Re: [OT]: Who should God take 1st? Supreme court justice, Pat Robertson, Sponge-Bob, Dr. Dobson, Hillary or Bush?

From: Scott Stephens (scottxs_at_comcast.net)
Date: 02/05/05 

Date: Sat, 05 Feb 2005 14:55:39 -0600

Mark Fergerson wrote:

> Scott Stephens wrote:
>
>> Mark Fergerson wrote:
>>
>>> Scott Stephens wrote:

>> Not so sure about that. There is Biblical precedent for it (Mathew the
>> publican, Nicodemus. Christians are expected to forgive everyone,
>> except their children (spare the rod, spoil child) and those the
>> despot or collective (government) condemns as criminal. Its OK to
>> refuse mercy on them.

> Yet the crowd demanded the release of Barabbas, and that was fine with
> Jesus.

Jesus didn't demand God override the will of the crowd. It was Pilot
that gave the crowd the option to choose who to execute.

>>> I meant things like Genesis being the basis for seeking
>>> forgiveness, when there's nothing to be forgiven for (at least
>>> nothing any human participant did).

>> Religious myths have a profound and important interpretation, and corrupt
>> interpretations by politicians. I hate to bash religion without
>> suggesting anything better. Any philosophy is apt to be abused by
>> politicians (criminals) with the intention to game the system.

> Thing about religious myths is that they sound good at first blush
> because they support and reinforce the existing mores of the system to
> which they belong.

Not merely just cultural, myths are the vehicle to teach objective
truth. Were talking about evolving culture. We don't criticize ancient
cultures for not flying around in jets, or communicating with radios.

> Analytically, how could Adam and Eve have sinned through disobedience
> when they didn't _at the time_ know that disobedience was wrong since
> they had yet to gain the power of discerning right and wrong? Ask that
> aloud in a Patriarchy and you get whacked back into line.

You have that wrong too:
http://bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp
Genesis 2:15
"15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden
  to dress it and to keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man,
  saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17 But of
  the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:
  for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

> Screw systems. Systems exist so the organizers can game recruits.

I'm of the same opinion. People organize for benevolent purpose or for
government, hire individuals to manage and serve, but somewhere along
the line organization capsizes and management rather than serving,
begins expecting the individuals to live for and serve them!

>> My point was the Catholics are loosening up a bit about condemning
>> people to hell, but the Baptists (Dobson, Fallwel) AFAIK are still
>> insisting you have to have privileged information about Jesus' pardon,
>> rather than just a reverence for Nature and your relationship to it,
>> and reverence for one's fellow man. This strikes me as odd, because
>> Jesus spent a lot of time preaching about the spirit of the law,
>> rather than the letter of it.
>
>
> Of course it strikes you as odd; you're capable of critical thinking.
>
> Babtists tell you in one breath to "have a personal relationship with
> Jesus", and in the next that you have to be "churched" in order to do it
> "properly", and they (church leaders) are the only ones who know what
> "proper" means. That way they get followers to keep each other in line.

I didn't hear it that way. They tell (new believers) if you are saved,
you'll love Jesus and want to be with believers in a church that affirms
the Apostles' creed. Many sermons later the culture and practices (like
immersion baptism) is defined. But I've haven't found Baptists to be
rigorous. If you get out of line and start speaking in tongues, they
tell you to stop or find a Pentecostal church to do it at.

>> But if they get that liberal, there isn't any point trying to convert
>> heathen to the exclusive Christian way, truth and light, and you don't
>> have evangelicals anymore.

> Exactly. If that happened, the hierarchy (AKA bureaucracy or
> apparatchicks) would have to get _real_ jobs.

Its not just financial, its cultural. Nobody wants to stop putting up
their Christmas tree and nativity scene. Or singing their favorite hymn.
Its cultural imprinting.

>> Christians think they're individual reason is a share on the cosmic
>> mainframe, and their terminal is buggy.
...
> You can either assume a spark of Good embedded in a morass of Evil
> flesh which means you have to cosset the spark, or a taint of Evil
> constantly trying to corrupt the Good which means you have to whip the
> taint out. That's the dangerous theological ground I mentioned; several
> heresies devolve from it, like the Arian and Manichean. Note that
> "heresy" may be rendered as "line of thought that undermines the power
> of the priesthood".

It's easy to see how are ancestors differentiated consciousness and
concepts into a "spiritual" world, and a material world. I've heard some
argue (such as the astrophysicist Penrose) that principles of physics
have an objective existence, more primary than matter itself which can
be in every quantum state until an act of observation (scattering
interaction) forces it to a definite state. He even says its Platonic
idealism.

I don't understand how you can separate matter and energy (or space-time
real estate) from the principles which govern it. Matter and energy is
that which obeys principle, and principle is that which defines matter
and energy. The spiritual and physical are an integrated duality which
our consciousness (a phenomena of it) makes differentiating observations
about. I can imagine an Objectivist and Idealist having a debate, but
not if they're physicists.

> Looking back is an essential part of the process of self-improvement
> (assuming you can adequately define "improve"), but must be balanced
> against the knowledge that there ain't no absolutes.

Rand said reason is an absolute. Reason is the standard and means to
develop the concepts which furnish our world view. If God or Nature has
given any absolute truth to man, its the means to sift and refine truth
by means of our reason. The principles of logic are what they are as
consequence of the nature of Nature. If the principles of physics
change, our logic and reason would change with it, just as our bodies,
brains and mind. 

-- 
**********************************
DIY Piezo-Gyro, PCB Drill Bot & More Soon!
http://home.comcast.net/~scottxs/
POLITICS, n.
A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce
**********************************

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