Original Sin?

Quote: FrGamble

How someone who doesn't believe deals with suffering, pain, death, how they find purpose and meaning to do what is right? I have no idea and it doesn't make sense to me.

You run everything thru the filter of your religion
and it tells you how to act and react. An atheist
figures it out for himself. The two reactions are
not very different from each other, but you've
been taught that it's impossible unless you're
a Christian. You only need a god if you think
you do. You invent him and he returns the favor
by being everything you need him to be. Fits
like a glove.

Quote: Evenbob

You run everything thru the filter of your religion
and it tells you how to act and react. An atheist
figures it out for himself. The two reactions are
not very different from each other,

I've kind of figured it out for myself too and I figured that Christianity is the lens I want to see life through. But you are right we all do this in some way or another, even those who don't know they do. This is what makes the unexamined life so sad for me. People don't realize their own philosophy of life so they can't own it, change it, correct it, modify it, or embrace it.

Quote:

You only need a god if you think
you do. You invent him and he returns the favor
by being everything you need him to be. Fits
like a glove.

I chuckled a little bit when I read this and thought, boy I wish I could make God into my own image, then maybe He would leave me alone about being a better person. Seriously, how can you explain the fact that the most challenging thing in my life and the life of every Christian is to live according to the teachings of the God you say we made up? Wouldn't we have invented a god a little less demanding and much more flexible. I imagine if humanity was to invent a god it would be very comfortable with moral relativism and make good and bad kind of wishy-washy. I don't think we would have put such an emphasis on love and equality and care for the poor with our invented god. No, Jesus Christ is no invented god because He doesn't fit. He is like the waist 33 pants I wish I could fit into again.

Quote: FrGamble

Face always writes in a way that makes me want to agree with him. It's like someone with a British accent, they always seem smarter and more sophisticated no matter what they are talking about. I picture Face on these religious threads smoking a pipe and speaking like he's from Downton Abbey. Of course on the racing threads I picture him with a southern drawl spitting tobacco. He is all things to all people and I do enjoy when he weighs in.

LOL, I'm ok with that =D

It's fun. There's just so much good here, so many thoughts or comments that send me off to contemplate for awhile.

Some stand out. Something about Nareed's hockey story seems very important to me. Something about her attending an event she didn't like, to watch someone she didn't like, and in the course of which, she learned something about that someone. A man who I envision being sort of hateful, sort of without value, transformed into something more when he was given purpose.

Isn't that important? Isn't that true of us all?

Many take one look at EB and write him off as a curmudgeon. Lord knows he gets his fair share of getting stomped on. But talk to him and you find more underneath. The way he writes about his dog, his path to enlightenedness, his constant advice on subjects that matter (thinking of my own struggles). There's more than what you asssume from just seeing the surface.

Same goes for you, FrG. When you came to WoV, I thought "aw, s$%^, here we go". I just knew religion would come up, I knew you'd find your way there, and I just knew that Nareed was going to pounce and a bloodbath was going to commence. I just knew you were going to "preach down" to us, and I'd have to jump in and do battle. But we talk, and although you are all-God, there's more inside. We find there's more to you than "just God", and instead of the high and mighty we expected, we find a guy who at least tries to understand the other side. Whether you can or not is immaterial; you try.

And somewhere in this mess, somewhere inside what is largely a pointless conversation, we learn about each other. And, I think, more importantly, we learn more about ourselves. Who doesn't feel better after these? FrG, you say your faith has been strengthened by these talks. I feel the exact same way. I'm sure others would agree. All of EB's comments on Buddhism, all of Nareed's comments about science, all of your comments about God, they all serve to teach me about each of you. But in processing these thoughts, they also teach me about me. And that growth, that knowledge, is a direct result of this. Of arguing with each other about who is wrong... and who is wronger ;)

Something Face wrote reminded me on one of my favorite scenes from Good Will Hunting:

Quote: FrGamble

chuckled a little bit when I read this and thought, boy I wish I could make God into my own image, then maybe He would leave me alone about being a better person..

That's the god you invented for yourself,
one that kicks you in the pants and keeps
you on the straight and narrow. Criminals
invent one that lets them do whatever
they like. One size does not fit all.

What have you invented to help you?

Quote: FrGamble

What have you invented to help you?

Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, who were
friends, BTW. Saved me the trouble of inventing.

So you don't have to think? They have invented all the answers for you and you just follow, how boring.

Quote: Evenbob

Not really. Just do what you're told and
worry not. No worries about original thought, all
the thinking has been done for you. Got a
question, just ask. You can't think of a question
that the priest or minister doesn't has an approved
answer for.

Quote: Evenbob

Not in the Christians I know. All the
heavy work has been done, turn
your brain off and go to church.
What's there to think about? All
the rules and beliefs are laid out
in detail, just follow them. No
thinking needed.

quotes are from pg. 58 of this thread

So I was just out in the rain walking my dog (the one and only Otis…a Neapolitan Mastiff). There is a golf course near where I live and, after hours, or, in the rain, I routinely allow him off the leash to run around and get exercise. If there are geese around, he will attempt to catch them. I know there is no threat to him ever catching them as he is 150 pounds and they are usually 100 yards away and can fly.
This evening, he saw a seagull.
He gave chase and I noticed the seagull could only get about a foot off the ground. Apparently, its wing was broken.
The seagull would fly a few feet each time Otis gave chase and, upon realizing the seagull was injured and surely a goner, I called Otis and he retreated back to me.
Now, I realize that there is a circle of life and only the strong survive, but, I did not want this bird to be utterly destroyed by Otis merely for sport.
As such, I put an end to it.
God never entered my mind in why I was stopping Otis from wreaking havoc on this poor bird.
It was merely the idea of unnecessary suffering that caused me stop Otis.
Now, I know the padre will say acts of kindness such as this are only possible through God, but, God had nothing to do with this.


Bob, padre, Nareed?

Quote: FrGamble

So you don't have to think? They have invented all the answers for you and you just follow, how boring.

Lighten up, padre, I was joking.