Christians distracted from worship

I agree with much of what you say FS, but don't let the wingnut Christians label all Christians. Many are following Christ in the way he intended. Some have turned his message into their own perverted political platform. I think we (you and I in Texas) see some of the most rabid wingnut Christians around.

I agree with much of what you say Fellows but I think one must look at what is meant by 'trust' a bit more closely - this is not a pedantic point but imho a lot revolves around this concept of 'trust'.

For example, you trust things that you are not totally sure of. You do not trust your legs to hold you up when you stand up because your experience is that they always do - that is what they are designed to do.

One might trust a doctor say, but that is because there is an element of doubt, however small. You feel he is a good doctor - and he may well be - but the possibility exists that he is not - hence one has to resort to trusting.

In relation to the religious issue, to those that know God there is no possibility of 'bad' things happening to those that really love God. 'All things work together for good....'.

Those that have to resort to trust are showing that in their minds there is an element of doubt and this - again purely imo - shows that they cannot really know God in the sense of having a personal relationship (assuming such a thing is possible).

And another thing that just occurs to me: why also do we need 'Christian lobby groups'? I would even question the need for leaders that are 'above' other Christians.

The essence of Christ's teaching seems to me to be a renewing of the possibility of a personal relationship with 'God' minus the need for any intermediaries such as the old time Prophets or new-time priests.

So why would a Christian need to take advice or leadership form such lobby groups - at best one would have a mass of Christians each recognizing God's will in specific matters but they would not need to take instruction from a group which is then headed by an individual who is the conduit for instructions from God.

These 'instructions' such as they are, are available to everyone and surely all are equal before God?

I am not Christian. I was raised in a Jewish Household. Based upon that upbringing, people were not created to worship God. The old testament gives no reasons for the creation of human kind, other than that God could so God did.

Anyway... My opinion is that it's a bunch of rubish -- why must there be an entity which causes you to do good or for which you do good? Why can't humans decide to do good on their own? Why must there be this agent antagonistic to free will?

Judaism is not Christianity - the discussion is framed in terms of what the people under consideration profess to believe - not what any of us may or may not believe.

Re the second part: without the entity there would be no conceptions of 'good' and 'evil' as we now know them. You could argue that there may be others (or may not) but they would not be the ones we recognize as 'good' or 'evil'.

There is also no agent antagonistic to free-will. Surely this is the basis of the Christian faith? That God created humans to have free-will?

I do not personally agree with this but it is what Christianity teaches and that is what we are talking about.

Couple of quick thoughts...

1. I think it is certainly true that some Christians have something of a "God complex", but (at least in my own experience) that is a very small minority.

2. The specific issue/examples you talk about need a bit more discussion:

a. The "boycotting" of schools...hmmm...I am not sure this is an issue so much of "trust in God" (or lack thereof)...though for some it certainly might be. From my own view, I believe that God has entrusted me with my children's upbringing, education (moral and otherwise). I can choose to delegate some (or all) of that responsibility to someone else (e.g., the public schools)...or not. To me the decision is more along the lines of deciding if my wife and I feel that we can do a better job overall. Not so much an issue of "trust in God" (at least for us).

b. The "boycott" of Ford, et al. This is something of a socio-political action. Not sure what to make of it. These are never really effective. But what is it saying about the people suggesting/promoting/doing it? Not always sure. On a personal level, I may choose to not contibrute to something that I think is promoting something that I am opposed to. Why? Well, partly I think it sends an "enabling" message. But at the same time, there must be a place for grace. Jesus clearly extended grace, but that does not mean he condoned, approved, supported or contributed to people's sinfulness. He hung out with tax collectors but he didn't help them "shake down" and steal from their "customers". He hung out with prostitutes, but he didn't provide room and board for prostitution activities. I guess it might be something like that. He forgave the "woman at the well"...but told her to go an sin no more.

3. Regarding "trust" or "faith". Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Now sure how this plays against what seg is trying to say. I do think that just because you "have faith" doesn't mean you just let God do it all. In most Christian thinking, there is the idea that we are "working with God" in some way. If you are sick...well...God has provided great medical technology and skill...use it...but be careful that the medical technology and doctors don't become an "idol" to you either. God has given you a brain, eyes, ears, etc. and a wealth of shared knowledge. Pick up a book...study...learn...read. Like that.

It's none of my business (or anyone else's) what a person, other than oneself, believes. And from my (limited) observation, I have seen no correlation between a person's moral makeup and their attachment (or not) to any religion.

