If you got a 50year sentence for murder, and i offered to spend a mere five days in a cell in your place, would ‘Justice’ have then been served?

I just don’t get it.

Oh yea, as well as being ‘born-again’ baptized (full dunk) glossolalia, ’slain in the Spirit’ etc, I was also a prof. musician for 35 years. (Cathedral Organist too).

So, with regard to the ‘can’t appreciate a good day unless you experience a bad day’ argument. (which I once believed as True) I’ll use a musical parable/allegory to expose the falseness of this argument.

I was booked to play Tchiakovsky Piano Concerto at two venues with a Northern U.K.Orchestra. Once in March. The other later in the year. (September)

At the March concert, at the last minute, I decided to play half of the notes in the wrong order. The cacophany was painful. At the end, there was no applause from the few who remained in the audience.

After the concert, the conductor, who was, (someone said) ’seething with righteous indignation’, asked me why I had ‘destroyed’ the Tchiakovsky piece.To which I explained that I had played all of those notes wrong, on purpose, so that when I play it correctly the next time (at the forthcoming September concert) the audience will enjoy it all that much more.

I have since, always wondered why I got my face slapped that day and why they asked someone else to play the September concert. Some people are just sooo strange.

I do not consider any of the discussions and/or questions above to be spam and you are all more than welcome to continue your discussions relating to this subject right here.

Thanks Simon, I wasn’t sure what your policy is and I prefer to err on the side of caution. Sadie and I did have a friendly exchange of rather long emails. But I’d just like to point out a few things in light of the new comments.

Santa Claus (or Father Christmas in much of the non-American English speaking world) is based on a legendary figure who appears in different cultures. Although the earliest roots are Christian, the emphasis is on his altruistic behaviour; the idea of him as a symbol for Jesus is a minority interpretation. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus#Origins

Simon, your thoughts on the Old vs. New Testament change in God’s character/role and the twisted logic behind Jesus’ sacrifice/”death” as atonement are well put and happen to be some of the earliest things I remember that launched my process of doubting as a child. The whole “atonement for our sins” and vicarious redemption thing is absurd and immoral when you really think about it. Christopher Hitchens has a good analogy:

I don’t see what’s moral about Christian preaching, for example, apart from the horrible idea of vicarious redemption; I’ll say it again in case I missed you the first time what I mean by that … I can pay your debt even if I don’t know you. If I was a friend I could say, “You’re in debt? I’ll pay!” In extreme cases people have been known to say, “I’ll serve your sentence in prison”, I could do that for you. But what I cannot do is relieve you of your responsibility; I can’t say, “Throw your sins on me and they’ll melt away.” Immoral! You’re not allowed to be, you’re not entitled to be relieved of your responsibilities. And vicarious redemption by human sacrifice is a very primitive and horrible scape-goating idea that belongs to a barbaric period of human history.

I did not ask for Jesus to be murdered for my “sins”. If I do something wrong it’s up to me to make amends. Nobody can forgive a perpetrator except the victim. Some guy being tortured to death (voluntarily perhaps, maybe on orders of his dad, or maybe it doesn’t matter since they’re supposed to be the same anyway) 2000 years ago does not absolve anyone of their responsibilities. It’s a rather sick idea. Christian apologetics find ever more creative ways to justify this but it all fails in the light of reason. And it fails in the light of ethics.

Next, you can’t argue rationally with someone who says they’re aware that there are contradicting religions but who cling to their own brand, come hell or high water (it’s a figure of speech, not meant literally).

Which brings us to the misanthropic, utterly disgusting phenomenon of calling natural disasters, diseases and other natural horrible things “acts of God’s punishment”. What an insult to basic decency. Do these people actually know what they’re saying? Hundreds of thousands of people suffer pain and loss, become homeless, starve, lose loved ones or die themselves because of a tsunami, hurricane, earthquake, a virus, or whatever. And the religious are saying that they deserve it. All of them, no matter what kinds of people they are, including those who’ve never hurt a fly in their lives. Usually in areas of the world where poverty and harsh economic/political/social conditions make life pretty shitty in the first place and daily survival is no piece of cake. Your “punished” sinners include every innocent child and baby (including the unborn ones — mass abortion, so to speak) who dies or is mutilated or crippled as a result of your oh so merciful and just God’s wrath. It’s when adult people spew forth such unadulterated contempt for humanity that I get angry. This has nothing to do with philosophical debate or mere differences of opinion anymore: They’re telling good people (the majority, who get lumped in with murderes, rapists, child molesters and other “not good” people) that the horrors they suffer are their own fault. This is the kind of stuff where my gloves come off. I come from the country with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence in the world, have lost friends to it, and am always stunned when that’s called God’s punishment. No, I’m sorry, there’s no excuse for this kind of hatred for human beings and not having a shred of respect for the unbearable suffering in the world by implying that it’s the victim’s fault. Shame on you. And fuck you, courtesy of those who can’t defend themselves against this hateful shit anymore.

