I'll give all my cash to anyone on ILX who can convert me to Christianity without the aid of drugs, reeducation seminars, or threats of physical force.

I accept checks.

Approach Christianity this way:
1. Christianity is more open-minded than most conservative Christians and athiests would have you believe.
2. Jesus was a pretty cool guy.
3. The Bible is part history lesson and part cryptic statements about how God thinks. Contrary to popular belief, it's not really a guide to everyday life.

and, of course, the classic:
4. God loves you and is always by your side.

Works for me. Of course, I'm probably f00king up everything Christianity REALLY stands for.

Basically, just believe in God, don't f00k up the world too much, and everything will work out fine.

Christianity is a relationship. I know the offer was made facetiously, but it's not possible to buy your way into Christianity, any more than it is possible to buy your way into any other real relationship.

There are some, like Karl Barth, who say that persons seeking God are not really seeking on their own, but that their search is anticipated and facilitated by God at all times. So if the quest is genuine (which to be honest, I doubt) ask and be answered, seek and you will find. And get into a church, for crying out loud--being Christian alone is like dieting alone...it's hard to do, feels utterly unrewarding, and misses out on the joy to be had in communal worship.

Oh, and I've been told to tell you that I', not a 'psycho googler.' Whatever that is.. Melissa W. keeps trying to get me addicted by posting the incendiary-est of the Christian messages. Tart.

mind you I believe a few of the most ridiculous spiritual propositions known to man, I just don't believe that there is any rational argument whatsoever for faith in divine powers

But since you ask...I presume what you're asking is, why do people need to look when God could just reveal Godself..the answer I find is that human action and responsibility are a part of this relationship, and God will not override our wills and ability to freely choose relationship with him.

To quote another of the neo-orthodoxy theologians of late 19th-century Germany, Emil Brunner, if human beings could see God in Godself, there would no longer be room for faith or doubt--the truth would be so self-evident that it would blind the will and the actual choice to follow God would be an empty one because choosing 'no' would be ludicrous. For that reason, he says, every revelation of God is also a concealment of God.

Tell me briefly what you know or think about the doctrine of 'grace'

I should clarify, at the possible expense of draining all the hilarity from this thread, because my thread has seemingly made the opposite of its intended impression on you. Which is entirely my fault for being too jocular. Although the proposal sounds mocking, there are psuedoserious intentions behind it. (I didn't intend to insult or trivialize Christianity. I certainly don't intend to buy my way into it, Pat Robertson notwithstanding. )

Not to make too much of something I didn't think through terribly well, but....

I actually am extremely curious about the nature of faith, and have long wished to unburden myself of the psuedo-Marxist indifference-cum-hostility to religion with which I was raised. I am always eager to hear about people's conversion experiences, or perhaps if they were raised as a Christian, the moments that galvanized their faith. I'm curious to know what forces influenced them—but can you speak of "influence" on something that is ostensibly not a "decision" at all? So what I'm most curious about, and what may be impossible to "learn" in the ways that I have learned other things, is what faith feels like.

The fact that I am approaching this from an intellectual vantage point at all betrays the burden of my education, but as John pointed out, I do accept the reality of conversion and no longer parrot the line that religion is a superstructural reflection of underlying social dynamics, or what have you. And my reasons aren't all intellectual. They are moral and emotional as well. As I mentioned on another thread, my complacent psuedo-Marxist notions of how the world was organized, and as important how it might be organized, were thrown for a loop in college. The moral underpinnings of my inherited "belief" system were left exposed. And I am not someone who is comfortable with this kind of despair (as in the pat Momus formulation, "morality is vanity").

I look to those who have faith, a belief in the possibility of transcendence, with admiration and considerable envy (also much suspicion and mistrust, depending upon the person). I don't mean to condescend to Christianity by interpreting it solely as a kind of palliative to existential despair. But I honestly would welcome more dialogue with it. Since no one in my circle of friends can claim to be a Christian, and most of them dismiss it quite out of hand, I thought this thread would be a Fun Way to Approach the Subject. I didn't expect too many Christians to come out of the ILX woodwork, though. I'm glad you have.

In all seriousness, Heather, please point out any examples of condescension/patronization/etc. in my message. I had a professor in school (a devout Methodist) who was very patient with my asking him questions, but in the "real world" I have to learn how to communicate without insulting anyone.

(P.S. Heather, are you studying theology or divinity?)

***

Any kind of Fun to be had in this thread has likely been spoilt by this longwinded (and semicoherent) message, for better or worse.

Hmmm (retreats back into his comfy lair of logical positivism).

Am I the clumsiest poster on ILX?

John for a moment I pictured you as a deacon in Al Green's church. I can only imagine the music that might result.

oh and piss off Noodles ;)

Yeah, I want to emphasize how brilliant Chesterton is. I seriously believe that with 'Orthodoxy' he has written the best rational argument for why Cristianity is the truth. For all Chrisitians and non-christians alike it's a great read, and I would be interested in hearing any responses to why his rational is incorrect. Maybe I will have to look for some commentaries on it.

