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Rose, I'm trying to be incredibly decent about it. My position: if you had an experience of some kind with Jesus and you feel great about it that's....well, great! But it is completely disparate to my position that there is no reason to believe Jesus will lead a person to God like you apparently believe he did, because there is no evidence on an earthly level that the gospels Jesus was even real. On the contrary, in my other current thread I have laid out a small mountain of evidence why we can believe the gospels Jesus was a myth. So what you and Mystic believe you experienced with Jesus would not be acknowledged by science as anything more than a powerful hallucination--because science doesn't recognize actual supernatural experiences with a spiritual being. So you trying to convince me that I might have a "coming to the knowledge of the truth that Jesus is real" moment simply is never going to happen unless he appears to me in a way that science would recognize as a real experience. Did you happen to read my blurb that science sees that when a person is high on coke and when they are high on Jesus, on an MRI both light up the EXACT same centers of the brain that control the release of dopamine and endorphins--the brain's "Feel-good" chemicals?
"Believing in God can trigger the same reward regions of the brain as taking drugs
Brain scans have shown that religious experiences activate the same neural systems as drug taking"
So you can see that Jesus is just a drug no different than coke for people--because it stimulates the exact same regions of the brain as cocaine and heroin--the brain's "pleasure centers". The phrase, "Getting high on Jesus" is exactly the right way to express it.
Putting aside your rabid anti-Christian cynicism for a minute, which is the safer, least destructive, and most beneficial way to get a "high," Thrill???
"If it sounds repugnant, disgusting, vomit-inducing, gut-wrenching, savage, brutal, merciless, horrendous, barbaric, cruel, did I mention savage and brutal then it's being taken out of context."
I wonder if Richard Dawkins is being taken out of context when he calls Yahweh
Putting aside your rabid anti-Christian cynicism for a minute, which is the safer, least destructive, and most beneficial way to get a "high," Thrill???
You missed my other post, Mystic, where I said I'd much MUCH rather people shoot up Jesus than fentanyl or coke because then they won't be breaking into my house and threatening my family but instead will be tripping in Church where everybody is safe--that is until a bunch of wild-eyed Christian lunatics from Westboro breaks in and fire bombs the joint.
Jesus is a kind of schizophrenic double-edged sword. He makes wide-eyed, wild-eyed screaming fanatics out of lots of people, but others he puts into a sort of dopey, mellow, droopy-eyed daze where they mostly sit around a bonfire and sing "His name is wonderful", smiling with arms outstretched to heaven. I'll definitely settle for the latter bunch any day, thank you.
PS I used to be a member of that dopey, mellow, droopy-eyed group of Christians that sat around a bonfire singing "His name is wonderful", smiling with arms outstretched to heaven.
Hah! As in what Christians are always shouting to non-believers: "If you don't believe in Jesus when you stand before him at the last judgement he will condemn you to hell for not believing in him and accepting him as your Lord and savior." To that I say
Ah. So you DON'T know what it means to "believe" in Jesus. Go it!
The proof is in the pudding, Mink. You and I can argue "context" until the cows come home but the real story is the declining numbers of Christians in 1st World countries like the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. Please explain to me why who many millions are ditching Christianity if Jesus is so great, without defaulting to "Yeah, but in Africa and Asia Christianity is growing." That doesn't answer my question.
Whoa, why doesn't it matter that Christianity is growing in places other than 1st world countries? Don't those people in Asia and Africa count? Do you somehow believe that those in Africa and Asia only count as 3/5ths of a WHOLE person?
And HOW is it determined that Christianity is declining anyway? WHO determines it, and WHAT criteria are 'they' using...or that YOU are using to make that conclusion?
Whoa, why doesn't it matter that Christianity is growing in places other than 1st world countries? Don't those people in Asia and Africa count? Do you somehow believe that those in Africa and Asia only count as 3/5ths of a WHOLE person?
And HOW is it determined that Christianity is declining anyway? WHO determines it, and WHAT criteria are 'they' using...or that YOU are using to make that conclusion?
Because people who are joining have absolutely nothing to do with people who are leaving. But it's always a convenient dodge to evade answering the real question I ask which you just did, clever girl.
Now tell me, Mink, if Jesus is so great and so fulfilling, then why are millions of people LEAVING him?
Whoa, why doesn't it matter that Christianity is growing in places other than 1st world countries? Don't those people in Asia and Africa count? Do you somehow believe that those in Africa and Asia only count as 3/5ths of a WHOLE person?
