' is not really meaningful at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theculturewarrior Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 I don't think Chomsky would describe himself as a secular humanist. And I don't see how not being able to define something constitutes a failure. Saying 'God is love' is not really meaningful at all. Love, happiness and suffering are integral to my next thread on why I am no longer an atheist. I am just trying to find the focus to sit down and type it out. I do believe that God is love. I don't expect Noam Chomsky to agree but when an MIT linguist draws a blank, well, maybe they caught him off guard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Saying 'God is love' is not really meaningful at all. Maybe to you it's not meaningful but that doesn't mean to everyone else. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freedom Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Nice try. But that would mean that God loves dudes and that's against the Bible. With all due respect, this is to me totally incomprehensible Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Noel's angel Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 "Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt." I have experienced difficulties with faith, but not doubt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BG45 Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Something I once heard in a conversation was, "Blessed are those who never doubt, because they've either got the greatest faith of us all, or because they're liars in need of blessing." I've struggled with doubt, and sometimes still do, more than I would ever care to admit. Especially in regards to death. I can believe in a life after death all I want, I can believe that one day I'll hopefully go to Heaven. But if I try to conceptualize the sheer amount of time that is eternity, to truly try and comprehend just how vast it is...it's not really conducive to my spiritual or emotional health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 Something I once heard in a conversation was, "Blessed are those who never doubt, because they've either got the greatest faith of us all, or because they're liars in need of blessing." Hey, I take exception to that. Some of us are just really really stupid. :| Heh. Jk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basilisa Marie Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 If you really want to go down that road, the only thing that you can be sure of is that you are conscious. Cogito Ergo Sum. That's it. Nothing else. Eventually I came to the decision that even if this is all just a stupid game, or that none of my beliefs are actually real or true, this is still the way I want to play the game. Ultimately, any answer you have to the questions about God and meaning and purpose are going to require some degree of faith and hope. Maybe the atheists are right. Maybe the Mormons. Being Catholic brings me the most fulfillment in life. Studying Catholicism and harvesting more souls for the Catholic Church makes me happy. What makes you happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theculturewarrior Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 The doubts that I have experienced over the years primarily come from the treatment that I have received vs. what the Church actually teaches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted December 13, 2012 Share Posted December 13, 2012 (edited) In my experience doubt is more about fear. I wouldn't be so worried about doubt if there wasn't the fear around which Christianity revolves...the coming judgment. I look around and I see people dying every day, maybe they have some vague belief in god, but they are normal people, who lived, had kids, maybe had some wild times in their day, maybe are on their third marriage. What is death like for these people? And if one is going to look at them in supernatural / cosmic terms, then there's not much room for hope. They're probably in hell. I think the contemporary Christian emphasis on mercy has some comforting qualities, but it's the emphasis of a church that has learned to get along with the world over 2,000 years. It's not the emphasis of the early church, where it wasn't even clear whether one could be forgiven more than once after baptism. Being a Christian in those days was no light matter, it was a cosmic decision fraught with great risk and reward. Today, being Christian is about getting to Mass once a week and giving to the annual bishop's drive, attending NFP classes, and being thankful that god blessed you with a nice middle class existence. Is the Christian fear a good thing? I think of something like lust. Now, I don't want to dismiss the traditional christian conception of chastity, celibacy, etc. It has its positive merits as a chapter in the human story. But is a little animal lust really wrong? Is it really against human nature? I recently discovered Meat Loaf, he has a great line in the song "Bat Out Of Hell" which is about a mean biker trying to ride out of hell, "but like a sinner before the gates of heaven I'll come crawling back to you" (i.e., to his lady friend). I think of the kind of lust Walt Whiman wrote about. Can one imagine a world where there is respect for monogamy and self-control without discounting completely the flash of lust that occurs on random nights in history, the moment of passion with a strange woman, the artist and his less than conventional life. Should we quake for these things and the coming judgment? Or are they just part of the human story? I don't know. But I think one can understand humanity, and respect all its manifestations and contradictions and experiments, and just accept it all. But it's hard to do that in the Christian narrative...because the Christian narrative imposes a definite morality and a cosmic order that is playing itself out through history. I find it hard to believe in all that anymore. Yet, that's mainly because death is a far off fantasy. If I were facing death tomorrow, would I be willing to die and accept all that? The fear would have to be reckoned with, for if the cosmic narrative is true, I am on my way to judgment. And I daresay that the beauty of the Walt Whitmans and Meat Loafs of the world would have to be renounced. Do we die, like animals, never to exist anymore? Is there some "soul" existence that is not tied to our religious myths? Is there some god out there in some vague sense that the world is divine? Is the Son of God waiting on the other side of death to judge me? I don't know. But when the fear is let go, the doubt isn't so scary. Is a Buddhist conception of the afterlife so bad? The Indian? Is it so bad to imagine one self becoming one with the wind? Or reincarnated into a caterpillar? Or reunited with one's loved ones, even those who were married three times? Is it such a monstrous sin to fail at marriage and find love with someone else? I don't know. Sorry, I don't have the answers. Edited December 13, 2012 by Era Might Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maggyie Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Today, being Christian is about getting to Mass once a week and giving to the annual bishop's drive, attending NFP classes, and being thankful that god blessed you with a nice middle class existence. This isn't true for most Christians, as the majority of them do not live in first world nations or enjoy middle class existences. I agree with BasiliaMarie that ultimately even if it's all fluff, you have to pick how you want to play the game, and this is my favorite way. It's not worth worrying about, really - if it's true or it's not true, how are you going to change it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Era Might Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 (edited) This isn't true for most Christians, as the majority of them do not live in first world nations or enjoy middle class existences. No, but it's understood that they should, ideally. Hence the church's advocacy of "development" in the third world. The masses of christians have never represented the "official" face of the church. Hence, first world shock when they hear of strange goings on among christians in the third world like failing to "inculturate" by the books, or the persistence of superstition and syncretism. Edited December 14, 2012 by Era Might Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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