It does have some flaws. It seems like it was written mostly for people who are already Christians to get them to refine their belief more. I would expect it to not cut it.

(By the way, can anyone recommend any books that rationally discredit Christianity. I've been reading to many pro-Christian books, and want to get the other side.)

Doing so has definitely helped me to moderate my adolescent "position" on religion. It was quite a revelation to discover that modernism did not negate religion and in fact perhaps opened up new paths to it.

I don't think so -- an immersion course in language is readily conceded to be the most effective way of learning a new language, and certainly faith (does not equal) the language of day-to-day experience.

I confess I don't know who Al Green is, so I can't discuss his taste. Likewise Barth and Brunner no doubt seem dry to you.

There's a tendency in liberal Protestant Christianity to remove the abstract or ethereal elements and reduce it to some sort of passionate inwardness with moral expressions--Schleiermacher calls it the feeling of absolute dependence, Kierkegaard speaks of an 'objective uncertainty held fast in passionate inwardness,' and even a more recent and neo-orthodox figure, Schubert Ogden, speaks of faith as the conviction that life is worthwhile. Interestingly, all definitions of faith contain some element of risk, which would lead back to Mr. Brunner and his idea that any revelation of God can be misunderstood.

I will try to address your question seriously, Amateurist, but I can't say with certainty that you'll like the answer..

I'm a Wesleyan, committed to the theology of John Wesley, who held that God is self-giving love above all. All humans are created for relationship with God, but in addition to that, human beings are designed to exist in selfless love for other persons and also for creation--humans are also to love their own selves and care for them. When these relationships are destroyed or perverted, the result is sin and pain. If the relationships are maintained, the result is sinlessness, also called holiness..

If you seek to become a Christian, go to a church in which you find others acting in selfless love and allow that grace to work upon your soul. Listen to the songs and sermons and look for the truth in them. Receive communion (the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist) if it is offered to you, because to Wesley communion is a means of grace--a way by which God can reach you.

This sounds excessively orthodox and esoteric, but it is the best answer I can find for you

But I don't buy that.

You mention that we may find your message "orthodox and esoteric," but it is precisely this strangeness (as a relative value) that interests me. It is important for me to remember that the things that are at stake to a Christian as regards faith and doctrine, are not the sorts of things that are necessary salient to a nonbeliever--as I suggested before, the cultural accoutrements of faith.

Eyeball Kicks writes: to explore your own (anyone's) fucked-upness is a lifetime's work in itself.

This is an Oprahesque (not a slight necessarily) spin on Christianity which has little resonance for me. Actually something resembling a fusion of Bettelheim and Christianity. I don't imagine Christianity as a means to better "understand" myself. Such an approach begs the question: to what end?

Incidentally, I went to Wesleyan University, not that there's much in the way of Wesliana being taught there now.

More later, as I'm drunk and tired at the moment.

But I ask you, as I perhaps should have from the start, what brings you to pose the question?

Essentially, that I appreciate and admire many aspects of Christianity, and am curious about faith, but have yet to find the language that will bridge my deeply ingrained skepticism and belief. I wanted to give people an opportunity to struggle to communicate their feelings about Christianity and conversion in a forum where such talk is typically anathema.

(That is the abridged version b/c I am at work.)

I was raised Christian, and I'm a religious historian (with "religious" modifying "history," not me -- I wish there were better words, but I'm constantly having to clarify that), but I don't have a whole lot of interest in Christ. Jesus was cool. Just figuring out what he was saying is a challenge and a half, even if you don't bother with the whole trip of separating out what he said from the words put into his mouth after the fact.

I'd have to go all Clinton to answer the thread question here -- what do you mean by "Christianity," and what do you mean by "convert"? Even if I could argue in favor of Jesusism (I'll use EK's word here) instead of Christianity, I'm not sure I'd want to convert you. I'd probably have to take a stand on what Jesus actually meant, and there are too many places where I can't.

Look at the most/least obvious: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." It's astounding how often this is quoted in the pulpit, in all sorts of contexts, given that there's no way to have any idea just what Jesus thought was Caesar's. He may as well have just said "Do the right thing," and then wandered off as if that settled the issue once and for all.

In another recent thread, we looked at a chart published in The Economist which showed that, by and large, the wealthier and more advanced a country was, the more it tended to be 'post-religious'. (The only exception was the US, almost unique amongst highly developed nations in its religiosity.)

It would be interesting to consider whether Christianity goes together with retarded development in individuals as it seems to do in nations.

This is what I'm trying to get away from. Thanks for clarifying, Momus.

I think that the idea that you can't organize goodness or freedom is just as flawed and dangerous as the idea that you can - it's a neo-liberal claim, really.

A note on Al Green, above--no one would say that hymns have magic powers. A song sung with no inner...appropriation..isn't going to have any effect on the person singing it, so the fact that he sang hymns and wasn't Christian is not a ringing strike against Christianity but against Al Green.