Imho the most positive aspect of religion is the community that a shared faith can bring. This is a positive contribution to a nation that seems to be a little paranoid of the "community" concept.

Excuse me? Good and evil stem from God? That is laughable at best. There is a reason that most things that are considered good benefit society in general, and most things considered bad are injurious to society in general. God has nothing to do with good or evil, our social instincts do.


God directs the actions of an individual and 'makes it so' in the out side world, if that isn't antagonistic to free will, then fuck william blake on.

As for Christianity not being Judaism... well, you only have a point in the actions of god after creation, egypt, and israel. The discussion of creation must by necessity of the text come from Judaism... Regardless, religion is silly, and I will leave this discussion.

A short story by MarcUK

The path was like a long rocky track up a mountain, at every twist and turn, every rut, there was another fence to vault, another river to cross or another fallen tree to jump. Along this path there are 12 houses. After a long days hike, the weary traveller, encounters the first house, with weary eyes and tired mind, finds his house a beautiful mansion, and with blisters on feet, scratches on legs, decides this is a good place to rest for the night, else sleep on the trail. And he was well pleased.

He lay his head on a soft pillow, and sleeps for the night. Early in the morning, he rises early, feeling refreshed and invogorated, yet, something strange has happened. The beautiful mansion was really a leaky old tent.

Somewhat bemused, he packs up and carries on the trail, but today, he finds the trail really tough, so reluctantly, decides to go back to the tent, but, where he expected to find the tent, the beautiful mansion has re-appeared. Not believing his eyes, he sets himself to bed. And he was well pleased.

He repeats this trek several times, each time, he leaves a leaky old tent, yet when he decides to backtrack, he finds the mansion. Eventually, he convinces himself the tent, really is a mansion, and there is no need to go on a trek every day, tiring himself out, when he could just stay in his tent. And he was well pleased.

Soon, several other people start up this path, and just like our first traveller, find the first house to be a mansion at dusk, but a tent at dawn. Soon, they all form a focus group, and decide to make permanent camp in their tent, as long as they all unwaveringly protest, that the tent is really a mansion. "It is a mansion" they claim, "Have faith", "believe", "Trust us". And they were all well pleased.

Later an old man, looking like a lost friend, is coming down the mountain, arriving at the tent, he tells the occupants, that there is a better house, three days up the trail, but if you want to get there, you will have to sleep it rough for two nights. And some were well pleased.

Half the occupants of the tent, decide to leave for the better house. As soon as their friends hear of this, they scorn them, mock them and laugh at them for being so foolish to believe that there could be a better place than their tent mansion. They claim the old man, was a spokesman of the devil, and was trying to deceive them into walking into their own doom. Still, half decide to try to make the second house. And they were well pleased.

After a day, half of the half, cant make the trail and decide to return to the tent, half sleep rough in terrible conditions. Of those that returned to the tent, they are met with calls of "I told you so", and all in the tent, doubly reassure themselves that their tent is a mansion. And they were well pleased.

After another day, half the half of the half, cant make the trail and return to the tent.

On the third day, the remainder dont see the second house, so half of them, decide to return to the tent. A few have faith that the house does exist, and on the fourth day, a little later than expected, they come across this house. And they were well pleased.

It is a more beautiful mansion than they remember seeing the first, and congratulate themselves on their toil.

The next day, they wake, to find their beautiful mansion is just an old wood shed, a bit better than a tent, but still not that good. Then they see an old man coming down the trail, he tells them the third house is 3 days up the trail, but the'll have to sleep rough. And some were well pleased.

In the wooden shed, the few form a focus group, and decide that if they believe hard enough, have faith, and protest loudly, their shed could be a mansion. Yet still a few decide to seek the third house.

And soon, they were all well pleased.

A man one day, long and weary on his travels, set off for the twelth house, yet as much as he walked, he couldn't find it, so slept rough every night. Soon he forgot all the other houses he had slept in, and he walked high and low all over the mountain looking for the twelth house, and often met some of his friends still living in the houses he had previously slept in, but he was not tempted to give up the search for the promised house.

Then one day, exausted and tired from sleeping rough for so long, he had a moment of enlightenment. The Whole Mountain WAS the twelth house, and he had been living there all along. And he was just fucking exstatic.

The End.

That's a shame. Really. Don't understand why but whatever.

Anyway I'll do my best to answer.


One could argue that humans have been conceiving of higher powers and - to a degree - worshipping ind receiving alleged instructions from these powers since before the development of society.

It may well be inbuilt - a great book on this is The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.