Of course, there are forms of suffering that result from human mistakes instead of random natural events, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. Although, no surprise, I have heard of people who claim the Holocaust was God’s punishment of the Jews for killing Jesus. Granted, very few Christians will drop that low, but think about it: If you have the twisted sort of mind that has no problem with God killing a quarter million people via a flood wave, you shouldn’t really have a problem with the concept of God killing six million people for getting his son nailed to a cross.

But this is what happens when you don’t think things through. When you feed your mind with religious doctrine uncritically. When you “rationalize” everything to fit into the little comfortable bubble you’ve chosen to stay in.

As I’ve told Sadie via email, in my opinion — based on many discussions and religious writings and speeches — the fundamental difference between believers and nonbelievers is that there are two extreme opposite ways of what each think is a valid approach to reality:

For the nonbeliever/atheist/agnostic, what we know about reality and the nature of reality/truth is based on honestly examining evidence, using reason and logic to draw conclusions from what we observe, and to admit that while we don’t know everything (and make mistakes) these are the only reliable tools we have to get nearer to the truth.

For the believer (whether in religious theism, New Age woo, or any other supernatural/metaphysical-based belief), all bets are off. Logic and reason don’t matter. Evidence has no objective standard; it is whatever they want it to be. They’re convinced of the absolute certainty of their belief. “Feelings” are taken as evidence for whatever they want to believe. They say there’s a “presence” or “power” that can’t be explained, can’t be demonstrated. Worst of all, many admit this. While that is at least honest, it leads to one conclusion:

As long as we have different modes of approaching and describing reality, and even determining what it is, it’s completely useless talking about reality or the truth with dyed-in-the-wool believers. If it seems ironic that people like me engage in so much discussion despite that conclusion, it’s because there may be fence-sitters who’re not completely lost to their isolated world or the rare case of a believer who has doubts and deserves to hear that it’s okay to have doubts (instead of being made to feel guilty). Also, I personally am interested to hear why people believe the things they believe, it’s interesting and educational, although often disheartening to hear the “anything goes” arguments.

Simon, to bring this back to the ideas you explore in your blog, and the question this entry asks: All these questions about doctrinal details and trying to piece a coherent understanding together are based on a whole bunch of underlying assumptions that actually don’t hold water. I’m not trying to discourage you or anyone else, it’s good to have this discourse and anyone has the right to question, doubt, reply, give their opinions, disagree, etc. But in the end, if you have a rational approach to reality, a specific question like “So Jesus died for my sins? What does that mean and how exactly does it make sense?” only works on the premise that 1) Jesus as described in the Bible actually existed and experienced the things written there, 2) there is a god as described in the Judaeo-Christian systems, and 3) the religious concept of “sin” is based in reality.

So far, there is no evidence for any of that, contrary to what apologetics with their self-serving definition of “evidence” claim.

In order to have a meaningful discussion about the question we have to pretend that these things are true. To date, we have no reason to even think it likely that they are true, so why are we pretending? It’s what we do in literary analysis: Why did Mr. X in novel Y do this and that? We speak of Mr. X as if he were real, for the sake of the literary discussion. But we know it’s fictional. In the case of religious discussion, I think it’s healthy to make it very clear that we’re talking about hypothetical entities and concepts. Matters are confounded by religious people who twist, turn and bend their own multifarious interpretations and claims any way they like, all the time. They even disagree radically amongst each other. We should stop pandering to that road to insanity and make it clear that the onus of proving religious claims is on the religious. It’s not up to normal, rational people to refute their claims.

