Figuring Out Religion

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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Gosso » Mon Dec 09, 2013 9:22 pm

Mountaineer,

Do you believe that someone could sincerely turn to God while in Hell and then be forgiven and allowed to enter Heaven?  I understand that Hell is required if we have the free will to reject God, but I wonder if that decision has to be made in this life time or that the option is open for all eternity.  I suppose I can hope this is the case given how little we know of the afterlife.  Also have you read "The Great Divorce" by CS Lewis, which deals with this possibility?

Now somebody might say "Great! This means I can put off the question of God and Christ until after death, when hopefully I'll have more facts".  But my response to that is that this life can be made so much more joyful by accepting Christ now and allowing Him to start the healing process.  Plus there is also the chance that God's presence is weaker or nonexistent in Hell so there would be even less evidence for Him.

***

I also think we need to be very careful of how we envision Hell.  The word "Hell" brings up all sorts of images of torture chambers, fire, unimaginable pain, etc.  But this image is mainly from Pagan myths and Christian artists and poets - Jesus only warns us that it is everlasting punishment (Matthew 25-46).  But what is everlasting punishment?  Could it be simply be a cold grey lonely existence without God's presence and love.  This seems more likely to fit God's nature, at least as far as we can understand.
Mountaineer wrote: Gosso,

Enjoyed the youtube clips.  Thanks for sharing them.

... Mountaineer
Glad you liked them.  I watch that CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien conversation almost once a week.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by MediumTex » Mon Dec 09, 2013 10:17 pm

Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives?

One thing about the Jesus-as-God narrative (as opposed to the Jesus-as-Wise-Dude narrative) that seems peculiar is that when someone says he is Jesus and otherwise has a messianic set of beliefs about himself, we take this as a sign of mental illness, and yet people seem perfectly content to accept Jesus's story as just a regular old "God comes to earth in mortal form to save us" story.

Why is it crazy when others do it, but when Jesus does it it represents a path to blissful immortality for us all?

For example, should a Christian psychologist take a person's claims to be Jesus seriously and investigate them as if they might actually be true?

If an airline CEO is a devout Christian, does he have a fiduciary duty to his company's shareholders to make sure that every flight crew has at least one non-Christian pilot so that if the Rapture occurs mid-flight there will be someone on the plane who can land it?  How much of the company's resources should be dedicated to preparing for this contingency?  Why would the CEO take this risk any less seriously than any other risk his company might face?
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Rien » Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:27 am

MediumTex wrote: Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives?
1) it is a mental patch that allows people to hold conflicting models in their brain.
2) it is used to explain coincidence. Our brain is a logic machine that wants to see action/reaction patterns. It wants it so bad that we see patterns where there are none. Religion offers an explanation for the "action" part of the patterns.
3) it is used for group identification, i.e. it performs a role as something that binds a group en gives them moral superiority. Being a "good" group member is enough incentive to remain religious even when that person has doubts. (Being ousted is bad since it reduced survivability for our early ancestors)
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by ns2 » Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:35 am

MediumTex wrote: Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives?

One thing about the Jesus-as-God narrative (as opposed to the Jesus-as-Wise-Dude narrative) that seems peculiar is that when someone says he is Jesus and otherwise has a messianic set of beliefs about himself, we take this as a sign of mental illness, and yet people seem perfectly content to accept Jesus's story as just a regular old "God comes to earth in mortal form to save us" story.

Why is it crazy when others do it, but when Jesus does it it represents a path to blissful immortality for us all?

For example, should a Christian psychologist take a person's claims to be Jesus seriously and investigate them as if they might actually be true?
Today, we know that millions of people have accepted the claims of Jesus all over the world for the past 2000 years so that alone ought to explain why people are open to it today.

To me, it's much more interesting going back to the beginning of the story to see how people accepted the narrative. That's the story of the New Testament after the first four books. You either believe that is a credible story or you don't.
MediumTex wrote: If an airline CEO is a devout Christian, does he have a fiduciary duty to his company's shareholders to make sure that every flight crew has at least one non-Christian pilot so that if the Rapture occurs mid-flight there will be someone on the plane who can land it?  How much of the company's resources should be dedicated to preparing for this contingency?  Why would the CEO take this risk any less seriously than any other risk his company might face?
One of the nonsense beliefs of Evangelical Christianity that is a major reason I no longer count myself among them.

