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05/16/2008 03:38:06 PM · #126 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by farfel53:
...we are all, every last one, sinners, mostly depraved by nature, capable of some limited "goodness" to some degree. Christians who try to convince you or me that they are not sinners don't know their own nature, or are selling something. |
Just to address the preceding: many feel that humanity is being sold a bill of goods by being told they are sinful, unworthy, barely capable of goodness, and, as you put it so succinctly, innately "depraved". That is a deeply offensive position, the starting point for all manner of horrors. I would suspect it is the chief reason and the catalyst for the rejection of the supernatural by freethinking people. I know that you are able to spin such rejection to fit your worldview -- indeed you must, in order for it to make any kind of sense at all -- but a rejection of the notion of the degraded nature of human beings is the first step in rejecting the whole unseemly ball of wax. |
Louis~ Do you then believe that humans are born 'good'? Or just neutral, where social mores and our own experiences create our 'goodness' or 'badness'? I'm genuinely curious b/c I don't observe that we are basically 'good'. |
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05/16/2008 03:38:54 PM · #127 |
One more little thing, and I'll leave it alone:
Jesus said he came to call the sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. He also said that they that are whole don't need a physician, but they that are sick.
That's all. If you're righteous, you don't need Him. If you're healthy and whole in spirit, you don't need Him. Why bother to argue? Why disparage those that DO feel a need for Him?
Now THAT doesn't make sense to me.
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05/16/2008 03:42:13 PM · #128 |
Nikon, in all honesty, I don't think that MP and Far are trying to save you. I think that his basic belife is, is that everyone is a sinner. Regardless of whether they belive in God or not. I didn't get the impression that he was trying to save you anyways.
In my mind so far, he has been the most honest about himself so far within the group of Christians and he hasnt answered hard core or shoved it in anyones face.
I think out of this whole thread, the best answer that I have come up with is this.
You can not force someone to like salami, you can make them eat it, and they may tolerate it. Does not mean that they like it.
(Now if I stick A Lincon after that it will be a famous saying!!!)
Message edited by author 2008-05-16 15:43:05. |
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05/16/2008 03:49:11 PM · #129 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
see how much of your own motivations are selfish, hedonistic, proud, and how much of your "goodness" is really good at it's very root. |
The same could be asked of any god who is described as selfish and jealous, demands the worship and admiration of others, promises the pleasures of paradise for followers and a fiery hell for all who disagree, requires forgiveness for mere existence, and inflicts pain and suffering upon innocent people with disease and natural disasters. Most humans are better than that. |
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05/16/2008 03:49:34 PM · #130 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
However, I put this to you: examine yourself, down deep, and see how much of your own motivations are selfish, hedonistic, proud, and how much of your "goodness" is really good at it's very root. "Depravity" is a matter of degrees, true, but to us, it's there in every person. You don't see it in yourself, good for you, your conscience is clear. If you do see some of your own shortcomings, you see what we're dealing with. That's all. No big thing.
Peace. |
The issue is not the acknowledgement that there are people who commit heinous acts, or that each individual is capable of greater or lesser degrees of wrongdoing that cause greater or lesser degrees of suffering. The issue is in how an entire world-view is built around the idea of vilifying humanity to such a degree that it is believed to have no redeeming qualities whatever. It represents the worst way that human beings have of dealing with our own nature.
It takes absolutely no mental power at all to be able to say things like, "People are innately depraved and require absolution by a higher power from this state of depravity." It is the philosophically lazy way to deal with the problem of human cruelty, and reflects the childishness of this outlook on the universe. Indeed, it shows only a marginal willingness to deal with issues of great importance to humanity; the "sinner philosophy" is mankind's baby steps on the way to understanding what human nature is all about. We have since advanced, somewhat, beyond this kind of proto-understanding.
I would recommend God's Problem by Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical minister turned atheist. I picked it up last week and haven't had a chance to read it, but from its description, I believe it raises points such as this, and might be worthwhile for some. |
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05/16/2008 03:50:22 PM · #131 |
Now MP that is an interesting question too.
And it can relate \back to my question and others.
I think that when we are born we are neutral. And behavour is learned. But in saying that, what makes a ped the way he is, what makes people hurt other people, , gay, straight, lesbian. Born with defomaties, born with brown hair instead of white, what makes people less tolerant of other people choices. Is it genes. Is it basic structure of our DNA. Or as is said, a learned behaviour?
People can make themselves good or bad by choice, but what if they are born bad, can that happen, does it happen. Does God make bad people, or is that a contridiction?