—

To end on a light note, for those who confuse their own ideas what constitutes natural sexual behaviour with reality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-human_animal_sexual_behavior#Sex_for_pleasure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying_homosexual_behavior

I’m glad you have such a solid belief. That is admirable in so many ways. For you to claim that you would have found the very same faith even if you were born somewhere else is also a bold statement to make given that religion is often situational. For example, if you were born in Indonesia the chances are you would find Islam, if you were born in Italy you would probably find Catholicism, in India you would likely have found Hinduism, and Utah, USA, you would likely become a Mormon, proving that the kind of God you find often depends on what your nearest religious influence is.

You wrote something interesting about Gods punishment still being evident today through natural disasters. That’s a striking statement to make and one that is perhaps for another time, but I’m curious, do you this all natural disasters are Gods punishment? You mentioned the tsunami (of 2004 I assume) which killed well over a quarter of a million people, and the devastating Hurricane Katrina which lead to the collapse of the poorly maintained flood protection in New Orleans. So I assume you also believe the earthquake in Haiti, the forest fires in South East Australia, the famines in Africa, and the floods in India and Pakistan are also acts of holy punishment?

I suppose my point was that in the old testament, God seems to speak audibly to a significant number of people, and wonders that could only be from God (for example the parting of the red sea) are far more obvious than the subtle things people now attribute to God. Today God seems to have taken much more of a back seat, though I suppose if you believe that every natural disaster is an act of righteous rage then for you God is indeed no less active, and in some respects, thanks to 24hr global news media, he might indeed seem like a very busy (and angry) God indeed!

Lastly, for me Santa isn’t a symbol of CHrist and I doubt many would look at fat Santa and see Jesus shining through. He seems like a very secular deity from where I am looking, though people have seen the face of Jesus on the underside of their clothes iron, in a naan bread, and even on a banana peel, so who knows
(Note: I did write about ’signs’ in an earlier post.)

For some Santa Clause and Christ could be synonimouse in their reality, but Santa is a symbol of Christ…another conversation.
You said of Christ’s death, “Somehow this death, which he knew wasn’t really a death because “Jesus is alive….” I’d like to address this. Because he had power from God and lived a perfect life unlike anybody else has or will (once again relying on the Bible) he was able to break the bounds of death. He was able to raise from the dead and never will die again, a ressurection. This is something that everybody who has come to earth will experience. It isn’t reincarnation, it is coming back to the same body in the most perfected for it is able to be in and never departing again. It is a state of immortality that will be given after our death.

Recently I read an article on the atonement. It talks about how Heavenly Father(God) has mercy for us, but Christ had to come down and gain mercy from the other ‘intelligences’ or spirits that will be demanding justice. Both the earth and the other inhabitants of the earth will be demanding justice. Like one of the early commentors stated, the raped will want justice. These victims will demand justice as well, i believe, as so many others. Christ came to obtain mercy from the victims for the perpetrators. That the victim may say, “well, after all you have suffered, after all you have done, If you ask for that perpetrator to come, okay” I don’t know if that makes much sense. I feel like I don’t explain myself very eloquently and I stumble over words. All the same, I still believe in God and Christ. I know they live. Thank you for letting me share.

Sadie, thanks for your comments. I have a few questions and points which I’ll throw out there for you and others to ponder.

Addressing your first comment, I’m still confused in much the same way as I think the recent commenter, John, is. The whole Christ thing is a little confusing for me. The God of the old testament is a malevolent jealous God who frequently flies into a rage enacting gross acts of vicious hateful cruelty upon people and a world that we’re supposed to believe he loves. If this character were actually a parent in the flesh today he would likely be incarcerated for the protection of his children and the threat he poses to society as a whole!

However, thanks to Christ, Angry spiteful God is somehow appeased by the fact that his ’son’ came to earth and died a violent sacrificial death at the hands of humans. Somehow this death, which he knew wasn’t really a death because “Jesus is alive” now atones for mankinds sins and angry God chills out and become this far more laid back, chilled out, and distant father from afar who now chooses to talk to his people through their feelings rather than in the bold, inescapable, and dramatic ways of the old testament.