Another would be people coming on a public forum like this, assuring people that if they don't believe in Jesus they are going to hell, and thinking they are being good Christians by doing that.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 6:42 am

Gosso wrote: Mountaineer,

Do you believe that someone could sincerely turn to God while in Hell and then be forgiven and allowed to enter Heaven?

Also have you read "The Great Divorce" by CS Lewis, which deals with this possibility?

***

I also think we need to be very careful of how we envision Hell.  The word "Hell" brings up all sorts of images of torture chambers, fire, unimaginable pain, etc.  But this image is mainly from Pagan myths and Christian artists and poets - Jesus only warns us that it is everlasting punishment (Matthew 25-46).  But what is everlasting punishment?  Could it be simply be a cold grey lonely existence without God's presence and love.  This seems more likely to fit God's nature, at least as far as we can understand.
Gosso,

I have not read the Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis.  I have read "Mere Christianity" and the "Screwtape Letters".  I thought both were very good.

I believe after Christ returns to judge it is too late to change your mind.  Scripture indicates this (e.g. parable of the 10 virgins).  Here is a segment from the book, "The Christian Faith" by Robert Kolb.  I found this book to be one of my favorites but I may be biased; my Pastor studied under Kolb and lived in his home while he was in Seminary.  From the book, page 289 - I left out all the Scripture references:

"Hell exists.  There can be no doubt that there is a continued existence apart from the Autor of Life after Judgment.  Christ described this as weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and as never-ending fire or wrathful destruction; it is hell.  God will inflict judgment upon those who do not know him and who have not listened to the Gospel of Jesus.  They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might.  There is but one name through which people come to the Father, and those who do not trust in Jesus Christ, the name through which God has revealed himself in a crib and cross and crypt, do not have access to God. 
Heaven is beyond description even though John tried; it fulfills our humanity because there our relationship with God is restored to Edenic fullness and perfection.  Yet care should be taken that heaven not be overemphasized.  Heaven can be an essentally selfish concern, the expression of a desire for self-gratification.  Heaven is not the important matter for God's children.  God is. 
Life with God begins, perhaps a bit tattered and torn in our experience, when he claims us for life in Baptism.  Heaven would not be heaven without God.  We must focus our faith and attention on our Lord.  At the same time we dare not to underemphasize heaven.  Life at best in the earthly realm of existence is tattered and torn, at worst much worse than mereley tattered and torn.  People plagued by evil need to hear the promise of life beyond its pale shadow under sin.
Most people, even in the midst of sin, do believe that heaven can wait.  They fear the unknown on the other side of death - with good reason when they face it apart from faith in Christ, of course.  The practical, day-to-day religious concerns of Christians and non-Christians alike focus much more on what God can do for them in the midst of daily life rather than his promises for life after death.  But ultimately life apart from those promises does not make sense.  God is the center of the biblical message; heaven is not.  The Scriptures discuss life with God on every page; they relatively seldom mention life after death  Nonetheless, heaven is the destination which God promises to his people.  It dare not be ignored in Christian teaching.
As they think about death, and life eternal, even believers often experience fear and dread.  That happens for several reasons.  We hate to leave our loved ones.  We love God's gracious presence and rich blessings in this life.  We sense how unnatural and wrong death is, perhaps more clearly than those who do not have an biblical understanding of the potential for good human living.  Among the saddest expressions sin has forced upon us is that which claims, "What a blessing she coud die!"  Death can be called a "blessing" only because life has been so wrecked and ruined.  Death remains a curse even when it frees from sorrow and pain.  Furthermore, believers will fear death because they do not like the pain we often associate with it.  They will also be plagued with doubts, particularly as Satan focuses their attention on their own sins in those moments of reviewing their lives as death approaches.  Therefore, even believers need consolation and support from fellow believers and death approaches and heaven looms on the horizon."
Last edited by Mountaineer on Tue Dec 10, 2013 7:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 7:17 am

MediumTex wrote: Q1. Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives?

Q2. One thing about the Jesus-as-God narrative (as opposed to the Jesus-as-Wise-Dude narrative) that seems peculiar is that when someone says he is Jesus and otherwise has a messianic set of beliefs about himself, we take this as a sign of mental illness, and yet people seem perfectly content to accept Jesus's story as just a regular old "God comes to earth in mortal form to save us" story.

