Re: How to Become a Christian, Version 1.01

From: Steve Harris sbharris_at_ROMAN9.netcom.com (sbharris_at_ix.netcom.com)
Date: 08/24/04 

Date: 24 Aug 2004 13:20:29 -0700

MU <munospam@fastmail.fm> wrote in message news:<oogs1t4y029t$.v0np7ro9qclm$.dlg@40tude.net>...
> On 23 Aug 2004 16:10:03 -0700, Steve Harris sbharris@ROMAN9.netcom.com
> wrote:
>
> > COMMENT:
> > Ahem. Excuse me? The "Lord" is silent. He doesn't send me email. He
> > doesn't appear in my bathroom. He doesn't knock on my door, unless
> > he's dressed like a JW or Mormon missionary. So it's rather a problem
> > knowing what he wants. Or even that he exists.
>
> I would agree, Steve, with no faith you would have no clue.

COMMENT:
I shouldn't need faith. If god wants to talk to me, it would be as
simple as putting a glowing note inside the next banana I buy and
peel, like that John Denver movie. Or simple glowing text in the air
above my bed, for that matter. And that's just the impersonal ways.
How strange this idea that god only talks to people in a way which
looks just like ESP and what crazy people hear, and is just as
information-free and variant from person-to-person, as something their
own subconscious made up. Don't you dream? Question: Who do you think
makes up the dialog of the people who speak to you and to each other,
in your dreams? You think god does? Or do you think it's possible
your brain has a simulation center that does this kind of thing all
the time?

> > COMMENT:
> > Says who? And since god is silent, separation from him is sort of
> > what we have now, is it not?
>
> My God is not silent and our separation is a matter or temporality vs
> supernaturalism. Not in influence, guidance or assistance. Ever present.

COMMENT:
Oh, bull***. God gives influence, guidance, assistance, you say---
but never any information that can be independently checked. For
example, I'm sure god knows what's on my key-ring besides my car-keys,
and what's in the bottles here beside my computer. And could tell you.
And if you could then post it here (I give you permission), it would
make a huge difference in my own view of your religion and claims to
divine communication in general. But that's not going to happen. And
you're going to have to actively participate in the self-desception by
explaining to yourself and us WHY it won't happen.

What-- we're supposed to believe god does all kinds of miracles to
increase the faith of the faithless, and indeed pulls off complete and
direct communcation, as with Saul/Paul. BUT he can't tell YOU what I
made in 6th grade shop class? No, he won't. You see, by now, only god
and I know what I made in 6th grade shop class, and I'm not talking
and god's not talking. Not to you, not to anybody. You say I have no
faith? You won't get that harmless information from the god with
which you say you have such great contact. I have complete faith in
that. That's because I'm pretty damn sure you're up in the night. But
feel free to prove me wrong. I hereby give you permission to post what
I made in 6th grade shop, right here. My privacy won't be disrupted,
because I freely give it up, for this harmless fact. Pray about it.
You'll be helping to save my soul if you come up with it, I promise.
Because I'll be shocked right down to my scientist-humanist core.

> > COMMENT:
> > By god's perfect standard? Any parent who had the standard that his
> > or her children were required to obey absolutely perfectly on every
> > matter at all times and all places, or be cut off forever, would be a
> > complete ass.
>
> Sure would. Thankfully, we have Christ's Death and Resurrection, His Word
> that we are saved regardless of our sins.

COMMENT:
It was being explained that without Christ, god would be forced to let
us all go to hell. Say what? It's as though god is bound by his own
mechanical magic act, and can't just do whatever he wants, with no
fuss.

Face it-- the Christ story is just the re-working of many similar
resurrection and human sacrifice stories that preceed it in mythology,
in some cases by more than a thousand years. There's something nasty
in the human brain that looks, whenever anything bad happens, for
people to blame. In the old days before Reality TV, even for
sacrifices to kill to propitiate the gods (look at the Aztecs and the
Polynesians; look at the history of witchhunting in all cultures).
And no doubt that has fed into to the Christian myth. But it's all
bull***. The idea that the shedding of innocent blood gives anybody
power over life and death, is voodoo. Quite literally voodoo. But also
figuratively and metaphorically. It's just a dumb primitive idea,
okay?

 
> > Here's fair question: if YOU were god, would you have set similar
> > impossible standards?
>
> I have no idea what being God would be like so I have no way to answer.

COMMENT:
That's your problem. It's your way of dealing with the fact that your
Moloch-like god, with his thirst for infant blood (in this case his
own son), is a primitive old-style god in most ways. But now he's just
Moloch-lite. We do the rituals with bread and wine as symbols. Just
like we don't burn anybody in actuality when they get thrown off
Survivor or Weakest Link. Getting "fired" by Trump or whoever, these
days, is not literal. But we still enjoy the spectacle of somebody
getting burned. And that is all religion is: spectacle and ritual of
suffering. Blaming others. Blaming ourselves. Making sacrifices.
Kissing asses. Being fleeced of money. Only the sacred names change.

> > COMMENT:
> > Well, then, why doesn't he just do it and be done with it? This stuff
> > about his having to send his son to Earth is certainly overly
> > complicated, overly painful, and frankly makes no sense whatsoever.
>
> Oh, you are pretentious today, aren't you? Know God's Mind, understand His
> plan? I don't. Why do you waste time worrying about something you will
> never be able to comprehend? Which part of the definition of "super"natural
> do you not understand?

COMMENT:

What part of "idiot" don't YOU understand? I could tell you the worst
piece of nonsense I can think of about god and what he did and what
that requires of you. And give you the same defence when you objected.
In fact, that's sort of what the Muslims and Mormons and Hari Krishnas
do.

