The Theist - Agnostic - Atheist Poll

jampa17 wrote: Epignosis wrote: Negoba wrote: Before this day starts, I'd like everyone to realize that every single person here has a different point of view. Dean and Micah and Mike have quite different perspectives. Robert and jampa have different viewpoints as well. And I'm just full of mumbo-jumbo. (Can I have jambalaya instead?) Let's avoid making this about "sides?" which rule of religious threads did I just fall into, Robert? I never know what category you fall into Jay.  See, this is why arguing about these matters rarely helps, because we all use labels and have a predetermined idea of what each other believes. For example, I am a Christian yet: 1. I, like Dean, do not believe in "souls" (whatever they are). 2. I believe everything that exists must exist physically, including God. 3. I do not believe in a "hell" that consists of everlasting punishment. 4. Faith is not "blind belief," but something more than that (I can prove this- one need only look at the meaning and cultural context of the Greek word pistis). 5. I believe in mechanical determinism. And many, many other things that sets me apart from the usual stereotypes about Christian beliefs. So many times when someone argues against something I believe, it's often not something I believe.    Interesting thought you got there... I don't know how you believe in God and not in souls but it's interesting as well...   In the other hand I'm a Catholic, that knows very well the arguments of the religion I choose to follow, so, you can put me on the level in my head "Warning: this one believe in God and Mary".... but I'm more on the side of studying history, social dinamics and common believing of the different religions... so... maybe that help you to understand me as well...

My beliefs come from the Bible, not from tradition.  A lazy person would have told me, "Well Robert, the Bible uses the word "souls," so therefore you must believe "souls" exist if you claim you believe in the Bible."

And that's been the crux of my problem in arguing with folks here.  People assume the Bible translates perfectly into Western words, ideas, and traditions.  It does not.

The word "soul" is an English translation of the Hebrew word nephish- souls as immaterial parts of a human being neither make any sense scientifically nor do they reflect Ancient Near Eastern beliefs.

Even the Bible tells you what happens to a man when he dies:
      
       By the sweat of your brow
       you will eat your food
       until you return to the ground,
       since from it you were taken;
       for dust you are
       and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3:19)


Oh, I also don't believe in the Devil. 

jampa17 wrote: Dean wrote: jampa17 wrote:       [QUOTE=jampa17]  I seriously doubt it and go back to my initial idea... Love is part of my soul, so I refuse to believe that feelings and emotions are the same... but again... I believe in that and you cannot be sure that feel pain and feel love or anger has to do with just chemical reactions.. the only way to determinate that is through the synthoms and that could be prooved with whoever who knows about medicine, that synthoms could not determine the illness 100% sure... so... I don't know if I express my idea correctly... jejeje... Ah... yes... well... erm... gulp... I don't debate spiritual things I only discuss science,  whatever you believe spiritually is what you believe and I respect that. Personnaly I do not believe such a thing as a soul exists, but that's just me.   Maybe that's the problem here... those who believe in God don't need to see fireworks and incredible miracles to believe in it... in the other hand, those who refuse to believe in he/she/it even if they could see a miracle, they have put it names like "mass hysteria" or "lunatic"... but still both terms do not explain this that have happen...   Yes, I'm talking of believing... you are talking about proof... which is, again, the initial idea of this thread...

I think you are confusing me with someone else.

Negoba wrote: Unless Him refers to God...   And jampa, all Catholics recite "resurrection of the body" as part of the creed.   Atman is Brahman...what you may call your soul is just a manifestation of the God the omnipotential. i.e. We are all avatars.