Why is it crazy when others do it, but when Jesus does it it represents a path to blissful immortality for us all?

For example, should a Christian psychologist take a person's claims to be Jesus seriously and investigate them as if they might actually be true?

Q3. If an airline CEO is a devout Christian, does he have a fiduciary duty to his company's shareholders to make sure that every flight crew has at least one non-Christian pilot so that if the Rapture occurs mid-flight there will be someone on the plane who can land it?  How much of the company's resources should be dedicated to preparing for this contingency?  Why would the CEO take this risk any less seriously than any other risk his company might face?
A1.  I certainly cannot prove this, and is is my personal view, not Scriptural, but I believe man has a deep desire to think beyond himself built in (DNA?) and an almost insatiable need to ask "Why?"  It is relatively easy to analyze and understand things man has built.  It is far more difficult to understand how a tree was made and includes the ability to reproduce itself, let alone how to build a man from scratch, or how to construct the universe from nothing.  I am familiar with the old adage that "a god" is needed to explain things we cannot understand.  Maybe so, but as I said in one of my earlier posts, the Christian worldview is by far the best explanation of the "why" question for me (yeah, I know that is self-centered).  Every other explanation falls far short or requires far more faith than the Christian explanation.  Even the pagan Aristotle asked "What was the first thing?"  to which man has not been able to come up with a satisfactory answer (other than Christianity) after a couple of thousand years.

A2. Jesus will come again in the same manner He left.  So far, that has not happened.  Also, there is a lot of Scripture dealing with false prophets and how to recognize them.

A3. The "rapture" is a relatively recent idea (circa 1830, Darby) and is not really Scriptural.  It is based on one verse - 1 Thes 4:17 - that does not have support from other Scripture.  So, as one who follows the "Scripture interprets Scripture" method of Bible interpretation, I don't buy the rapture theology.  The book, "The Christian Faith", by Robert Kolb has a good discussion on the various views of end-times and how they developed (mainly by failing how to understand the apocalyptic genre).
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Gosso » Tue Dec 10, 2013 9:16 am

Mountaineer wrote: Gosso,

I have not read the Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis.  I have read "Mere Christianity" and the "Screwtape Letters".  I thought both were very good.

I believe after Christ returns to judge it is too late to change your mind.  Scripture indicates this (e.g. parable of the 10 virgins).  Here is a segment from the book, "The Christian Faith" by Robert Kolb.  I found this book to be one of my favorites but I may be biased; my Pastor studied under Kolb and lived in his home while he was in Seminary.  From the book, page 289 - I left out all the Scripture references:

"Hell exists.  There can be no doubt that there is a continued existence apart from the Autor of Life after Judgment.  Christ described this as weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and as never-ending fire or wrathful destruction; it is hell.  God will inflict judgment upon those who do not know him and who have not listened to the Gospel of Jesus.  They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his might.  There is but one name through which people come to the Father, and those who do not trust in Jesus Christ, the name through which God has revealed himself in a crib and cross and crypt, do not have access to God. 
Heaven is beyond description even though John tried; it fulfills our humanity because there our relationship with God is restored to Edenic fullness and perfection.  Yet care should be taken that heaven not be overemphasized.  Heaven can be an essentally selfish concern, the expression of a desire for self-gratification.  Heaven is not the important matter for God's children.  God is. 
Life with God begins, perhaps a bit tattered and torn in our experience, when he claims us for life in Baptism.  Heaven would not be heaven without God.  We must focus our faith and attention on our Lord.  At the same time we dare not to underemphasize heaven.  Life at best in the earthly realm of existence is tattered and torn, at worst much worse than mereley tattered and torn.  People plagued by evil need to hear the promise of life beyond its pale shadow under sin.
Most people, even in the midst of sin, do believe that heaven can wait.  They fear the unknown on the other side of death - with good reason when they face it apart from faith in Christ, of course.  The practical, day-to-day religious concerns of Christians and non-Christians alike focus much more on what God can do for them in the midst of daily life rather than his promises for life after death.  But ultimately life apart from those promises does not make sense.  God is the center of the biblical message; heaven is not.  The Scriptures discuss life with God on every page; they relatively seldom mention life after death  Nonetheless, heaven is the destination which God promises to his people.  It dare not be ignored in Christian teaching.
As they think about death, and life eternal, even believers often experience fear and dread.  That happens for several reasons.  We hate to leave our loved ones.  We love God's gracious presence and rich blessings in this life.  We sense how unnatural and wrong death is, perhaps more clearly than those who do not have an biblical understanding of the potential for good human living.  Among the saddest expressions sin has forced upon us is that which claims, "What a blessing she coud die!"  Death can be called a "blessing" only because life has been so wrecked and ruined.  Death remains a curse even when it frees from sorrow and pain.  Furthermore, believers will fear death because they do not like the pain we often associate with it.  They will also be plagued with doubts, particularly as Satan focuses their attention on their own sins in those moments of reviewing their lives as death approaches.  Therefore, even believers need consolation and support from fellow believers and death approaches and heaven looms on the horizon."
Thanks Mountaineer.  I suppose I subscribe to a more wishy-washy brand of Christianity. :)  But it is true that for any Christian the main goal is to form and build a relationship with God.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by MediumTex » Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:04 am