Well as you can tell, that’s something of a leap of understanding for me, and in some respects it seems like a cop out. Gods anger and wrath, and his close communion with mankind, the very subjects of his own creation, is somehow calmed by the appearance of his son who ‘died’ for us? And thanks to his sons pseudo death we now have to guess what God is saying through the minefield of human emotions, seeking out feelings and listening to Gods voice ‘in our hearts’ somehow knowing that this isn’t just us? I don’t know about you, but I kind of wish God would, at least a few times, go back to the direct methods he used to employ before he became such a chilled out, loved-up, peace and love God.

You wrote “Adam and Eve didn’t know good from evil, they didn’t have lust or sex because they didn’t have those emotions they didn’t know how, without that they never would have had children. Had they not had children where would you be now? How would you have gotten to earth?”

Thats an interesting perspective. So sex is inherently evil then? That actually explains why some religious people are so utterly screwed up when it comes to the question of sex and sexuality. I mean here we are, sexual beings, commanded by God to go forth and multiply, biologically created to become aroused for the purpose of procreation, but cursed with the use of organs that were put there for the sole purpose of sin by a God who doesn’t want us to sin. That’s very interesting.

Again, that reaches back to the rather interesting question of why, if God knows the beginning and end or all things, did he deliberately build in a flaw that would cause such imperfection, pain and destruction? You wrote “Opposition is necessary” for us to understand, but I disagree. A team of engineers charged with creating an engine to get a spacecraft into orbit don’t build in flaws to their machine in order to appreciate their achievement that much more when it gets to space DESPITE the problems it was created with!

You wrote “If you hadn’t had a bad day how would you know what a good day was? If you weren’t healthy how would you know if you were sick? If you never suffered how would you know the joy of peace?” I get what you’re saying but lets say that you went your entire life without knowing of the existence or taste of chocolate. Would this somehow spoil your enjoyment of fruit or other tasty foods? I put it to you that it would not. In fact I am quite sure there are many things I have not yet experienced and may never experience that might well enrich my life. But I base my understandings in the context of that which I know and while I may poorer in some respects for the things I have not yet experienced, how would I know this?

Lastly Sadie, you wrote “I don’t know the history and many of the beliefs of other religions. They are likely to be as right as various sects of christianity. I don’t know. I don’t know them, I haven’t been exposed to them and I’m very comfortable with my religion and have not had doubts or questions that have not been resolved from my religion so I see no need to explore other beliefs.”

I find this to be one of the most fascinating things about all religious people. The ability to believe unswervingly without knowledge of other religions, that yours is 100% right and that others are wrong is a quite amazing thing. For me it seems to walk a fine line between admiral devotion and willful ignorance.

If someone refused to give up the notion that Santa Claus was not real then that person would be dismissed as a fool. However, rebrand Santa Claus as a deity and all of a sudden the whole thing becomes a different issue.

Back to Jesus though, I still don’t get it. The entire notion that someone who may or may not have been around a couple of thousand years ago, actually pays some debt that I haven’t been presented with seems entirely bogus to me. To use the examples of a financial debt is fair enough, though it relies on me accepting that I have some kind of outstanding debt in the first place. Right now the notion of God seems plausible to me but to apply religion to this is where, if you ask me, we start getting into the realm of Santa Claus.

This statement/question: “So Jesus died for my sins. Thanks Jesus. But dude, couldn’t you have just not created the serpent in the Garden of Eden in the first place, I mean surely that would have saved the both of us a whole lot of trouble, right? It’s not like you didn’t know how things would turn out!” is exactly how I feel.

I feel that the bible makes “God” out to be selfish and cruel. I don’t see how a loving God could create humans if he knew that there was the SLIGHTEST chance that EVEN ONE of us would die and go to a place where they would BURN FOR ETERNITY. A loving God would rather be alone than to take that chance!

Surely he knew that at least one of us would not believe in Christianity. And how can Christians so easily have babies knowing that there’s a chance their child or children will grow up and have a mind of their own and not believe in Christianity? They are taking a chance of that child going to hell, right?

Why the fear factor? It seems to me that God would want us to love him for who he is and not because we’re afraid of going to hell. Why give us brains and FREE WILL if the only correct choice is Christianity, or burn in hell? That is not much of a choice, is it?

It’s not that I don’t believe in God or even Jesus, it’s just that I feel that something went wrong somewhere in history and someone in power decided that we have to put fear in the people to make them act right – and there was born organized religion.

