Originally Posted By plpeters70 <<This is by no means a universal belief, at least not in the sense that it's practiced by the fundamentalists.>> All the fundamentalists I've ever known have claimed such - but I admit I've only ever known a small sample.
Originally Posted By mawnck >>Not to pry to much into your belief system, but I'm curious - do you believe in a type of "hell" for those that are evil? << I honestly don't know about this one, other than it makes sense that if God is good, then evil is the opposite and should be punished somehow. We know that it doesn't necessarily happen in this life, so how then? Fiery lake? Demon torment? Justin Bieber concert? Who knows? Not our problem, though, if we've been redeemed by Jesus Christ (whether literally or in a more general, spiritual sort of sense). That said, I'm not real keen on the "scared straight" tactic when it comes to religion, but it seems to work on a whole lot of people, for good or bad. >>All the fundamentalists I've ever known have claimed such<< Yeah, that's what I mean, and same here. It's the non-fundy Protestants that don't necessarily subscribe to this.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <"The Lord works in mysterious ways" is a trite but accurate description of my belief in this regard. And I see no conflict between praising God for good things while not blaming him for the bad. That goes to the nature of God Himself, which is not about *physical* intervention at all, good or bad.> That's pretty much where I am. mawnck and I seem pretty close in our basic philosophy here - though I'm not speaking for you, dude! (And you may disagree after reading what follows.) Even when I was a teenager it never made sense to me that if, say, you had two sets of parents with sick children, and each prayed equally hard and sincerely, that one would get well and one would die. (Or perhaps they both would die and the child with non-praying parents would get well.) Why would God fulfill the prayer of the first family but not the second? Eventually I came 'round to the "great clockmaker" theory. Essentially that means that God created the universe, set it in motion, and now mostly stays out of it, leaving us to our own devices. What happens in the world beyond this one is another question, but on this one we are left to our own devices and God does not intervene. I really don't think that God picks the lottery winners, or gives two shakes if the Packers beat the Bears or vice versa (despite all the thanks He receives afterwards from the winning team), and I do think that extends even to something as tragic as a sick child (or allowing the Holocaust to happen). I do think prayer can be a great solace in that situation, and that positive thinking by the patient himself can be very helpful, but I think that the virus or bacteria or cancer (say) involved are going to do their thing regardless. This was once probably a more prevalent way of looking at things than it is today. It's closely related to Deism, and many of the great Enlightenment thinkers subscribed to it. It probably reached its peak then.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***PS - When I said "thank you for phrasing it like that," what I was referring to was your saying that ***many*** religious folks make the claim. Thus I didn't feel lumped in*** Oh, okay. Sorry I misread that, then. And I'm glad you felt that way, I've been trying to be careful with my phrasing on this one.
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Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance I feel like the first video posted was silly/posted somewhat in jest, even if the questions are fair to ask, but the 3 that I posted after that are much better in the info they discuss.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>but the 3 that I posted after that are much better in the info they discuss<< Did you look into the story of Horus to see if it lined up with what they claimed it did? It was presented as "THE" story and yet there seems to be a whole lot of stories, versions, interpretations. Doesn't that bother you, when something that has multiple interpretations is presented as if it were a settled matter, because someone wants to make a point? Suppose I am a climate change denier. I start off my video with "We all know that this winter was very cold..." Well, where? What does it mean over a longer period of time? Is it the coldest winter ever? What's the trend? But if I start my video in a simplistic way, whatever data that follows becomes iffy or at least worth double-checking. These videos are not objective. They are created by people with a point of view, and the videos are in service of that point of view. And they're setting out to do the impossible -- to "prove" that God doesn't exist. No one (alive) knows for sure.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I think, more specifically, that the videos were designed to prove that Jesus didn't exist and that his story was part of a similar mythology that encompassed numerous cultures throughout the region. "Did you look into the story of Horus to see if it lined up with what they claimed it did? It was presented as "THE" story and yet there seems to be a whole lot of stories, versions, interpretations." I did, and the general consensus seems to be that, yes, there are a lot of parallels, particularly the virgin birth and references to Horus being a "savior".
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I think, more specifically, that the videos were designed to prove that Jesus didn't exist<< I don't think they succeeded. How could they? Plant doubt? Okay. Prove? Not so much. I found several stories about the conception of Horus, and no consensus. Including his mother being impregnated by fish.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance "Doesn't that bother you, when something that has multiple interpretations is presented as if it were a settled matter, because someone wants to make a point?" Yes, it does bother me. It bothers me a lot. I've looked into it in the past, but not recently. Haven't had time yet. But I will. Also, Horus was just one of the many saviors that came before Jesus that had a similar story.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "I found several stories about the conception of Horus, and no consensus." And one could say the same about Jesus, and in a sense that's whole point. We don't all agree that Mary was a virgin. In the view of some people both the story of Horus and Jesus are simply myths and the similarities help support that theory.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I bet if we go back and look at Jesus' Facebook posts from that era, all of this would be settled.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Okay, that literally made me chuckle. You're a good sport K2M.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance That was before Facebooks time, we'll have to look at Myspace.