Consider the following scenario:

A group of Christian missionaries have the Bible translated into the language of a tribe in an isolated area of the highlands of New Guinea and fly over that area and drop hundreds of these translated Bibles.

Ten years later the missionaries finally make ground contact with the members of this tribe and are happy to find that they have completely abandoned their beliefs about the tree gods in favor of the story of God as told in the Bible.

As they discuss this matter in more detail with the members of the tribe, however, they begin to get concerned.  It seems that they have interpreted some sections of the Bible in very different ways from what the missionaries had hoped.  It's not that their interpretation is obviously wrong; in fact, it has a remarkable degree of internal consistency, it's just foreign to the missionaries in the same way that a kangaroo might be foreign to a deer.

What would we say about this tribe?  They heard The Word, they sought diligently to understand it, and they applied it faithfully and humbly in their own lives.  Would we say that they are going to Heaven or Hell when they die?  If they resist the missionaries' attempts to revise their understanding of scripture to resemble more closely the missionaries' interpretations, should the missionaries' tell the members of the tribe that failure to abandon their sincerely held interpretations of scripture will mean the same trip to Hell that would have occurred had the Bibles never been dropped in the first place?

In other words, the missionaries would be telling the members of the tribe that after they picked up the Bibles and began studying them, they simply didn't do it right.  In response to this scolding, however, the chief of the tribe might say: "But how do you know that you did it right?  On what basis can you say that your interpretation of scripture is superior to ours?"
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Xan » Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:30 am

MT,

"The Word" isn't the same as "The Bible".  We're not meant to interpret the Bible in a vacuum, and there's a lot more to Christianity than just the Bible, all of which has been handed down from generation to generation: the Church, the Sacraments, the succession of pastors down from the apostles via laying of hands, traditions, interpretations, etc.

It's not like the Bible was dropped from a spaceship and everybody has to figure out what it means.  The Church was given the deposit of faith and the Sacraments.  It produced the Bible.  It doesn't really make sense to consider the Bible apart from the Church.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Kshartle » Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:43 am

Xan wrote: It doesn't really make sense to consider the Bible apart from the Church.
I used to hear arguments against the validity of the bible by people claiming it was a creation of man and the Church. In particular the claim would be made that the King James was unreliable.

I would reply that "if you start with the premise that there is a God, and the Christian, monotheastic, trinity, Jesus' dad version of God is the right one.........how could he possibly allow a flawed to circulate so widely?"

The point is if he's God, then he certainly isn't going to let something like this go around confusing everyone and messing up the entire story. So people don't need to concern themselves with the indivdual authors or interpetations. If you start with the premise that God exists then you can take it as a logical conclusion that the Bible or the Word would be correct.

In that way I would say the bible is separate from the Church because it's direct link between God and his subjects/children whereas the Church is a third party group of humans in-between.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 10:58 am

MediumTex wrote: Consider the following scenario:

A group of Christian missionaries have the Bible translated into the language of a tribe in an isolated area of the highlands of New Guinea and fly over that area and drop hundreds of these translated Bibles.