Briefly his theory is that humans only developed full consciousness in the last four thousand years. He suggests that the first to evolve consciousness were regarded as 'Gods' and naturally became the leaders.

Basically he is saying that the two hemispheres of the brain we have now were not linked then and that when one communicated to the other, in lieu of this missing 'bridge' it was in the form of a command which was heard and assumed to come from god. Hence the origin of morality.

Actually this theory could accommodate both our views as being correct.


It would be antagonistic to free-will if it were true but this is in no way the orthodox Christian theological position.

Quite the contrary.


I would disagree with that but even assuming you are right for argument's sake then the Judaic text in genesis clearly outlines that man has free will. In fact, one could argue it is the central theme of the text.

God is constantly telling man what not to do and man is constantly doing it anyway.

Christianity is a splinter sect of Judaism, kind of like Judaism with an expansion set.

It's not exactly free will if you have a gun to your head saying "DO WHAT I SAY OR I PULL THE TRIGGER".

It's free will for the guy to put the gun to your head though - just as it is free will for people to say 'there is no gun being put to my head'.

And people do say this. All the time. Maybe they're right. Until we find out the truth in the great blue yonder we all believe differently: that's free will

Unfortunately, most dont understand that by NOT doing what God says is the path to free will, and God WANTS you to reject the message. Those that dont are sheep, lame and sick, and very much deserving not to have free-will.

So its a win-win situation really.

Ok, so I couldn't stay away; I have to reply to this. There has been an implicit understanding that God knew that adam would eat the apple, that god knew lot's wife would look back, that Ham would go to his wife on the ark, that...

But is there though? That is the retrospective viewpoint theologically but it doesn't hold water unless one assumes that God is not who religion claims He is - ie 'good'.

It doesn't explain why he put the tree there for example: in a sinless world why put a tree there which would cause sin if you knew for sure that Adam would eat the fruit?

Unless God is somehow a bit more malevolent than He is generally held to be.

But I don't think it is necessary to even resort to such a philosophical argument. Clearly God does not have control over Satan and his activities. Therefore by definition, humans have a choice: God or Satan.

As God allows this choice (as we know from observation that He does) then this is by definition free will.

There is no satan in judaism... so I haven't a clue where that discussion leads.

This is where Judaism and Christianity vary most strongly... In Judaism God is at times wrathful and fair, but his wrath appears to be well-deserved. In Christianity, God is only good, doesn't do anything that might be considered mean-spirited... but Satan does... It is as if the Jews figured out that the Zorasters irrationally separated their sources of light and dark, and the Christians decided that the Zorasters were right all along.

See here is the thing with Christianity, God is omnipotent and omnipresent, he either knows your descisions ahead of time or is much much weaker than the religion tends to make him out to be. If he does know your descision than he is malevolently hands off -- if he doesn't know your descision than he is weak, and if he guides your decision, there is no free will.

So either god is strong and malevolent (like the jewish god) or guiding and there is no free will, or he is weak and it is pointless to worship such a weak creature.

So god Didn't kill Lots wife for looking the wrong way? God Didn't kill Onan for spilling his seed? God didn't allow Satan to inflict suffering on Job to see if he could test his resolve to worship him.

Or Jesus? Didn't he curse a fig tree causing it to wither and die because it bore no fruit? Wasn't Jesus absolutely rude to a disabled girl, just because she was disabled?

Abortions for All. Have a Good Night.

Job is in the old testament so there wasn't a Satan. However all of your examples of god are the Jewish god.

As for Jesus, he isn't god in most Christian faiths...

Satan = Lucifer

No Lucifer, no embodiment of evil. None at all in Judaism.

i sure hope fundamentalist christians boycott public schools. then i won't have to worry about crazy uneducated parents getting all up in arms about a copy of 'Catcher in the Rye' in my future childrens' school library.

Yes, but Christianity has fully adopted the Jewish books as part of their scriptures, as well as adopting the Jewish Volcano god as the Christian supreme diety, (ie it was the Jewish Volcano God who flooded the Earth), and adopting the Jewish memes of Satan AS Satan.

As for Joshua, Yahooshua, um... "Jesus", not being God, I guess you never heard of the trinity?

Holy trinity shmoly trinity. I am intrigued by your Volcano God theory so I looked it up -- it seems that it was the god of the Levites that was ultimately taken as the model of God, almighty. However, it would be wrong to suggest that this one god was the source of all the myths in Judaism, very wrong in fact. What I would say rather is that the earliest religious identity of the Jews centered around the god of the Levites (and this fact led to later dominance of the levites as priests and other holy persons -- in fact the dominance of this god-design was probably due to the literacy of this class -- they most likely wrote the old testament). However, the loose tribes of the israelites all contributed parts of the mythology that became the old testament and the talmuds.