And HOW is it determined that Christianity is declining anyway? WHO determines it, and WHAT criteria are 'they' using...or that YOU are using to make that conclusion?
Because people who are joining have absolutely nothing to do with people who are leaving. But it's always a convenient dodge to evade answering the real question I ask which you just did, clever girl.
Now tell me, Mink, if Jesus is so great and so fulfilling, then why are millions of people LEAVING him?
"In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace"
I do not see religion as some sort of neutral tabula rasa that does not encourage anything harmful or discourage anything helpful. Most religions are based on a set of not only unproven, but unprovABLE assertions. To whatever degree an adherent isn't simply suspending disbelief and playing along with these assertions, but actually accepts them as truth (or even as Truth), I think all sorts of mischief comes of that.
First of all, most "religions" are about a certain philosophy; not merely 'assertions'.
And lastly, I believe that there ARE some universal truths, in the sense that if EVERYONE applied them, this world would be a better place. Take the 10 Commandments, for example. Even if 'we' eliminated the ones about how to treat God, and focused on the rest of them, wouldn't this world be better?
Before you answer that, consider this: Jesus didn't just give us a list of "do's" and "don'ts". I believe he was giving us...or at least, trying to give us... a rationalebehind the operative 'laws'. Take the whole adultery 'thing' for a moment. People who commit adultery don't simply do it without thought. As much as some claim, "It just happened", it didn't just happen. There were other events/thoughts and beliefs that lead up to that point. And those beliefs usually have to do with our own selfish desires...which Jesus warned us about. We often make ourselves out to be little 'gods' unto our own lives, and THAT'S the cause of so much strife.
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Of course it is entirely possible to be divorced from reality without religion's help, or I would be likely to suppose that eliminating religion would solve that particular problem. It is a somewhat subjective exercise to wonder how much of extreme right-wing US politics for example is dependent on religiously-mediated drivers and how much of it has a life of its own. It may be that religion was the catalyst that jump started that stuff in the US and is no longer a significant input. It is possible it could have happened on its own. I has my suspicions, you might say, but I don't really know for a fact and I am not sure anyone can conclusively demonstrate that.
I think it depends on how one sees religion. But let me just say this: Adam and Eve felt the same way. That is, that God may have been in their lives to a point, but they got to a point where they no longer believed that they needed God. They could be their own 'god' in their lives. Yeah? How's THAT going?
To me, I wouldn't be here, typing to you, if it wasn't for God...who I DO see as the Creator of life.
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But let's put it in another realm. Humans have enslaved other humans for as far back as we can see. Assuming for the sake of argument that religion has had no part in that practice, what part has it has in raising up opposition to it?
See, I don't make that assumption. But I also don't see 'slavery' back then, as being the terrible thing that it was in Colonial times in the US.
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Has it ever been used to excuse it? Sure, you can find some Christians who fought slavery in the 19th century, but you can also find plenty of Christians who invoked the Biblical "curse of Ham" and other doctrines to justify it. The British expunged slavery sooner than we did, and I read once that those activists seeking its elimination from Britain were dismayed to find little in Holy Writ that opposes it; in fact it pretty much assumes it as a "given" and tells you, not to liberate your slaves, but how to be a good slave-owner -- even going so far as to offer rules about beating them to within an inch of their lives. Hence the spectacle of some Christians today trying to claim that slavery in Bible times wasn't the same thing as slavery today. As IF. So those activists were reduced to appealing to Christians, not on the basis of being true to scripture, but on more indirect moral grounds.
Yes, slavery was in the Bible. But the Bible isn't only about 'what to do'...it's also about what NOT to do.
The very idea that you so detest slavery can be said that this is, in part, what the Bible is about.
Let me ask you a question. WHO in the Bible questioned God about slavery? Some people DID question God, but never about slavery. WHY not? Moses questioned God. So did Abraham. And God didn't 'strike them down' because they did.
Perhaps slavery 'had to be' so people such as yourself get angry about it. See the injustice. Learn about "doing unto others."
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So even where one can plausibly argue that theism did not START a problem or even overtly PROMOTE it, neither did it see it as a great moral wrong. The immorality of slavery was in large measure a modern secular innovation, not a purely religious one. And that's being charitable. If religion weren't always "leading from behind" like this, I'd be more impressed with its salubrious influence on society. As it is -- not so much.
Slavery has to do with, once again, a certain hubris. I "deserve" to have someone else lesser than me, cater to the whims that I detest.
Get rid of the hubris, you get rid of slavery. And THAT'S what Christ was trying to tell us.
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