What makes a person go out and torture another person, they have had a perfect life, good parents, good grandparents, good upbringing, god social life etc. But then they turn around and become someone like Ted Bundy? |
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05/16/2008 03:58:01 PM · #132 |
| FYI&FWIW, Bart Ehrman's book on the Da Vinci Code is a great introduction to New Testament textual criticism. |
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05/16/2008 03:59:29 PM · #133 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by farfel53:
...we are all, every last one, sinners, mostly depraved by nature, capable of some limited "goodness" to some degree. Christians who try to convince you or me that they are not sinners don't know their own nature, or are selling something. |
Just to address the preceding: many feel that humanity is being sold a bill of goods by being told they are sinful, unworthy, barely capable of goodness, and, as you put it so succinctly, innately "depraved". That is a deeply offensive position, the starting point for all manner of horrors. I would suspect it is the chief reason and the catalyst for the rejection of the supernatural by freethinking people. I know that you are able to spin such rejection to fit your worldview -- indeed you must, in order for it to make any kind of sense at all -- but a rejection of the notion of the degraded nature of human beings is the first step in rejecting the whole unseemly ball of wax. |
The concept of "sin" is one of the worst bills of goods that religion was ever able to foist upon the believers. The "we are all sinners" line manages to both degrade the human condition (we're all inherently "sinful" so it is wrong for me to aspire to a more elevated conception of humanity) and excuse the personal behavior of the faithful (I'm a fallen creature who can't help him/herself, only made whole after death through belief in the blood sacrifice of a man 2000 years gone).
I would argue that the concept of "sin" is actually immoral, itself. Immoral in that it directly promulgates the suffering of others based on actions and behaviors that cause no suffering in and of themselves. With a concept of sin, people must be punished for doing certain proscribed things or having certain proscribed thoughts - not because these thoughts or actions cause others harm, but simply because they have been forbidden.
Indeed many religions forbid or discourage actions that directly reduce suffering on grounds of sin. This is the stance that says that female children must not be vaccinated against HPV since it makes sex less dangerous and therefore might tempt the girls into being "sinful" by becoming sexually active. Girls who are promiscuous ("sinful") deserve punishment (suffering).
This was also the type of thinking that made religious people oppose the use of pain reducing drugs and anesthesia for women during childbirth when they became available in the last century. Women, you see, were sinful by nature due to the fall of Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the pain of childbirth was their punishment decreed by God. Alleviating a woman's pain during childbirth was a sin since it amounted to thwarting the will of God.
The modern religious-based movements to prevent legal recognition of consenting adults who want to marry, but happen to be of the same sex, is of the same stripe.
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05/16/2008 04:08:02 PM · #134 |
Originally posted by Louis:
Originally posted by farfel53:
However, I put this to you: examine yourself, down deep, and see how much of your own motivations are selfish, hedonistic, proud, and how much of your "goodness" is really good at it's very root. "Depravity" is a matter of degrees, true, but to us, it's there in every person. You don't see it in yourself, good for you, your conscience is clear. If you do see some of your own shortcomings, you see what we're dealing with. That's all. No big thing.
Peace. |
The issue is not the acknowledgement that there are people who commit heinous acts, or that each individual is capable of greater or lesser degrees of wrongdoing that cause greater or lesser degrees of suffering. The issue is in how an entire world-view is built around the idea of vilifying humanity to such a degree that it is believed to have no redeeming qualities whatever. It represents the worst way that human beings have of dealing with our own nature.
It takes absolutely no mental power at all to be able to say things like, "People are innately depraved and require absolution by a higher power from this state of depravity." It is the philosophically lazy way to deal with the problem of human cruelty, and reflects the childishness of this outlook on the universe. Indeed, it shows only a marginal willingness to deal with issues of great importance to humanity; the "sinner philosophy" is mankind's baby steps on the way to understanding what human nature is all about. We have since advanced, somewhat, beyond this kind of proto-understanding.
I would recommend God's Problem by Bart Ehrman, a former evangelical minister turned atheist. I picked it up last week and haven't had a chance to read it, but from its description, I believe it raises points such as this, and might be worthwhile for some. |
Louis:
But humanity does have tremendous redeeming qualitites! Why else were we offered redemption?
Let me offer this: my own experience. I was/am a pretty "good" guy. I never raped anybody, never robbed or beat anybody, never molested a child. But I did occasionally come short of "truthful" all the time. I might have stretched the word "love" once or twice to convince the girl to come across. I may have slacked at the job a little, maybe didn't give a full hours work for a full hours pay, maybe disrespected the age and wisdom of my father beyond what a "good" son might do. I might have winked at the law of the land a bit in my pot-smoking, hell-raising youth. But I was a pretty good guy.