And to Momus I would say that to equate Christianity with 'retarded development,' as if only the credulous or thoughtless would take it seriously, is both insulting and patently false. The history of Christianity, as Tep could clarify, is the story of many brilliant individuals, some of them the most intelligent of their time, who devoted themselves heart and soul to something they could claim was either pure logic or something which transcends logic. While there may exist a certain anti-intellectualist trend in organized Christianity today, it does not mean that Christians, their leaders, or their theology, is only for the less advanced countries.

I'll try to state my basic beliefs in as few words as possible..

God is love. Love is God's reigning attribute. All other aspects of God are stated or interpreted in light of his love
God is the creator of all good things.
Creation is estranged from God
Creation is intended for a relationship of mutual, self-giving love for God
This estrangement from God has led to the warping and twisting of all other relationships, which is sin. The self looks for another center of love besides the Father
In some way, through the self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, the one who is both completely God and completely human, the potential for reconciliation exists.

There's more but I'll stop now.

Has anyone joined a religious community largely because of what I've called the "accoutrements" of faith--the form of religious expression, whether it be gospel music or what have you--and eventually determined that you could not believe?

What are the implications of belonging to a religious community, to go through the motions of religious expression (even doing so exceedingly, passionately well) without knowing in your heart that you believe?

It was indeed 'freedom'. I think it's a great line, but then I'm not a critic, just a songwriter.

I think that the idea that you can't organize goodness or freedom is just as flawed and dangerous as the idea that you can - it's a neo-liberal claim, really.

Well, I agree that goodness and freedom can be organised. The problem is that we get into tautologies like the one Heather laid out: 'X is good, goodness is x' and so on. And what that's essentially doing is externalising certain parts of ourselves -- the best parts -- whereas what we need to do is claim them as our own, take responsibility for them, manage them.

There's a very obvious authoritarianism at work when we seek to project our good impulses into an external, all-powerful yet intangible uber-being who demands capitulation. Our values, if we succeed, are no longer ours, and no longer negotiable. And, some would argue, no longer good. Because if God exists, and has laid out His Plan, there is only one response: total compliance. Is that virtue?

Honestly, it depends on how you interpret the phrase "made in his own image" and what you think the true meaning of the fall from Eden story is. That predicates what you think about God just as much as which apostle you pick as being the most accurate representation of Christ's life and teachings.

More directly, though, yeah, when I was in my late teens I hooked up with various other religions/denominations briefly because of one thing or another and kept finding it just wasn't for me. But I also have a couple of friends who love going to church but don't agree with a word of what's espoused there. They go for the feeling of it, the grandeur, etc.

Ditto what Dan said about compliance, too. I don't think an authoritarian God, in that sense, is an integral part of Christianity, and I don't think it ever has been; it's just a very popular take on the matter.

I think we have to ask what is being demoted when we promote a notional creator to the position 'centre of all goodness'? We can answer that historically by saying that when Christianity and Islam succeeded in replacing the polytheistic, animistic and druidic religions which were prevalent in antiquity, such things as playfulness, the celebration of nature, the spirit of place, a certain localness and modesty, a certain acceptance of diversity, were all demoted.

(Having said that, I'd wager that if you were able to place all Christians along a scale with Kierkegaard at one end (or Tolstoi, maybe) and Jack T. Chick at the other, the mass of them -- the quiet ones -- would be closer to the former than the latter. I still think their religion is all full of holes, but it's not as awful as their most vocal exponents seem to want everyone to think it is.)

But in Japan people bow to people, who bow back.

I wouldn't make too much of this -- businessmen spend whole careers bowing to people they actively dislike -- bowing in Japan compares to smiling at one's boss in the U.S. i.e. you just sort of have to do it, it's not like you mean anything by it -- but you know this already, surely

Well, okay, since you insist on seeing degradation and discord everywhere, let's just imagine there's no heaven... er, sorry, a country where humans 'worship' each other rather than gods. Would that be a good place to be?

"The surface is innately beautiful and worthy of regard."
"But the surface hides the truth and you can't ignore it."
"But those holding to the surface can be aware of the 'truth' on the one hand or on the other hand can function without it."

Though perhaps I talk smack.

Humanity is a horrible thing compared to what? To lumps of dead rock floating in space? To crustacea?

In sum what I mean is that I think you badly underestimate how much pressure the obligations of society and family bring to bear on an individual in Japan. It sounds like you've equated the charm of Japanese manners with what such charm might mean in a different context. But perhaps this discussion should be continued in a thread entitled Madame Butterfly: Suggestion or Warning?

OK perhaps we should take this to email but this seems completely at odds with the records you make. I don't mean with the persona of said records but with the overall project.

You didn't terrify me, Momus. I was just pointing out that rather than making an point that a Christian or an agnost could debate, the very terms of your argument presumed a very dim interpretation of Christianity.

All of your speculative utopias, Momus, do not address what many people turn to religion to address: the fate of their soul. You seem to presume that people turn to Christianity to resolve problems that could be resolved by "humanist" means. This is no doubt true in many cases, but not all.

You misunderstood, John, that thing about humanism being fashionable was a description of an imaginary country 'where humans worship each other rather than gods'.