Ten years later the missionaries finally make ground contact with the members of this tribe and are happy to find that they have completely abandoned their beliefs about the tree gods in favor of the story of God as told in the Bible.

As they discuss this matter in more detail with the members of the tribe, however, they begin to get concerned.  It seems that they have interpreted some sections of the Bible in very different ways from what the missionaries had hoped.  It's not that their interpretation is obviously wrong; in fact, it has a remarkable degree of internal consistency, it's just foreign to the missionaries in the same way that a kangaroo might be foreign to a deer.

What would we say about this tribe?  They heard The Word, they sought diligently to understand it, and they applied it faithfully and humbly in their own lives.  Would we say that they are going to Heaven or Hell when they die?  If they resist the missionaries' attempts to revise their understanding of scripture to resemble more closely the missionaries' interpretations, should the missionaries' tell the members of the tribe that failure to abandon their sincerely held interpretations of scripture will mean the same trip to Hell that would have occurred had the Bibles never been dropped in the first place?

In other words, the missionaries would be telling the members of the tribe that after they picked up the Bibles and began studying them, they simply didn't do it right.  In response to this scolding, however, the chief of the tribe might say: "But how do you know that you did it right?  On what basis can you say that your interpretation of scripture is superior to ours?"
MT, in addition to what Xan said about the Word being more than Scripture, there is a document that may prove helpful as to what the LCMS beliefs are.  There is a rather lengthy discussion of Scripture that may address your questions. 

Here is how to find it:  google search for "A Statement of Scriptural and Confessional Principles" and select the first item (at least it was first on my google search) which is a pdf file by that title. 

It also comes up in the first paragraph, second link on this page:  http://www.lcms.org/doctrine

And, coming back to what Xan said, the Word existed long before Scripture was recorded.  The church is just a convenient way to describe all the people who have, do and will believe in God's promises.

... Mountaineer
Last edited by Mountaineer on Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Gosso » Tue Dec 10, 2013 11:11 am

MediumTex wrote: Does anyone have a thought about why religious people are willing to believe things in their spiritual lives that they would never believe in other areas of their lives?

One thing about the Jesus-as-God narrative (as opposed to the Jesus-as-Wise-Dude narrative) that seems peculiar is that when someone says he is Jesus and otherwise has a messianic set of beliefs about himself, we take this as a sign of mental illness, and yet people seem perfectly content to accept Jesus's story as just a regular old "God comes to earth in mortal form to save us" story.

Why is it crazy when others do it, but when Jesus does it it represents a path to blissful immortality for us all?
Short answer:  Out of all the myths that humans have dreamed up, the Christian Myth seems to have a foundation in reality and is the most likely to actually have happened.  We cannot prove it, but we can reasonable assume/hope that it did occur as the Gospels describe it.  You could consider Christianity the best theory of "the mystery" that we have based on the evidence we can gather.

I think it's important to realize that as Jesus was being crucified that all his disciples left him and assumed he was just another failed attempt at the return of the Jewish Messiah.  So at this point Christianity was finished, Jesus was just another moral teaching rebel rabbi, and all his disciples returned to their lives.  But then of course there was the Resurrection which proved to his disciples and followers that his claims of being God were true.  This shocked his followers which may have originally thought Jesus was speaking in a sort of Gnostic (or Buddhist) way when he said he was God.  So how are we to accept this story in modern times when we have no proof and only stories.  Well we can look to the actions of his disciples.  They went from complete despair/defeat to overwhelming joy.  They were thrown into jail and killed for what they were teaching.  So I don't think they just invented Christianity to get rich or control the masses (although Christianity has been misused for these purposes). Were his followers crazy?  I don't think so, they have written some of the most important literature in all of history.  Without the Resurrection there would be no Christianity.  The fact that it flourished after his death and continues to this day should tell us that there is something much more than a simple good moral teacher behind this "myth".

Joseph Campbell describes proper art as something that pitches you into the mystery.  Here is a good quote from him, "The object becomes aesthetically significant when it becomes metaphysically significant."  Thinking of Jesus as only a great moral teacher robs him of that far richer and deeper archetype of the God-Man, that something within us calls out for.