Just not "GOOD, in a sinless sort of way. Rather more like slightly "depraved", in a little bit dirty and selfish way. Rather more like a little bit of dog poop in a big vat of chocolate brownies kind of way. And that's a fact, judge it however YOU like, my OWN judgement of my OWN self showed ME to be less than perfect. And what was I going to DO about that???
Again...peace.
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05/16/2008 04:13:03 PM · #135 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Let me offer this: my own experience. I was/am a pretty "good" guy...Just not "GOOD, in a sinless sort of way. Rather more like slightly "depraved", in a little bit dirty and selfish way. |
Yes, no need to explain. I understand your outlook. It is an incomplete and philosophically immature way of dealing with human nature. In an interesting turn of irony, it is a depraved view of humanity. |
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05/16/2008 04:22:47 PM · #136 |
Yes, I understand, Louis, just as in our other discussions to date, whatever doesn't fit your point of view is "incomplete" and "immature", whereas you have the answers. The tolerance you love so much extends only to those who share your view. You have no desire to understand and cooexist, only to build yourself up. No futher discussion on my part. B-bye.
Message edited by author 2008-05-16 16:23:14. |
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05/16/2008 04:23:31 PM · #137 |
Originally posted by mpeters:
I'm genuinely curious b/c I don't observe that we are basically 'good'. |
Why?
I sure do.
The ONLY credo my church has is that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.
If that were not true, what would be the point of sentient life at all? |
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05/16/2008 04:26:21 PM · #138 |
Originally posted by JulietNN:
Nikon, in all honesty, I don't think that MP and Far are trying to save you. I think that his basic belife is, is that everyone is a sinner. Regardless of whether they belive in God or not. I didn't get the impression that he was trying to save you anyways. |
I have a bad habit of jumping around in my thoughts and not always expressing them clearly.....sorry.
I did not mean MP and Farfel in particular, I'm more referring to the STAN types who would project their views.
I am genuinely curious as to why in some sects the basic premise is that we are bad from the start. |
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05/16/2008 04:29:44 PM · #139 |
Sorry Nikon, No I understand exactly what you are saying now you have said that, and I agree. And I find it interesting that the people that where the loudest and strongest 'belivers' have not graced us with any answers for the last few pages.
Farfel, I think what you have said so far has been reasonable and fair. And I thank you for that |
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05/16/2008 04:33:23 PM · #140 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
But I was a pretty good guy.
Just not "GOOD, in a sinless sort of way. Rather more like slightly "depraved", in a little bit dirty and selfish way. Rather more like a little bit of dog poop in a big vat of chocolate brownies kind of way. And that's a fact, judge it however YOU like, my OWN judgement of my OWN self showed ME to be less than perfect. And what was I going to DO about that??? |
The problem I have with this whole line of thought is the absolutes.
Can you not be a good man and have failings.....i.e, be human?
If you are not perfect, does that make you a sinner?
Too rigorous......NO human will ever achieve that status, therefore no human is anything but a sinner?
I do not accept that. |
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05/16/2008 04:43:01 PM · #141 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Yes, I understand, Louis, just as in our other discussions to date, whatever doesn't fit your point of view is "incomplete" and "immature", whereas you have the answers. The tolerance you love so much extends only to those who share your view. You have no desire to understand and cooexist, only to build yourself up. No futher discussion on my part. B-bye. |
For the billionth in these forums, I am obliged to point out that we are mature adults discussing ideas, not personalities. I don't know who or what you are beyond the ideas you present here. If you are offended at a counter argument, and translate said counter argument and its various component parts into some kind of abstract attack on your person, and the one offering the argument as some kind of arrogant snob delivering a sermon, you should probably look for the reasons for such offence. Such a person's constant participation in otherwise intelligent conversations becomes truly mystifying, if every counter opinion causes such personal turmoil. Ad hominem attacks do nothing to make your position appear tenable, or your character noble.