It's true that Japan is the closest I've seen to that. I think a lot of what I like about Japan comes down to the fact that they never embraced Christianity or any other monotheism. There is, as a result, a different attitude to sex, to the body. There's a different attitude to spirituality, which is diffused throughout the whole of life, light but omnipresent. Ritual, which to us tends to happen only in church, to them can happen in a store (the way they wrap goods) or the way a white-gloved station manager waves a train off, or the way a street seller advertises his wares. Society, for the Japanese, is in the position that God occupies in our cultures. Which is extremely cool, because, you see, it's 100% certain that society exists. (Unlike stuff like 'God' and 'the eternal soul'.)

Kierkegaard spoke of his faith as 'objective uncertainty held fast in passionate inwardness'. Fine, but what about faith in society? Wouldn't that be 'objective certainty held fast in passionate outgoingness'? In other words, oneness with the world, with people? Isn't that what we're all looking for?

I feel like everyone will be convinced that I'm a Christian by the end of this thread, which I'm not.

1) Prophecy: The Old Testament is full of prophecies about the coming Messiah, all of which were fulfilled in the historical person of Jesus. The chances of any one person fulfilling all of those prophecies by chance is mind-bogglingly slim. Furthermore, the New Testament prophecies of the End Times are being fulfilled before our very eyes (e.g., the modern state of Israel, the EEC, globalization, etc.). Make a close study of the book of Revelations - time is running out!

2) The Empty Tomb: The disciples went to the tomb - Jesus was not there. Later they saw him alive and he ascended into heaven. All of these things are recorded in the Gospels, along with many other miraculous events that cannot be explained away by science. So were the apostles lying about what they saw? If they were lying, then why were so many of them willing to suffer greatly and even die for their refusal to deny these things? That's not the way charlatans would behave.

Let me know when you're ready to mail the check.

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

- Mark 16:1-8

The prophecy one's pretty much right out, too, since [insert all the stuff which would probably get us off track]. Anyone who needs to be converted isn't, I'd hope, going to be swayed by literalism.

It can be funny watching the discussion of this in introductory religious studies courses, cause even in Louisiana you've always got two or three atheist students who come in on the assumption that it's "a known fact" that Jesus never existed, so for the first few weeks you've got them objecting every time it's pointed out that, yeah, he probably did, with half of the rest of the class objecting when you suggest he might not've walked on water.

Come on, if that worked, Jerry Brown would be President-for-Life.

This is a terrible argument, O. Nate, and I'm quite surprised you've suggested it. By your logic, then none of the other major religions that have continued to thrive are false either -- in which case you are a pantheist and should argue for the validity of them all instead of just one.

'Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then without hesitation that he is.' Pascal

Maybe I should have said 'semi-rational'. There are plenty of people unimpressed by Pascal's wager.

No, I don't find that a compelling argument either. You're saying the 'success' of something, for lack of a better term, supports its validity at the least. That strikes me as untenable on a broader level, and not just in terms of religion or philosophy.

Well, think about it this way, Ned. Before He died, Christ instructed his disciples to preach the Gospel to all the nations of the earth. When he said that, to a small band of poor ex-fishermen, it must have seemed like an impossible assignment. However, at the present day, it has nearly been accomplished. What were the odds of that happening without some help from the unseen Divine Hand?

Little Richard (after the conversion)

(Give it a spin and you'll agree he should have stayed one of Satan's children.)

Even before you get to that problem, there's the problem of the wager not describing belief: 'If you gain.../If you lose...'. Belief doesn't involve 'if's. How do you make yourself believe something? Especially when what you want to believe makes no sense, is absurd, is untrue even? This was Amateurist's original request: he wanted a thoroughly convincing argument for something irrational. It cannot be done with modern day grammar.

This reminds me of the many psychics who use this argument, but who resist any actual attempt to let a full use of scientific method to study their practices to show that they are real. I'm not saying that you're similar to said folks, O. Nate, but it seems you are cleverly dodging a bullet right now by trying to question scientific axioms and by implication tarnishing scientific method with the same brush...perhaps?

Without considering evidence, both of these possibilities seem like good guesses.

But science says: based on all the evidence we have, the swamp looks pretty likely. If new evidence turns up to contradict this, we'll have to think again.

Religion says: not only did an omnipotent being create the universe, but we know precisely which omnipotent being, and, what's more, we have a good idea of what he thinks and what he wants from us. There is no evidence for this, other than the fact that people who lived thousands of years ago thought it so. If yet more evidence to contradict our version turns up, we will do mental pirouettes to ensure that we don't have to do much thinking again.

To do so successfully you should be able to eradicate doubt. Is this possible? Are the effusions of religious believers a way of masking or compensating for such doubt?

An individual, fallible scientist says: based on all the evidence I have, the swamp looks pretty likely. If new evidence turns up to contradict this, I'll have to think again.

An individual, fallible believer says: not only did an omnipotent being create the universe, but I know precisely which omnipotent being, and, what's more, I have a good idea of what he thinks and what he wants from me. There is no evidence for this, other than the fact that people who lived thousands of years ago thought it so. If yet more evidence to contradict my version turns up, I will do mental pirouettes to ensure that I don't have to do much thinking again. PS: I am a dunderheid.