What is key here, though, is that this universalization of god, almighty, got rid of the concept of multiple gods, angels, and spirits -- the angel of death and the reference of satan in Job and in one other place are parts of god and not separate entities.

BTW, it would be better to say it was a Volcano God (mount sinai) that lead the israelites out of Egypt -- fire by night, smoke by day... the entire description in the story of moses makes clear it is a volcano that moses is talking to, from the burning bush to the direction the people took...

Err...the Old Testament was written over a period of over a thousand years by writers of wildly varying classes and beliefs.

Oh and this volcano insanity really is an unmitigated load of old ******.

The compilation of all of the stories in the old testament most likely occurred in a relatively short span...

of course it is, it really depends upon what context we are talking in doesn't it.

You didn't think I thought Moses was a real historical person did you?

There is also the quranic perspective of God and the previous revelations. According to that view God was and is always the same, but the messengers in the different times and locales and contextes were adjusting God's eternal message to fit in and to be workable and successful within their historic and political contextes.

Proof for the adjustments done by the messengers of God can be found in the gospel itself, where Jesus is asked why Moses allowed simple divorce. Jesus replied that Moses did so, because Moses were aware of the hard hearts of his companions.

Jesus himself confirmed the method of adjusting rules by God's messengers when he said that he had authority to do that and allow that...

Nightcrawler

Not sure - I thought maybe you thought he was a volcano.....

This is a key problem with later Christian dogma and it has arisen because the core texts it is based on have been adjusted.

In fact it is really bad theology and it is quite ludicrous to assume a sophisticated system of religious thought would make such a limited and stupid mistake.

There are many more options than the two you have outlined though as you say, the limited thinkers who defined Christian dogma were incapable of perceiving them.

Hence Satan/Lucifer - he is only necessary to re-adjust the contradiction you point out. He has no similar role in either Judaism or Islam which are far more sophisticated theological systems than Christianity has unfortunately been reduced to.

True - but as we can never know God's nature he is only perceivable through one of his attributes.

As you know in Islam there are 99 attributes of God (100 if you count the one we can never know) and his interaction is always in one of these modes depending on the perception/being of the perceiver.

Hence he may be the 'judge' or the 'compassionate' - things apparently contradictory but this is only to people who cannot see the big picture and assume God only has one 'mode'. It is like someone saying a parent is never loving because they were angry once. Truth is they are neither - these are just secondary manifestations.

That's why he is not a volcano.

Im sure this is the way Fellowship wanted this conversation to go (shaking head profusely at the above posts). So coming back to topic, Fellowship I agree with you that Christians in general are becoming more and more of a religious island driven by so called Christian political talking points. Leading the group is the current crop of Pharacies with a political power agenda that has nothing to do with neither worship nor knowing/following God. See nothing has changed since Jesus was here; it was these same types of Pharacies who condemned him to death because they thought their power was threatened. If they would have only known that Jesus was there to help them. Its easier to follow a man then God because the man is there to see, hear, and touch. We dont need a place of worship to be with God, I for one cant stand church, and I literally fall asleep during most sermons. However I wake every morning and worship him, I read the bible and allow him to speak to my heart and dont need a man to guide me. In fact it is through this way that I became Liberal and despise everything a heretic conservative believes in. Just kidding, Fellowship I'm with you keep up the fight and I'm excited to know that there are people who see through threw BS, it is up to us to set the bar and help these souls.

Exactly.

I sometimes wonder how people who have an understanding of modern science seem to have no understanding of such concepts (I don't mean anyone here necessarily btw).

In Physics there are generally accepted ideas that, say, there may be infinite parallel universes each containing many iterations of 'us' and where all possibilities are actualized.

In one universe you live to 100 - in another you die in a car crash at 20 and on....all your possible choices are in fact worked out somewhere.

If this were the case (and physics argues it may well be) then surely God would be aware of ALL these outcomes. And there would still be free will in each universe.

I'm not saying this is true - it's just one model where free-will and an omnipotent God can co-exist.

We don't even need to theologize to get this one.

Why will God punish those who don't believe in him because of the lack of evidence that he actually exists?

Hey, you just described the Kwisatz Haderach.

He won't.

Basically you have to behave. It is the sins which are punished and disbelief in God is not a sin.