This doesn't mean that I cannot also look up at the stars in awe or marvel at the complexity of a snow flake.  Christianity simply provides a base on which to build on.  I find people that try to find God without Christianity tend to look lost or floating in a lot of "woo" (although I'll admit many Christians look like this as well).  I'm not saying that it's wrong, but it's not for me.  Or maybe I'm just unconsciously racist :o
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:09 pm

Gosso,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I ordered "The Great Divorce".  Sounds interesting.

... Mountaineer
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Xan » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:21 pm

MangoMan,

Your dog hasn't accepted Christ, but neither is he guilty of original sin.  Honestly I don't know whether that would turn into being in heaven or not.  I doubt that's something we really can know conclusively.  I'd say there's nothing wrong with hoping that it's the case (and I will certainly join you in that)!
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Kshartle » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:25 pm

I imagine if heaven exists you'll have your faithful friend. You probably won't even have to clean up after him! 
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by MediumTex » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:25 pm

MangoMan wrote: Serious question:
I currently have this dog . He is the sweetest creature I have ever encountered, human or otherwise. He is now about 9.5 years old. It saddens me to think that he only has a few years left, and that at some point I will be without him. I consider myself an agnostic/atheist. Now, if there was a heaven, surely this dog would go there after his passing, even though he has not 'accepted Christ'. How do the believers here reconcile that? Would I be united with him in heaven if I chose to believe? Because it would not be heaven if he was not there waiting for me upon my arrival.


Who is to say that there wasn't a canine Jesus somewhere along the way that was euthanized and then resurrected and who provided forgiveness to all dogs for biting, chewing, barking late at night, and other elements of dogs' sinful nature?

If that sounds stupid, I wonder how a dog would feel about human religion and the casual way that we exclude animals from being eligible for immortality.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by moda0306 » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:27 pm

Xan,

A dog, having no soul (is that a premise you accept), would go to heaven?

And for the record, I think dogs are often the most moral beings in a household :).
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Xan » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:40 pm

Moda,

I wouldn't say that we know that premise.  But I really am not an authority of any kind.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:42 pm

MangoMan wrote: Serious question:
I currently have this dog . He is the sweetest creature I have ever encountered, human or otherwise. He is now about 9.5 years old. It saddens me to think that he only has a few years left, and that at some point I will be without him. I consider myself an agnostic/atheist. Now, if there was a heaven, surely this dog would go there after his passing, even though he has not 'accepted Christ'. How do the believers here reconcile that? Would I be united with him in heaven if I chose to believe? Because it would not be heaven if he was not there waiting for me upon my arrival.


Interesting question.  I looked up the LCMS doctrine to see if there was a position on this.  There was.  It is:

Q: My four-year-old son wants to know if he will see his dog when he dies and goes to heaven. Will
he? Do I tell him that even though God created all the animals too, people are the only ones that go to
heaven?

A: In the "Q&A" column of the January 1995 issue of the Northwestern Lutheran (the official periodical
of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod), Rev. John Brug gives the following helpful response to the
question, "Will there be animals in heaven?"
Since animals do not have immortal souls, we might think the answer is no. Several facts, however,
make one hesitant to be satisfied with a simple "no." Our eternal home is a new earth (Isaiah 65:17ff, 2
Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1). Isaiah 65:25 speaks of it as a place in which the wolf and the lamb live
together peacefully.
This may be figurative language, but one other passage suggests animals might be in our eternal home.
Romans 8:21 says that "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage." In this present, sin-cursed
world, we inflict suffering on animals, and they inflict suffering on us. At Christ's coming, when this
world is freed from the effects of sin, animals, too, will be freed from suffering.
That text also says the creation will be "brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." That
might mean there may be plants and animals in the new earth as there were in the first earth. If there
are animals on the new earth, they will be good creatures of God as the animals of the first earth were.
In short, the answer is a cautious "maybe."
DNA has its own language (code), and language requires intelligence. There is no known mechanism by which matter can give birth to information, let alone language. It is unreasonable to believe the world could have happened by chance.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Pointedstick » Tue Dec 10, 2013 12:53 pm

If eating meat is pleasurable to omnivorous humans, and heaven is a great place for humans to go after they die, and in heaven humans do not inflict suffering on animals (necessary for turning them into meat), then do people eat grown meat in heaven?
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Kshartle » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:01 pm

Pointedstick wrote: If eating meat is pleasurable to omnivorous humans, and heaven is a great place for humans to go after they die, and in heaven humans do not inflict suffering on animals (necessary for turning them into meat), then do people eat grown meat in heaven?
Soy...it'll all be soy
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by MediumTex » Tue Dec 10, 2013 1:04 pm

Pointedstick wrote: If eating meat is pleasurable to omnivorous humans, and heaven is a great place for humans to go after they die, and in heaven humans do not inflict suffering on animals (necessary for turning them into meat), then do people eat grown meat in heaven?
Since your mortal body will no longer be with you, I don't think that it will be necessary to eat at all.