That suit ya?

Hence my indifference towards the Bible, as exemplified towards the beginning of the thread.

If the paper seems yellow from one angle, but white from all others, you can very easily choose not to see yellow. Religious belief is the same way; unless one has been born and raised with the "correct" perspective, it is difficult to maintain (much less trust) that perspective.

Well, in that case, are you really choosing not to see yellow, or are you being persuaded by the evidence that the yellow that you see from that one particular angle is an illusion? Then you could ask does someone choose to be persuaded - and I would say that the answer is no.

Perhaps an example will clarify: Say I'm lost in an unfamiliar city and I ask two people for directions. One of them tells me to walk north; the other tells me to walk south. I have no reason to believe one more than the other. Since it's starting to get dark, I have to do something, so I flip a coin and start walking north. This doesn't mean that I have chosen to believe that north is in fact the correct direction. In fact, I do not know which is the correct direction, and I still have no belief either way, although I am choosing to act as though north is the correct direction. There is a difference between acting on a hypothesis and believing it to be true. So you could choose to act as though you were a Christian without believing it to be true, but that would not be the same as choosing to believe it.

Even if the external evidence for two conditions is equal, it is possible to think about one more frequently than the other, to the point that one no longer considers the other at all (or, at most, doubts that its counterpart is true). Insofar as an individual has control over what he thinks about, he has control over what he believes. (I grant you that thought is not always voluntary.)

Take it easy

call me stupid (and someone probably will) but for me this just doesn't follow. any chance of expanding on this?

To me, this looks like you've made knowledge and opinion synonymous, which bugs me just as much as equating knowledge with belief.

Surely there must be a distinction between "things I know" and "things I believe"? Some divide between the quantifiable and the unquantifiable?

Science and religion are the two great seekers of truth. Their methods differ, and so do the specific kinds of truths they can address. Indeed, the truths of one cannot be discovered by the methods of the other.

Right, which to me implies that THEY AREN'T INHERENTLY IN OPPOSITION WITH EACH OTHER (the point I was circling above when I first posited the questions).

I'm willing to grant that this sort of thing can happen, Kieran. However, I think that the control that the individual is exercising in this case is necessarily indirect. There remains a difference between saying that someone can choose to believe something, and saying that their choices can have an indirect affect on what they end up believing down the road. However, I maintain that belief is not a voluntary activity. I think some of the confusion stems from the fact that there is an idiom in our language in which we say that we "choose to believe" something. However, what I think this means is that we are choosing to act as though something were true and to keep our doubts to ourselves - however, the doubts do not magically disappear - unless other people's minds work differently than mine does.

Oh dear. I guess we all must have our say.

I dont know Dan about where the division occurs just that it does... just how many grams of love do you hold for your wife? "THEY AREN'T INHERENTLY IN OPPOSITION WITH EACH OTHER", thats my take on it, perhaps they even compliment each other ;-).

Jim I was talking about spirtiual or heart knowledge, ie you "know" your self through reading a book about human anatomy but also "know" yourself as a person. There are truths to me that cannot be measured by science or emperical measures. I gota go and I dont want to get drawn into lengthy debates, just my 2 cents worth.

Please clarify "indirect". I didn't specify any length of time, so "end up...down the road" is a distortion.

Also, explain how belief is different from the ability to hold an idea in one's head without thinking of one or more competing ideas.

I don't think this was always the case. The Hebrew bible is full of physical manifestations of God. Or you've got the emphasis on Jesus' empty tomb (but also, there, you've got the story of Thomas, the foolish rationalist). Or early Catholicism's fondness for bizarre relics (the holy foreskin, or the hand of St. Stephen which I have seen!.

Also, come to think of it, the Vatican still has a team of scientists which investigates incidences of the miracles required to qualify for sainthood.

The problem for religion (religions which describe the nature of the world and the universe, that is, or describe a god, or name it, or translate its thoughts) is that science steadily limits the ways religion can express itself. It starts with the earth orbiting the sun, and goes on. Religion must become abstract faith, where once it was all of physical life. It was the reason why the crops grew.

Alternatively, religion and science aren't inherently in opposition, because all known scientists and believers have been human. Humans tend not to be purely scientists, or purely believers. A chemist, for instance, believing only that which can be experimentally proven at work, may come home and irrationally suspect her husband of cheating on her, even though she has no evidence to suggest it is true. Scientists, being human and sometimes irrational, can feasibly hold views that aren't directly in opposition to their own field. Botany, say, doesn't deal much with the morality of human sexuality, and so there is no special reason why botanists can't feel comfortable stoning adulterers. Botany, however, does often involve the study of evolution as it occurs, so it would be silly for a botanist to be some kind of Creationist or denier of the mutability of species.

And, yes, religion does adapt, and clarify itself. Only fundamentalist Christians would now consider the version of creation in Genesis to be literally true. The majority of Christian theologists consider the nativity stories in Mark and Luke legendary, and, I reckon, there aren't too many who'd claim that Jesus really, physically rose from the dead or did miracles.