Message edited by author 2008-05-16 16:45:08. |
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05/16/2008 04:50:10 PM · #142 |
Jeb, I don't think we're arguing against dignity and worth. By all means, every single human being is precious and worthwhile. Our outlook is merely that we all come up short of perfection, and that requires some intervention on our behalf, outside of our own possible efforts. I understand that is hard concept with which to agree for lots of people. O.K., again, no bludgeon from me. It's a basic concept of Christian faith. If you don't need a savior, don't accept one. The intent is to share belief, not to drag you kicking and screaming into the kingdom. (An interesting phrase created by the great, logical, incredibly intelligent and wonderfully articulate C.S. Lewis)
BTW - anybody that is interested in philosophical discussion of the Christian faith, and not just Christian bashing, C.S. Lewis' writings are full of excellent insight and thought. "The Problem of Pain", "The Great Divorce", the space trilogy "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength", even the Chronicles of Narnia. "The Screwtape Letters" Good stuff. If you're interested...
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05/16/2008 04:56:12 PM · #143 |
| I see, Louis. So "immature" and "incomplete" are to you not at all insulting or arrogant terms, merely discussion. I think you are incredibly pompous, but then, that's just discussion. It's merely discussion when you throw words around with intent to belittle, but it's hand-wringing and whining when somebody takes offence. Do you ever have trouble carrying on discussions anywhere else? Like I said, it looks to me like your entire concept of "tolerance" and "intelligent conversation" is only what you agree with. |
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05/16/2008 04:57:28 PM · #144 |
| Lewis' weakness is that his outlook is steeped in the discriminations of his era; cf. his views on homosexuality and sexuality in general. |
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05/16/2008 04:59:52 PM · #145 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
I see, Louis. So "immature" and "incomplete" are to you not at all insulting or arrogant terms, merely discussion. I think you are incredibly pompous, but then, that's just discussion. It's merely discussion when you throw words around with intent to belittle, but it's hand-wringing and whining when somebody takes offence. Do you ever have trouble carrying on discussions anywhere else? Like I said, it looks to me like your entire concept of "tolerance" and "intelligent conversation" is only what you agree with. |
This is a worthless ad hominem argument.
The preceding sentence says absolutely nothing about you, has no opinion about what you are or what you're like, and doesn't care about your personal opinions of those involved in this conversation. It is concerned only with the substance of what you've presented, nothing more. |
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05/16/2008 05:06:37 PM · #146 |
Originally posted by NikonJeb:
Originally posted by mpeters:
I'm genuinely curious b/c I don't observe that we are basically 'good'. |
Why?
I sure do.
The ONLY credo my church has is that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.
If that were not true, what would be the point of sentient life at all? |
Why? I guess I could start with myself. Perhaps what I view as sin, you classify as humanity or human failings. Where does bad behavior come from--is it strictly learned?
I think your second post made some good points--it is impossible to be perfect. Humanly impossible.
BTW: Welcome everyone to "Science and Religion Pt3" :)
eta: Louis--billionth?? ;) I haven't been counting but I suppose it is possible. :P
Message edited by author 2008-05-16 17:08:01. |
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05/16/2008 05:08:44 PM · #147 |
| Give or take... feels like it at any rate. |
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05/16/2008 05:25:04 PM · #148 |
Sorry...had to go look up "ad hominem"...as I'm not a "complete" philosopher, my views are immature. When poked, I poke back...but I'll try not to in the future. Can't spout worthless argument, you know...
So, back to your statement...it's one thing to point out that my/Christian views are incomplete, and immature, and border on depravity, it's another to explain. Those words just look to me to be a way to toss it off without actually considering. I'd be interested to know what is "incomplete", in your opinion.
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05/16/2008 05:25:35 PM · #149 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
Our outlook is merely that we all come up short of perfection, and that requires some intervention on our behalf, outside of our own possible efforts. |
Nobody's perfect, but I take issue with the idea that everyone- Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Lincoln, everyone- is so horribly immoral from birth that they require saving from absolute damnation. Such a principle can only be a fabrication of man.
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
-- Thomas Jefferson |
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05/16/2008 05:35:50 PM · #150 |
Originally posted by farfel53:
I'd be interested to know what is "incomplete", in your opinion. |
I've already mentioned that the notion of "sin" and the inherent "sinful" nature of everyone is itself an incomplete way to understand human behaviour. There are far better ways to address and investigate why people behave in the ways they do. We have many disciplines to address these issues: psychiatry and psychology and other behavioural sciences, plus truly investigative philosophies. The "sin explanation" is pat and unconvincing, does nothing to further understand our own behaviour beyond elementary ideas of good and evil, and is nakedly hostile to humanity as a whole. Though there are no firm answers as to why people do the "bad" things they do, there are serious efforts to understand that go beyond simplistic supernatural explanations. People are not two-dimensional automatons acting out their predestined proclivity to baseness. Religious faith does not address this. |
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