Maybe we can tell how God feels about animals by the way he treated them when he told Noah to build the ark and fill it with animals and his family. 

If animals had no place in God's plan, what would have been the point of saving them?  It would have certainly saved Noah a heck of a lot of trouble to just save the righteous people (i.e., Noah and his family).  Imagine what a PITA it would be to try to round up a male and a female of every single animal in the world.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Mountaineer » Tue Dec 10, 2013 2:51 pm

Desert wrote:
Mountaineer wrote: A3. The "rapture" is a relatively recent idea (circa 1830, Darby) and is not really Scriptural.  It is based on one verse - 1 Thes 4:17 - that does not have support from other Scripture.  So, as one who follows the "Scripture interprets Scripture" method of Bible interpretation, I don't buy the rapture theology.  The book, "The Christian Faith", by Robert Kolb has a good discussion on the various views of end-times and how they developed (mainly by failing how to understand the apocalyptic genre).
Mountaineer, I agree.  My parents are Plymouth Brethren, the denomination that was started by John Nelson Darby.  I haven't been able to find much support for the idea of a rapture in the Bible.

When I was a kid, one of the few movies I was allowed to see was "Thief in the Night," a bad 70's film about the rapture.  There were all these vans and helicopters with the word "Unite" on them, trying to round up the few believers that came to Christ after the rapture.  At the time it was a pretty frightening movie.  I purchased it a few years back, and it's really bad.  But I did still enjoy the Unite vans out looking for the Christians.
I suspect your parents might have also let you read the "Left Behind" series and watch the movies if the timeframe had been right.  The book series was somewhat entertaining and made a bazillion dollars for the authors.  Their theology: lacking (about the most polite term I can quickly think of).  Unfortunately, like the Left Behind authors, most of the current TV preachers with huge megachurches (real and virtual) really suck in the undiscerning masses by preaching what people want to hear rather than what people need to hear - God's Law and Gospel (my opinion).

I'll have to watch that movie you mention if I run across it .... sounds like a hoot.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by Gosso » Tue Dec 10, 2013 3:14 pm

Desert wrote: During my approximately 27 years away from the religion of my childhood (Christianity), there were two things that consistently nagged at me:
1. The existence of evil.  I was always able to observe evil in this world, and so were all my agnostic and athiest friends.  It was difficult to defend the idea of evil in a world that came into existence by chance.  And it was even more difficult to understand why we felt so strongly about it.  It felt like there was a natural order to things; a right and a wrong.  I didn't want to believe it, yet I was easily offended by selfishness and rudeness in the workplace, by wars and cruelty, by greed and pride.  Maybe this sense of right and wrong simply evolved along with all the rest of the complexity in the world.  But if so, how could I continue to care?  And most importantly, how could I bring children into such a meaningless and awful place?  We're all sentenced to death at birth.  That seemed meaningless and horrible to me.  I felt that all parents were "small gods" in themselves, bringing children into a horrid place, and thereby sentencing them to suffering and eventually death.  The only book of the Bible I could appreciate in those days was Ecclesiastes.  If there was such evil in the world, was there also good?  Where did I get off thinking I could identify evil or see the faults in this world?  Wasn't it all just meaningless?  Why did I feel so strongly about such things.  Why couldn't I just eat, drink and be merry. 

2.  The wonder of the universe.  I've always been in awe of the complexity of nature.  A human eye, a humming bird, the billions of stars.  Did it all come from nothing?  And why aren't there millions of transitional forms in the fossil record.  Why was there a cambrian explosion around the era when the creation allegedly occurred.  Why is this particular planet so well suited for life?  And why do humans seek more than food, drink and shelter.