But the kind of thinking that leads to these concessions (and I admit that many hardcore believers have been among the fiercest thinkers who ever lived) makes it more difficult for the religious person to engage with the non-religious. Instead of, "I'm convinced of this, let me show you why", it's "I believe this, I suggest you do too".

See, I get the basic religious impulse, which is, to put it blandly, "There must be more to life than this". Personally, I'd prefer "There might be more to life", or "It'd be good if there were more to life", or maybe even, "I have this feeling that there's more", but the first version is pretty tolerable.

What I don't get is how come people who are religious come to the next stage, which is, as I said above: "There must be more to life, and as it happens I know exactly what that 'more' is".

But what I want to know is, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Rabbis were questioning the literal reading of a six-day Creation when Jesus was still a twinkle in ... well, in someone's eye, ineffable or otherwise.

Very little of what the Jesus Seminar has suggested about Jesus -- in terms of their conclusions, that is, not their arguments -- hadn't already been suggested within the Catholic Church and elsewhere, centuries ago. As late as the Council of Trent, there were clergy who wanted Revelation removed from the New Testament (there still are, of course, but that's the latest instance I know of where clergy were still talking about it; it'd been problematic from the start).

... in a formal, "we're prepared to do something about it," context, that is.

Once implosion happens, as is bound to happen, you get what's happened with Hinduism: innumerable different sects that bear only passing resemblences to one another...and still counting!

Despite the various sects (they really aren't innumerable, everything is pretty much documented - you'd be surprised), there are still some core beliefs that all Hindus, ranging from traditonalist Brahmins to the most subversive, extreme Tantrics, share, namely the existence of karma, reincarnation, and that the goal = to free one's self from the cycle of birth and death. Even an adherence to the Vedas as revealed scripture, either from a distance or not, is almost universal. The major ideological differences underneath all of the superficial bickering (which deity is supreme, caste distictions, etc.) approaches something like dualism vs. monism, in regards to how the Absolute is experienced when the cycle is broken (the manifestation of the self/Self relationship; do they still coexist as lover/Loved or is there then only One?)

Oh, and in response to the _ "only one religion can be right, right?" strain -_ while they would generally fall into modern reworking of Hindu thought (in an effort to appropriate inclusiveness, like Vivekananda did), there are a number of modern philosophies that emphasize that "Hinduism says ALL religions are correct, it does not matter whether you love God as Jesus or Krishna or Allah, because just like all rivers merge into the Ocean, so do all religions flow into the same God." That metpahor is supported by a mantra, actually, from the Srimad Bhagvatam, so I suppose its not all moderm retooling. I mean, in essence, Hindu thought is built around the concept that all these souls (everyone) have come from the Absolute, and they will all return to it in due course, what differs is the amount of time - everyone IS going to get moksha (liberation, the closest analogy to being "saved"), some are just delaying it for a v. v. long time. This in itself was reappropriated by Neale Donald Walsch into his new-age (hate that term) tome "Conversations With God" in which he was trying to humanize a Xtian God with Eastern principles.

Of course, according to Xianty, we're all still going to Hell!

I cannot say so with any sort of authority, but I sincerely do believe that no one really thinks that pant-shitting will put them in mortal danger. Irrartional fear of um, diarrhea or appendicitis nonwithstanding?

That may be what Orbit meant, but fear-based arguments in favor of Christianity are extremely common, even when they seem to be phrased differently ("God loves you, he doesn't want anything to happen to you.") -- "people who aren't spiritual haven't had the crap scared out of them" sounds a half-step away from "... and if they did, they'd see the light." A variant on the "there are no atheists in foxholes" bumper sticker.

Sol replies: "Money, that's all you people think about."

Many centuries of proselytizing and subordination belies this claim....

It isn't totally necessary, despite the way many fundamentalists think. You can believe in Christianity, yet allow room beliefs from Buddhism, for example. At its face, isn't the desire to love your fellow man and find peace within yourself the same in both?

The tenets of the religion itself isn't the problem. It begins with those who say that [x] 'is the one true belief and if you don't think so too, then you are wrong.'

My example is my witness, my ministry, my 'presentation of the gospel', and I just make sure as I can that that 'presentation' makes people, such as (most obviously) my children, more rather than less likely to consider Christianity for themselves. Most times all I feel I can do is try and stay out of the way.

This is wrong. I hope it didn't influence anyone who read it.

Read this.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Yccd7J3OL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
http://www.amazon.com/Behold-Spirit-Necessity-Mystical-Religion/dp/0394717619

would enjoy seeing someone join church, become a priest, get appointed to amateurist's parish, introduce himself, take long philosophical walks set to montage in the woods, pointed conversations, warm moments of authentic friendship, 30 years pass as amateurist starts attending the church, meals with each others family, the slow walk down into christiandom and really all religion centered in a communal + fraternal experience. they are old men sitting on chairs together discussing grandchildren, a young new pastor that is taking the town by storm, how funny life is - priest removes futureiPad device, shows ilx thread says "all your cash plz."