jampa17 wrote: Epignosis wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^^ I'm not sure that many Christians would agree that you're a Christian. The concept of an (immortal) soul is the heart of that religion. I can't argue with you there, Mike- in fact, I don't believe in the concept of the Trinity either, and many churches consider that to be an essential of Christianity. And they would be wrong.  All that is required to be a Christian is to repent of sin and make Christ Lord and Savior of their lives.  It's so simple that uneducated fishermen and children could do it. When we start making long lists of these arcane concepts a person must accept before they can be considered a Christian, we effectively limit who can be saved by virtue of education!  And that's clearly not the case. Edit: By the way, the concept of the immortal soul is foreign to the Bible (it really is!)...so why would it be the heart of Christianity?  Senseless tradition maybe... Look at John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life" Does that not mean that one must believe in Christ before one lives forever?  This living forever comes in the form of a resurrection, not from one dying and automatically going to heaven or hell. I'm sorry, but that's a nonsensical, unbiblcal belief Christian tradition has held onto for a long time.   A couple things to say about it... again, I'll not make an excelent translation since I understand the books in spanish... but where you put an "everlasting life" is translated as "eternal life" which is not the same... you're the teacher here, but is not likely there were a word "eternal" on that time... and remember that John in Apocalipsis put that he saw a new land, and new sky and a new Jerusalem... we don't know if he refers to a physical one or a idealistic...   and yes, Christians has the believe on the resurrection of the flesh... that's why exists graveyards and everything... all that have died will become to life -again, I'm not using the exact words, forgive me that- in the judgement day and God will select the good from the bads... so, as Christians we believe in the resurrection of the flesh.. that is something physical... so, tradition support you on that too...   Of course there's a lot of questions like those who are dust and are no conserved in couphins, what happen to them and some details like that... but  your last sentence is a little wrong I think... the bible said very clearly that those who do not care for the goods of the owner were tied and throwed to the punishment place, but those who care and protect the goods of the owner were recieved in the "party", to the heaven that was promised before... so...

I'm aware that some use that argument- I just don't think it is accurate.  Again, the idea of an immortal soul as we know it is relatively new.

Regarding your comments on the parable, note that I never said there wasn't punishment for the unsaved.  I said I don't believe in "everlasting" hell.  The Bible says God will destroy the wicked.  The parable also doesn't say that people go to heaven or hell right after they die.

Also, the Bible says no man but Jesus has ever ascended into Heaven:

"No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man." - John 3:13

jampa17 wrote: Epignosis wrote: jampa17 wrote: Epignosis wrote: Mr ProgFreak wrote: ^^ I'm not sure that many Christians would agree that you're a Christian. The concept of an (immortal) soul is the heart of that religion. I can't argue with you there, Mike- in fact, I don't believe in the concept of the Trinity either, and many churches consider that to be an essential of Christianity. And they would be wrong.  All that is required to be a Christian is to repent of sin and make Christ Lord and Savior of their lives.  It's so simple that uneducated fishermen and children could do it. When we start making long lists of these arcane concepts a person must accept before they can be considered a Christian, we effectively limit who can be saved by virtue of education!  And that's clearly not the case. Edit: By the way, the concept of the immortal soul is foreign to the Bible (it really is!)...so why would it be the heart of Christianity?  Senseless tradition maybe... Look at John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life" Does that not mean that one must believe in Christ before one lives forever?  This living forever comes in the form of a resurrection, not from one dying and automatically going to heaven or hell. I'm sorry, but that's a nonsensical, unbiblcal belief Christian tradition has held onto for a long time.   A couple things to say about it... again, I'll not make an excelent translation since I understand the books in spanish... but where you put an "everlasting life" is translated as "eternal life" which is not the same... you're the teacher here, but is not likely there were a word "eternal" on that time... and remember that John in Apocalipsis put that he saw a new land, and new sky and a new Jerusalem... we don't know if he refers to a physical one or a idealistic...   and yes, Christians has the believe on the resurrection of the flesh... that's why exists graveyards and everything... all that have died will become to life -again, I'm not using the exact words, forgive me that- in the judgement day and God will select the good from the bads... so, as Christians we believe in the resurrection of the flesh.. that is something physical... so, tradition support you on that too...   Of course there's a lot of questions like those who are dust and are no conserved in couphins, what happen to them and some details like that... but  your last sentence is a little wrong I think... the bible said very clearly that those who do not care for the goods of the owner were tied and throwed to the punishment place, but those who care and protect the goods of the owner were recieved in the "party", to the heaven that was promised before... so... I'm aware that some use that argument- I just don't think it is accurate.  Again, the idea of an immortal soul as we know it is relatively new. Regarding your comments on the parable, note that I never said there wasn't punishment for the unsaved.  I said I don't believe in "everlasting" hell.  The Bible says God will destroy the wicked.  The parable also doesn't say that people go to heaven or hell right after they die. Also, the Bible says no man but Jesus has ever ascended into Heaven: "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man." - John 3:13   Yeah... that's why I mention the Judgement day not only the individual dead of persons... but remember that thief crucified aside Jesus, He told him that that night they will be together in paradise so... it's a heavy debate but the point is that tradition is not that missing as you said above... I guess some theories -which are not more than that- are easier to explain, so people choose the easy way and don't analyse deeply the facts, in the case of Christians... the most accurate meaning of bible...