MT made (another) interesting point, stating that if one really believed the Bible and/or in the existence of God, how could that person be interested in much of anything else other than reading the Bible and going to church?  And I agree so wholeheartedly with this.  We do "become new creatures," when we are finally convinced of God's amazing grace.  Sorry to use churchy words there, but "amazing" and "grace" are two words I've only begun to finally understand.  And I do think the true evidence of a real conversion is a desire for God's presence and truth.  A desire to keep God's commandments.  I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that religion is either of no importance or of utmost importance.  It can't be merely moderately important.

Another author that is worth reading is Pascal.  In particular, Pascal's "Pensees."  It's a thoughtful, disorganized (he died before having a chance to complete it) book.  I found it very helpful. 

I also agree with Mountaineer concerning Missouri Synod Lutheran Churches.  That's a good choice.  There are many others, but that's a good as place as any to start.  And this is coming from a guy who went to a MSL High School and hated every minute of the religion that was taught there.  Luther was a really interesting thinker, and the Reformation he and others started is worth studying as well.
I'm also slowly working my way through "Pensees", and I'm really enjoying it.  Your first point reminded me of this quote from Pascal "Those who cannot see the vanity of this world are indeed very vain."

I like where Pascal describes how we use diversions or distractions to keep us from boredom, but it precisely this boredom that forces us to ask the tough questions of life which can then lead us to God.  I think if someone wants to live a life without God then they should fill their lives with endless distractions (ie money, work, play, sports, sex, news, video games, blogs, politics, etc) - fortunately (or unfortunately) the foundation of our society is built on providing us with these diversions or idols.  Now, these things aren't necessarily bad in themselves but once they drown out God then there is obviously a problem.  Image how boring and peaceful the world would be if we were all content to sit in our homes with the joy of God...the horror! :)
Xan wrote: MT,

"The Word" isn't the same as "The Bible".  We're not meant to interpret the Bible in a vacuum, and there's a lot more to Christianity than just the Bible, all of which has been handed down from generation to generation: the Church, the Sacraments, the succession of pastors down from the apostles via laying of hands, traditions, interpretations, etc.

It's not like the Bible was dropped from a spaceship and everybody has to figure out what it means.  The Church was given the deposit of faith and the Sacraments.  It produced the Bible.  It doesn't really make sense to consider the Bible apart from the Church.
That is why if I ever decide to become a "Church-going Christian" that I would likely chose the Catholic Church, since I find sola scriptura difficult to reconcile.  Although maybe that is just my immature rebellious ways that need to be broken down.
Mountaineer wrote: Gosso,

Thanks for the suggestion.  I ordered "The Great Divorce".  Sounds interesting.

... Mountaineer
Great!  I think you'll enjoy it.
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Re: Figuring Out Religion

Post by shoestring » Tue Dec 10, 2013 4:26 pm

MediumTex wrote: One item I would like to comment on relates to the idea that we hold the validation of the Jesus story to an unfairly high standard.

Here's the thing, though: If you ask me to believe that God impregnated a virgin, that the resulting son Jesus was actually God in mortal form, that Jesus performed all sorts of supernatural acts as a way of bolstering his ministry, that when the authorities executed him he suffered but then walked out of his grave three days later, that a bunch of other people popped out of their graves as well when Jesus came back to life, that Jesus travelled around for a bit after rising from the dead, that Jesus finally ascended into the heavens to sit at the right hand of God (or maybe re-commune with God), and that my fate through all of eternity rests on my correct understanding of all of these events, I'm going to subject it to more scrutiny that I would an account of what Abraham Lincoln had for breakfast on a given day.

I think that it's perfectly reasonable to subject more farfetched claims to greater scrutiny, with the starting assumption that claims involving the supernatural are false.
Not all things that exist must exist in nature.  This is demonstrably provable with the number 3, for example.  Another example is your mind, it has been demonstrated that it is separate from the physical body that's associated with any individual and therefore has no actual physical presence in the universe either.  Either every mathematical equation involving numbers is false and none of us are sentient, or some claims involving the supernatural must be true.

Even if one believes that my particular examples are incorrect and assumes all things which exist are fundamentally of the same matter, that only means God, Jesus, etc. are natural.

Finally there is no correlation, inverse or otherwise, between how extraordinary, incomprehensible, or demonstrable something is and how true it is.
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