Simon, I commend you for being openly able to express your views online because some of us (like me) are too afraid to tell people how I really feel. I feel that my family will not like me and make me feel like an outcast. They are very very religious.

There are a couple of instances where God punishes the sinners directly as in the two cases below:
1. Major flood that annihilated everything during Noah’s time due to sin
2. Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins

Then there is the whole crucifixation of Jesus to atone mankind of its sins. In this case God didn’t directly take it out on the human race. Instead he used a sacrifice.

I can’t seem to understand how a supreme entity like God changes with time. If Jesus had come earlier, maybe the flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah could be avoided.

I have many many more questions which I am trying to get answer for, but I don’t want to spam Simon’s blog.

Thanks for a very honest reply. A few main points to clarify:

I believe in religious freedom, that means people can believe what they want and nobody should be discriminated against or even persecuted because of their beliefs or lack of belief.

I fully understand that religion makes people feel good, gives them comfort and hope, etc. Fine. However, I’m more interested in whether religious claims are true in the absolute sense, not how they make you feel.

I disagree with you that there are “different” truths and that each person can have “his(her own truth”. Nope, in reality there is only one truth. A fact is a fact, a thing can’t be different things at the same time, ultimately. Either Jesus was literally born of a virgin or he wasn’t. Either there is a supernatural being who knows what we think or there isn’t. There’s nothing in between. It can’t be true for some people and untrue for others. Either it’s simply true (for everyone) or it’s simply untrue (for everyone).

You say you’re not really familiar with other religions. How then can you dismiss them and stick with yours? Remember, not all of them can be right — they completely exclude each other. Either ONE of them is right or they are ALL wrong.

I have a suggestion: If you’re interested we can continue via email so we don’t clutter up Simon’s blog (and stretch his patience), especially since much of this is probably not on-topic for this entry. Send me your email address to zendak [AT] hushmail.com (a “throwaway” address of mine) and I’ll reply privately with my real one. That way, we’ll keep the spambots away.

Regards,
Ray

“There’s an unfortunate tendency in our culture to give any idea credence, along the lines of “it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, as long as X believes it is, it’s true for X, so let’s not criticize it.” Well, it’s the 21st Century and that doesn’t fly anymore.”
Why doesn’t this fly? Why can’t we accept each other for having different beliefs and knowing that others have different beliefs and they are entitled to believe what they believe if they allow us to believe what we believe. I’m not trying to convert anyone to my religion, although I whole heartedly believe in it I recognize that not everybody does or will. I like presenting my beliefs and my ideas because if they ring true, if somebody does have a feeling that they are true I’m ok with it. I accept that God is found only by feelings and although they may be conjured up within us if it is leading us to do good what is wrong with it? If religion is just invented for us and gives us a group to assosiate with or a reason to go on living or a way to make us feel better about ourselves what is wrong with it? I believe that there are strong positive emotions that lead us to God. That is my belief. I do not believe God can be found purely by logic. These are my beliefs that I’ve posted. Nobody has to believe them, but I’m declaring them becuase they have helped me progress in life, perhaps they can help Simon or somebody else.
I have a friend that said “people become religious because they either want it or they need it.” I agree with that. I think that ultimatly we all need religion…or at least God, but we need it for different reasons. You’ll like to argue that won’t you. Once again these are my beliefs I never claimed them to be fact. I know them because of the feelings I’ve had. But that comes from my belief that feelings also come from God. Religion isn’t fact. I think it’s something more than that…it’s a truth that lasts and continues to come back like Christianity has. As for other religions I know very little about them so I don’t know their history. Just like others can believe them. I think a large contributing factor in what people believe is determined by what they have been exposed to. Just as this blog is based mosltly on christianity because that is what Simon has had experience with. That is a large reason why I believe what I believe. I don’t know the history and many of the beliefs of other religions. They are likely to be as right as various sects of christianity. I don’t know. I don’t know them, I haven’t been exposed to them and I’m very comfortable with my religion and have not had doubts or questions that have not been resolved from my religion so I see no need to explore other beliefs.

I do have a great job in this economic climate , but only because I have a statue of St Joseph facing out in my window. SEEEEE I can believe.

I have a majic cure all ….more later….unbeatable.