That is a classic example of translation bias.  Every time I point this out to people, they scoff. 

First, no punctuation existed in Koine Greek (the language of the Old Testament).

So translators have to put periods and commas in to arrive at sensible translations to English.

The verse in question is Luke 23:23.  It is usually translated this way:

And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

A perfectly fair translation of this could be

And He said to him, "Truly I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise."

The Bible uses this Hebrew idiom "I say unto you today" and variations throughout. (compare Deut. 4:26, 39, 40; 5:1; 6:6; 7:11, Josh. 23:14).

Epignosis wrote: See, this is why arguing about these matters rarely helps, because we all use labels and have a predetermined idea of what each other believes. For example, I am a Christian yet: 1. I, like Dean, do not believe in "souls" (whatever they are). 2. I believe everything that exists must exist physically, including God. 3. I do not believe in a "hell" that consists of everlasting punishment. 4. Faith is not "blind belief," but something more than that (I can prove this- one need only look at the meaning and cultural context of the Greek word pistis). 5. I believe in mechanical determinism. And many, many other things that sets me apart from the usual stereotypes about Christian beliefs. So many times when someone argues against something I believe, it's often not something I believe.

Well, that's certainly interesting. Could you go a little more in depth on points 2 and 4?

I also still don't get your view of miracles, but I suppose if you think God exists physically the idea makes a bit more sense to me. Do you believe God is omnipotent/omniscient or do you think that is more lazy thinking on Christianity -in-general's part?

Epignosis wrote:  I believe God is all-powerful and all-knowing.  I believe God is sovereign over His creation because He set it up and set into the motion from the beginning in such a way that all the atoms and particles and molecules of the universe would operate according to his plan.  In this way, it's quite possible to believe that God never "intervenes" because He set things up to happen as they will and according to His own plan (and at the same time, it can be said that God intervened, at least on another level)...if this makes any sense.    I'm not completely sure that's where I stand, but it is a serious possibility I am considering (especially since the Bible says God created in six days but rested on the seventh...hmmm....)

Edited by Kestrel - December 04 2009 at 21:53

This is a little idea I thought up...it will probably be ripped to shred but so be it.

^^  are you really trying to say that atheism is like black and white whereas religion is colorful?

I think that a better analogy to the problem we're currently facing with religion is this:

Suppose someone came along, saying that the spirit of Red talked to him and gave him some divine instructions. Red told him that people should love their neighbour [and lots of obvious codes of behaviour], but they should also fight people who don't regard "Red" as the only true color, or at the very least convince them to convert to "Red".

(Continue this with various other colors).

In this case the Atheist would be the one who tries to get followers of "Color" (Any Colour You Like) that all the colors are essentially the same, and that the idea that any of them was special *and* that it also has a special supernatural power, there is no evidence that supports all that.




Edited by Mr ProgFreak - December 05 2009 at 11:36

Mr ProgFreak wrote: Epignosis wrote: 4. Faith is not "blind belief," but something more than that (I can prove this- one need only look at the meaning and cultural context of the Greek word pistis). "Blind belief" is exactly what religion is all about. It is, in essence, about filling gaps in our knowlege with dogmatic explanation that are beyond logic or reasoning. Science on the other hand tries to fill these gaps using falsifiable theories which anyone can question or challenge, for example, by presenting evidence to the contrary. Now what I find particularly annoying about religion - and this again supports my opinion that believing in religion requires blind faith and ignorance of facts - is that even as most of the gaps in our knowledge that used to be explained by religion have today been explained by science, religious people continue as if nothing had happened, using these gaps to "rationalize" their belief. [QUOTE=Epignosis]

You sure do like making generalizations.  Your using "religion" as a catch-all term reveals that you are trying to capture water with a net.

I think the Bible involves ancient people trying to describe phenomenon they observed with their limited words and phrases.  The biblical writings aren't the only ancient texts that do this.  The Bible isn't a textbook that's purpose is giving us scientific detail on how the natural world works.  You seem to keep insisting that it does, and therefore is wrong. 

It's like getting bent out of shape over a toaster manual not giving you complete information on the inner workings of the toaster, in what order it was manufactured, or where the materials came from, etc.