There are no rational arguments for belief in Christianity that are especially persuasive. Anyone who is coping just fine with their life (which necessarily includes coping with the fact of one's death) is not going to fully embrace Christianity just because someone presents it in novel words. I doubt Pascal's Wager has resulted in any deep or lasting conversions among those who are content with their non-belief.

Generally speaking, to be converted you must experience something you cannot explain but you feel is so important that you must re-examine your beliefs and then trade them in for a set that better accomodates this new reality. The pressure for such a conversion is often personal trauma, but it can also be a mystical episode.

So, if amateurist suffers a crisis, he might be a bit riper for plucking, depending on how desperate he feels.

Started reading this thread, but got sidetracked by "Wait a minute, crüt is a Christian???"

Also: Pascal's Wager had better not have converted many people, or I'll go on my AAAARGH SMASH EVERYTHING rant about how it is so unutterably flawed and biased as a philosophical ground for anything.

"I did not argue," answered M. de Rollebon, "I made him fear Hell."

There are no rational arguments for belief in Christianity that are especially persuasive.

Tax breaks, political gain, social status, etc. There are plenty of reasons to go Christian in America, especially the south. j/k

As far as finding God through Christianity, there simply are no rational arguments that direct us to God because God is not a rational concept. It transcends language and common sense. It contains everything and nothing, all truths, all lies, and all contradictions. If God could not contradict himself then he would not encompass everything. If God could be described through math or words then he wouldn't be God, he would be cosmology.

The Bible makes sense if you are already spiritual. If not then you may as well be reading it literally, like a comic book.

Tax breaks, political gain, social status, etc

These are only reasons to profess xtianity, not to practise it.

I really feel like personality, personal history, and the way you socialize are a large part of the acceptance of religion. I'd recommend huge, life-changing experience, whether they be tragic or blissful, followed by an introduction to religion or a supportive religious community. If need be, we can arrange someone to hit you with a car, give you drugs, or possibly shock treatment or an icepick lobotomy.

"practicing" xtianity and actually having faith in god are very different things

Yeah but the title here is "converts me to Christianity" not "gives me a genuine spiritual breakthrough".

the question is really weird -- "i'll give you all my money if you do x. but don't do y, because if you do y, i'll probably give you all my money anyway."

what's y?

y = drugs (i give you all my money)
y = reeducation seminars (i give you all my money)
y = force (i give you all my money)

so why do x?

He could have put his money in a trust with instructions not to release it in the case of y. If you're going to take a thought experiment that literally.

god is reading this thread and he is all like "lol, money"

Started reading this thread, but got sidetracked by "Wait a minute, crüt is a Christian???"

I think I was quoting something

that is not anywhere on the internet anymore

think the challenge is convert without doing y, not i'll give you any of my money if you do y.

oh wait never mind, I can't remember what was going on in my life when I posted in this thread. I was 15.

I'm not even going to read what I said itt

yeah but if i challenged people to eat a pepperoni pizza without eating the pepperonis, and the prize was the pepperonis, why wouldn't you just eat the pizza normally?

You underestimate the competitive nature of humanity.

Fine print: thread title refers to "all my cash" and not "all my assets" or even "all my money". For example, a checking account is just a cash equivalent, not actual cash. Presumably we were being offered a few small bills and a smattering of coins.

yr analogies confuse, philip

salvation for thirteen bucks and a gallon of pennies

it depends on the amount of pepperonis involved. maybe it is a lot of them.

it doesn't depend on the pepperonis involved at all. the pepperonis will be eaten along with the rest of the pizza, the challenge actually being "if you can encourage me to eat this pizza, including the pepperonis which i am frankly sceptical of, without resorting to using drugs, reeducation seminars or threats of physical force, i will give you all of my cash"

the pepperonis are real. these are not metaphysical pepperonis.

the pepperonis are an article of faith

or, at least they are at my local chipper

oh ye of little spiced meats

"eat ye not of the pork" was the only advice the auld fella piously gave us

the challenge actually being "if you can encourage me to eat this pizza, including the pepperonis make me sincerely believe in something that can't be proven or logically argued, and which i am frankly skeptical of, without resorting to using drugs, reeducation seminars or threats of physical force, i will give you all of my cash"

amateurist's "make" demand undoes the whole challenge. faith seems to be something that people are either raised with or find for themselves.

^ probably covered upthread

Generally speaking, to be converted you must experience something you cannot explain but you feel is so important that you must re-examine your beliefs and then trade them in for a set that better accomodates this new reality. The pressure for such a conversion is often personal trauma, but it can also be a mystical episode.

I'd bet that, historically, the more common route is that some massive change - e.g., invasion or colonization - affects broad swaths of people at the same time, shaking up their sense of who to count as an epistemic authority, and placing tremendous pressure to conform to the new system. I also think that human beings have trouble keeping their religious identities independent from their broader social or political identities, so that if one's social identity is visibly changing under some new set of circumstances, then that can look like a reason in itself to adopt new religious beliefs.