Look, it's one thing to tell us that these stories are
incomprehensible. But by doing that, you give up the right to
criticise any story from any other religion. Why don't you believe in
the Hindu story of creation?

> COMMENT:
> > This is the part that makes no sense at all. Why should it matter what
> > people believe? Why did god have to send his "son" (in what sense is
> > Jesus a "sun") to save imperfect people from being cut off?
>
> See above.

COMMENT:

See above, youself. Why aren't you a Hindu or a Mormon?

  
> > COMMENT:
> > All this sounds like forming a social club, preparatory to
> > fleecing people with collections and tithes. I suppose Christianity
> > and the strange salvation you discuss above wouldn't be very
> > interesting if everybody didn't gather to yak about it? And trade
> > money for various promises, and as protections against various
> > threats?
>
> If you do not find the concept and promise of immortality interesting, in
> and of itself, all human trappings aside, I have no idea *what* you might
> find interesting.

COMMENT:

The promise of immortality I find interesting. The promise that it
comes by devotion to the five pillars of Islam, or Mormon Temple
rituals, or Catholic Host ingestion or whatever other ritualistic crap
somebody has invented, is what *doesn't* interest me. There are
hundreds of these purported magical ways to be immortal. None make any
more sense than the others.

> > COMMENT:
> > We have the problem of why we should
> > believe the Christian scripture and not somebody elses. Even if we
> > believe the Christian scripture, we don't see anything in the baptism
> > of Jesus that specifies "immersion" or a "local church". If anything,
> > the opposite is implied.
>
> The problem is solved by faith. Immersion or not is arguable and IMO
> inconsequential. It's symbolic and, in the times of the NT, ritualistic as
> many Jews and non Jews were ritualistic.

COMMENT:
Lots of Laughs. If faith is all it takes, people have sure wasted a
lot of money on costumes, rituals, and buildings, over the years, and
not just the Masons and the DAR. And you may even believe that. But
if people are that nutso, how do you know you too aren't one of them,
but just in a different way? Magical thinking is magical thinking,
gold trappings or not. A ritual is fine if it saves you time in a
socially awkward position. It becomes increasingly counterproductive
when you expect it to function in some magical role to give you power
over some aspect of the universe. You're better off spending your time
learning science and technology, which really DO function to give you
such power. The airplane or bridge stays up --- or not-- whether you
believe or not. That's how technology differs from ritual magic.

> I see you understand the Mind Of God better than I do. I have no way to
> explain why things are as they are and spend little time worrying about
> them.

COMMENT

Too bad for you. Because you're wasting your time with a lot of empty
promises.

> Have humans adulterated Christianity? Of course, what else would you
> expect; we adulterate damn near everything?

COMMENT:
Well, we're glad to see you've figured out the pure form, when so many
of your peers have been taken in by adulterated versions <g>. It's you
claiming you understand the mind of god better than *I* do, remember?

> > I'm gunna pass. I won't even say "Thanks for the thought" since the
> > thoughts you've given us are utterly disgusting (and so are the shows)
> > and contribute nothing to humanity. (Unless you count Jimmy Swaggart
> > and Gene Scott as contributions).
>
> Christians contribute nothing? Ridiculous and you know it. Even those two
> miscreants you mentioned have favorable pieces in their lives and I find
> them far from my liking.

COMMENT:

Christians I think, as a whole, have done more harm than good. Unlike
(say) Buddhists. But that's my take on a lot of very complex history.
In any case, only a third of the world's people are Christians, and if
you look at the other two-thirds there are plenty of examples of fine,
peace-loving cultures. So Christianity isn't necessary for that. And I
am sure you know the history of the attrocities committed in the name
of Christianity (nobody EXPECTS the Spanish Inquisition!), so I can at
least argue that Christianity doesn't immunize that well AGAINST
cultural pathology.

> > If anything, I wish these weird
> > ideas had never been thought of at all. Whoever first did, must have
> > been a sick puppy indeed. Saul of Tarsus needed some Haldol in the
> > worst way.
>
> Yes, those weird ideas will haunt you, worry and nag you, Steve, and for
> those who never receive Christ's Blessings, I'll bet it does sting to be
> constantly reminded of a fate as certain as Hell.

COMMENT:
A fate as certain as Hell? LOL. Even amoung Christians there's as
much debate about that as there is baptism by immersion. The Catholics
have even officially given up the idea of hell's outer ring, and now
aren't saying what happens to people who die without getting to hear
about Christ. Limbo's officially in limbo. There's not much certainty
here.

Yes, the wierd of idea of Hell will worry and nag YOU the rest of your
life, no doubt. But that sting is yours, not mine.

> Think for yourself, huh? Good idea. I have and I think that I'll leave
> God's business, His plans and His World to Him.

COMMENT:

Great. And keep your ideas of same to yourself, too. Unless you don't
mind having them challenged. I'm tired of people coming here on the
net to tell me what god thinks. I've vowed to stop being polite in the
standard American secular tolerant way, and instead say "bull***!"
every time I hear somebody going on about god's plans. If you want to
know god's plans, give me your address and I'll send you the Mormon
missionaries. That's not the Spanish Inquisition, but I did say that
things aren't as spicy as they used to be, didn't I? No more burnings
at the stake. We all live now with pale ghosts of former horrors.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE MORMON MISSIONARIES!! Hah.

 
> Me, I'll go and try to spend my time on things that don't waste it. Trying
> to crawl into the Mind Of God is a waste.

COMMENT:
Then why do you claim you've already done it? You're the one claiming
god talks to you, and you know god's word, and you know when and how
other people have polluted god's word, and so on and so on. If trying
to get to such knowledge is a waste, how is it you come you here,
saying YOU managed to do it?

Eh?

SBH

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