I remember reading a stanza from Hallfred's Saga:

It's the creed of the sovereign
of Sogn, to ban sacrifices.
We must renounce many
a long-held decree of Norns.
All mankind casts Odin's words
to the winds. Now I am forced
to foresake Freyja's kin
and pray to Christ.

Conversion usually works like that, I think. You adopt the new practices that are forced on you, and the line between faith and practice gets fuzzed.

there's this idea of being culturally but not spiritually jewish that i think transfers well to western christianity, to the point that a good percentage of conversions aren't really faith-based.

i mean i could see some gym/yoga memberships being adopted with more spiritual fervor than just "oh hey i'm gonna join this church where all my buddies and possible business connections go to"

just want to pop in and say I've only read a little bit of Alan Watts but he's pretty cool.

i've known more people to convert for social than spiritual reasons

and it's in the context of religious practice that specifically religious spiritual faith arises. it's often assumed that faith precedes religion, but it think it's more often the other way around - at least on the broad, historical level.

faith seems to be something that people are either raised with or find for themselves.

Obv true, but if evangelism didn't work we'd probably have a lot fewer evangelists. If you're the right guy with the right god at the right time, you can clearly make a dent.

I once saw two people accept Christ on the 6 train downtown, between 86th Street and Grand Central. Subway preacher did a little holy talkin', then went around asking who wanted to be saved. Two people took him up on it, which wasn't a bad percentage in a car of maybe 60 people. (They may have already been believers who just wanted to reaffirm, I don't know. But the whole exchange took about 5 minutes, max.)

amateurist's "make" demand undoes the whole challenge. faith seems to be something that people are either raised with or find for themselves.

reverse rilke. 'you must change my life!'

I once saw two people accept Christ on the 6 train downtown, between 86th Street and Grand Central.

Even among evangelicals, these sorts of "come to Jesus" moments are known to be pretty ephemeral.

faith seems to be something that people are either raised with or find for themselves.

There are a number of spooky rituals where it is generally recommended that you use the names and symbols of the religion you were raised in, whether you currently believe it or not. Pretty sure i read about this in a book of Jewish mysticism but not entirely sure.

I once saw two people accept Christ on the 6 train downtown, between 86th Street and Grand Central.

The coolest thing about the Tibetan Book of the Dead is that it says you can reach enlightenment at any point in existence. You don't have to wait to die to go to the afterlife, you can do it on the 6 train downtown.

I once saw two people accept Christ on the 6 train downtown, between 86th Street and Grand Central. Subway preacher did a little holy talkin', then went around asking who wanted to be saved. Two people took him up on it, which wasn't a bad percentage in a car of maybe 60 people. (They may have already been believers who just wanted to reaffirm, I don't know. But the whole exchange took about 5 minutes, max.)

they were probably plants. like when the guys come around with that board game and the first guy to play "wins" $40.

that reference might date me, do people do that on subway trains anymore?

I was gonna say they were plants too and Ive never even seen such a thing happen.

Sorted?

To quote another of the neo-orthodoxy theologians of late 19th-century Germany, Emil Brunner, if human beings could see God in Godself, there would no longer be room for faith or doubt--the truth would be so self-evident that it would blind the will and the actual choice to follow God would be an empty one because choosing 'no' would be ludicrous. For that reason, he says, every revelation of God is also a concealment of God.

^^^^^^ adore watching ppl throwing these boomerangs about

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dqHXCfD46Ns/hqdefault.jpg

hi im a christian after spending most of my adolescence and adulthood as an atheist or agnostic.

i believe jesus was a radical and his life was instructive on how to do good in the context of living under imperial rule and that there is more than . i dont think jesus was god. i believe there is a god but that they are unknowable on earth (i use they/them god pronouns). i pray by myself when i am feeling alone or grateful or aimless or overwhelmed. i don't think christianity is the one true faith; i think there are many others ways to experience the divine. i think this is why the unitarian universalist church is still my church.

*sorry, meant to add this in: "there is more to life than what is evident to us"

dope

i am not a christian but i dig the desert fathers and "the cloud of unknowing" and thomas merton and UUs are my ppl

First I want to know how much money you have, then we'll talk.
― luna (luna.c), Tuesday, 7 January 2003 23:17 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pvmic

loool

Mattew 19:

Once a man came to Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what good thing must I do to receive eternal life?”
“Why do you ask me concerning what is good?” answered Jesus. “There is only One who is good. Keep the commandments if you want to enter life.”

“What commandments?” he asked.

Jesus answered,

“Do not commit murder;
do not commit adultery;
do not steal;
do not accuse anyone falsely;
respect your father and your mother;
and love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

“I have obeyed all these commandments,” the young man replied. “What else do I need to do?”

Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven; then come and follow me.”

http://i.imgur.com/INyQVLQ.jpg

read this book you can send me the cash via paypal

full-on theist these days tbh

I don't know what I am

Bison, crut otm

Crawford/chachi losing points for not committing his ism to a specific the

So miserable these days, the prospect of god existing is frightening

Michel Henry's "I am the Truth" didn't convert me to Christianity but it did mightily tempt me.